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couldn't get any words out. No, that wasn't it. She could move her mouth. It was her eyes that didn't respond to her mind's commands.
    "Christa. Christa. Tell me what you saw."
    The man's voice cracked with emotion. It was familiar. It was...Kirk Reynolds. She felt herself starting to smile.
    "Come on, honey. You can do it!"
    He called her honey? This was new. She finally succeeded in opening her eyes part of the way. The view was a hazy one, partly because of the headache, and partly because Kirk was so close to her. Why was that? Were they lying next to each other? What was she lying on? It wasn't a pillow. It was his shoulder, and the warmth came from his body. "Oh." She opened her eyes more, and looked into his. "What is it?" she asked.
    "Christa, they took Amy. What did you see?"
    He looked frantic, and the urgency in his tone brought everything back to her. She had been lifting Amy to see into the kindergarten class, and then there was only pain in her head. "I...I don't think I saw anyone. I...we were looking into the classroom. I was holding her..." The exertion was too much, and she laid her head against his shoulder again. He had her on his lap, and they were sitting on the sofa in the school foyer. She heard police sirens growing closer.
    "Don't wait for me. Go get her," she said, in a voice that was stronger than she felt.
    "I can't." Kirk gently eased her off his lap and onto the sofa.
    Before she could ask why, he sprang off the couch and opened the door to let two police officers and two emergency medical technicians into the school. She tried to sit up but couldn't, so she rolled to her side and listened to Kirk describe what little he knew.
    "I was on the other side of the building. Amy screamed, and as I ran into the hall I heard this door slam." He gestured to the area where they were standing. "I ran out the door in time to see a brown Ford Taurus pulling away. I told the dispatcher to put out an APB. Damn!"
    Kirk turned and was about to put his fist into the wall when the ambulance driver grabbed it and swung him around. "That won't help anything. Keep your cool." As he said this, the EMT saw Christa. "Jeez louise," he said, and picked up his first-aid bag from the floor and started toward her.
    "I'm okay," she said as he sat next to her.
    "I'll be the judge of that," the young man said.
    Kirk looked back at her, and Christa wished there were a way she could erase the desperation in his eyes. "I wish I knew more," she almost whispered. "
    He gave her a cold, unreadable stare and turned to face the officers again. "I tried to follow them, but our tires were slashed. Come on." He opened the door and gestured to the officers to follow him. "We'll take your car and hit the streets."
    With that, the three men were gone and Christa was left with the two EMTs. After a thorough check, they gave her the option of going to the hospital, which they recommended, or going home if she would be with others all evening. She would, she lied. What she really wanted was to get to Frances King. Christa didn't want her to hear about her daughter's kidnapping on the radio.
    The EMTs wanted to wait with her until a cab came, but Christa showed them that she could lock herself in the building for the few minutes. "I know you'll have other calls," she said, anxious for them to leave.
    "Can we call someone for you, then?" one of them asked.
    Christa wondered if they would have been a solicitous if she had been fifty-five and overweight. "I have no immediate family," she said, ignoring the pang of loneliness that arose whenever she said those simple words.
    She wanted Frances King to have her family, so there was something important Christa had to do before she left the building, and it would only take about 10 minutes. Finally, the EMTs left. When the cab came 15 minutes later, she had the three hard drives out of the computers, each wrapped in one of the maps that usually hung on the wall in her classroom. It was all she could