Holt drank coffee and cleared his throat. “You figure one’s holed up there and the other’s staying with the kid in the RV?”
Again Vogel nodded. “According to what Todd told your friend Billie, finding him isn’t going to get us the kid, so my guess would be the girlfriend drew the short straw. Anyway, we don’t want to move on the girlfriend’s place until we know more about who’s where. What we really need is to find that RV.” He nodded toward the big screen in the front of the squad room. “Question is, how? It’s gonna be like looking for the proverbial needle in all that.”
Holt stared at the screen with narrowed eyes. He assumed what he was looking at were satellite photos of the search area. The Valley of Fire. A turbulent sea of red and gold, carved by wind and water over millions of years. Incredibly beautiful, but desolate. And vast.
“We’ll have eyes in the air at first light-” Vogel looked at his watch “-right about now, actually. But even with choppers and planes, it could take days. There must be a million places out there to hide an RV. And God knows how many RVs are out there right now. How the hell are we gonna know if it’s the right one?”
“I think I might know somebody who can help with that,” Holt said, reaching in his pocket for his cell phone. Opened it, found his batteries were on life support, shoved it back in his pocket and frowned at the room. “Anybody know the number for the Venetian?”
Vogel gave him a skeptical look. “You’re thinking the
“She’s an empath-picks up on emotions. Figured maybe if she got close enough, she might be able to home in on the vibes of a scared little girl.” Holt gave an offhand shrug and downed the last of his coffee. He wasn’t about to waste breath trying to convince somebody of something he’d seen proof of with his own eyes. Something like that you either believed or you didn’t. “Figured it couldn’t hurt, right?”
Vogel stared at him for a moment, then tossed his empty coffee cup in the general direction of a trash can and pointed at his squad as he slid off his desk perch. “Sanchez-get me the Ven-”
“Already on it,” Sanchez drawled, cradling a phone next to her ear.
“Got another phone I can use?” Holt sent his trash after Vogel’s. “My cell phone’s…”
“Sure-use that one right there.” The detective was already halfway across the room, yelling at somebody else. “Hey, Turley, those choppers in the air yet? Get me the tower out at-”
Holt picked up the phone on the desk behind him and tucked it under his jaw while he took out his cell phone again and found the number he wanted in his phone-book. He put away the cell phone and punched in the number. After a couple of rings a sleepy voice answered.
“This better be Publishers Clearing House…”
“Tony, it’s me,” Holt said, then listened to some swearing. “Look, you know I wouldn’t call this early if it wasn’t important. Where are you? How soon can you get back to Vegas?”
“Never left,” Tony said, in the middle of a huge yawn. “Brooke’s on her way here. You didn’t think she was gonna stay away once I e-mailed her those pictures I took-you kiddin’ me?”
Somebody was definitely on his side, Holt figured. He let out a breath. “Man, you don’t know how glad I am to hear that. Need another favor, my friend. Listen, will that toy of yours carry three passengers?”
“Three? Sure, if I leave my cameras, and if two of you don’t mind sitting on the floor.”
“Okay,” Holt said, “get your gear and meet us at the airstrip. Can you be there in an hour?”
Billie woke up and knew before she opened her eyes that it was later than she’d ever slept before. A sickening lurch in her stomach reminded her she’d not only overslept, she’d also failed to show up for work.
For a few more minutes she lay in her bed, listening to the silence of an empty house. Wondering why she’d never noticed before that the silence had a weighted, suspenseful quality, as if the house itself was holding its breath, waiting for something to come and fill the void. A voice, a laugh, a country song playing on a radio, the morning news on television, the tinkle of silverware on plates…
She got up, pulled a T-shirt on and wandered out to the kitchen, where she found the light blinking on her message machine. Three messages, the digital readout on the police recorder said. She punched the button, heard two hang-ups, then Holt’s voice.
“Mornin’, sunshine. Don’t worry about going in to work. I called your boss. In case he asks, you’re having stomach problems. I figured that covers a lot of territory, so you can fill in the blanks however you want to. So…rest up, whatever you need to do, for…you know, tonight. I don’t know if I’m supposed to wish you luck, or not. So… break a leg, or whatever you say in the world of professional poker. Just hang in there, darlin’. And…I’ll call you later. Okay…’bye.”
She stood for a moment, her finger poised to play the message again, just to hear his voice. Told herself that was stupid, and went to make coffee instead. She was measuring coffee into the basket when the phone rang, making her jump so that the grounds went all over the countertop instead. She wiped most of them into the sink, brushed her hand off on the front of her T-shirt and picked up the phone, her heart already lifting into a quicker, more hopeful cadence, knowing it must be Holt, calling her back as he’d said he would.
“Hey,” she said with a softness in her voice she hadn’t even known would be there.
“Where you been? I been callin’ you all morning.”
Cold rage washed over her. She wrapped her arms across herself and shivered. “Miley.”
“Yeah, it’s me-who did you think? So, you did it, didn’t you? Went to the cops. I told you-”
“Don’t be stupid. The cops, the FBI-they’re all over it without any help from me. What did you think was going to happen? You grab a little girl off the street and her parents aren’t going to notice? Jeez, Miley, what were you thinking?”
“I told you what I’m thinking. You just need to win that tournament and everything’s gonna be okay. I know you made it to the second round, so that’s good. You just keep winning and everything’s gonna work out.”
“Miley, you know what the odds are of winning that tournament? Even if I was the best player in the world-”
“You just better be the best. You hear me?” His voice turned menacing. “You better win, Billie.”
There was a click, and then nothing. Billie looked over at the recorder the police technician had set up, but it had nothing to tell her, either. She carefully returned the phone to its cradle and pressed her knotted fist against the cold flutter in her belly.
Holt shifted, trying to find relief for his backside without taking his eyes off the tapestry of red, purple and gold unfurling beneath him. On the other side of the plane, Wade was sitting facing backward with one knee drawn up, the other stretched out in front of him, face pressed against the window. In the front seats, Tierney and Tony were also staring down at the incredible desert-scape known as the Valley of Fire. Aptly named, Holt thought, especially considering whoever had come up with the name probably hadn’t had the opportunity to see it from the air, with the sun low in the sky, painting parts of the incredible rock and sandstone formations with scarlet and gold and casting others into purple-and-indigo shadow. He’d heard Tony cussing a few times, bewailing the absence of his cameras, but it had been a long time now since any of them had said anything.
They were running out of time. Out of daylight, and out of time. The odds against Billie making it to tomorrow night’s final table were…what? A thousand to one? He was no math wizard, but it had to be huge.
But under that thought, his emotions were so much more. More raw, more complex. He didn’t realize how much more, until Tierney threw him a quick glance and he saw how haggard and strained her face was.
“Sorry,” he said softly, and she smiled.
Wade looked up at his wife. “How’re you holding up, babe?”
Her smile wavered, but she murmured, “I’m fine.”
“Anything?” Wade asked.
She shook her head. She’d reported some interesting pickups over the course of the long afternoon, so they knew what they were trying to do was possible, at least. But so far, nothing that might have been the emotions of a frightened little girl.
“We’re losing the light,” Tony said, telling them all what they already knew. The canyons below were more purple now than gold.
Holt watched the Cherokee’s tiny shadow undulate across the landscape, playing hide-and-seek with the
