Kay Hooper - Stealing Shadows

"If they haven't heard already." Matt grunted an agreement. "How's Cassie?" "Asleep. Or maybe I should say unconscious. She said she needed about twelve hours, but I'll be surprised if she wakes up before late tomorrow morning."

"You staying out there tonight?"

"Yes."

Matt didn't comment, saying merely, "Okay, I'll call you there if I have any news tonight or in the morning."

"If you need my help – "

"No, we've got enough eyes for a search. There's nothing you can do here." Grimly he added, "So far this bastard's been leaving his bodies where we can find them quickly, but if Cassie was right about his plans for this one…"

"We may be in for a long wait," Ben finished.

"Yeah. And in the meantime, I don't much like the mood of our volunteers, Ben. We've had to disarm more than half of them already. If we have to use them to search, and if that girl's body is found, I'm going to have a mob on my hands."

"I know."

"And now Eric is threatening to put out a special edition of the paper tomorrow, and I just can't make him see it'll only fan the flames."

"I'll call him."

"Yeah, okay." Matt let out a weary breath. "And I'll call you if there's any news."

"Watch your step, Matt."

"I will." Matt hung up the phone and backed away to close the cruiser's door, then looked at Abby, where she leaned against the rear fender with her dog at her side. Before Matt could speak, she did.

"I should go home." Her gaze moved restlessly over the people milling all around the parking lot, where lights were beginning to flicker on as darkness rapidly approached. There were plenty of uniformed sheriff's deputies coming and going from the mall and questioning people in the parking lot, but there were even more concerned citizens just standing around, taking it all in. "You have work to do, and I'm just in the way."

Matt stepped closer, not touching her even though he wanted to. He had gone cold to his bones when he had seen her among the mall shoppers and realized how close she had been to an insane killer. "You could never be in the way." He knew why she was worried, of course, and her next words confirmed it.

"Matt, if somebody sees me just hanging around you and starts to wonder…"

Roughly he said, "I don't want to let you out of my sight."

Her tense expression softened. "I'll be fine. I'll take Bryce home and we'll lock ourselves in the house. And wait for you."

He didn't like it but knew he didn't have much choice. "All right." Because he couldn't help himself, he lifted a hand to touch her cheek briefly. "But, for God's sake, be careful."

"I will. You too."

Matt watched her all the way to her car, and it wasn't until she drove past him and lifted a hand in farewell that he turned back to his duties, reluctantly pushing her out of his thoughts.

Unseen by either of them, Gary Montgomery sat in his car gripping the steering wheel with white-knuckled fingers and watched his wife drive away. Then he turned his gaze to the sheriff busily directing his men.

"Son of a bitch," he muttered. "Son of a bitch."

"I'm glad I scared you," Joe Mooney declared stolidly, escorting Hannah to her car. "Jesus, Hannah, you weren't even looking where you were going!"

"I was in a hurry." She knew only too well that this time she wouldn't be able to defend her actions. That poor girl, snatched from the mall in broad daylight – and the monster that took her might well have passed Hannah only minutes before! She shivered.

"I don't know what I'm going to do with you," Joe said.

Hannah suddenly felt like crying. "Can you stay home tonight, Joe? Please?"

He gazed down at her as they reached her car. Even though he knew the third shift at the plant would be short a number of workers on this night as more than one man stayed home, he said, "I've got a sick day coming. Get in the car, honey, and I'll follow you back to the house."

Hannah threw her arms around his neck, scattering fabric all over the pavement.

As Matt had predicted, John Logan's bloodhounds could follow a trail only a few yards from one of the mall exits, where Deanna Ramsay's abductor had obviously forced her into a waiting car. The mall property had been thoroughly searched, and with the girl's trail vanishing into thin air, there was nothing for the sheriff to do but disband the waiting group of volunteer searchers and send his officers out to patrol the town in the hope of seeing something – anything – suspicious.

The volunteers were reluctant to go even with Mart's assurances that he'd call them if it was decided a search was in order for the following day. There was a great deal of grumbling and growling from the group, and Matt was careful to make sure that they did indeed disperse and go their separate ways before he and most of his officers also left the mall.

The officers scattered, some to return to the office but most to begin patrolling. Matt's mercifully brief trip out to the Ramsay place had dashed his faint hopes that the girl had somehow gotten herself safely home; he had left a couple of his people gathering the names and numbers of Deanna's friends from her stricken parents so that every possible avenue of information could be followed.

He didn't expect it to help.

Deanna Ramsay had been abducted by a monster smart enough not to leave a trail, and the next they knew of him would undoubtedly be when her body was found.

Her raped and tortured body, if Cassie was right.

Her demonstration that day had very definitely given him pause. Even a skeptic would have been forced to say that she had been in the grip of something extraordinary, and he doubted he would ever forget that horrifying emptiness he had seen in her unseeing eyes.

He wondered if Ben had any idea what he was getting himself into.

The station was quiet with so many of his deputies out questioning Deanna's friends and looking for some hint of where her abductor had taken her, and Matt welcomed the relative silence. He needed to think.

He went into his office and closed the door. He called Abby first to make sure she had arrived home safely and that she was securely locked inside, and told her that if he could get to her place tonight, it would be before midnight; if he wasn't there by then, he wouldn't be coming tonight.

As always, Abby understood.

Matt spent the next hour and more at his desk going over every note and report concerning the three murders. He looked at photographs, studied the coins and the knives found at the scene, read every last detail of the autopsies.

When he finished, he was no closer to knowing who had killed the three women and, apparently, abducted Deanna Ramsay.

A knock at his door interrupted his brooding, for which he was grateful, and he looked up to find one of his deputies, Sharon Watkins, looking at him questioningly.

"What is it, Sharon? Any news?"

"Not about the Ramsay girl, no," she replied.

"I'm afraid to ask what else has happened."

"Nothing – that I know of. There's someone here to see you, Sheriff. He doesn't have an appointment, but I think you'll want to see him."

"This can't be good," Matt muttered.

"It isn't." Her expression told him she was glad it was his problem rather than hers.

Matt gave her a wry smile. "All right, send him in."

He absently tidied the files on his desk and rose to his feet as Sharon showed the visitor into his office. And he didn't need to hear the man's introduction or see his badge to know exactly what he was looking at.

"Sheriff Dunbar? My name is Noah Bishop. I'm with the FBI."

He was a tall man, lean but with the wide shoulders and athletic carriage that spoke of a great deal of physical strength. He had black hair boasting a rather dramatic widow's peak, piercing gray eyes, and a strikingly handsome face marred by a jagged scar that ran from the corner of his left eye almost to the corner of his mouth.