'Find Jack! Find him and bring him back!
The door slammed closed as Gia stumbled away, propelled by the sense of desperate urgency that had filled that voice.
What was going on? Why was there some strange shadowy person in Jack's apartment instead of Jack?
Gia had no time for mysteries—Vicky was missing and Jack could find her. Gia held onto that thought. It helped her hold onto her sanity. Even so, the sense of nightmare unreality gripped her again. The walls wavered around her as she played along with the bad dream...
...down the stairs, through the doors, down to the street to where the Honda sits double parked, start it up, drive to where you think—hope—Abe's shop is...tears on your face...
Oh, Vicky, how am I ever going to find you? I'll die without you!
...drive past darkened brownstones and storefronts until a dark blue panel truck pulls into the curb to the left just ahead and Jack gets out of the passenger side...
Jack!
Suddenly back in the real world. Gia slammed on the brakes. Even as the Honda was skidding to a stalled stop, she was out of the door and running to him, crying his name.
'Jack!'
He turned and Gia saw his face go white at the sight of her. He ran forward.
'Oh, no! Where's Vicky?'
He knew! Her expression, her very presence here must have told him. Gia could hold back the fear and grief no longer. She began sobbing as she collapsed into his arms.
'She's gone!'
'God! When? How long?'
She thought he was going to cry. His arms tightened around her until her ribs threatened to break.
'An hour...no more than an hour and a half.'
'But how?'
'I don't know! All I found was an orange under her bed, like the one—'
'No!' Jack's anguished shout was a physical pain in her ear, then he spun away from her, walking a step or two in one direction, then in another, his arms swinging at the air like a windup toy out of control. 'He got Vicky! He's got Vicky!'
'It's all my fault, Jack. If I'd stayed with her instead of watching that stupid movie, Vicky would be all right now.'
Jack suddenly stopped moving. His arms lay quiet against his sides.
'No,' he said in a voice that chilled her with its flat, iron tone. 'You couldn't have changed the outcome. You'd only be dead.' He turned to Abe. 'I'll need to borrow your truck, Abe, and I'll also need an inflatable raft with oars. And the highest power field glasses you can find. Got them?'
'Right in the shop.' He also was looking at Jack strangely.
'Would you put them in the back of the truck as quick as you can?'
'Sure.'
Gia stared at Jack as Abe bustled away toward the front of his store. His abrupt change from near hysteria to this cold dispassionate creature before her was almost as terrifying as Vicky's disappearance.
'What are you going to do?'
'I'm going to get her back. And then I'm going to see to it that she is never bothered again.'
Gia stepped back. For as Jack spoke, he’d turned toward her and looked past her, looked downtown as if seeing through all the buildings between him and whoever was in his thoughts. She let out a small cry when she saw his expression.
She was looking at murder…as if Death itself had taken human form. That look on Jack's face—she turned away. She couldn't bear it. More rage and fury than any man was meant to hold were concentrated in his eyes. She could almost imagine someone's heart stopping just from looking into those eyes.
Abe slammed the rear doors of his truck and handed Jack a black leather case. 'Here are the binocs. The raft's loaded.'
The look in Jack's eyes receded.
Thank God! She never wanted to see that look again.
He slung the binoculars around his neck. 'You two wait here while—'
“I'm going with you!' Gia said. She wasn't staying behind while he went to find Vicky.
'And what?' Abe said. 'I should stay behind while you two run off with my truck?'
Jack didn't even bother to argue. 'Get in, then. But I'm driving.”
And drive he did—like a madman: east to Central Park West, down to Broadway, and then along Broadway for a steeplechase ride downtown. Gia was squeezed between Jack and Abe, one hand braced against the dashboard in case they had to stop short, the other against the roof of the truck's cab to keep from bumping her head as they pitched and rolled over the hillocks and potholes in the pavement—New York City streets were no smoother than the rutted dirt roads she used to drive in Iowa.
