Sweet Fortune

leaving the engine running as Hatch had instructed. She waited.
    Long moments passed in terrifying silence. Jessie began to wonder if Glenna or whoever it was inside had realized she was there. The thirty minutes were up.
    Fearing that the kidnapper might think she had not followed orders and would do something violent, Jessie cracked open the car door. She had to get out and see what was happening.
    At that moment a familiar voice shouted at her from the gloom of the open doorway.
    “ Jessie .” Elizabeth's small figure came pelting out of the building. “Jessie, watch out.”
    “Elizabeth.” Jessie was out of the car without even pausing to think. She ran toward Elizabeth, instinctively grabbing her arm and jerking her off to one side of the entrance. Something told her to get her sister out of the direct line of sight.
    An instant later a shot crackled through the darkness. It shattered the awful stillness that cloaked the warehouse.
    “Jessie, she pushed me out here to get you out of the car. She's got a gun.”
    “I can't believe she'd actually shoot us. I just can't believe it.” Jessie dragged Elizabeth farther away from the main entrance, deep into the shadows around the corner of the building.
    Elizabeth clung to her hand. “What are we going to do?”
    “Hush.” Jessie pressed herself back against the wall of the building, trying to listen. She held her sister close to her side. “Hatch is here,” she whispered in Elizabeth's ear.
    “Geez. That's a relief.”
    “You think I couldn't have handled this on my own?” Jessie muttered.
    “Nothing personal, but something tells me Hatch is better at this kind of thing.”
    “Something tells me you're right.”
    Another shot echoed through the night, and then a vast silence descended on the warehouse. Jessie and Elizabeth held their breaths.
    A moment later Jessie heard footsteps coming around the corner of the building. It was the familiar, solid-sounding tread of a pair of wing tips.
    “Jessie? Elizabeth? It's all over.”
    “ Hatch .”
    Both sisters ran to him and Hatch opened his arms to catch them both close for a moment.
    “I think,” Hatch said after a while, “that you'd better come and take a look at the kidnapper, Jessie.”
    Jessie closed her eyes, steeling herself. “Yes, I guess I'd better. What am I going to tell Mom? And David?”
    “Not too much, if I were you.” Hatch's voice was wry as he led the way back into the warehouse and turned on a workman's light.
    Jessie stared down at the familiar wiry figure lying unconscious on the floor. A stocking mask lay crumpled beside her pale face.
    “Nadine Willard.”
    “You know her?” Elizabeth asked curiously. “She tried to tell me you did when she grabbed me in the rest room at the mall, but I didn't believe her. Then she pulled that gun out of her purse and made me go with her. She even knew how to deactivate the security system. She cut some wire and did some things with a pair of pliers.”
    “Yes, I know her,” Jessie said, meeting Hatch's eyes with a sense of chagrin. “I vote we don't ever tell anyone about our earlier suspicions.”
    “I agree,” Hatch said dryly. “Dr. Ringstead would no doubt diagnose us both as severely paranoid.”

    “She was working for Edwin Bright all along,” Jessie explained to Lilian, Constance, and Elizabeth two days later in the offices of ExCellent Designs. “A real dedicated type. The kind Aunt Glenna told me got lured into cults. She idolized Bright. Thought he was some kind of savior.”
    “And he used her,” Constance said.
    Jessie nodded. “She had a strange background. Grew up in a rough neighborhood and got into gangs and drugs at an early age. Had some trouble with the law when she was caught breaking into houses. But she seemed to have straightened out. She got her GED, got into Butterfield, and was holding down a job.”
    “And then she got involved with Bright?” Lilian asked.
    “The police say he used her as sort of an inside person to screen the people he was recruiting. She was the one who broke into Mrs. Valentine's office and later tried to get into Hatch's car. She was trying to find out how far our investigation had gone and whether or not we were a genuine threat to DEL.”
    “And when she realized it was all over for Bright, she decided to try to get rid of the people who could testify against him. Starting with you.” Lilian shuddered.
    “Her first try was the night she nearly ran me down. She was