was tracking, right down to which theme park the Dockerys were planning to visit, and Shannon's fascination with Mickey Mouse. Sally came out of the bathroom, and I showed her the notepad. Her eyes grew wide.
“Wow. How did he get all that information?”
“That's what I need to find out.”
“Think he was stalking them?”
“Could be.”
“Did you check beneath the bed?”
“Not yet.”
Kneeling, Sally stuck her hands beneath the bed and pulled out a cracked leather satchel. I knelt down beside her, and our heads nearly knocked. She opened the satchel and dumped its contents onto the bed. It contained a thin Dell notebook computer, a portable HP printer, and four grainy eight-by-ten photographs.
“Aren't you glad I talked you into this?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
Sally spread the photographs on the bed. The first three showed Tram Dockery behind the wheel of his pickup truck with a six-pack of Old Milwaukee in his lap. There was a baby seat in back, and Shannon was strapped in. Tram had told me he'd gotten drunk that morning, but he'd never mentioned his daughter was with him. The fourth photograph showed the rear of the pickup, the license plate plainly visible.
“Cecil must have snapped these pictures,” Sally said.
I stared at the six-pack in the photo. There were five unopened cans in the pack. Tram wasn't drunk when the photographs were taken.
“Tram would have seen him,” I said.
“Maybe Cecil used a telescopic lens.”
I took one of the photographs off the bed and held it up to the light. It was printed on cheap paper, and I shook my head.
“Cecil didn't take these photographs. He printed them off his computer.”
We both studied the photographs some more.
“You think someone e-mailed the photos to him on his computer?” Sally asked.
I nodded.
“What about the information on the pad? Did someone send him that as well?”
I nodded again.
“So there's a third person involved?”
I thought back to the photograph of Simon Skell's gang I'd seen at the Fox TV station. Skell was the mastermind, Bash the front man, the Hispanic the abductor, and the blond-haired mystery man the information- gatherer. If this was indeed an organized gang of abductors working together, then the mystery man was doing more than just gathering information. He was also forming profiles of victims for his gang, and possibly other gangs as well.
“Yes,” I said.
“Do you think he's driving around and randomly photographing people?”
I studied the pad with the notations. “That wouldn't explain how's he getting the rest of the information.”
“I don't know, Jack. I'm just stabbing in the dark.”
I picked up the other three photographs from the bed. “I need to show these to Tram Dockery. He'll know where they were taken.”
Sally snatched the photographs out of my hand.
“No, you don't,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“You're not taking the photographs to show Tram.”
“Then just give me one. That's all I'll need to jar his memory.”
“God damn it, Jack, you promised me.”
I looked into her eyes. I had crossed over the fragile line of our friendship.
“Give me one, and tell the police you found three photographs in the satchel,” I said. “What harm will that do?”
“They're evidence.”
“I need to show one of the photographs to Tram. Come on, Sally, don't you want me to crack this thing?”
“You promised me. Isn't your word worth anything, Jack?”
I blew out my cheeks. A little voice inside my head was telling me to snatch one of the photographs out of Sally's hand and run for the door. Even if Sally caught up to me, she wasn't strong enough to make me give it back.
Only another little voice-perhaps my conscience-was telling me not to think these dangerous thoughts. Sally was my friend and confidante, and I'd given her my word. Once upon a time, my word had actually meant something.
So what had happened? I guess I'd changed. Now I was willing to make promises that I didn't intend to keep, and do things I've never done before. I'd been pulled to the dark side. Yet, I didn't know what else to do.
“Think about it,” I heard myself say. “Shannon Dockery was the
Sally held the photographs protectively against her chest.
“No,” she added for emphasis.
I couldn't be in the same room with Sally anymore. I went to the door, jerked it open, and stepped outside. The sky had blackened with storm clouds, and a stiff wind was shooting garbage around the parking lot. The day my sister died, she looked out her hospital room window at a storm similar to this one and told me how beautiful it looked. I was not born with my sister's optimism, and now I saw only bleakness and despair in the murderous clouds.
Inside the room, I heard Sally call the Orange County Sheriff's Department on her cell and ask for a certain detective by name.
She told the detective everything that had happened in the past two hours, including Cecil's room number at the Sleep amp; Save. Hanging up, she came outside, and took my hand.
“You okay?” she asked.
“I'll live,” I said.
“Are we still friends?”
“I sure hope so.”
“You are so pitiful when you pout,” she said.
“You think so?”
“Yes. Most men are.”
“And I thought I was special.”
Sally led me downstairs. At the motel's front desk she sweet-talked the manager into making copies of the photographs on his copier. I hugged her fiercely when we were outside, holding the copies in my hand.
“Now go figure this thing out,” she said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
I could not find Tram Dockery.
Tram had told me his family was staying at a Disney hotel. I called Disney's main number and got patched into his room. When no one answered, an operator came on the line. I asked her which of Disney's twenty hotels the Dockerys were staying in. She refused to divulge the information.
I decided to wait Tram out. I was banking on his returning to their room, even though there was the chance
