She raised herself up as far as she could and tried to scream. Nothing came out. “Up here,” she said, but it was just a croak, and the searchers were making so much noise by this time that it would have been a miracle if anyone had heard her. The excited barking of a dog, who seemed to be rushing back and forth, added to the noise and confusion. Tears of frustration fell down her cheeks as she realized that the searchers were moving farther away from her. Then, from relatively close by, she heard a voice, a voice she knew very well, saying, “I’ll just try up here—you go on ahead, sir.” Amanda pushed herself up to a sitting position with her good hand, pain dulled by terror. Through the branches she could see a young, handsome man, a little tired and in need of a shave, but very familiar, making his way up the mud and gravel of the spring stream bed. “No!” she screamed. “Not him! He’s the one—” and once again she hurled herself down the precipice, rolling wildly past the startled figure of Constable Rick Gruber, who stood silent, then dropped the rock in his hand. Amanda landed on the path at the feet of an astonished John Sanders.

By nine o’clock Thursday morning Eleanor was sitting in a small waiting room at the Toronto General Hospital, hoping for news of Amanda. She yawned fiercely, absolutely exhausted by a night in which she had caught only moments of sleep in a large chair in Kate’s living room. It had been eleven o’clock before they had been able to establish with certainty what had lured Amanda out of school, when the errant Mrs. Cowper had told them what the false telephone message had been. Roz Johnson had turned white with anger. “That is an obscene thing to do. Nothing else would have made a girl like Amanda wander off alone.” Then the matter had been left entirely to the police. They had left Roz to catch what sleep she could and returned to Kate’s. And Kate, pale with guilt and anxiety, had called her brother and sister-in-law in California to let them know that their only daughter, clever and pretty and well-beloved, had been abducted on the way home from school.

John Sanders had been in and out all night, once staying long enough to catch an hour’s sleep on Kate’s couch. The news that there had been a plot to abduct Amanda had infused him with energy and guarded optimism.

“You realize, don’t you,” he had said briskly to Eleanor, “that this is the first hope we’ve had.”

She shook her head in bewilderment. “I don’t understand you at all. It doesn’t seem particularly hopeful to me.”

“Well, the rapist seems to grab his victims entirely at random—and when he attacks, he kills.” Sanders paused. “I don’t know why someone wanted to snatch this particular girl, but there is a chance that it was for some other reason than killing her. And so she might be alive.”

Eleanor had shuddered. “Do you think Kate realizes that?” she had asked.

“I suspect so. She’s a very clever woman.”

Eleanor yawned one more time. If someone didn’t turn up soon, she was going to fall asleep here in the waiting room. As she started to nod off, the door opened, and Kate appeared.

“How is she?” asked Eleanor groggily.

Kate smiled broadly in relief. “She’s all right. Relatively. She has a badly fractured collarbone and a sprained wrist, and she’s a mass of scrapes and bruises. She’s suffering from shock and exposure, but they’re very cheerful about it in there. They say she’ll be fine in no time. Except for the collarbone. She’s out like a light still, and they won’t let us disturb her.” The door swung open once again, and John Sanders walked in, looking rumpled and dark-jowled. Kate looked at her watch suddenly in alarm. “My God. Eleanor—David and Suzanne are coming in on the 10:15 flight, and I have to meet them. They don’t even realize that Amanda has been found. They’ll be sick with worry. Could you stay here in case she wakes up? It would be awful if no one was with her.”

“Sure,” said Eleanor heroically. “Just tell them I’m a temporarily authorized visitor, that’s all.”

“Thanks,” said Kate, and disappeared.

“Don’t worry,” said John. “She won’t be alone. We still want to know what’s going on, and we haven’t had a chance to talk to her. She was screaming something about ‘No, no, he’s something-or-other’ when she passed out at my feet, and I’d like to know what she was talking about. It’s clear she was running away from ‘him.’ It would help if we knew what happened last night.” He sat down on a large couch and pulled her down beside him. “Why don’t you go home and get some sleep?” He gave her a long look. “Or better yet, go to my place and get some sleep. It’s very quiet, and maybe I can get back there this afternoon.”

She snuggled her head sleepily on his shoulder. “No. Kate will expect me to be here when she gets back, and people will start talking if I don’t go home sometime.” She kissed him on the neck and settled herself more comfortably against him.

Sanders looked up and caught the eye of an embarrassed young constable standing in the door of the waiting room. “I think they already are,” he said.

Chapter 10

The embarrassed constable, torn between tact and necessity, was making a valiant try to catch John Sanders’ attention without appearing to notice him. He looked infinitely relieved when Sanders finally made his way over.

“Excuse me, sir, but it’s about the girl. She’s awake, sort of, and the doctor says we can talk to her for a little while if we have to, but she’s—she won’t cooperate.”

“What do you mean, won’t cooperate?”

“Well, every time Collins tried to say something, she just kind of shrieked and the nurse got very upset. I think she’s scared of something, sir.” He looked back over his shoulder. “Then Sergeant Dubinsky tried to talk to her, but she just kept staring over at Collins and blinking sort of funny. The nurse said that maybe she wasn’t really awake yet. Sergeant Dubinsky would appreciate it if you could come and—uh—assess the situation.”

“Thanks,” Sanders said abstractly. “I’ll be along in a moment.” He turned from the door and went back to Eleanor. “Apparently she’s awake, but she’s too nervous or frightened to talk. Is she a terribly shy girl?”

“Not that I’ve noticed,” said Eleanor. “She’s rather quiet, but she doesn’t run out of the room in terror at the sight of a stranger.”

“Why don’t you—she knows you, and you might reassure her a bit.”

“Of course,” she said, with a yawn. “Anything to oblige. Let’s go.”

Amanda was in a private room, with her left arm and shoulder encased thickly in plaster, and an intravenous feed clipped into her right hand. She looked pale and, groggy, but Eleanor’s face, swimming into focus above her, elicited a smile.

“Eleanor,” she said thickly. “That’s nice. Where’s Aunt Kate?”

“She’s gone to the airport. To pick up your parents.”

Amanda’s eyes widened in horror. “Oh, no! That’s—”

“It’s all right, sweetheart,” interrupted Eleanor soothingly. “We know all about that. But this time she really is there, and your parents really are on that plane. How are you feeling?”

“Awful. But not as awful as I did before.” Her voice began to sound stronger and not as thick.

“Terrific. Now, I’ve brought John Sanders in to talk to you. He’s a friend of mine, but he’s also a police detective, and he’s trying to find out what happened to you. We know about the fake phone call, but that’s all.” She waved John over to the bed. “Here he is.”

Amanda’s good right hand, intravenous and all, reached out and clutched at Eleanor. “Are you going to stay?”

“Of course I am, if you want me to.” She tried to smile reassuringly. “But John is very nice, even for a cop. Really he is. And you’ll be perfectly safe with him here.”