The Search Read online

  For Daisy

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

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  Also Available

  Copyright

  Welcome to the Blog Hog

  News, Opinions, and Whatnot

  www.bloghog.usa

  When the FBI wrongly imprisoned Doctors John and Louise Falconer for treason last year, they made a terrible mistake. But that was only the beginning. After the couple was released, no one even considered that a family denounced and defamed as the worst traitors in fifty years might be at risk.

  Now we see the result. Four days ago, eleven-year-old Margaret Falconer was kidnapped and is being held for two million dollars’ ransom. And the FBI’s botched rescue attempt yesterday only places her in greater danger.

  When is the Bureau going to stop jerking these poor people around? They were found innocent and deserve protection as much as any other citizen. Why is Emmanuel Harris, the man who arrested the Falconers in the first place, still the lead agent in this case? It’s time for the authorities to get serious before that little girl winds up dead….

  The trunk of the kidnappers’ car. Location: unknown. Destination: unknown. Time: unknown.

  Meg bounced around, trying not to hit her head on the trunk lid each time the vehicle went over a bump. She felt like one big muscle cramp. The pain was bad enough to make her forget what was happening to her — that she was at the mercy of ruthless criminals who might decide to kill her at any minute. She had, after all, seen their faces.

  How long had she been locked in here? Too long. It had to be at least fifteen hours. The first light of dawn was beginning to filter in through the airholes drilled into the trunk lid. In all that time, she’d had no food, no water, and no opportunity to get out and stretch. If she didn’t find a bathroom soon, she was going to explode.

  No, she thought. Bathrooms can wait.

  Now that she could see again, she had to take stock of what was in the trunk — anything she might use to escape from her captors.

  The most obvious weapon was a metal tire iron. A crude plan took shape in her mind. She could bash at the trunk lock until the lid popped. Of course her captors would probably hear the banging and put a stop to it. Then she’d lose her tire iron and her chance. Bad idea.

  She rolled onto her side to investigate what, if anything, was deep in the back of the trunk. There was a set of broken jumper cables, an ice scraper, a dried-out sponge, an empty yogurt container, and — what was this? A small box of ammunition for a pistol, .38 caliber. She overturned it, and two bullets dropped into her hand. She sighed. Useless by themselves. Unless —

  In addition to his career as a noted criminologist, her father, Dr. John Falconer, was the author of a series of detective novels. In The Gun That Never Was, the hero, Mac Mulvey, solved the mystery of a shooting with no firearm and no ballistics markings. Mulvey realized that a sharp blow on the back of a shell casing had the same effect as the hammer of a gun. It ignited the gunpowder, which set off the bullet.

  She could fire these shells if she could hit them hard enough with the tire iron.

  She struggled to recall the details of the book. Dad’s writing was on the cheesy side — all wild action, not very memorable. One thing stood out, though, in Meg’s memory: It was impossible to aim precisely when you were shooting this way. If she tried, she could end up doing herself far more harm than good.

  But as the wave of disappointment washed over her, her eyes fell on the wheel wells that made the trunk so tight and uncomfortable. If she could shoot out a tire, her captors would suspect nothing more than a blowout. And then …

  She took one of the bullets and held it like a nail against the rounded wheel well on the driver’s side. She hefted the tire iron — and immediately chickened out.

  I’ll probably blow my hand off!

  If she couldn’t keep it steady, she’d never be able to hit in the right spot.

  Then the morning outside brightened, and a shaft of light from one of the airholes drew her attention to the sponge. Excitedly, she pressed the bullet into it, leaving the back of the shell exposed. To her delight, it stood firmly on the wheel well.

  Gingerly, Meg got to her knees so that her back was pressed up against the underside of the trunk lid. A tremor of fear ran through her as she raised the tire iron. She always felt this way before trying something from Dad’s books. Mac Mulvey was fiction, and this was all too real. If she somehow put this bullet into the gas tank, it would be curtains for all of them.

  Maybe I shouldn’t …

  It was the hesitation that convinced her. Meg’s brother, Aiden, was the timid one in the family. He thought fifty times before brushing his teeth. Meg’s strength was action.

  Do it!

  The edge of the tire iron slammed against the shell. She felt the impact all the way up to her shoulder. The bullet did not fire.

  Come on, Dad! Tell me you didn’t make it up!

  She was aware of raised voices inside the car. That meant they’d heard the noise. With any luck, her captors had put it down to the tires kicking up a rock against the undercarriage. But she couldn’t expect to get away with twenty tries at this. There weren’t that many rocks on any road.

  This has to work — fast!

  She raised the tire iron once more and concentrated on the target like a karate master about to split a stack of boards.

  Pow!!

  The smell of gunpowder filled the trunk, choking her and burning in her nostrils. The bullet tore down through the wheel well and ripped into the tire. The blowout made an even bigger explosion. A split second later, the car was reeling all over the road as the driver fought for control.

  Meg was knocked violently around the confined space.

  What have I done?

  Just when she thought they’d either swerve off the road or into oncoming traffic, the driver regained control and the sedan limped to a halt on the soft shoulder.

  * * *

  Behind the wheel was a burly, bearded man with a gruff voice and a personality to match. Meg had dubbed him Spidey because of the Spider-Man mask he’d worn on the day she’d been taken.

  “What next?” he roared. “A flat tire! Why doesn’t anything ever go right?”

  “Is there a spare?” the kidnapper Meg called Mickey asked nervously. At twenty, he was the youngest of Meg’s captors, nicknamed for his own disguise, a Mickey Mouse head.

  “There’d better be,” intoned the third occupant of the car, the only woman. She had also been incognito during Meg’s abduction — in a Tiger Woods mask. Meg called her Tiger.

  Spidey, Mickey, and Tiger. The Three Animals.

  They didn’t bother to hide their faces any longer. By now, their captive knew them all too well. It was just another foul-up in an operation that had seen more than a few.

  And now this blowout …

  Mickey got to the trunk first. He popped the latch and peered inside.

  The tire iron swung up and slammed into the side of his head.

  The blow was so hard and so completely unexpected that Mickey dropped like a stone. Meg vaulted out of the trunk and hit the pavement in a full sprint. By the time Spidey and Tiger came after her, she’d turned her head start into a
thirty-yard lead. Mickey managed to scramble up and join the chase.

  Meg took in her surroundings. She was pounding down the shoulder of a rural highway, bordered by chessboards of rolling farmland, dotted with distant cottages and barns. It was pretty country, but with no hiding places, no people to help her, no telephones for dialing 911.

  How come you can never find a gas station when you need one?

  A quick over-the-shoulder glance told her that her pursuers were gaining. She veered off the road and began plowing through a freshly tilled field, wincing at the overpowering fertilizer smell. It was a gamble — the layers of loose soil would slow her down, but they’d also slow down the kidnappers. Meg was betting that her fugitive experience would give her the advantage over rough terrain.

  She bulldozed on, kicking up dirt with every footfall. Behind her, Mickey wiped out in a shower of mud and manure. She felt a twinge of regret at conking him with the tire iron, since he was the only one of her captors that she considered a human being.

  Her lungs were an inferno, her breath a series of choking gasps, made all the more uncomfortable by the intense stench. Was the gap widening? Impossible to tell — she couldn’t risk slowing herself down by looking backward. She didn’t seem to be losing ground, but how long could she keep this up? Sooner or later, the kidnappers’ longer legs would overtake her. The nearest farmhouse was still at least half a mile away.

  She vaulted a rail fence and came down on the hard-packed sod of pastureland. As she scrambled toward a stand of trees, she caught a glimpse of movement — a coffee-brown coat, a large animal shape, head down, grazing.

  A horse! Meg’s spirits soared. With any luck she could hop on and ride it bareback to the house. She raced around the grove.

  And froze.

  The creature that stood before her, eyeing her with flared nostrils and an unfriendly glare, was no horse. It was shorter, broader, heavier, and definitely meaner. Powerful muscles rippled beneath the bull’s smooth hide. It was already pawing the turf and snorting, its massive head lowered. The horns looked like spear points.

  It amped Meg’s panic up to a new level. Her kidnappers meant her no good, but this was certain death.

  The monster charged, and the ground rumbled. Without even thinking, she snatched up a fallen tree branch.

  A fat lot of good this is going to do against those killer horns!

  All at once, she remembered a TV documentary on bullfighting. The purpose of the red cape was to distract the bull away from the matador’s body. Could a quivering leafy branch do the same thing?

  She was about to find out.

  Wheezing in terror, she hefted the limb, shaking it off to the left. To her amazement, the beast shot by, following the rustling leaves. Her breathless relief was short-lived as the bull wheeled around for another attack. This time the onslaught was coming directly at her.

  Frantically, she swung the branch out to her right. At the last second, the animal changed direction and blasted into the leaves, its head jerking wildly. An overwhelming force wrenched the limb from Meg’s hands and tossed it contemptuously aside.

  Now unarmed, Meg scrambled up the nearest tree, clawing the rough bark until her fingers bled. The bull charged again, slamming into the trunk just a few inches below her. The whole world shook with the impact — at least, that’s how it seemed to Meg. She lost her grip and fell to the grass.

  Dazed and spent, she could only squeeze her eyes shut and wait for the lethal horns to rip into her.

  The devastating blow did not come. Amazed, she looked up to see the bull streaking away from her.

  But how — why —

  “Get away from me!” bellowed a voice.

  It was Spidey! The burly kidnapper was barreling toward her — on a collision course with nearly a ton of rampaging livestock. He got within twenty feet before breaking off and hurdling the fence to safety.

  Meg fled in the opposite direction. She made it about three strides before a mud-caked Mickey leaped out and grabbed her.

  “Bring her here,” ordered Tiger in the calm, merciless voice Meg found so chilling.

  “Let — me — go — ” Meg pounded her fists against Mickey’s chest. But there was very little fight left in her. So many hours crumpled into a ball in the closeness of the trunk, followed suddenly by this frenzied bid for freedom …

  A piece of white cloth flashed in Tiger’s hand, accompanied by the sharp smell of chloroform. Meg was fading out.

  “Aiden — ” she mumbled.

  It made sense that, at such an awful moment, her thoughts would turn to her brother. They had been fugitives together during their parents’ imprisonment. Each had risked everything to save the other countless times.

  But they weren’t fugitives anymore. Aiden was a regular citizen in a regular house with a regular life. He couldn’t come after her even if he wanted to. Mom and Dad would never let him.

  I’m all alone, she thought.

  Everything went dark.

  Knight to bishop six.

  Aiden made the chess move, wondering if he had gone totally insane. Meg was kidnapped — last seen stuffed into the trunk of a car headed God only knew where —

  And I’m playing a game!

  His opponent, Richie Pembleton, frowned at the board beneath the brim of his Greenville Cubs baseball cap. “It’s a trap, isn’t it?” Richie grumbled resentfully. “You’re trying to sucker me.”

  Aiden rolled his eyes, exasperated. “Do you want to play, or what?”

  Richie was highly insulted. “Of course I want to play. That’s what friends are for — to support you through thick and thin.”

  It had been going on all morning: Richie badgering Aiden into match after match to take his mind off his sister — and then getting sullen and moody when Aiden beat him.

  Doesn’t he see that a hundred chess games couldn’t take my mind off Meg?

  A shadow appeared over the board, and Aiden nearly jumped out of his skin. Hard experience had trained him to be on constant watch for sudden and unexpected danger. It was a difficult instinct to turn off — even in the safety of his own living room.

  But when he looked up, he found the friendly hobbitlike features of Rufus Sehorn. Sehorn was more commonly known by his website name, the Blog Hog. He had taken a personal interest in Meg’s kidnapping.

  “May I?” the blogger requested, sliding Richie’s bishop along a diagonal of black squares.

  “That won’t do any good,” Richie said sulkily. “He’ll just take my knight.”

  “But you have a counterattack.” Sehorn began manipulating the pieces on the board, demonstrating the moves of both players. “See?” Richie’s queen sliced in for the kill. “Checkmate.”

  Richie was bug-eyed. He stared from the board to Aiden. “You never told me he was smart!”

  Aiden, too, was impressed. But the blogger’s presence meant much more than a chess strategy. Two days before, a ransom demand had been sent to www.bloghog.usa. It was still their only contact with Meg’s captors.

  “Have you heard from the kidnappers again?” Aiden asked anxiously.

  “No. Nothing like that,” Sehorn told him. “But I do have a piece of information about the case — ”

  Twenty feet away, John and Louise Falconer sprang up from the couch as one person.

  “Rufus!” Mom cried. “What’s the news?”

  The blogger’s expression radiated deep sympathy. “I’m sorry to get everybody’s hopes up. The kidnappers haven’t sent another message. The news I have concerns — ”

  The front door opened and in stepped a short, squat man in a suit that was a size too small. The Falconers regarded him quizzically. They were accustomed to the comings and goings of the various police officers and FBI agents assigned to Meg’s abduction. But nobody recognized this newcomer.

  “May I help you?” John Falconer prompted.

  “Oh — sorry.” The man held up a badge. “Mike Sorenson. I’m the new lead agent in the Falconer kid
napping.”

  “What happened to Agent Harris?” Aiden piped up.

  “He’s been reassigned,” Sorenson told them.

  It was a major shakeup. Harris was the agent who had arrested the Falconers in the first place. He had also arranged their release once they’d been proven innocent. He had pursued Aiden and Meg for more than seven thousand miles in their fugitive days.

  He’s almost like our personal agent, Aiden thought. For the FBI to pull Harris off the investigation meant they had to be furious over the failed rescue attempt.

  “Maybe it’s for the best,” the Blog Hog offered gently. “A new approach, a different style. This was the news I was going to tell you.”

  Aiden regarded Agent Sorenson from top to bottom. Nobody could be less like Emmanuel Harris. The former lead agent was a towering six-foot-seven African-American. His replacement was a platinum blond and at least a foot shorter.

  “Of course we’ll do anything we can to help you, Agent Sorenson,” promised Louise Falconer. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “No, thanks,” said the newcomer. “I don’t drink coffee.”

  He’s practically the anti-Harris, Aiden thought. Harris’s coffee addiction was legendary.

  Sorenson turned his attention to the Blog Hog. “You’re Sehorn, right? The blogger? We think you might be able to help us.”

  That was another big difference between the two FBI agents. Harris did not conceal his dislike for the press — and for Rufus Sehorn, in particular.

  “I’ll do whatever I can,” Sehorn promised.

  “The government is offering a ten-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to Margaret’s rescue. We’d like to use your website to get the word out. Of course we’ll use the regular media as well. But we know the kidnappers have an eye on your site, since that’s where they sent the ransom demand. We want them to feel the noose tightening.”