“Jack?” Gia said. She was plainly frightened now. Everything was wrong here.

“He’s not here,” said a hoarse, cracked, whispery voice.

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. Will you look for him?”

“Yes… yes.” The question was unexpected. “I need him right away.”

“Find Jack! Find him and bring him back! Bring him back!”

The door slammed closed as Gia stumbled away, propelled by the sense of desperate urgency that had filled that voice.

What was happening here? Why was there some strange shadowy person in Jack’s apartment instead of Jack? There was no time for mysteries—Vicky was missing and Jack could find her! Gia held on to that thought. It was all that kept her from going insane. Even so, the sense of nightmare unreality that had come over her after finding Vicky gone gripped her again. The walls wavered around her as she played along with the bad dream…

… down the stairs, through the doors, down to the street to where the Honda sits double parked, start it up, drive to where you think—hope!—Abe’s shop is… tears on your face…

Oh, Vicky, how am I ever going to find you? I’ll die without you!

… drive past darkened brownstones and storefronts until a dark blue panel truck pulls into the curb to the left just ahead and Jack gets out of the passenger side…

Jack!

Gia was suddenly back in the real world. She slammed on the brakes. Even as the Honda was skidding to a stalled stop, she was out of the door and running to him, crying his name.

“Jack!”

He turned and Gia saw his face go white at the sight of her. He ran forward.

“Oh, no! Where’s Vicky?”

He knew! Her expression, her very presence here must have told him. Gia could hold back the fear and grief no longer. She began sobbing as she collapsed into his arms.

“She’s gone!”

“God! When? How long?” She thought he was going to cry. His arms tightened around her until her ribs threatened to break.

“An hour… no more than an hour and a half.”

“But how?”

“I don’t know! All I found was an orange under her bed, like the one—”

“NO!” Jack’s anguished shout was a physical pain in her ear, then he spun away from her, walking a step or two in one direction, then in another, his arms swinging at the air like a wind-up toy out of control. “He’s got Vicky! He’s got Vicky!”

“It’s all my fault, Jack. If I’d stayed with her instead of watching that stupid movie, Vicky would be all right now.”

Jack suddenly stopped moving. His arms lay quiet against his sides.

“No,” he said in a voice that chilled her with its flat, iron tone. “You couldn’t have changed the outcome. You’d only be dead.” He turned to Abe. “I’ll need to borrow your truck, Abe, and I’ll also need an inflatable raft with oars. And the highest power field glasses you can find. Got them?”