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Now stronger. “Griffin got the guy, he was following my kid, judging by the tracks, and he bled out.”

“Where’s your daughter?”

“In the woods, still running, We’re on her tracks, but the snow…” Broker stumbled. Nina was dragging him by the arm, trying to stay on the fading tracks.

“I’m out of the car. I’m coming in,” Nygard said.

“No. Give me lights and flashers north along the road. Maybe we can pick you up, talk you in. We need a search party in here.”

“On my way. Stay on the phone.”

Almost immediately they spotted the blue-red slap of lights blooming faintly through the ghostly swirl of trees and white.

“Good girl. Good girl,” Nina yelled, pulling on Broker’s arm. “Look. See. She’d headed toward the road…the lights…”

Moving at a jog, watching the lights move away up the road, Broker shouted into the phone. “Nygard?”

“I’m here.”

“You still going north?”

“That’s affirm.”

“Turn around, you’re about two hundred yards past where we’re coming out of the trees onto the road.”

They broke from the trees bent double, trying to see the tracks. Nina was going back and forth, frantic, searching. “They end here. They end here.”

With the snow and the wind, they couldn’t read the ground.

“I’ll check the other side.” Broker crossed the road, peered along the shoulder into the impossible mix of descending night and flying snow. Nothing. They needed lights.

Lights were coming, blue and red strobing the sides of the road as Nygard skidded the cruiser to a halt and jumped out. He paused for half a second, blinked once, seeing Nina standing oblivious to the cutting wind in the flimsy Army running suit, the big Colt hanging in her hand.

“We came out on her tracks. She came out here,” Broker yelled.

“Okay,” Nygard shouted, voice charged, swiftly walking along the far side of the road, holding up a service flashlight, scanning the shoulder. “We got people coming from all over. We got experts in this up here, winter searches. Take a breath…”

More lights, really coming fast. Jesus, real fast, like ninety-plus on the snow. They all instinctively moved to the side of the road as a maroon Minnesota State Police Crown Victoria slewed sideways in a not quite controlled skid, tires crunching to a halt in a shower of snow.

The female trooper bolted from the car; she was a powerfully built black woman, no hat, short-cropped hair like a woolly cap, no jacket. Service belt creaking with cold. Unfazed by the wild aspect of Broker and Nina, she shouted, “Keith, get on your radio, goddammit!” Electrified by the trooper’s manner, they rushed with Nygard to his cruiser. Nygard hit the speaker box, and Broker sagged, hearing Kit’s voice come through the static. Felt Nina grip his arm.

“I don’t know where…” Kit was saying on the radio speaker.

“Just a minute, honey,” the dispatcher said. “Stay with me, break, Keith, where are you?”

“Right here, Ginny. You found her?”

“Are her parents there?” the dispatcher said with obvious controlled intensity.

“Right here.”

“Put them on. All this new stuff we got, I have her patched into the net. They can talk. Tell them to quiet her down.”

Nina immediately grabbed the mike. “Kit, honey, it’s Mom…Where are you?”

“I don’t know. I ran out of the woods, and this lady put me in the trunk of her car. Uncle Harry gave me his phone, told me to call 911 before…

The mike trembled in Nina’s hand, her chilblained knuckles blanched white, gripping. “Go on, Kit,” she said in a steady voice.

“The car’s moving. It’s so dark…”

Broker took the mike. “Kit, it’s Dad. Hold on, we’re coming. You have to keep talking on the phone. Even if no one answers you, just keep talking.”

Nygard grimaced, said, “Maybe you should reassure her…”

Broker shook his head, “No time.” He turned back to the mike. “Kit. Leave the phone on. If they take you out of the car, hide it, look for something. A sign, anything at all. Try to talk when you can.”

“Yes, Daddy.” The signal faded.

“Kit. Can you describe the car?” Broker asked.

Static.

Nygard took the mike. “Ginny, stay on her, keep talking. I need this radio free for a while. Then I’ll put her folks back on.” He turned to Broker and Nina, who had stepped back from the cruiser to give him room. “She’s close. If we keep hearing her, she’s within nine miles of the towers. They go at nine-mile intervals between Highway Two and Little Glacier, remember, the skeleton house?” He looked up to the state trooper. “Ruth. You got the best radio, you gotta handle the traffic on the state net. Soon as I talk to my deputy and EMT, I’m going to keep mine open for the parents to talk.” Nygard removed his hat and scrubbed at his thin brown hair with his knuckles. “All the roads in a fifty-mile radius, then work in. Let’s shut it down. Gotta stop anything moving. We’ll need everybody. I mean everybody.”

“I’m on it,” Ruth said. Starting for her cruiser, she gently started to put her arm around Nina. “How you holding up, ma’am? Maybe you should get in the car with me.”

Nina looked right through the trooper, shook off her hand. Sergeant Ruth Barlow pursed her lips, observed the butt of the pistol stuck in Nina’s waistband. Broker’s shotgun. Drew herself up. “Keith, these people are armed; you on top of that?”

Keith jerked his thumb at Broker, “He’s a cop, ex-cop. She’s…okay. C’mon, Ruth.”

“You say so,” Sergeant Barlow said, continuing to her car. She got in and grabbed her radio mike. Nina thrust the Colt deeper into the waistband of her sweatpants, took out her cigarettes and lighter. Cupping her hands against the blow, impossibly, she lit the cigarette.

Keith Nygard watched her, red hair streaming, smoke tearing from her mouth and nostrils. Like some Celtic war priestess he’d seen on the History Channel. He turned to Broker, sagged briefly, clicked his teeth. “Harry, Jesus. Got a body in the woods, you say.” Nygard shook his head, looked up. “How am I doing?”

“You’re doing good. Call BCA in Bemidji, have them get the feds. It’s a kidnapping. Find out the status of the Troopers-”

“State patrol helicopters, right,” Nygard said.

“Get something in the air that can whip a radio direction finder on a cell signal,” Broker said.

“Got it. Okay. Jesus, what’s going on?”

“I don’t know, goddammit; somebody got my kid,” Broker said. His voice caught. He was accumulating a list of people whose names he couldn’t bring himself to say. Holly, now Griffin…

“Okay. Later we’ll talk about the why. Right now we’ll work the problem,” Nygard said. “Let me make a few calls, soon’s people arrive, we’ll start some searching right here. Then we gotta move back to the house. Secure the scene…but if she’s in a car, moving-” Then he nodded at Nina.” You tell her. One of you got to stay on the radio, talking.”

Chapter Fifty-two

Sweat was dripping down Gator’s freshly shaved jaw. It was all coming apart. Shank, the big shot from the Cities, had tripped on his dick. Sheryl said the kid said the man chasing her had shot Uncle Harry? And where the fuck was Shank? Wandering, lost in the woods somewhere? If he was out there in this, Gator hoped he was getting