One vehicle seemed more practical than two, so Stormy left her Miata safely at the house in Maine , and Lou drove Maxie's Bug. Not because he was the man, Stormy supposed, but because he was still pretending Maxie's lousy driving was the reason he'd come along in the first place. She knew better and, personally, thought the two of them were pretty pathetic. Meanwhile, though, they were both still way too overprotective of her. God, it was getting old fast. She could only imagine how much worse that would be if they knew what was really going on with her.

Hell, how could they? She didn't even know.

Either way, the upshot of it was that Lou drove, Maxie sat in the front of her own car, beside him, and Stormy had the small but comfy back seat all to herself.

Not that she minded all that much. She leaned with her back against the side of the car, and her legs on the seat, knees bent. She'd rolled up Maxie's ever-present car blanket to use as a cushion. The position gave her a chance to observe the two of them. Much more pleasant, she thought, speculating on the state of their issues than wondering about her own.

Lou seemed stiff, guarded, as he drove. He must feel the tension-it was emanating from Max in waves a dead man couldn't have missed. Not anger, not exactly. Or not purely anger, anyway. She was pissed off, sure, but mostly, Stormy thought, she was frustrated and impatient with him for so thoroughly misreading her for the past six months. She must feel like all that flirting had been totally wasted. And she'd done some class-A flirting!

Lou didn't talk much, except about where they were going, driving directions or when to stop. Stormy didn't blame him. He was a male, which meant Max's mood was likely confusing him. He had no idea what he'd done wrong, so he didn't dare say much, in case he made things worse.

Poor clueless man.

Max was off her game this morning, too. A little awkward, unsure of herself, and probably resenting the hell out of him for making her feel that way. She couldn't relate to him as she usually did, with teasing, flirting and baiting, because he'd called a halt to that, and she hadn't yet figured out the next best way to talk to him, so she didn't talk at all. It wouldn't be long, though, before Max had a brand-new approach. In the meantime, she was unnaturally quiet. Someone who didn't know her as well as Stormy might think she was brooding, but Stormy knew better. Maxie was regrouping, working out a new plan of attack.

Meanwhile, though, the usual teasing banter between them was gone. Stormy found herself missing it.

She leaned back in her seat, bored with pondering her two hardheaded friends. Instead she wondered what it would be like to see Jason Beck again after all this time. He would be older, more experienced, maybe harder than he'd been before. Life seemed to have that effect on people. She wondered if he would look drastically different-whether he'd let himself go, grown a beard or put on a ton of weight. Whether he'd let his hair grow back or kept his head shaved, the way he used to. She wondered if he would still be the conservative 'fraidy cat he'd been before.

What if he wasn't? What if he'd opened his mind, grown a little more outgoing over the years? Stormy swallowed and closed her eyes, told herself she wasn't going to New Hampshire to audition Jason as her new love interest-she was going to help him find his sister. Period.

Besides, she'd agonized over her decision not to pursue more than friendship with him in the first place. He was too buttoned-up, too tight-assed. He wasn't for her. She would have driven him crazy, or he would have clipped her wings. Neither was a happy outcome.

Whatever she might have expected of Jason, though, it couldn't have prepared her for the reality she faced four hours later.

They drove into town a little after noon, rolling past a green sign that read Welcome to Endover, followed by another that read Curfew Enforced. Stormy frowned and wondered about that, but she wasn't sure if either Lou or Max had noticed. They were both focused on the opposite side of the road, where a brick building stood at the rear of an empty blacktop parking lot. The letters attached to the red brick face spelled out Visitor Center .

Stormy felt a cold shiver go up her spine. She rubbed her arms, and the motion drew Max's attention. "What's wrong, hon?" she asked, turning to look over the seat at her.

"Just a chill." Max narrowed her eyes, and Stormy hurried on. "That would be a likely place for a stranger in town to stop, don't you think?"

The visitor center was behind them now, but Max looked back at it. "Good point. We should check it out"

Stormy nodded, glad that Max was now distracted from worrying over her. She watched as Max rummaged in her shoulder bag for a notepad and jotted something on it. Probably a reminder to snoop around that visitor center.

They drove on through the town, which seemed to be little more than a few houses, leading up to a strip that apparently comprised the "business district." They drove by a gas station/convenience store, a doughnut shop, a hardware store, a small grocery, a pharmacy and a post office. Lots of brick buildings-nearly all of them were brick, in fact. It made for a neat, orderly facade, even if there were weeds and grass sprouting between the sections of sidewalk. One of those brick buildings seemed to house several offices, including the one that had Endover Police Department painted on the pebbled glass in the door.

There was little traffic, only one light. A handful of people walked along the sidewalks in groups of two or three.

The short strip of businesses came to an abrupt end, with a handful of homes, the elementary school and a long, winding strip of nothing. Trees lined the road, and now and then she caught glimpses of the ocean beyond them.

She glanced down at her driving directions. "That motel should be coming up in a couple of miles. I'll call Jay and tell him we're nearly there."

"No you won't, " Max said. She held up her cell phone, to show her the screen. "No reception. Hasn't been since we got into town."

"Makes you wonder, " Lou said, "how Jason's sister managed to call him from here."

Max tipped her head to one side. "There could be spotty reception somewhere. Or maybe she has a different company or a more powerful phone than any of ours."

"Or maybe she was never here."

Max was already a little irritated with him, and by the way her face darkened, Stormy knew she'd just shifted that up a notch. He should have stuck to his policy of keeping quiet.

"What are you saying, Lou?" Max asked. "That Jason made it up?"

At her tone, Lou shot her a sideways look. "I'm not calling him a liar. He might just be mistaken."

"Not likely. He's got an IQ that falls somewhere between genius and freak. And he wouldn't lie to me, Lou. He's one of my dearest friends"

"Was one of your dearest friends. You haven't seen or heard from him in, what? Five years now?" He sighed. "People change, Maxie."

"Not Jason."

He pursed his lips, sent her a lingering look. "Maybe not. I hope not. I just want you to be careful."

That was better, Stormy thought. If Max thought he was only being protective of her, she would let just about anything slide.

Then the idiot added, "Don't go charging in half-cocked the way you usually do."

Max's jaw went tight, and she faced front, not saying a word.

Damn, Stormy thought. He blew it.

They parked the car in the lot of the North Star Motor Lodge. The L-shaped building that housed the guest rooms was tan with brown trim and seemed well kept. A concrete sidewalk unrolled in front of it, and each door had a gold number on the front. The motel office was a small square structure that stood apart from the rest. A freshly mown lawn spread out around the blacktop and held a handful of picnic tables. Behind the motel, she glimpsed a shaggy meadow backed by woods. But when she got out of the car, she could smell the ocean and knew it must be close.

The three of them strode up to room number two and knocked on the door.

Jason opened it, and Stormy sucked in a breath and then pressed a hand to her mouth. He sported a deep purple half moon under one swollen eye. His lower lip was split. A bruise on his cheekbone stood out darker than the rest of his skin.

"What the hell happened to you?" Maxie blurted. "You look like you went ten rounds with a bear."

He lifted his brows, opened his arms. "Not even a hello before you start with the questions, Mad Maxie?"

Max hugged him briefly. Then she stepped back, and he turned to Stormy. "Long time, huh?"

"Too long, " she said. He embraced her-more tentatively than he had embraced Max, though. But suddenly white light blasted the center of Stormy's brain-blinding and hot. She jerked her arms tightly around Jason in reaction and slammed her eyes closed against the flash, but the images came anyway. Fists pounded her face. She felt the blows, and the sharp toe of a booted foot in her rib cage. And then it was gone.

She released Jason, only to find him staring at her oddly. Sure he was-he couldn't know why she'd hugged him as if trying to break him in two just now. She stepped awkwardly out of his arms. Lou extended a hand.

"Beck."

"Hello, Lou. It's good to see you."

"I wish it were under more pleasant circumstances, " Lou said.

"So what happened to you?" Max asked.

Jason ran a hand over his nape. "Idiocy, that's all. I was out in the woods, looking for Delia, " he said. "Not a real bright idea in the dark. I took a bad fall."

Lou frowned, shooting a quick look at Max, his lips thin. Stormy didn't think he believed Jason had gotten those bruises from a fall, and she knew damn well she didn't. She didn't know what was happening to her, but she was pretty sure that flash she'd just experienced had been a look at what had really happened to him.

"Why were you looking for her in the woods?" Lou asked.

"It seemed like as good a place to look as any." He opened the door wider, stepping aside. "Come on in. Now that you're here, maybe you'll come up with a better idea."

"Does that mean you want us on the case, Jay?" Max asked.

"That's why I called you, Maxie. And I don't expect a free ride, either. I'll pay whatever you charge."

"I'd do it for free."

"I wouldn't ask you to do that. I couldn't, Max."

"Then we'll give you our special rate-for old friends and former members, " Max said with a wink. "Don't worry, Jason. We're here now, and we'll find Delia. Doesn't matter that we're new to this-'cause we aren't. Not really. Just new to doing it on an official level. And it doesn't matter that a missing teenager isn't our area of expertise. We'll find her, because we care more than anyone else would. And that's gonna make all the difference."

Jason met Maxie's eyes, but he couldn't seem to hold her gaze for more than a beat or two. He quickly lowered his, then stepped aside so they could troop into his motel room. It was tiny, with a queen-size bed, TV stand and bathroom. Not a hell of a lot more. Jason had a map laid out on the bed, hand-drawn on a large sheet of white paper that might once have been a take-out food bag.

As they gathered around it, Jason leaned down and pointed. "This is the road into town. There's an information center right here."

Stormy nodded. "We saw it on the way here."

Lou said, "Jason, what makes you think your sister is here, in Endover?"

He frowned as he looked up at Lou. "I...it's where she was when she called."

"Are you sure? We haven't been able to pick up any reception for a couple of miles now."

Jason nodded firmly. "I'm sure."

"Why? What makes you so sure?"

Max sent Lou a quelling look. "If he says he's sure, he's sure, Lou."

"He said her message was broken up, full of static"

"Still-"

"It's okay, Max, " Jason put a hand on her shoulder. "I did hear her pretty clearly when she said ` Endover, New Hampshire, ' Lou. And the bad reception here is probably why the call was so choppy, and why we got cut off. If anything, it makes me even more certain I heard her correctly." He shrugged. "Since she hasn't called again, I'm assuming she's still someplace where she can't call out. Still here, in Endover."

"How could she call again? Your cell phone isn't working here, is it?" Lou asked.

Jason's gaze shifted from the bed, to the dresser, to the window. "I...no. It's not. But she hasn't called home, either. I've been checking the machine."

"Have you asked anyone around town about her?"

"I, uh-I talked with the police chief."

Lou frowned. "When was that?"

"Right after I arrived here."

Nodding slowly, Lou said, "Before you called us?"

"Right."

"Then why did you say you didn't want the police involved?"

"Lou, that's enough." Max barked the words at him. He sent her a look of impatience, but he stopped grilling Jason.

Jason lowered his head, pushed his hands through his hair. "Look, I barely know if I'm coming or going here. I went to the Endover police because it seemed like the thing to do. It was a waste of time, though. There's only one cop in town and he was no help at all. I figured I'd have to do this on my own." He looked from one face to the next, as if trying to read them.

Stormy thought Lou was suspicious as hell of Jason. And she wasn't entirely sure she didn't agree with him. Max, on the other hand, seemed to believe him-clearly she wanted to. She kept touching his arm, his shoulder, as if to comfort him.

Stormy turned to the other two. "Where do you want to start?"

"I'd like to see that visitor center, " Max said. "I think you were right, Storm. She could have stopped there for directions or something."

"The visitor center is closed, " Jay said. "I stopped there on the way into town. The place is abandoned." "Then we can case the town, check for any other place where she might have stopped. Diners, gas stations, that sort of thing."

Lou nodded. "I'd like to talk to the local police chief myself, see what he has to offer. Helpful or not, it's a good idea to let him know we're here and we're looking for her, put him on alert to keep an eye out and contact us if anything turns up."

"There's no point, Lou, " Jason said. "The local cop doesn't even believe she was ever here."

"It won't hurt anything to talk to him, " Lou said. "What was she driving?"

"Little red Neon, " Jason said. "Only two years old." He swallowed hard. "She works part-time waiting tables to make her payments."

"You have the plate number?" Lou asked.

He nodded. "Yeah."

"So we can have the local cop keep an eye out for the car, too. Like I said, it can't hurt."

Max stroked Jason's upper arm. "Lou's right, hon. We should use every resource we can, even if it does seem unlikely to pan out." She glanced at Stormy. "I think we should run a check on this town. See if anything like this has happened before."

"I'll get the laptop out of the car, " Stormy replied.

Lou put a hand on her shoulder, stopping her even as she turned to go. "Let's book ourselves some rooms first, huh? Set the computer up in one of them?"

Stormy heard it in his voice, loud and clear. He didn't trust Jason. He wanted a place where they could talk without him hearing every word. "All right."

"I'll take care of the rooms, " Max said.

Lou shot her a look and seemed about to say something, then bit it back. Maxie rolled her eyes at him. "A double for me and Stormy, and a single for you, " she told him. "That suit you, Lou?"

"Fine." He pulled out a wallet, reached for a credit card.

Max put a hand over his. "This is going on the company card, " she said. "It's our first official case." She headed off to book the rooms.

Lou sighed, turned and went after her. Stormy didn't blame him. She was liable to have him sharing a bed with her if he didn't keep an eye on things. And he'd pissed her off all morning without even meaning to.

Once they had gone and she found herself alone in the room with Jason, she cleared her throat. He walked to the bed, folded up his map.

"Is it going to be hard, working with me?" she asked.

He looked up at her, sent her a sad smile. "If I have trouble working with every girl who ever turned me down, Stormy, I'm in for a pretty tough existence. No. It'll be fine."

She thinned her lips.

"I heard you'd been in the hospital, " he said. "Nothing serious, I hope."

She shrugged. "Bullet to the head, a few days in a coma, no big deal."

He swung around to face her, his features expressionless. "Tell me you're kidding."

"'Fraid not, " she said. "But it's okay, really. I'm fine now." She wasn't. Far from it, in fact, but that wasn't anything he needed to know.

"Someone shot you?"

She nodded.

"Who, for God's sake?"

"The bad guy." She rolled her eyes. "Sheesh, who did you think?"

"Jesus, Storm, how can you joke about something like this?"

"Because it doesn't matter, that's how. It's over. History. Gone." God, she wished that were true.

Jason came closer to her, reached up a hand to brush it lightly through her hair. She lifted one of her own to cover it, guided it to the spot where he could feel the misshapen bump, the scar. When he did, his eyes fell closed. "I'd have come if I'd known."

"Max was there. Until she had to go after the jerk who did it, at least."

"Did she get him?"

"Not entirely. She fucked up his plans, saved some people he'd intended to hurt as much as he hurt me, set him back a whole lot, but in the end, he got away." She shrugged. "Someone will put him in the ground sooner or later."

Jason let his hand remain in her hair a moment longer than he needed to, but then he lowered it slowly. "It means a lot to me, your coming down here like this, " he said.

"We couldn't not come."

"I know." He lowered his head, paced away from her. "I knew that when I called you. I'm not going to let anything hurt you, I want you to know that."

"That's an odd thing to say. No one here has any reason to want to hurt me. Do they, Jason?"

"No. Of course not, it's just well, hell, you got hurt on your last case, didn't you?"

She frowned, searching his face, wondering why the stupid flashes that came at the most inopportune times weren't coming now, when she would have liked them to. If they turned out to be some sort of...of psychism, she would have liked a clue about whatever it was Jason wasn't saying.

But then Max and Lou were back. "Lou's in four and we're in three, " Max called, holding up a diamond-shape plastic key ring with a worn-out numeral on its face and a copper-colored key dangling from the end. "Got you an extra key, Storm, but the pimply-faced adolescent in the office says we're dead meat if we lose it."

"That would be Gary , " Jason said.

"I didn't like him, " Max informed him.

"I guessed that already." Jason smiled at her. "You haven't changed a bit, Max. God, it's good to see you."

"You, too, " she replied with a smile. Then she hugged him, more firmly than she had before. "It's gonna be okay, Jay."

Lou cleared his throat. "Let's go visit with the local police chief. Best to coordinate with him from the get-go. Even if he isn't any help."

Jason seemed to want to argue, but he changed his mind.

Max nodded. "Maybe we can get some lunch while we're at it? My belly button is touching my backbone."

"There's a diner across the road, just a little ways up. And another near the police station in town, " Jason said. "I'll give the chief a call and let him know we're coming."

"If it's okay with you guys, I'm gonna stay here, " Stormy said. "I can get settled into our room and maybe catch a nap"

Max frowned at her. Stormy told her with a swift glance not to start in with the "Are you okay?" refrain, and Max, reading that look, kept quiet. "I'll bring you back a sandwich, " she said instead.

"Thanks."

Chief Fieldner had red, scraped knuckles. Maxie noticed it right off the bat. She also noticed his pale skin, gaunt face, beady eyes and the mustache that cried out to be trimmed. It hung, white and gray, like a walrus's whiskers, drooping to his chin on either side of his mouth. She didn't like him. And she told Lou so the first time the man left their presence, ostensibly to go look through some files or something.

"I don't like him, " she whispered. Short and to the point.

She was sitting in one of two chairs in front of Fieldner's spotless, tiger-maple desk. Jason sat beside Max, and Lou stood, his eyes working the room like hawks at a pigeon farm. Though there wasn't a hell of a lot to see. Couple of phones, a bulletin board with six layers of posters and memos pinned to it. A wall's worth of filing cabinets and a coffeepot.

His busy eyes slid to hers then. "What's not to like? He's no prime hunk of youth, " he said with a pointed look toward Jason, "but-"

"Jesus, Lou, look at him." Max pretended not to notice the look he sent Jason. If he was a little jealous, fine. Better than fine. But she seriously doubted it was anything like that. He didn't like Jason. Hadn't from the moment he'd heard his voice on the phone, and his dislike and distrust seemed to be growing with every minute he spent in Jason's presence. She couldn't do anything about that right now, so she kept her focus on the matter at hand. The only cop in Endover. "If it wasn't daylight outside, I'd peg him for a vamp, no question. And I don't mean the good kind. Lily-white skin just hanging off his bones like sheets on a clothesline. Nothing underneath. No fat or muscle or... soul. And those eyes."

"Vamp?" Jason stared at her, his eyes widening.

"As in vampire, " Max whispered.

Lou glanced toward the door through which the cop had gone. The only thing visible back there were file boxes stacked high.

"You don't suppose he's found some way to over-come the natural aversion to daylight, do you?" Maxie whispered.

"Jesus, Max, you don't actually believe in that sort of thing. Do you?" Jason asked.

Maxie and Lou both looked at him. Max said, "You've missed a lot since you've been gone, pal."

"I hope you're planning to fill me in."

Lou jumped in before Max could answer, steering her back to their conversation. "You're jumping to conclusions, Max. You've got no evidence that Fieldner's a vamp. You're just wrought up about Stormy begging off the way she did."

Max had to look away, because he was dead right on that score. Stormy, claiming to be tired and wanting to hang out in her motel room and maybe take a nap-that was totally off. "It's not like her to admit to needing a rest-even when she does."

"I know "

"You're worried about her, too, then?"

Lou nodded.

Jason said, "Do you...have some reason to worry?" When they both looked at him, he went on. "She told me about the shooting. Is she really all right?"

"That's what the doctors keep telling us, " Max said.

"But you don't believe it?"

Chief Fieldner came back into the room, moving on legs that seemed too thin to carry a normal-size torso around. Yet despite his gauntness, he seemed strong. Almost unnaturally so. He had a map in his hand and was unfolding it even as he worked his way across the room to the desk, to lay it out.

"Here we go, " he said. A skinny finger with a cracked, chipped nail pointed to the map. "This is a map of the entire town. Here's that visitor center you were asking about." He lifted his dead, pale blue gaze to each of theirs in turn-they lingered longest on Ja son's face. "You have some basis for being curious about that particular spot?"

Yeah, Max thought. Stormy got an odd feeling about it. She hadn't said so, but Max had seen her reaction. It wasn't something she was willing to ignore. But she kept all of that to herself. Lou would think it was foolish, and it wasn't anything the others needed to know.

"Just seemed a likely place to start, " Lou said.

"It's closed, you know. Been closed for years."

Lou nodded. "We passed it on the way into town. Wouldn't have known it was closed to look at it. Maybe the girls didn't, either."

The chief sighed and returned his attention to the map. "Well, there's not much out there. Parkin' lot. Woods out back. You can see, those woods spread out some. Run right down to the coast. But I did a walk through myself, last night. Didn't find a thing."

"You searched the woods?" Lou sounded surprised.

"Well, sure. I took a look around after this young fellow told me about his sister and her friend vanishing like they did. I couldn't do anything official, them bein' gone only a matter of hours at the time. No sign of foul play. No basis for a case. But that doesn't mean I didn't want to help out if I could."

Lou sent Max a look, almost as if he were saying "See? I told you he was an all-right guy." She rolled her eyes, because she didn't agree. Lou turned his attention to the cop again. "How thoroughly did you search them?"

"As good as you could. Probably better, bein' I know my way around out there."

Lou nodded.

"You won't mind if we take a look ourselves all the same, will you?" Max asked. "Just for my peace of mind?"

"You wanna waste your time, be my guest, " the chief said. "Fact is, even if they did run off, I don't think two girls slipping away from their families to raise some hell would go into the woods to do it. No, I expect they'll turn up anytime now. You'll see."

"Still, I'd like to go out there, " Lou said.

The chief nodded. "Fine by me. Just make sure it's before dark"

Max went silent, turning wide eyes on Lou. His were just as startled, and then they both turned to stare at the chief. "Why's that?" Lou asked.

"This town has a dusk-to-dawn curfew in effect, " he said. "Didn't you see the sign?"

"A little town like this?" Max asked. Her voice had gone soft. She didn't want to start thinking what she was thinking. But damn. Vanishing girls. No one allowed out after dark. Scrawny pale guys? What was she supposed to think? "Mind if I ask why?"

The chief shrugged. "Aah, we had some trouble a few years back. Kids coming down from bigger towns, raising hell. It was starting to turn into party central for the college crowd. Beer bottles all over the beaches. Goddamn metal music blasting from their car radios." He shook his head. "It was a nuisance. So we instituted a curfew."

It was not, Max decided, a very logical reason.

Lou sighed. "As a professional courtesy, " Lou said, "one cop to another-"

"You're a cop?" Fieldner asked. ,

"Yeah. Twenty years on the force in White Plains . I'm retired now."

"I see." He seemed to mull that over and looked not at Lou, but at Jason.

"So as a favor to a fellow officer, would you give us permission to be out after dark if we need to?" Lou smiled his friendliest smile. "After all, it's not like we're going to have a beer party on the beach."

Fieldner held Jason's gaze until Jason looked away, then slid his cold eyes back to Lou. He said, "Last thing I need is for more of you to come up missing. Those woods are dangerous in the dark. I prefer you honor the curfew."

Lou sighed but nodded his acceptance of that edict. Max had no intention of obeying.

"If you don't mind my asking, " she said, "is it true you're the only cop in town?"

He smiled at her, though it, like every other expression, never reached his eyes. Behind the mustache, his teeth were big and yellow. "Have been for twenty years."

"You're shitting me."

His grin widened. "How many men do you think are needed to tend to a handful of retirees and a few families? Heck, that's all the more reason for the curfew. I have to sleep sometime." He got up from behind his desk, walked toward the door. Clearly, he'd had enough of them for one morning. "I'll tell you, I seriously doubt those girls are really missing at all. They're safe and sound someplace, probably out raising hell somewhere."

Max shot Jason a look, half expecting him to rise to his sister's defense. Instead he only shrugged. "It's possible. Delia's been...a little on the wild side lately."

Max got to her feet. "Guess we'll head over to that visitor center now. Check out those woods."

Lou shook the other man's hand, then followed Max out to the waiting car. Glancing her way, he said, "His hand was warm. He's got body heat."

"He probably had a hot pack tucked in his pocket."

She got in the front passenger side. Jason got in the back, shaking his head. "Just as suspicious as you always were, aren't you, Maxie?"

"Not as suspicious as I am, " Lou said as he got behind the wheel. "What were you thinking in there?"

"Excuse me?" Jason looked confused.

"Why did you agree with that cop that Delia probably just ran off?" He turned in his seat as he spoke.

"Why wouldn't I agree with him? It's possible, isn't it?"

"You aren't going to get any help from him if he thinks she's a runaway. And I don't think you'd be out here looking for her, much less that you would have dragged private detectives down here to look for her, if you really believed that, " Lou said.

"He's upset, that's all, Lou. Go easy on him. His sister's missing." Max sent Jason a reassuring smile, then faced Lou again. "Shouldn't we insist on an Amber Alert or something?"

Lou shook his head. "Delia and Janie don't meet the requirements. You have to know for sure a child's been abducted, and you need a description of the perp or at least his vehicle."

"That's asinine."

"That keeps kids who are lost or who've run away from clogging up the system-so the ones who really need help get it faster."

"And what about the ones who slip through the cracks?"

He shrugged. "I didn't say it was perfect. I happen to think it's the best system it can possibly be, flaws and all." Then he shrugged. "Besides, officially, she's not even missing."

She could have growled at him but didn't.

Lou looked at her. "Where to, Max? This is your game, your call."

Hell, he was the one with all the cop-sense, not to mention experience. His giving her the upper hand was a means to placate her, to skirt around her irritation with him for his treatment of Jason, and she knew it. But she would take it all the same.

Sighing, she said, "I want to check around town, like we discussed. The gas stations, diners, convenience stores. But I really want to check on Stormy first. Let's grab some take-out and head back. I don't like this town. I don't like that pimply-faced kid at the Bates Motel hack there, either."

"If we do all that first, that will make it heading for sun-down by the time we get to the visitor center, " Lou said.

She nodded. "Yeah. That's another reason. I want to see what goes on around this place after the sun goes down. Just what is it that creepy cop doesn't want us to see?"

"Oh, don't even start with the paranormal theories, Max. You've got no basis-"

"Don't start. We both know you're too skeptical to be objective." She sighed and changed the subject. "Did we bring flashlights?"

"Just one, " Lou said. "I think I saw a hardware store up here just...right there." He pointed to it just before pulling the car into the tiny square of parking lot in front of the store. The place was no bigger than a shack, but the sign on the door read Open.

Max got out of the car and hurried into the store at Lou's side.

For a small place, it held a lot of goods. The shelves were set close together, making narrow aisles. Not a shopping cart in sight. Every shelf was stacked with goods clear to the ceiling. Tools everywhere, a row for plumbing supplies, another for electrical, two rows devoted to gardening needs, with everything from soil, fertilizer and seeds, to hoes, rakes and shovels. A silver-haired woman was picking through the mesh sacks of flower bulbs when Max and Lou walked past her. She looked up, met their eyes and held them for an elastic moment, her own utterly blank, before finally returning her attention to the bulbs. Other customers wandered about, everyone placid-faced, calm.

Max fought down an insistent shiver. Something was just wrong with this place. With these people. "Found 'em, " Jason called.

He came around the corner bearing several flash lights-the big Maglite brand, with their bright colors. He'd grabbed two blues, a red and a black. "One for each of us?"

"Fine, " she said. "We'll need batteries." She took one of the lights from him. "Sixteen of them. D-size."

"I've got those up front, " a male voice said.

She damn near dropped the flashlight as she spun to see a tiny, bent-over man who reminded her of something from a Tolkien novel. He smiled up at her. Well, his eyes aimed upward. His head remained bent. The man had the worst case of what her mother had called "bend-over disease" that Maxie had ever seen.

"Uh. Thanks."

He turned stiffly and walked to the front of the store, leaving the three of them to follow. Max took out her wallet, ready to give her biz-only credit card its second workout.

"I should pay for this stuff, " Jason said.

"Don't worry, you will. It'll all be in your bill." She sent him a wink. The old Jason would at least have pretended to get the humor in her remark. This one just blinked at her.

Max rolled her eyes and followed the old man to the counter.

"You folks are new in town, eh? Just visiting?" the proprietor asked.

"We're here to search for two missing girls, " Max said. "In fact, maybe you can help. Have you noticed any teenage girls who shouldn't be here? They would have been driving a small red car." As she spoke, Jason pulled a photo from his wallet and handed it to her. She showed it to the man.

The man looked at the photo, then at her, meanwhile taking one flashlight from her and slowly punching numbers into his cash register. "Can't say that I have. Though I'm sure they'll turn up. Girls, you say? How old?"

"Seventeen, " Jason answered. "The one in the photo is my sister."

The man set the first flashlight down, picked up the second, peered at it and again began punching numbers. Good God, couldn't he just ring one of them up and multiply by four? "Well, you'll find her. Chief Fieldner, he's a good man. A good man."

He rang up the third light and started on the fourth. "Has he handled this sort of thing before?" Lou asked. "Missing-persons cases, I mean?"

"Oh, sure. It happens now and again. Hasn't lost one yet." He reached beneath the counter and began setting four packs of D-cell batteries on the counter.

"So this has happened before, then?" Max asked. "When?"

He peered at her, worry in his eyes. "I was speakin' in generalizations, missy. I can't think of a specific case. But you know, there's not much hasn't happened in a town as old as this one at one time or another." He rang up the batteries with fingers that suddenly moved efficiently-and quickly. Before she knew what happened, the items were bagged and he was swiping her credit card.

"Is there anyone else in charge around here? Besides Chief Fieldner, I mean?" Max asked.

"I don't know who would be." He drummed his fingers, waiting for the credit machine to work.

"Don't you have a mayor? A town supervisor? Anything like that?"

"No one but the prince."

"You have a prince?"

He grinned. "It's just a nickname"

The old woman stepped up behind Max with her arms full of bulbs. "Sam!" she snapped. "You mind picking up the pace a bit? I don't have all day."

Max sent her a frown, but even as she did, she heard the credit-card machine whirring to life as it spat out her receipt. Sam shoved it across the counter with a pen, and Max signed it.

"You have a nice day now. Good luck tracking down those girls."

"But you didn't answer my-"

"Honestly, some people." The old woman shouldered Max out of the way to lay her piles of bulbs on the counter. "Now, one of these has a split bulb in it, Sam. I don't expect to be paying full price for that."

"I'll take care of it, Maddy."

Lou took Max's arm about a half second before she hit the old lady's head off. She shot him a look. He advised caution with his eyes and pulled gently, so she gave in and let him lead her out of the store.

"Jesus, " Max said as soon as they were outside. "Are they all fucking vampires around here?"

"Nope, " Lou said. "Still daylight."

"But what the hell? And who is this goddamn prince person, anyway? Was Gollum back there hallucinating or what?"

"His name was Sam. And just be patient. We'll find out" He popped the trunk at the VW's front end. She dropped the bag inside and got into the car. Jason said nothing, maybe afraid to get between them at that moment.

"I'd have made him talk, " Max said.

"And if that's what you want to do, you can go right back in there and do it."

Lou sat there, maddening in his patience. A boy rode past on a red bicycle, a sack of newspapers over his shoulder. "Fine, " Max said at length. "I'll bite. What's the `but'?"

"But, " Lou said, smiling because he had made her ask, "you'll make enemies of everyone in this town if you do it your way. You're an outsider. You get pushy and unpleasant, it's gonna burn through the Endover grapevine like a brushfire. If you're nice, on the other hand, people start wanting to help you out."

She pursed her lips. "I hate when you're right."

"No you don't, " he said. "You hate when you're wrong. Which is why I usually don't point it out."

"Hey!"

He smiled at her. A real smile. She hadn't been on the receiving end of one of those since their conversation the night before, and seeing one now made her melt. Hell, Lou could correct her all day, and she'd still want him. He could treat her dearest old friend like a murder suspect, and even then, she still wanted him. She had it bad.