“Les says Petra was playing at detective for you, Vicki.”

“Vic,” I corrected.

Strangwell ignored me. “I had to read Petra the riot act when I found she was looking up information for Vicki here on campaign time. I’m sorry, Peter. Now I can’t help wondering if I wounded her pride, and she ran away.”

“It’s not like Petra to be hypersensitive,” my uncle said, “but you’re such a ruthless SOB, Strangwell, maybe you were crueler than you realized at the moment.”

“This is a very strange chorus.” I was trying not to lose my temper because that would cost me judgment. “Is that what you did while I was waiting? Agree on the song and the harmony? Petra ran away because big, mean Les was too tough for her? I chewed her out good and hard for rummaging through my private possessions, and she bounced back like the proverbial Pillsbury Doughboy. But now you want me to think she might have run off because Les hurt her feelings?”

“George is putting a team together for us,” Harvey Krumas said. “We know you love your cousin. But someone like you will hurt us more than help us.”

“Someone like me being what?”

“A pretty ineffectual solo op,” Strangwell said crisply. “You haven’t found a person you’ve been hunting for over a month. But you did get a wonderful nun killed.”

I felt it where he intended it, right below the diaphragm, that place where your insides collapse in on you when you think of all the terrible mistakes you’ve made.

“I’m impressed that you’ve gone to so much trouble to uncover my workload.” I tried to keep my voice steady. “Still, I don’t think you should discount what I can do.”

“I don’t want you to do anything.” My uncle was close to tears. “Rachel has left town to be with the girls, and I’m turning everything over to George. He’s in charge.”

“What did Derek Hatfield tell you when you met with the FBI?” I asked. “Is he comfortable, too, with letting George’s team run the search?”

“They’re overworked, Vicki,” Dornick said. “Of course they’ll put some agents in play. But Hatfield knows what I can do, and he knows he can trust my operatives to behave sensibly if it turns out we have a ransom or hostage situation on our hands.”

I looked at my uncle. “Petra usually calls Rachel at least once a day. Hasn’t she been in touch at all?”

My uncle made a rough, meaningless gesture. “We kept calling and getting her voice mail. Why she can’t answer—”

“Her battery seems to be dead,” Dornick said.

I raised my eyebrows. “You’ve been using your GPS monitors to track her, then. Where did you last pick up a trace?”