But the obvious items were missing: computer, purse, cell phone and/or BlackBerry. There was no secret diary. No love letters. No address book or phone Rolodex. In the boxes of clothes, she had found a backpack that she’d unzipped, searched, and even turned upside down. One of the straps had been broken, but there was nothing inside except an empty pack of cigarettes, two sticks of gum, a half-full box of breath mints, couple of receipts from a local quickie mart, a squashed tampon, and a rubber band.

She felt a little like Geraldo Rivera when he’d opened up what was supposed to be Al Capone’s vault on live national TV in the eighties, expecting to find all kinds of treasures or evidence against the gangster only to find the area empty except for debris. Which is just what Kristi had—nothing but debris from a missing girl.

After almost being discovered by Hiram, she’d made three trips downstairs with her laundry bag, hauling up Tara’s things bit by bit, then searching through the pockets of her pants and jackets, looking for anything that might be a clue. But nothing came to light.

“My father would be disappointed,” she said to the cat as he stared at her from an upper shelf on the bookcase flanking one side of the fireplace. “What am I missing?” She sifted through the piles of jeans, khakis, and shorts, then the sweaters, T-shirts, and jackets one more time.

Nothing.

Disappointment crawled through her. “Maybe I’m just not cut out for this,” she muttered while the cat watched her box up Tara’s things. Either Tara had taken everything of value with her when she left, or her abductor had. Kristi folded her own laundry, whipped out a paper for Dr. Preston’s writing class, and kept nodding off in bed while reading the latest assignment from the tome of Shakespearean plays.

“Tomorrow,” she confided in Houdini as he hopped onto the bed and lay in the far corner, still ready to jump for cover should she startle him. Theirs was a growing, but extremely tentative, relationship. Bit by bit Houdini was edging closer, almost letting her pet him upon occasion, though his ears were often pinned back. Whenever she reached down he leaned away from her. She’d only managed to brush her fingertips along the tips of his fur.

Not too far from the way she and Jay reacted to each other, she thought. Wary. Suspicious. Interested but frightened. God, why did she always seem to return to Jay? He was her professor and he’d agreed to help her figure out what had happened to the four girls, but that was it. There was absolutely nothing romantic or sexual in their relationship. And that’s the way it had to stay.

“Right, Houdini?” she asked.

The cat gazed at her, unblinking.