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Mallory stared at the policeman, scarcely seeing him as she pictured Em standing on the diving board at home, poised to do a back flip.
Mommy, look at me!
The memory made her eyes burn with unshed tears. The trees in her peripheral vision seemed to be closing in, spinning. “Yes, she loves the water.” Her voice sounded as if it belonged to someone else, calm and reasonable, completely at odds with the panic churning inside her. She wanted to charge off into the woods—scream, cry—beg someone to tell her this wasn't really happening. “We have a pool. She's an accomplished swimmer. She's already in intermediate lessons.”

“Excuse me just a moment.” The policeman walked back to his car and leaned through the open window to grab the mike to his radio. After talking a few minutes, he strode back to them. The expression on his face spoke volumes.

Mallory couldn't breathe. It felt as if a thousand-pound weight had hit her square in the chest.
The lake.
Em
was
a good swimmer, but what if she had fallen in? Her woolen school uniform and shoes would soak up water like a sponge and hamper her.

Mallory began to tremble. She could almost feel Em's soft little body hugged tightly in her arms, smell her shampoo, see her twinkling brown eyes and freckled nose. “We have to find her,” she said, glancing up at Mac Phearson. Fear made her voice sound slightly off-key. “She's only seven. It'll get dark soon.”

“We'll find her.” Mac Phearson's arms slipped around her reassuringly. “There's plenty of daylight left.”

Mallory nodded and sucked in a breath of air, holding it until her temples throbbed. Exhaling with a shaky sigh, she forced herself to relax. She had to stay calm. Think. Where might Em have gone? She glanced over the bushy hillsides, trying to see it from a child's perspective. What could have enticed Em from the yard? A squirrel, perhaps? A pretty bird? Mallory couldn't imagine her daughter disobeying the rules on a whim.

“Better?” Mac Phearson's arms loosened and she felt him smoothing her hair. “She's okay. Count on it.”

Lifting her head, Mallory looked deep into his gray eyes. The low timbre of his voice bolstered her. He sounded so certain.
Oh, please, let him be right.
Again she turned to stare in indecision at the semicircle of trees that hemmed the property. Emily's name ached in her throat. Could Lucetti have tailed them here last night, as Mac Phearson had mentioned? What if he had? What if he had taken Em? If he had, they'd be wasting time searching the woods.

But what if Lucetti doesn't have her?
Em
might
be lost. They had to search for her here first—just in case. She might panic, fall and hurt herself. That thought spurred Mallory into action. She took several steps toward the trees, only to be dragged to a stop by Mac Phearson's strong grip on her shoulder.

“You can't take off on foot, not without shoes.”

“I have to. She'll be getting scared by now.” She tried to slip out of his grasp. “She'll come if she hears my voice. Hearing a bunch of strange men yelling her name might frighten her. She could start running and fall or—”

His grip on her wrist tightened. “We'll take the car. You can drive up and down the roads while I search the brush. If you keep your window down, she'll be able to hear you just as well as if you were walking, and you can cover more ground that way. She's bound to stumble out to a road sooner or later, right?”

Mallory glanced at the car, anxious to start searching. If Em did come out onto a road, she would surely stay on it. Mac was right. Looking for her in an automobile might prove to be the fastest way to find her.

The policeman turned to Beth. “Someone should stay here.” Beth nodded. Glancing at Mac Phearson, the officer said, “We're sweeping up from the highway in this direction. As soon as the men get here, we'll go on up the road.”

It went without saying that “up the road” meant the lake. Despite Mac Phearson's reassurances, Mallory's stomach lurched.

“Then that's where we'll head first,” Mac Phearson replied.

* * *

A
N
HOUR
LATER
, Mallory stood beside the car. Mac wove his way toward her through the thick brush, never taking his eyes off her. Standing there barefoot in the dusky light with her tousled hair framing her face, she looked like a scared twelve-year-old. The bruise along her cheek was a dark shadow against her white skin.

His stomach tightened as he drew closer. The fear in her sherry-brown eyes reached out and coiled itself around his heart.

He had hated Mallory Christiani so venomously for so many years that the sudden wave of pity he felt for her confused him. Time after time today, he had found himself forgetting who she was. Now he was getting to a point where he didn't much care. She wasn't at all as he had imagined her. Admitting, even to himself, that he might have been wrong about her didn't sit well. But the truth was staring him in the face. She wasn't the empty-headed, spoiled little rich girl he'd expected. She had more guts than most.

And now he had to kick her when she was already down.

The news he had wasn't good. A few minutes ago, he had run into one of the policemen beating the brush. The general consensus was that if they didn't find Emily soon, there was only one place she could possibly be—in the lake. There were so many houses and fences peppering the woods that they didn't think the child could have wandered past them into open country.

After beating the brush as thoroughly as he had this past hour, Mac was inclined to disagree with the lake theory. He'd circled the body of water himself, and there wasn't any sign that a child had been playing along the shore. After leaving the lake, he had worked his way back toward the Hamstead place.

He'd found a dirt road above the property that looked down on the Hamstead house, a cul-de-sac where some new homes were being constructed. There were tire tracks on the road's shoulder where a car had been parked. Judging from the scattered cigarette butts, someone had sat there a good long while, chain-smoking. There were also a man's shoe prints in the dirt going from the car toward the pasture where Emily had been playing right before she disappeared.

Mac knew what must have happened to Emily. But he still didn't know why. Lucetti must have taken her. Who else? Like the cop had said, there was no throughway up here, no random passersby who might have taken the opportunity to snatch a child.

Now, after having assured Mallory that Lucetti probably wasn't involved, Mac hated to have to tell her he had been wrong. And, boy, did he dread the confrontation he knew was coming when he told her he didn't want the cops involved.

Being afraid your child might be dead was bad. But to know she was alive and probably in the hands of a heartless criminal? That would be enough to send anybody over the edge. There was a steep bank at the shoulder of the road. Mac paused below it and gazed up at Mallory. In the next few minutes, he would find out just how much strength Mallory Steele Christiani really had.

Most people would be basket cases after the day she'd been through, but she stood with her chin lifted, mouth set in a grim line. When he looked closely, he could see that she was shaking, but she hid it well, arms crisscrossed over her small breasts, trembling hands tucked out of sight so they wouldn't give her away. She had grit, he'd give her that.

“Anything?” Her voice quavered as she spoke.

He tried to shake his head in reply to her question and found he couldn't. A shiver ran the length of her, and she hugged herself more tightly, hunching her shoulders against the cold breeze blowing in off the water. Mac knew she was thinking of her child, wishing she had her arms around her. He'd never had a kid of his own, but he could imagine the agony she felt. There was nothing he could think of to say or do. Not one damned thing.

She turned her pale face toward Lake Tuck. Her mouth worked for a moment, no sound coming forth. “D-do you think th-they'll drag it?”

He sighed and raked a hand through his hair. “She isn't in the lake, Mallory.”

“Then where is she?” She lifted her hands in supplication. “It's been three hours.” Her voice grew shrill. “There are so many houses around here, how could she have gotten lost? Where is she?”

Mac squared his shoulders. “I think Lucetti has her.”

Dead silence fell between them, broken only by the breeze whispering through the tall spruce and fir trees that crowded the hillsides. The sky had darkened to slate. The wind-twisted evergreens in the background loomed like black sentinels, casting Mallory and the light blue car in stark relief.

As briefly as he could, Mac told her about the car tracks and footprints he had found.

“Lucetti.” Her voice rang hollow now. “But you said that didn't make sense. That he would have—have just done it here.” Her voice broke and a low cry erupted from her throat. “You said you thought she was just lost.”

“I was wrong. Don't misunderstand and start thinking she's dead. If he took her—and I'm pretty certain he did—I don't think he did it so he could kill her. He must have had other reasons. Like I said earlier, this is the perfect place if he meant to—” He sighed and gestured behind him. “There are houses in every direction going away from Beth's. She couldn't have stayed lost this long. The cops think she's in the lake, but I don't buy it. They have no reason to suspect foul play, so they probably didn't take notice of the tire tracks up above. If they did, they more than likely thought it was one of the home builders' vehicles that had been parked there.”

“Then why didn't you call their attention to them?”

“I didn't feel I should, not until I had spoken with you—explained the possible consequences.”

“Consequences? My daughter is missing. We should tell the police everything so they can find her. If someone took her, we've no proof it was Lucetti. It could have been anyone, couldn't it?”

“I'd say that's unlikely. Extremely unlikely. Knowing what we know, we have to assume it was Lucetti.”

“This is my
daughter
we're discussing. I don't want to assume anything. I
can't
. We should go back to Beth's and tell the police.”

“They're convinced she's in the lake. To convince them otherwise, we'd have to tell them
why
we think the tire tracks are significant,
why
we feel the footprints going off the road might indicate a kidnapping.”

“So we'll tell them!”

“About Lucetti? Mallory, if they once get wind of it, they'll be in on this case for the duration. We can't risk that.”

“But—” She stared at him, no longer able to conceal how violently her body was trembling. “You're supposed to get help from the police when things like this happen. That policeman—the one at Beth's—he looked really concerned. I'll bet he's got a little girl of his own. He's not one of Lucetti's men. He'd help us, I know he would. They won't let Lucetti know the police are involved. They're trained to handle things like this.”

Mac wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stared into the woods for a moment, trying to consider the situation from all angles. “I'm sure you're right and the cops we've met tonight are all on the level. There are probably only a couple in the whole county who aren't. Finding men we can trust isn't the problem. One of my best friends is on the King County force. I could trust him with my life, Mallory. But not with this. It's the grapevine
inside
the police force that we're up against. Stop and think about it. No cop likes to believe the cop next to him is on the take. They
have
to trust one another to survive. Even my friend Scotty might be working with someone who's crooked and not realize it. If we turn this matter over to them, the wrong cop could get wind of it. And if he clues Lucetti, it could be dangerous for Emily.”

“Dangerous?”

“If Lucetti thinks the police know she's missing, he'll dispose of—of any evidence.”

Even in the dusk, he could see the pupils of Mallory's eyes dilating. “K-kill her, you mean? You're saying we should tell the police nothing, just leave? And what if someone besides Lucetti took her?”

“I don't think that's the case.”

“You don't
think
? I don't want you to think, I want you to know. My little girl could die.”

“Mallory, whoever has her will have to call if they want ransom. If it isn't Lucetti, we can contact the police then. Sometimes you have to weigh everything and go on gut instinct. I'm telling you what I feel our next move should be. No cops, period. I told them I was taking you home to get some rest so you wouldn't see them dragging the lake, and I think that's exactly what we should do.”

“And what if you're wrong? What if we don't go to the police and Lucetti just kills her? That's what Keith said he had threatened to do.”

“That's the key word,
threatened
. Men like Lucetti don't bother with threats, not unless they're trying to coerce someone. So we have to assume Keith either had something Lucetti wanted or that he was in a position to do something Lucetti needed done. Now Keith's in the hospital and your daughter is missing. Like I said earlier, if Lucetti had wanted to kill her, he would have had it done here. There's a lot of cover for a sniper to hide in and several back roads to use to get out of here afterward. It's the perfect place for a hit. But instead, they took her? They wouldn't have bothered unless they needed her alive for some reason. That convinces me that Lucetti believes
you
can do whatever it was he needed Keith to do. You see what I'm saying? He's taken Em to use as leverage against you.”

“How can you be so sure you're right?”

“I don't
know
I'm right. I'm only making an educated guess. I grew up on the streets. I know the kind of people we're dealing with, how they think.”