Unforsaken

and suspicious. She went to a computer at the reception desk and typed for a moment with a small frown on her face. When she looked up at me, the suspicion had deepened. “I’m sorry, but your aunt is the only person authorized to pick Charlie up.”

“But I’m his sister,” I protested, even though I wasn’t, not really. “Please, you have to let me take him. Maybe you can call her at work-”

I hadn’t been able to get her to pick up, though, and I knew that calling her would be pointless. The woman shook her head, and her hand hovered above the keyboard, as though she was trying to make a decision. “If you come in with your aunt, and she signs a release form-”

“But there’s no time for that!” I said. “I have to-it’s an emergency-look, I met the other teacher. When Chub-I mean, when Charlie first came here. The blond one. Maybe you can go get her?”

“I’m sorry,” the woman repeated, but now she didn’t sound sorry at all. “Charlie is fine, and he will stay here until your aunt returns to pick him up. There are no exceptions to the release policy.”

I stared at her for a moment, trying to think of some way to prove to her that I was safe, that I wasn’t crazy. But anything I said would just make me sound insane.

Finally I turned and left. Arguing further wouldn’t help. I would simply have to find Prairie first.

It was a four-block walk from the preschool to the building where Prairie worked, and while I jogged down the sidewalk, dodging pedestrians, I checked my watch and tried to figure out how fast they could get here. I figured half an hour to trace the call. Once they found my number registered to Holly Garrett, they’d have to search employment records, and even then there was no way they would be able to find out where Chub went to preschool. Was there?

On the other hand, they could just torture the information out of Kaz. I knew there was nothing they wouldn’t try if they needed to.

I ran faster.

When I got to Prairie’s building, I burst through the doors and the receptionist glanced up from her magazine, startled. I was already digging through my purse. I found my ID card and slapped it on the counter.

“I’m Amber Garrett,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “I’m here to see Holly Garrett. She works in the High Magnetic Field laboratory on the second floor. It’s really, really important.”

The receptionist, a spindly woman with thin gray hair and a blouse that hung on her frail frame, peered over reading glasses at me.

“You can go on up there, if you want,” she said. “They got their own security.”

I ran past her, muttering a quick thanks. I hit the up button at the elevator bank, then saw a door marked “Exit” and took the stairs instead, two at a time. The stairwell echoed with my pounding feet. The door to the second floor stuck before I forced it open onto a carpeted hall.

There was a pair of glass doors with a small square plaque identifying what was inside as the G. Laurence High Magnetic Field Laboratory. But the doors were locked.

I pounded on them, bruising my knuckles. After a few moments, the door swung open-just as I noticed a doorbell set in the wall.

“What’s going on?” demanded a tall white-haired man in a cheap sports shirt with sweat stains under the arms. “What do you want?”

“I’m here to see Pr-to see Holly Garrett. Is she here?”

He blinked at me, looking more confused than annoyed.

“Are you her niece?”

“Yes, but-”

“You look like the pictures. She has pictures of you and your little brother all over her cube. We work together. I’m Don Borelli.”

I was surprised that Prairie would take such a risk. She was always so careful, so cautious. But then I remembered that it wasn’t supposed to be a risk anymore. We didn’t have secrets, other than the big one: that we used to be completely different people.

I forced a smile. “Yep, that’s me. Can you help me find her? I-It’s about Charlie. He’s sick and I need her to come with me to the preschool because they won’t release him to me.”

I added a little earnest concern to my smile. See? I tried to telegraph. I’m only worried, not crazy. Help me find my aunt.

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. I’m sure we can help you find her,” the man said, holding the door wide for me. “So hard when the little ones are sick, isn’t it?”

I nodded my agreement. Borelli didn’t strike me as father material. But then again, what did I know? I’d only recently learned that my dad was a crazed killer.

Borelli led me through a maze of cubicles, stopping in front of one, which I knew instantly was Prairie’s. It wasn’t just the pictures of me and Chub-several were pinned to the cubicle walls, just as Borelli had said-it was the tailored black jacket hung neatly on a wooden hanger, the orderly stacks of papers, the expensive pen resting on the blotter.

“Well, she’s not at her desk,” Borelli said unnecessarily, and winked at me. I wanted to throttle him, but I resisted.

“Maybe she’s in the lab?” I suggested, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. “Can we try there?”

“I suppose so. Seeing as it’s a bit of an emergency.”

But when we got to the long rectangular room and peered through the large windows at the enormous machines, there was no sign of Prairie. I felt the panic gaining strength and rising in my chest.

Two men walked by, laughing at some shared joke. Borelli stopped them.

“Hey, have you guys seen Holly? Her niece is looking for her.”

They glanced at me with mild interest.

“Yeah, you just missed her,” one of them said. “She went out to lunch with a couple of friends.”

“Who?” I demanded.

“Two guys-you know, around her age.”

“What were they wearing? What did they look like?” I asked.

“Uh, shirts, plain shirts-one of them had a jacket, black, maybe, or blue? Short hair. They had short hair.”

“Did they look like cops?”

Borelli was staring at me, eyebrows raised. But I couldn’t think of a better way to describe the men who’d tried to kidnap us the last time, the ones who’d broken into Gram’s house and started shooting.

The men glanced at each other, then back at me.

“Yeah, I guess so,” the second one said. “They could have been cops. Why, is Holly in trouble with the law?”

The way he said it, I knew he thought he was joking.

But Prairie was in way more trouble than he could imagine.

They had her. They had her, and it was all my fault. After several weeks had passed, we’d convinced ourselves they’d given up, but we should have known better.

Men like that never gave up. And when they couldn’t get to us, they’d gone after Kaz instead.

And now-because of my slowness, because of my stupidity-they’d found us after all.

“Thank you,” I whispered, my throat dry with terror. I walked away from the group of confused men who thought they had been working with a nice lady named Holly Garrett.

When I got to the lobby, I ran.

6

I’D RUN HARD on the way to Prairie’s building, but I ran twice as hard now, back the way I’d come, toward the preschool. When I was only halfway there, I heard the sirens.

When I got within a block, my lungs screamed from the effort and I had to stop, holding on to a tree trunk for support. I couldn’t risk getting any closer anyway, not after what I had done.