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temperature to low. She looked at the clock: 6:05. Getting packed and on the road must have presented a few unexpected challenges for Sharon.
    The salad was ready. The buns were set out to steam. Caroline looked through options for dessert and got out the tapioca. Mark loved it more than a homemade pie. It was a small thing, but it would be appreciated, and she wanted to say thanks for his invitation to join them.
    She fixed tapioca, listening to the rest of the news. Traffic sounded heavy but there were no unexpected delays on the highways, no reported car accidents.
    At 6:40, the tapioca set aside to cool, Caroline picked up the phone and walked back into the living room. She tried Sharon’s car phone and gave up after it rang ten times. She hated to page her, for if Sharon wasn’t in her car, she probably had been called back to an emergency at the hospital. She wouldn’t be late over something trivial. Caroline compromised and called Sharon’s private number at the clinic, reaching Sharon’s head nurse. “Amy, do you know if Sharon got called back to the hospital or the clinic to see a patient?”
    â€œNot that I’ve heard, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Hold on a sec.” Amy went away and came back a minute later. “Kim hasn’t paged her, and for what it’s worth, her car isn’t in her reserved parking space.”
    â€œThanks, Amy.” Caroline set the phone on the side table. Car trouble? Forty minutes late was not unusual, but the silence was. If they had returned to the house or the hospital, Benjamin would have called. Where are they?
    Caroline got out the English tests she needed to grade and tried to focus on them while she listened for the door to open or the phone to ring.
    Come on, Sharon, call.
    * * *
    Luke pushed back his headphones, tired of listening to a lot of gossip, recipes, and soap opera discussions. “This is a dead end.” They already had wiretaps on Frank’s family and some of his friends. If Frank Hardin’s aunt had seen him, had heard anything about him returning to town, she wasn’t telling even her best friend. “If Frank had any plans to get in touch with family or friends for cash or help, he would have done it by now.”
    Jackie hung up her phone and marked another hotel on the blown-up map with a red dot. “I don’t think he moved hotels. Most are already booked for the holiday weekend. It’s not easy to walk in and get a room.”
    â€œHe has to sleep somewhere.” Luke shifted his left foot to rest atop a packed box. The Bureau was relocating their offices to larger quarters over Labor Day weekend; the move couldn’t be happening at a more inconvenient time. “What did Frank come back to Georgia to do?”
    â€œHe could have already done it. Since ten last night he’s been missing, and a dead girlfriend suggests he wasn’t planning to stay around much longer.”
    â€œGood point.” Luke paged down the database of calls being logged at the call center, looking for leads. “We know he likes murder.”
    â€œArmed robbery, maybe a bank heist, a jewelry store—I can see him going for a lot of cash.”
    â€œI wonder who he’s traveling with. That would help answer the question. What time was Marsh going on TV?”
    Jackie looked at the clock. “He’ll be live on the local newscasts at ten. If someone has seen Hardin, they’ll be reminded it’s a very profitable phone call.”
    â€œSomeone has seen him. The question is, will they take the risk of reporting him?”
    Jackie shrugged.
    The last one to call in a tip on Frank was now dead. It wasn’t encouraging. Luke sighed and kept scrolling through the call-in reports.

Chapter Four
    C aroline listened to the clock tick through seven thirty and got up from the couch. Three and a half hours to pack and make an hour-and-twenty-minute drive—Sharon was moving beyond