The Hunted

17

At four-thirty, Lauren returned to the Neighborhood Watch Center and spent half an hour with Carla Mae going over the various messages that had come in since she had left.

“The calls have slowed down, which for now I suppose is good,” Carla said. “None of them made much sense, I’m sorry to say. Some people called to offer their condolences, some wanted to bring food over. Then there were the usual pranks. Bottom line, nothing that would help.”

“And these?” Lauren asked, picking up a stack of several message slips.

“Those I would give to Nick, let him do some legwork on them. They were the more promising ones.”

Lauren placed them in her purse and thanked Carla again for her assistance. She then headed out, stopping at a fast-food drive-through to pick up dinner. When she arrived home, Bradley was sitting by the back door, cell phone in hand.

Lauren glanced at her watch. “I thought you were going to meet me at six.”

“I finished what I needed to get done, put out a bunch of calls. Most of the other people I needed to talk with knock off at five, so I left and came here. I figured if I was sitting outside your house, it may deter your friend from coming in and doing the laundry or something.”

“That’s not funny.”

“I guess not. Sorry.” He took the bag of food from her as she fumbled for her house keys. “The fraternities threw a fit, as I expected. I’ve got a call in to Vork for help. But unless we can narrow it down a bit, it could take a week or two just to call all the names on every frat roster. That’s if we have help and get lucky by hitting on the right people sooner rather than later.”

“We don’t have a week or two.”

“It’s just one of many things I’ve got in the fire. I’m sure something else will turn up.”

Lauren pulled out the slips of paper Carla had given her and handed them to Bradley. “Here are some messages Carla took today. Maybe there’ll be some leads in there.”

“I’ll get right on them.”

Lauren inserted her key and unlocked the backdoor. She greeted Tucker with a pat to the head as Bradley placed the bag of food on the kitchen table. “What about all these other ‘things’ you’ve got in the fire?” she asked.

“I’m trying to pinpoint places in Colorado Michael could’ve gone cross-country skiing.”

“And?”

“And you can ski in practically any rural area where there’s snow. That leaves a lot of territory to cover.”

Instead of responding, Lauren began unwrapping the food.

“It’s not going to be easy,” Bradley said. “There are so many angles to take on this and no simple way to narrow it down. He could be in Colorado, or he could be in California somewhere. Or anywhere in the other forty-eight states for that matter.”

Lauren removed a couple of plates from the cupboard and placed them on the table. She pressed her fingertips to her lips, hoping to hold back an outburst of tears.

“We’re not giving up, Lauren. I told you, I’ve got stuff in the works. It’s just not going to be easy, that’s all.”

Lauren nodded. “I bought you a cheeseburger and fries.”

Bradley studied her face for a moment, then took a seat. “Thanks. My favorite.”

They sat and ate their food in relative silence. Tucker sat calmly by Lauren’s side, devouring the occasional french fry she slipped him. When they had finished, Lauren took out the handheld PC and set it down on the kitchen table. As she logged on, Bradley began clearing the table.

“You know, it would be a good idea to send out a message to everyone on your e-mail list, just in case any of them have heard from him.” Lauren started to protest, but Bradley held up a hand. “I know, it’s a huge long shot, but sometimes playing the long shots pays off.”

Lauren frowned and shrugged a despondent shoulder. “Guess it wouldn’t hurt.” She touch-screened through Internet Explorer to get to the Hotmail Website. She clicked on COMPOSE, and began to write her e-mail message. Once she was satisfied with the wording and tone of the message, she touched SEND and waited as the little PC transmitted the appeal across the internet to her eleven contacts.

“Done?” Bradley asked.

“Done.”

She clicked OK on the screen that informed her that her messages had been sent, then began scrolling through the six new e-mails she had received. Two had been sent to her from professional organizations she belonged to, another was a joke forwarded from a friend in Los Angeles, and the fourth one was probably spam, or junk mail — from someone or some company called “lost_in_virginia.”

She skipped the messages from the psychological groups and thought about just deleting the forwarded joke, but figured the humor might do her some good. She was wrong. It was stupid and she immediately zapped it from her inbox.

As she did so, the next message, the one from lost_in_virginia, popped up on her screen. The first line caught her attention immediately. “Oh my God—” She cupped her mouth with her right hand.

“What?” Bradley asked, swiveling around to grab a view of the tiny color screen.

“He’s alive, Nick, and he’s in Virginia!”

Bradley quickly scanned the message, then reached for the telephone. He booked two seats on a flight out of Sacramento to Reagan National, due to leave at nine forty-five in the morning. After hanging up the phone, he turned to Lauren, who had tears rolling down her cheeks.

He took her in his arms and let her cry on his shoulder.