in her purse Paige found some bills. “Here. Have your boyfriend take you home.”
As she ran toward the door, she called back to the girl. “I will be talking to your mother, Dawn.”
Telling herself she was overreacting, but unable to shake her unease, Paige pushed the door open.
The first thing she saw was the phone lying in the middle of the living room floor, its torn cord twisted and raw, like the innards of a dead snake. She stared at it for a second, her brain not processing what she was seeing.
Katie!
She ran through the tiny hallway to Katie’s room. “Katie?” she whispered.
No answer.
Paige pushed the door open. Dawn had assured her that Katie was sleeping, but something was wrong. The room felt odd—empty. She fumbled for the bedside lamp with a trembling hand.
“Katie, sweetie. I’m home.”
Light flooded the room. It looked just like it had earlier in the evening, except that the bedclothes were rumpled and her daughter was gone.
“It’s okay. It’s been a weird evening,” she whispered, trying to calm her growing panic. Katie often slept in Paige’s room.
“Katie!”
She ran into her bedroom, throwing on every light switch she passed, but Katie wasn’t there.
“Katie.” Her voice cracked. “Where are you?”
She put her hand over her mouth, trying to hold in a scream.
It’s okay. It’s probably nothing. But her heart knew her brain was lying.
The bedroom phone had been ripped from the wall, too. She stared at it. It lay on the floor, ominous proof of a truth so awful, Paige couldn’t let herself believe it.
Her breath stuck in her throat.
She backed out of her bedroom and rushed into the little kitchen. The back door was open.
“Oh, no,” she whispered. “Oh, no.”
“Katie!” Tears streaked down her face and tasted like blood in her mouth. Somehow her shaky legs carried her back to Katie’s bedroom.
She stared at the bed. It was so awfully empty, a small hollow in the pillow the only sign her daughter had been there.
She couldn’t keep trying to fool herself. She knew.
Her daughter was gone.
She touched the pillow, plumping it. She reached for the sheet, but her fingers couldn’t hold on to the material.
“Oh, Katie.” She put her hands over her mouth. “Katie! Where are you?” she screamed into her hands.
Her gaze searched the room as if she might find her daughter hiding behind a chair, or under the bed. As if the last few minutes were just a bad dream and Katie was playing a joke.
There was a noise from somewhere in the room. It took a few seconds for the sound to penetrate Paige’s anguish. She lifted her head. What was it?
The noise sounded again, a terrible, electronically cheerful chirp in the middle of Paige’s horror.
“A cell phone?” she muttered. Was that a cell phone? She didn’t have a cell phone. It was here, somewhere, in Katie’s room.
She rooted through the bedclothes, tossing pillows, pulling off the bedspread.
There it was, lying like a big black bug in her daughter’s bed. She grabbed it, jabbing at buttons that seemed stuck or broken. Finally one gave.
“Hello? Hello? Who is this?” she screamed, terror paralyzing her, darkening her vision.
She listened, but there was no sound.
“Please…who is this? Katie?” she cried.
Still nothing but silence.
“Talk to me!” she shouted, then shook the phone, desperation giving way to frustration. “Answer me! Where is my daughter?”
“Now, now, Paige, there’s no need to shout. Your daughter is just fine,” an obviously disguised voice said.
She almost dropped the phone. Relief burned through her like a firestorm. Her throat closed. “Who is this? Where is Katie?” she croaked.
“I told you, she’s fine.” The raspy whisper—Paige couldn’t tell if it were male or female—sounded impatient.
“Let me talk to her.”
“All in good time.”
“I have to talk to her!” She gripped the phone in both hands, hunched over it as if she could somehow get closer to Katie by doing so.
“All you have to do is listen.”
“But—”
“No! You will be allowed to talk to Katie when you obey. When you don’t obey…”
Paige’s heart turned to ice. Whoever was on the other end of the phone had kidnapped her daughter. They were threatening to hurt her. The flat, emotionless voice promised horrible, unthinkable things.
“O-okay,” she stammered. “I’ll do whatever you want. Please don’t hurt her. Please!”
“Now listen carefully. I will only say this once. Bring me Johnny Yarbrough.”
“What?” Paige’s hand tightened reflexively on the cell phone. Her head spun. She wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. “Johnny? But he’s…he’s dead.”
“Do not insult me. You know where he is. Bring him to me and your daughter will be returned to you. Do anything other than exactly what I tell you and you will never see your child again.”
Paige’s mouth went dry and her heart squeezed with pain. “I don’t know where he is. I haven’t seen him in years. I thought he was dead.” She took a sobbing breath. “I just want my baby back.”
“Then you know what you have to do.”
“You can’t do this! I’ll…I’ll go to the police.”
An ominous laugh crackled through the phone. “Don’t be stupid, Paige. If you go to the police, or tell anyone at all, I’ll know. And little girls are so very small and fragile.”
Paige could hardly force breath through her constricted throat. “No, wait. I’ll do it. Just don’t hurt her.”
How was she going to do this? She had no idea. She vowed to tear the city apart brick by brick if she had to, to save her child.
The voice went cold with impatience. “Whether she’s hurt is entirely
