“Here you go.” She set a sheet of paper and a pen on the rolling table, which she pulled across his lap.

“Thank you.”

She raised his bed into a sitting position, told him he had about twenty minutes before she returned for the pen and bustled out.

Spots danced before his eyes as he hunched over, trying to see well enough to write. He knew what Amarok would ask. The sergeant would want to know why he should trust the information Jasper had to give him, so there was a lot Jasper needed to communicate. How Chastity had realized she might get more from talking to the other patients at Beacon Point than the doctors. How the guy in the next room claims to have heard Bishop and the janitor discussing an abandoned warehouse in the industrial part of Anchorage in the days leading up to Bishop’s escape. And, above all, how Evelyn’s name had been used in that conversation.

But Jasper could manage to scrawl only a few words—even then he wasn’t sure Amarok would be able to read them—before blacking out: Old FedEx Warehouse in Anchorage.

Anchorage, AK—Wednesday, 11:00 p.m. AKDT

It wasn’t quite dark, but Ada felt this was the best time to visit the ranch. She could see well enough that she wouldn’t need to rely too heavily on her flashlight. A beam dancing around outside the window could all too easily draw Edmonson’s attention; she didn’t want to turn it on unless she absolutely had to. And yet dusk provided her with some cover.

As she got out of the car, she couldn’t help remembering her husband’s warning not to come back alone. He’d repeated that warning when she’d spoken to him this morning, and, once again, she’d promised she wouldn’t. But she still hadn’t heard from her mother. Neither had any of her sisters.

The police had gone out to her mother’s house at six and found nothing to indicate trouble. She’d been at the vet clinic when they went—there’d been an emergency just before she got off, so she’d stayed to help—but she’d told them where to find the key, so they’d been able to go inside. Now that they’d looked through the house, they believed her that there was no evidence Edna had purchased a plane ticket or a cruise, could see for themselves that her makeup and luggage were still there. Now they were searching for her car.

Or so they said. Ada hadn’t heard anything since they finished up at six thirty. She feared the officer who was investigating had simply gone home to his family after he left her mother’s place and any further investigation would have to wait until morning.

What could she do? He wasn’t approaching the situation with the same degree of alarm because it wasn’t his mother who’d gone missing. That, more than anything else, was what convinced Ada she had to do all she could herself. If she found something suspicious here on the ranch—her mother’s car, purse or some article of clothing—perhaps they’d take the situation more seriously. They might even be able to get a search warrant.