“I think we’re done here,” she said. “Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Spivak.”

He walked them to the door and let them out. “I hope you find him before he hurts someone.”

“So do we.” Stella followed Brody out to the car. Her stomach churned. “How many hotline tips do we have?”

“There were eighty-seven calls to the hotline, but most were useless.” Brody pulled out a sheet of paper. “We have six.”

“Six?” Stella climbed into the car, numb. “This will take all afternoon. He killed Dena within the first day. We don’t even know how long he’s had the new girl or whether it’s Gianna or Janelle or someone else. All we know is that he has a girl and she doesn’t have long to live.”

Brody and Stella spent a fruitless afternoon hoping for a break, but as the afternoon stretched into evening and the whereabouts of Gianna and Janelle remained a mystery, Stella’s patience frayed.

“Brody, what if we don’t find them?” Stella’s voice cracked.

“We can’t think like that. We just have to keep going. What’s the next address?” Brody slowed the car while Stella read the list under the dome light.

“Forty-two Sycamore Street.”

The two drove in silence until Brody turned onto Sycamore.

She focused on a passing mailbox. “There’s thirty-six.”

Brody eased off the gas as they passed three more houses in the encroaching gloom. The lots and houses were large in this section of Scarlet Falls.

Stella searched for house numbers in the dimness. “Here it is.” She pointed to a yellow Victorian across the street from a pharmacy. “Big houses like this must cost a fortune to maintain.”

Brody owned an old beauty near the center of town. “They do, which is why so many of them get broken down into smaller units like this one.”

He parked at the curb. Originally a large house, the home had been divided into four smaller apartments. White gingerbread trim cried for repairs and a fresh coat of paint. Overgrown shrubs brushed the faded asbestos siding. From the street, the backyard looked like a rhododendron jungle.

“Your house is gorgeous,” Stella said. This one was decidedly not. She tugged her blazer over her handgun and stared at the building.

Brody got out of the driver’s seat. “Is this the right address?”

“Yes.” She checked her list. “We’re looking for Jim Crawley in apartment four.”

“What does Mr. Crawley claim to know?” Brody straightened his tie. He’d loosened the knot in the car.

“He claims to have seen a woman taken from the church parking lot last Thursday night. Says she appeared to be incapacitated. He thought her male companion was helping her, but now he thinks maybe he got that wrong.”

“So he might have seen Missy’s abduction?” Brody asked.