Shoot / Don't Shoot

bathing suits on the floor of the tub, but the tub was dry and empty. So was the sink. The drain plugs were still closed in the exact same way the housekeeper had left them earlier that morning.

Joanna stood in the bathroom, staring at her re­flection in the mirror, trying to ward off a rising sense of panic, trying to think what to do. Don’t overreact, Joanna told herself firmly. They probably just went back downstairs. Strangely enough, the thought of possible disobedience made Joanna feel better.

Resolutely, she headed downstairs herself. In ad­dition to the pool, the hotel’s recreation area boasted a hot tub as well as a sauna. Posted rules indicated that the last two were off limits to unac­companied children, but that didn’t mean Jenny would necessarily regard that as the final word. In her daughter’s egocentric, nine-year-old view of the world, what she regarded as unreasonable rules were made to be badly bent if not outright broken.

Jim Bob probably got tired of hanging out at the pool and now Jenny’s trying to pull a fast one, Joanna reasoned grimly. Stalking through the rec­reation facilities, at first Joanna was more angry than worried. As she searched the hot tub and sauna, she rehearsed a carefully phrased dressing down. She couldn’t be all that hard on Ceci Grijalva because she was a guest. Most likely she didn’t fully understand the rules, but for Jennifer Ann Brady, there could be no such excuse.

Except it turned out the girls weren’t anywhere to be found. Not in the hot tub or in the sauna or in the pool itself. Joanna asked everyone she met if they had seen two little girls, one with short curly blond hair and the other with long dark braids. No one had seen them, not for at least an hour. What had started out as a tiny knot of worry in the pt of her stomach turned into a cement block.

Maybe they got hungry, she told herself hopefully, fighting down a rising sense of panic. Maybe Jenny had realized that armed with a room key she might be allowed to sign for food in the coffee shop. Joanna hurried in that direction, rushing along on tiptoe, trying to scan the few busy tables as she approached in hopes of spotting them. Bu none of the tables was occupied by the two AWOL little girls.

“Mrs. Brady,” a man’s voice said quietly at her elbow. “Maybe you’d like to come with me.”

Joanna looked up, expecting the speaker to be some hotel official who had nabbed Ceci and Jenny in the act of doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing. Instead, she found herself star­ing into the astonishingly impenetrable blue eyes of Larry Dysart.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“Not who are you?” he returned lightly. “That figures. It means you know who I am. Let’s go sit down and have a drink—a drink and a little talk.”

He took her by the arm and guided her across the lobby. Joanna allowed herself to be led toward the massive fireplace. Larry Dysart directed her to the same chair where she had sat the previous af­ternoon while she visited with Bob Brundage.

“What about?” she asked.

“About what you want and what I want.”

“The only thing I want right now is my daugh­ter.”

“I know,” Larry Dysart said soothingly. “Of course, you do. Maybe you and I can do a little horse-trading.”

A half-drunk cup of coffee was already sitting on the coffee table. Larry signaled a passing cocktail waitress. “The lady will have a diet Coke,” he said without bothering to ask.

Joanna’s world spun out of control. If Larry Dy­sart knew all about Joanna’s drink of choice, that meant his information could have come from only one source. Butch Dixon, the nice man! Butch Dixon, the feeder of starving multitudes! Butch Dixon, that blabbermouthed son of a bitch!

“What have you done with Jenny and Ceci?” Joanna demanded angrily.