After leaving the club, Amarok had gone to the Anchorage Police Department to see if they’d been able to learn anything about the carpet-cleaning van. He’d been hoping they’d found it, that something about where it had been dumped would arm him with new information. If it was possible to glean DNA evidence or fingerprints from the vehicle, he could probably find out the man’s name and track him via his mobile phone or credit cards or, barring that, his friends and associates.

It could make a big difference in finding Evelyn.

But the stolen van hadn’t been located. The only thing Amarok learned was what the investigating detective—there was only one specializing in car thefts—could tell him when he called her at home. She’d said she believed the van was taken while the bouncer was inside, handling a minor disturbance in which a guy got drunk, tried to start a fight and had to be escorted off the premises. No one saw the man with the scar after that, and when Dax walked out of the joint over an hour later the van was gone.

Amarok could only hope it would be found. He’d tried driving through the neighborhoods surrounding Roxanne’s, looking for it. But stumbling across it like that, in a completely random way, was highly unlikely.

Instead of wasting more time, he’d headed home. He’d already checked his answering machine remotely—there weren’t any messages from Evelyn or whoever had abducted her. He needed a fresh lead and planned to search through the boxes she had archived above their garage to review the files of her previous patients to see if details he’d found so far lined up with anyone she’d worked with in Boston.

Later, when it wasn’t quite so early in Boston, he had some calls to make, too. The first one needed to be to her family. He had to tell them what was going on before they heard about it in the news.

As he started the descent into Hilltop, his radio crackled to life.

“Amarok, you copy?”

Suddenly realizing that he’d been driving while half-asleep, he blinked as Makita barked, and, with a fresh jolt of adrenaline, snatched up the handpiece. “Right here, Phil. What’s up?”

It was getting late, but Phil had stayed at the trooper post in case Evelyn tried to call—or someone else tried to contact him with information. “Maybe nothing.”

Amarok was almost as relieved by those two words as he was disappointed. Although he craved a break in the case, he’d been terrified that Phil was about to tell him Evelyn’s body had been discovered—and it showed signs of torture and mutilation, which would be even worse than simply finding her dead. “What is it?” he asked.

“I just received a call from someone named Dax O’Leary.”

“That’s the owner of the carpet-cleaning van that was stolen. I spoke to him a couple of hours ago. Why’d he call?”

“He was so drunk he was slurring his words. It was tough to understand him, but I’m pretty sure he said to tell you that the ‘gladiator’ you were talking about has shown up at a place called The Landing Strip.”