She went to a drawer in an antique painted cabinet that stood near the front door, looking like she expected to reach in and come out with the key, but that didn’t happen. She dug through the drawer, frowning.

“Do you have it or not?” Dixon prodded.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “It should be here. I must have left it in my purse.”

“Jesus Christ,” Vince growled. “Slap the cuffs on her and bring her as an accessory.”

“You can’t arrest me! I haven’t done anything!”

“No, you haven’t,” Vince said, stepping toward her. “You know the big thing you haven’t done? You haven’t once asked us who the abducted woman is. Don’t you find that a little strange, Detective Mendez?”

“Unless she already knows the name,” he said.

“Exactly.”

“I don’t know anything about it!” she said. “And I don’t believe you can think Peter would know anything about it, either!”

“Peter, who’s taking an imaginary drive in the dead of night with your lock-box key in his pocket?” Vince asked, the volume of his voice increasing with every word. “Maybe he’s having an imaginary tea party with Anne Navarre. What do you think, Janet?”

She had to be thinking she wished he would drop dead before her eyes, but she was so flustered, she seemed not to be able to respond at all.

“Where’s the boy?” Vince asked the room at large. “Maybe he knows where his father goes when he can’t stand to be in the house with this woman anymore.”

Janet gasped her outrage and drew breath to fire something back at him.

“Where’s your son, Janet?” Dixon asked.

“He’s in bed!”

Mendez took a couple of steps toward the staircase and called out, “Hey, Tommy!”

“Don’t shout in my home!” Janet Crane shouted at him. She pushed past him and started up the stairs. “I won’t have you frighten my son.”

“Hey, Tommy!” Mendez called again.

Peter Crane’s wife disappeared into the second story of her home. Vince jammed his hands at his waist and paced. Every minute that ticked past . . .

He knew exactly what Peter Crane had done to his victims. He died inside again and again as he thought of Karly Vickers lying blind, deaf, and mutilated in a hospital bed.

“Tommy?” Janet Crane’s voice called out. “Tommy? Tommy, answer me!”

Mendez started up the stairs. Janet ran down to the landing, paper white and breathing hard.

“He’s gone! My son is gone! Oh my God! My son is missing!”

Chapter 89

89

He wanted control. He needed a plan. None of this had been a plan. All of it was going wrong.

He would never have chosen the teacher as a victim. She would fight. She had. Now his nose was broken and his mouth was bleeding. He wouldn’t be able to hide that.