Barbara Shields nodded. “I thought right away about how much Nell sounded like Nealy. That’s what Mrs. Case’s friends call her, you know.”

A similar name. A freckle that might have been a negative blur. Not enough to build a case on, just enough to keep them interested.

They continued their questioning, and Shields provided them with more detailed descriptions of the man and the teenager, but it wasn’t until they were ready to leave that she recalled her most useful piece of information.

“Oh, I almost forgot. They were driving a yellow Winnebago. I watched them leave through the window. I don’t know much about motor homes, but it didn’t look real new.

“A yellow Winnebago?”

“It was pretty dirty, like they’d been driving it for a while.”

“You didn’t happen to get the license plate, did you?”

“As a matter of fact, I did.” Barbara Shields went for her purse.

Willow Grove, Iowa, sat on a bluff looking down over a branch of the Iowa River. It was a town of church steeples and antiques shops, a town where red brick houses alternated with white clapboard and where mature maples shaded the narrow streets. A small private college occupied several blocks near the center, and an old inn sat across from City Hall, which was topped with a copper cupola. The rain had ended, and the copper glinted in the frail streaks of late afternoon sunshine that managed to peak through the cloud cover.

Nealy told herself there couldn’t be a more perfect place for children to grow up, and apparently Mat was thinking the same thing. “This is going to be great for the girls.”

He’d stopped at a store on the outskirts to buy dog food and get directions to the street where the girls’ grandmother lived. It was close to the downtown area and ran along the top of the bluff. In the spaces between houses, she caught occasional glimpses of the river below.

“Number one-eleven,” he said. “There it is.”

He pulled up in front of a red brick two-story with white trim. All the houses on the street seemed to have front porches and detached garages. This one was square and solid, the kind of house that generations of families all over the Midwest had grown up in.

It looked a bit more neglected than the others on the street because there were no summer flowers blooming by the shrubbery or growing from pots on the front porch. The grass needed mowing, and the white trim didn’t look as fresh as its neighbors’. But it wasn’t rundown. Instead, it simply appeared as if its inhabitant had other things she’d rather do.

“That mangy mut’s staying locked up until Grandma’s had time to get over the shock of the girls,” Mat said.

She realized he was nervous. So was she. At least he’d stopped snapping at her.