Stranded

toiletries.
    “All we had were those sandwiches and that was almost ten hours ago. You gotta take a look. Their room service menu is from Houlihan’s. When we were checking in I noticed the restaurant is connected to the lobby.”
    He left the menu on her bed while he set his computer on her desk and started punching keys. Maybe adjoining rooms weren’t such a good idea. They had another long day ahead of them and she was wiped out.
    “Alonzo sent me a satellite photo of the rest area.”
    Maggie glanced over as it came up and filled his computer screen. The last miles of driving she had noticed the increased elevation on their SUV’s GPS as well as a glimpse of the limestone bluffs. Much of the landscape was covered with evergreens and hardwoods in full bloom.
    When she didn’t respond, Tully picked up the menu from the corner of the bed and said, “Real food. Not truck stop burgers or deli sandwiches. They have sliders and something called chicken avocado eggrolls.”
    “Okay, now you have my attention,” she joked while her eyes stayed on the computer screen.
    Tully obviously had gotten his second wind. Of course he had—she was the one who had driven the last three hours. But now that they were here Tully was ready to get to work.
    “Lopez believes these two teenagers did something to each other,” Maggie said. “He thinks it may have started out as a game and gotten out of hand.”
    “And one of them cuts the other’s finger off?”
    “He told me Manhattan, Kansas, is a university town. Said he’s seen stranger things.”
    “Well, we both know that’s true. Kids are capable of doing stupid and cruel things to each other. That’s one of the reasons I’d like to lock Emma up in her room until she’s thirty.”
    Tully’s daughter was a college freshman. Since she was fourteen, he’d raised her alone, with very little help from Emma’s mother.
    “He thinks because Noah won’t talk that he must be guilty of something.”
    “But you think his friend was killed by our guy?” Tully asked.
    He tapped a couple of keys and zoomed the photo in on the rest area. Thick canopies of trees. Rock ledges. Acres and acres of both, surrounding the small brick building and parking lots.
    “One kid missing,” Tully said. “Probably dead. But a survivor. We’ve seen what Jack can do—letting someone get away doesn’t quite fit his MO. Just doesn’t sound right.”
    “How do we explain my cell phone number?”
    “That part does sound like him. So what’s your gut instinct?”
    Maggie thought about it. She rubbed at the exhaustion in her eyes. Unfortunately, it wasn’t difficult to get her cell phone number. It could be some prank not even related to Jack, their highway killer. But ever since Tully compared this killer’s obsession with her to that of Albert Stucky, her anxiety had been turned up a notch.
    If she really thought about it, this guy had been keeping tabs on her for at least a month. He had physically stalked her backin the District. Now here they were halfway across the country, brought here by his directive. He was playing them, toying with them, showing off what he was capable of doing.
    “It’s him,” Maggie finally said. “But I think he may have messed up this time.”
    “How’s that?”
    “Noah Waters can tell us what he looks like.”

THURSDAY, MARCH 21

CHAPTER 35

    MANHATTAN, KANSAS
    Noah tried not to meet the eyes of the woman sitting across from him in his parents’ living room. Detective Lopez had introduced her as Agent O’Dell with the FBI. Introduced her and then left.
    Oh God … not the FBI!
    Noah didn’t hear half of what the detective had said after that because the panic had begun thumping in his chest.
    He had gotten very little sleep last night. Up in his old bedroom the windows rattled when there was no wind. At one point he swore he heard something—or someone—scratching at the glass. His bedroom was on the second floor with no tree close enough to scrape against his window or the house. And certainly not close enough to cast the shadows that had woken him.
    That’s not true
.
    It wasn’t the shadows or the scratching that had woken him. It was Ethan’s screams.
    “Detective Lopez told me what happened,” the agent was saying.
    Noah almost laughed. His nerves were raw. His emotions played to extremes. But it was funny—how could the detective tellher anything when Noah had told him nothing? He glanced at the woman. Was she trying to trick