She jerked awake. They were parked behind the inn. She must have dozed off. Grabbing her pack, she got out and trooped across the grass. On the back porch, her fingers fumbled with the wet laces of her hiking boots. The dog barked inside.

“Honey doesn’t usually bark much.” Jed clumped up the porch steps.

“Mandy?” Danny stopped behind her. She turned. He was pointing few feet to her left. She followed his finger. Next to the back door sat the pot of drooping pansies.

Mandy’s empty stomach cramped. She lunged for the door.

Three retirees in fly-fishing vests were in the kitchen helping themselves to juice and muffins.

“Good morning.” Mandy slowed her steps. “Is my mother around?”

“We haven’t seen her,” one fisherman said. “We’re getting a late start today, though. She could’ve been up earlier.”

Honey ran to the door to the family quarters and scratched. Mandy pushed past the dog. The living room was empty and quiet. Too quiet for a house with Bill in it. Mandy went down the hall that led to the bedrooms. She knocked lightly—“Mom?”—then opened the door. Her mother lay facedown on the braided area rug. One hand clutched her chest. The other extended toward the nightstand, where the cordless phone charged.

“Call 911,” Mandy barked over her shoulder. Jed and Danny appeared in the doorway. Jed grabbed the phone. He moved to the corner of the room and dialed.

Mandy gently rolled her mother over. “Mom.”

Her mother’s eyes fluttered. “Find,” she wheezed, “Bill.”

Danny jogged down the hall, opening doors and calling for her brother.

Mandy’s heart kicked again, pressure and panic constricting her throat. “Mom, where’s Bill?”

Her mother’s eyes drifted shut. Danny dropped onto his knees beside her. “He isn’t in the apartment.” He pressed his fingers to her mother’s neck. “She’s hanging on.”

Barely. Her skin was gray, her breaths shallow.

Jed’s boots clumped in from the kitchen. “Ambulance is on the way. Called Doug, too, but nobody can find him.”

She looked up at Jed. “Bill’s gone.”

Numbness spread through Mandy’s body; her mind overloaded as every fear she’d harbored for the past four months came to fruition. Her mother lay dying, and Mandy had failed to protect her brother. Bill, who would never hurt anyone, was now at Nathan’s mercy.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Conor dug into a slice of blueberry pie. Across from him, Dr. Hancock sipped black coffee. Voices and utensils echoed in the tile-floored diner.

The doctor’s French-manicured fingers flipped open the file. “The objects stolen are: a box of Celtic coins; a bronze cauldron; a few chips of the bluestones from Stonehenge; a bronze shield; three small bronze figures of horses; and some jewelry, including a ring.”

“May I look at that?”

She handed him the file.