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“I have his record,” the tech agent said. All this time he had been working his laptop and I hadn’t noticed.

Honsa peered at the computer screen. “Last crime—he did a short stretch in Stillwater for check forgery, been out for about six months, released to a halfway house…” Honsa’s head came up from the laptop and fixed me with his eyes. His reassuring smile had been replaced with something hard. “It’s in the Badlands.”Advertisement

“Let’s go get him,” Bobby said. He had his Glock out of its holster, and he was checking the load.

“Go where?” Harry said. “I doubt he’s calling from the halfway house—”

“Let’s go,” Bobby insisted.

“Don’t even think about it,” Honsa said.

“I’m going to get my daughter back.”

“You’re not leaving this house.”

“Don’t try to stop me.”

Honsa put himself between Bobby and the front door. “Think, Lieutenant Dunston, about what you’re going to do,” he said.

“I’m thinking about my daughter.”

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“So am I.”

“Boys, boys, boys,” chanted Harry.

“Shut the hell up, Wilson,” Bobby said. He waved the Glock at him. Bobby doesn’t wave guns, I told myself. Only this was a different Bobby than the one I knew. I wondered what I was going to do about it when Bobby reached for the doorknob and Honsa moved to intercept him.

Shelby called from the staircase. “Bobby.” She was sitting on the steps and peering through the posts that supported the banister, holding one in each hand like the bars of a prison.

Bobby turned toward her.

“Listen to what he has to say,” she said.

Honsa took his cue. “Scottie Thomforde isn’t holding all the cards anymore,” he said, “but he still holds the most important one. He has Victoria. That’s what we have to think about now.”

“I am thinking about her,” Bobby said.

“No, you’re not, Lieutenant Dunston. You’re thinking about what you want to do to Thomforde.”

Bobby stared hard at Honsa for a few beats, then dropped his eyes to the Glock in his hand. He slowly holstered it.

“Victoria comes first,” Honsa said. “Thomforde, now that we know who he is, we can pick him up anytime. He’s not going anywhere. Until we get Victoria back safe and sound, we want to give him the illusion of space. We want him to think that he’s in control, that he has options. The last thing we want—the very last thing—is for him to panic, and if he sees us coming, he might do just that. Lieutenant Dunston, if Thomforde feels trapped, if he feels that his plans are shit and that everything is going against him, he’s not going to blame us. Or himself. He’s going to blame the girl.”

“I understand,” Bobby said.

“Do you?”

“Yes. But…”

“But what?”

“So many things can go wrong. You know that. My fault, your fault, his fault, nobody’s fault—so many things can go wrong that we can’t allow this opportunity to go by. If we can find him…”

“What about his partner?” Honsa asked. “We know Thomforde has at least one. He keeps saying ‘we’ and ‘we’re,’ and then there’s Katie’s story. She said a man grabbed your daughter and carried her back to the van. Who was driving the van?”

“So Scottie has a partner—”

“What is he going to do if we arrest Thomforde?”

“We don’t have to arrest him. We can surveil Scottie until he leads us to Victoria.”

“How do we find him without tipping our hand?”

We all took a few moments to think about it. Harry supplied the answer. “Thomforde’s parole officer.”

4

Karen Studder had the face of a woman whose prettiness was five years behind her. She was built large on top, with a narrow waist and hips and tennis-player legs. Her skin was burnished bronze beneath her dark blue shirt and khaki skirt; apparently she was one of those women who are convinced they look better with a tan despite evidence that it’s the sun that turns grapes into raisins. She would still be pretty if not for the sun.

“No,” she said. “I don’t know where Scott Thomforde is. I know where he’s supposed to be.”

“You don’t keep track of your people?” Bobby said.

We were all standing in the space between Bobby’s living room and dining room. Karen was on one side; we were all on the other. She must have felt outnumbered.

“I supervise about a hundred offenders,” Karen said. “I don’t follow each and every one of them around. I don’t know the exact moment that they’re in violation. When an offender is paroled to me, I’ll look in on him twice a week, maybe three times if I want to see more. Later it’s once every two weeks, sometimes once a month. I usually arrange for employers to contact me if an offender doesn’t show up for work, but they’re under no obligation. Thomforde is in a halfway house. If he doesn’t come back from work, the supervisor will let me know. It’s still early, though.” Karen looked at her watch. “Not even six thirty.” pqdm.com