“Let me see what I can dig up.” Toni began to head for the phone, then paused. Normal procedure would be to hand this off to a West Virginia field office, but there was nothing normal about the task force assigned to find Aurora. She and Jason, for example reported directly to Ken Braddock, the assistant director in charge of the National Security Division, and they could either follow their own leads or pass them off.

She picked up the phone, cradled it in her neck, and regarded her partner. “I intend to head for West Virginia first thing tomorrow, Boy Howdy. How about you? Is seven o’clock too early?”

“I was planning to leave at six, but if you need a little more rest, I understand.”

Oh, she was starting to like this kid.

The nape of Mat’s neck was still prickling. It had been so weird, standing there in the middle of the Waynes’ motor home with Button’s yellow Bo Peep romper in his hand and listening to Dateline report Cornelia Case’s disappearance. The whole thing was one of those weird coincidences, but as he walked back to Mabel, his neck still tingled. It was the same feeling he got when he was working on a big story.

He couldn’t help but make a mental comparison between Nell Kelly and Cornelia Case. Despite their surface similarities, Mrs. Case was cool and sophisticated, almost ethereal, while Nell was funny, approachable, and very real. After the first impression, they didn’t even look that much alike. Nell’s hair was different, and even though she was thin, she didn’t have that upper-class clothes-hanger look Mrs. Case had. Mrs. Case’s forehead was higher, she was taller than Nell, and her eyes weren’t as blue. And, most of all, Mrs. Case wouldn’t have let Mathias Jorik kiss her.

He chuckled to himself. If Nell put on a wig, spruced herself up a little, and wore higher heels, she might be able to walk right to the doors of the White House and pass herself off as the First Lady. Then, when the real Mrs. Case came back, no one would believe it was her. It’d be a chick version of The Prince and the Pauper. What a great story!

He opened the door and stepped inside the motor home all ready to tell her about it when he saw her sitting on the couch, and his smile faded. She was wearing her blue cotton nightgown with her feet tucked beneath her. All the lights were out except one small lamp. The light spilled across her face. She looked as delicate and ethereal as a fifteenth century Madonna, and he found it impossible to imagine her doing anything as silly as buying a ceramic frog, driving a motor home, or mooing to a cranky baby.

The skin at the back of his neck prickled. She looked very much like Cornelia Case.