Karen Rose - Have You Seen Her?

"Probably."

"He'll probably say he's not available, that he doesn't have time."

"Possibly."

Jenna glared over at him. He just stared back, smiling.

"You are maddening, Lucas."

"Marianne's told me that every day for twenty-five years."

Jenna crossed her arms over her chest and sucked in one side of her cheek. "You know, as a mentor you really suck. Obi Wan told Luke Skywalker what to do."

Lucas's salt-and-pepper mustache quivered. "Listen to the

Force," he said in a deep voice, then raised a challenging brow. "So what will you do, young Jedi?"

Jenna sighed. "I'm going to call his father," she answered irritably. "Then if his dad yells at me like Rudy Lutz's father did, I'll come and cry on your shoulder."

Lucas stood up and patted her head. "My box of Kleenex has your name on it."

It actually did. Dr. Jenna Marshall, Ph.D ., written across the box in Lucas's even hand. She smiled, a little sadly. Marianne was lucky to have shared her lifetime with such a kind man.

Her smile faded as inevitably her mind wandered. If only she and Adam had been lucky enough… But they hadn't been. She sat still, trying to remember the days when Adam was healthy, instead remembering those last days of his life she wished she could forget. She stiffened her back and shook her head, as if the memories could be shaken loose that way. Hardly.

She made herself stand up. She only had a few more minutes left on her lunch break and she needed to call Brad Thatcher's father. Today. Before Brad slipped even further away.

Friday, September 30, 2:45 P.M.

Two of them , Steven thought as he watched Kent Thompson comb the grass inside the twenty-square-foot area they'd cordoned off with bright yellow tape.

A second young girl stolen. A second family crushed.

They'd caught a break in the case of Samantha Eggleston's disappearance, thanks to a four-year-old Lab named Pal, his eighty-year-old owner, and Sheriff Braden who'd secured the cnme scene and called the SBI posthaste Steven watched Kent search the ground once again on his hands and knees this time wearing a contraption over his head that made him look halt welder and half German spy, complete with mono cle In Kent's hands were tweezers and carefullv labeled plastic evidence bags Harry Grimes canvassed the outer perimeter next to the woods, just as carefully No one wanted any evidence lost. They might not get another chance to catch their prey

Steven studied the scene with a clinical eye. It was a clearing, identical to the one where they'd found Lorraine Rush, surrounded by the pine trees that had given this suburb ot Raleigh its name Pineville, North Carolina. Soon this pretty little town would be known for a hell of a lot more than its Christmas tree farms. Soon it would be known as the hunting ground for a new serial killer

Lorraine Rush found four days ago. Samantha Eggleston reported missing yesterday morning. Both pretty high school girls. Both missing from their beds in the middle of the night. No sign of forced entry or evidence of an intruder in either case.With the current facts in hand it seemed they were related Steven couldn't afford to think anything else until he proved otherwise

The cleanng was deserted now but something had happened here within the last few hours. There was a patch of flattened grass, roughly five by three, which could have held a body at one point. It didn't now The area to one side of the flattened grass was spattered with blood-presumably from the dog that belonged to the owner of this land, although Kent would thoroughly check to make sure none of the blood was human-belonging to either the missing girl or her abductor. The blood trail went from the cleanng back to the owner's house, about a mile away on the other side of the trees, where the dog had shown up an hour before, stabbed and bleeding

The old man had acted quickly, following the trail of blood from his house to the clearing. The man's old eyes were sharp-he'd noticed the scrap of white that fluttered beneath the graceful limbs of one of the pine trees. It was a pair of women's underwear, size four with delicate little flowers- the same size and pattern worn by Samantha Eggleston. The old man had immediately called the sheriff, who'd immediately called Steven.

Kent sat back on his heels and pushed the monocle up and out of his line of sight. He glanced up briefly "I found a hair," he announced, deeply satisfied "Dark. Very straigh.t"

Steven's pulse spiked and he gingerly approached the area of flattened grass Kent was still inspecting, avoiding the areas that were spattered with blood. Samantha Eggleston's hair was dark but very long and curly. That the single hair belonged to their perp was almost more than he would dare to hope. "Unbelievable I can't believe you found anything in all this mess. "

Kent grinned before lowering the monocle and dropping back down to his hands and knees. "I'm good. "

Steven shook his head "And humble. Don't forget about humble "

"And humble," Kent added, now talking to the ground

"Bullshit," Steven said mildly "Tell me that hair has a follicle and I'll buy that you're good. Otherwise you're just one more geek in a welder's mask."

Kent chuckled "I wish I were a welder I'd probably make a hell of a lot more money."

Steven crossed his arms over his chest "Stick with me, welder-boy Follicle or not?"

Kent's smile dimmed "No. Sorry "

"Dammit," Steven hissed. Without the follicle they'd have no DNA analysis.

"Hold your horses," Kent said patiently. "I still may be able to get you a DNA print."

"How many days?" Steven asked, gritting his teeth.

"Seven to ten." Kent sat back on his heels again. "Where's the dog?"

Steven looked over to one side where the sheriff stood with his arm around the shoulders of the dog's owner. "Probably back at the owner's house. The vet should be on his way to patch him up." He hoped the dog was treatable, for the old man's sake, but the Lab had lost a lot of blood during whatever altercation had occurred here in this clearing. "Why?"

"I want to swab the dog's teeth."

Steven's brows went up. "Why?"

"If the dog bit your perp, there might be some skin cells lodged in his teeth."

Steven reconsidered the young man who'd joined the SBI only a few months before. "Okay, I stand corrected. You are good. I wouldn't have thought to check the dog's teeth."

Kent grinned again. "Can't take credit for that one. Saw it on Law and Order ."

Steven rolled his eyes. "Of course. We should bypass the academy and just make all our recruits watch Law and Order reruns."

"It'd save the taxpayers money," Kent said with another chuckle, his eyes glued to the grass.

Steven smiled in spite of himself. He was finding he. Liked the young man's easy manner a whole lot more than Kent's boss's waspish edge. Kent's boss would have normally supervised an investigation of this magnitude, but Diane was currently sunning herself on a cruise ship. It gave Kent a chance to show his stuff and gave the rest of them a much-needed break from Diane. "I'll make sure the vet doesn't do anything that would compromise the dog's teeth."

"Thanks. Tell the old man I won't hurt his dog," Kent added, dropping his head back down to search.

Steven looked over to where Sheriff Braden and the old man stood silently watching on the other side of the yellow tape. "Any more than he's already hurt," Steven murmured. Sheriff Braden's eyes met Steven's and in them. Steven saw a wild mixture of abject anguish and terrified helplessness. Samantha Eggleston was Sheriff Braden's sixteen-year-old niece.

Looking now at Braden's shoulders bowed in grief and terror, Steven felt a connection with the man that went past the polite but inadequate empathy law enforcement felt for the victim, past the kinship for a fellow cop. Steven knew how Braden felt. Knew how Braden's sister felt. Knew how it felt to live with the terror that a madman held your child.