“Katie,” I said. “Katie, look at me. I need to know that you’re listening to me.” She turned her head slightly. “I know things may look bad right now, but I’m going to see if I can make things okay. Maybe not as okay as they were before, but better than they are now.”

Katie sniffed.

“I promise you I’ll do the best I can,” I said.

Katie sniffed again, and she opened her mouth. “Are you going to get me my other mommy?” she asked.

“I’m supposed to be going to see her now,” I said. “I hope I can get in to see her.”

“Can you tell her something?” Katie asked.

“What’s that, sweetheart?”

“Tell her my other mommy can’t be my mommy anymore, so I need her to be my mommy all the time instead of just once in a while.”

I nodded. “I’ll tell her that,” I said. I reached my hand tentatively toward her, not sure whether she’d pull away. She did not, and I pulled her head toward me and kissed her forehead. “For sure, I’ll tell her. I’m sure she’ll be very worried about you and will do everything she can.”

“Also,” Katie said, “I need a daddy. I didn’t have an extra one of those.”

Was she simply in shock? Was she traumatized? Or was she the bravest little five-year-old I’d ever encountered? Or was it a bit of both?

“I’ll tell her,” I said.

“Let’s hit the road,” Merker said behind me. I touched Katie softly on the head, looked one last time into her sad eyes, and turned to face him. He had a real gun in his hand this time, not the one he’d used to stun me. Fifty thousand volts were bad, but they were preferable to one real bullet.

He led me out to his blue pickup, a rust-eaten twenty-year-old Ford that sat up high on oversized tires. Four-wheel drive, by the look of it. I hauled myself up into the passenger side as Merker settled in behind the wheel. He slid the keys into the ignition, turned it, and I wondered if I’d misread the nameplate on the side, and that we’d actually climbed aboard a John Deere. He tapped the accelerator a couple of times and the engine roared like an oversized tractor. He put the column shift into reverse, but held his foot on the brake and gave me a look.

“Let’s just be clear,” he said. “You try anything stupid, you try to run, you try to get the cops, I call Leo, and that kid dies. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said.

“We’re going to do this thing, we’re going to find out where my money is, and when I get it, stop by a playground, let the girl go.”