back in the Jeep, waiting for the deputies to arrive, Bernie placed a second call to the school.
“No, Sheriff Granger, Ms. Hardy isn’t here, but her mother and brother-in-law are. They’re terribly worried,” Ms. Everett said. “They found her car on County Road One-fifty-seven, but Thomasina was nowhere to be seen.”
“May I speak to the brother-in-law?”
“Sure, he’s right here.”
“Yeah, this is Mike Anderson. Have you found Thomasina?”
“No, sorry,” Bernie said. “We’re here where she left her car parked on One-fifty-seven. I’ve called in deputies to secure the scene.”
“You think something bad has happened to her, don’t you?”
“I don’t know.” Don’t get emotionally involved. Act in a professional manner. “Once the scene is secure, my chief deputy and I would like to talk to Thomasina’s family, especially her sister.”
“Which sister? She has two.”
“The one who went with her to speak to Chief Nichols this evening.”
“That would be my wife,” Mike said. “Amanda.” He lowered his voice to little more than a whisper. “Look, Inez, Thomasina’s mom, doesn’t know anything about the stalker. Thomasina had just told Amanda this afternoon, and Amanda told me this evening. Is there any way we can keep this from Inez? She’s worried enough as it is.”
“Mr. Anderson, I’d like for you and Mrs. Hardy to go home to your house, tell your wife what’s happened and wait for us. I’m afraid we can’t keep the facts a secret from your mother-in-law. Thomasina was being stalked and now she’s missing. One and one usually adds up to two.”
“I understand. We …” He gulped. “We’ll go home and wait for you. And please, Sheriff, find Thomasina.”
“We will do our best.”
When she hung up, she turned to Jim. “If we formed a search party, we’d have no idea where to look. It seems apparent that somebody came along and gave Thomasina a ride. She could be in Tennessee by now or right under our noses close by.”
“Professor Kelley had better have a damn good alibi,” Jim said.
“You don’t like Dr. Kelley any more than I do, do you?”
“Nope, I detest his type. But just because he’s a cocky, womanizing jerk doesn’t mean he’s a kidnapper or rapist or killer.”
A foreboding chill rippled along her nerve endings. Bernie shivered. “God, I hope Thomasina shows up safe and sound, with some logical explanation of what happened to her.”
“Yeah, that would be nice, but we both know the odds are against a happy ending.”
“You think whoever killed Stephanie and Jacque has abducted Thomasina, don’t you?”
He nodded. “First thing in the morning, I’ll fill out a VICAP form with the info about Stephanie’s and Jacque’s murders. We need to find out if there are more cases similar to Stephanie’s and Jacque’s. If there are, they could be related.”
The department had a special computer program that generated a request form with all pertinent information about a crime that linked to the FBI’s Violent Crime Apprehension Program. During her father’s last term in office, he’d been determined to bring the Adams County Sheriff’s Department into the twenty-first century.
“But I thought we agreed that this guy is local, that Stephanie knew him and trusted him. And that’s probably what happened tonight with Thomasina. She got in a car with a man she knew and trusted. If that’s the case, how is using the FBI’s VICAP going to help us figure out anything about our killer?”
“Yeah, we did agree that both Stephanie and Thomasina knew the guy who abducted them, but using the VICAP might help us figure out if this guy has lived in the area all his life and whether Jacque was his first victim. Or if he’s killed before, somewhere else, and moved here in the past year or so.”
“The county is going to be in an uproar,” Bernie said. “Unless Thomasina miraculously reappears, I’ll have no choice but to hold a press conference tomorrow. And I’m torn between cautioning women to contact us if they receive notes and presents and sketches from a secret admirer and knowing I can’t reveal too much info without jeopardizing our cases.”
Jim reached over, clamped his hand down on Bernie’s shoulder and looked right at her. “If this guy stays true to his MO and repeats the sequence of events he did with Jacque and Stephanie, we’ll have two weeks tops to find Thomasina before he kills her.”
Bernie closed her eyes and said a quick, silent prayer, pleading with the Almighty to help them. And to help Thomasina Hardy, wherever she was tonight.
Thomasina came to in a semidark room, her head pounding, her mind fuzzy.
What had happened to her? Why was she here?
Where was “here”?
She lifted her head from the pillow and at that moment realized she was lying on a bed of some kind. She tried to sit up and couldn’t.
Why couldn’t she?
She tried to lift her arms, but found that her wrists were bound together over her head. She opened her mouth to scream, but couldn’t. It was then that she knew someone had bound and gagged her, that she was totally helpless and … she turned her head to one side and looked around the small, shadowy room, lit only by the glow of what she thought was a nightlight.
She was alone. All alone.
Think, Thomasina, think!
She had been on her way to teach her Thursday evening class at the college when she’d had a flat tire. She had called her mother, who’d said she’d send Mike to fix the tire. But before Mike showed up—
Oh, God! No!
He had come along and offered to take her to the college and then go back and help Mike fix the flat. She’d had no reason to distrust him and every reason to believe she was safe with him.
He’d given her a Coke and she’d drank nearly all of it while they drove along County Road 157. All the while, she’d thought he was taking her to Adams County Junior College. They’d talked and laughed and she’d felt so completely secure and at ease with him.
But what had happened next?
She vaguely remembered feeling sleepy.
Had he put something in the cola? But how could he have? She’d seen him pop the tab on the can, hadn’t she?
She hadn’t really been paying close attention. He could have easily slipped something into the drink. He’d probably drugged her. But why?
Was he the man who’d been sending her the notes, the gifts, the sketches? Was he her secret admirer?
A surge of sheer, unadulterated fear consumed Thomasina as she lay there on the bed, in the semidarkness of a damp, silent room. Alone.
Where was he? When would he come back? What was he going to do to her?
Dead on her feet, frustrated and worried sick, Bernie pulled her Jeep into her driveway at three-thirty on Friday morning. Jim sat quietly at her side, so quietly that she wondered if he’d fallen asleep on their ride back from Verona. Jim had agreed that it was best to let Kevin stay with her parents until he could pick him up this evening; he’d also readily accepted Bernie’s offer to fix breakfast for them at her house. Charlie Patterson would drive over from Huntsville and be in Jim’s office by seven, which gave Jim and her a little over three hours to rest for a while, grab a bite to