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When Sam handed Miles his cell, he punched 911. A short time later, they heard sirens loud in the still night.

The paramedics immediately covered the deputies’ noses and mouths with oxygen masks. “It looks to me like that was close,” said Mackey. He cocked a brow at Katie. “I’d call this a crime spree, Sheriff. You’re really keeping us busy. You and the kids okay?”

“I think so.” She pointed to Clancy. “For a fat guy, he moves as quietly as a cat burglar. I have no idea what sort of shape he’s in, though. Mr. Kettering didn’t pull any punches. But he’s alive, and that’s the important thing. Now we’ll find out who hired him. We’ll need you all to transport him once we’ve got you a police escort.”

“Nuts,” Mackey said. “The jerk must be just plain nuts.”

Wade showed up not five minutes later, jeans pulled over his pajamas, his shirt hanging open. “Jesus, Katie, you got him! By damn, you got the bastard.”

“Actually, Miles got him. He’s got some good moves. Go cuff him, Wade.”

Miles was elated and exhausted. He walked to the children who were both sitting on the edge of the porch, went down on his haunches and pulled them both against his chest. He kissed Sam, then Keely, again and again. “I’m so proud of you both.”

“I want Mama,” Keely said against Miles’s armpit.

“Let her do her job, then she’ll be over here. You just hold on to me, okay?

“Sam?”

Sam burrowed closer.

“Sam? You all right?”

Sam didn’t say a thing. He didn’t even blink when Clancy staggered to his feet, knocked Wade off the porch, jumped onto the driveway, and disappeared into the darkness.

Katie cursed a blue streak, and ran after him. Miles leaped off the porch after her. Both of them were still barefoot. Miles heard Wade cursing, couldn’t make out his words.

Then dead silence.

He heard a gunshot.

Then more dead silence.

19

Miles watched Dr. Sheila Raines from across Katie’s living room speaking quietly to Sam. He wasn’t moving, wasn’t meeting her eyes. His small hands were restless, pulling on his jeans, scratching his elbow, punching one of the sofa cushions.

“He’s hardly spoken a single word,” he said to Katie, who was sitting next to him, holding Keely in her arms, the little girl was sprawled out, asleep. Miles barely got the words out. “Too much has happened to him, just too much. And we still have no idea who is after him, and why. And that’s the biggest mystery: why go through all this misery to get ahold of one little boy? Twice now they’ve come after him after he escaped them. Twice! And tonight Clancy came after him all by himself, and he was wounded. It makes no sense at all to me.

“If his kidnapping was for money, then why was there no ransom note? They had almost two days, surely that was enough time to make their demands known to me.” He paused a moment, streaking his fingers through his hair. “I was certain it was a pedophile who’d taken him, but no, that isn’t the case, and I thank God for that. And I’m as certain as I can be that no one, not even the crooks I caught when I was an FBI agent, would want revenge against me this badly. And if someone did, then why not just shoot me? That would be easy enough to do. Why then, for God’s sake?

“Jesus, this whole thing is over the top. And look at Sam, silent, his eyes blank like he’s really not here, like he doesn’t want to be here because it’s too scary, and he has all this terror locked inside him.”

Katie touched his shoulder. “It’s a terrible thing, what he’s been through,” she said. “But you know, Miles, even with the short time I’ve known Sam, I know he’s resilient. He’s a very strong little boy. Be patient. Sheila is very good. Have some faith.

“Now the motive. There is one, you know that, Miles. There always is. It’s just not obvious to us yet, and just maybe we wouldn’t necessarily understand it, but there is a motive, obviously a very strong one to the person or persons who had Sam kidnapped, given all the lengths Clancy and Beau have gone to. We’ll keep digging and we’ll find it, I promise you.”

It was as if he hadn’t heard her. “And it