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were starting to trickle through the terminal. Old women, old men. A mother with her child. Dana watched them from the shadows, quickly determined they were not the two she sought. The mother smiled too readily, the child’s eyes were too bright.
    Then she saw them. The woman was of medium height. It was hard to tell her build as she wore a pair of shapeless beige coveralls. Her head was down and she wore a baseball cap with a large bill. She held the hand of a thin little boy, tugged him forward. He stumbled a little and the woman all but lifted him to his feet.
    Dana hoped the child’s sluggishness was due to the late hour and a long journey and not illness. The woman was looking around, her tension almost palpable. Dana stepped from the shadows and watched the tension ease. “Jane? Erik?”
    The woman looked up long enough for Dana to see a heavily battered face before dropping her eyes back down to the ground. This woman had been beaten, and recently. But the child was of an even greater concern at the moment. He refused to look up when she called his name, but that in and of itself wasn’t unusual. What disturbed her was the intensity of his withdrawal, as if he concentrated on not making eye contact. She dropped to one knee, tried to hook a finger under his chin, but he jerked away, trembling, his thin shoulders hunched so hard. It was enough to break her heart. It always was.
    “It’s all right,” Dana murmured. “No one will hurt you here. You don’t have to be afraid anymore.” She rose to her feet, lightly touched the woman’s shoulder, felt her stiffen. Even more lightly touched the woman’s chin, tilting her face up. Bruises and welts covered her face, both vicious and recent, but it was the woman’s eyes that made Dana flinch. In the dim light they appeared almost white. Quickly Dana threw off the chill and made her mouth smile warmly. “I’m Dana. Welcome.”
    Wight’s Landing, Friday, July 30, 11:00 P.M.
    Ethan sat down at the little desk against the wall and prepared to trace the e-mail while Clay checked out the upstairs. Working quickly, he networked his computer to Randi’s and opened the e-mail with its hideous attachment. On his computer, he ran software he needed to trace the e-mail.
    “You do this a lot?” Randi murmured from the couch.
    “Tracing e-mails? Enough.”
    She got up and stood behind him, crossing her arms over her chest, hunching her shoulders. “Ethan, what exactly do you do?”
    His lips quirked up at her hesitant tone. “Clay and I work with companies to improve their security. I make sure that hackers can’t get into their systems and steal information. And that they have surveillance on their employees to prevent theft as well.”
    “You mean you help bosses spy on their employees.”
    “Essentially, yes. A lot of our customers are defense contractors. Their secrets need to stay secret. Their government clearance and the country’s security depends on it.”
    “What does Clay do?”
    “He trains their security guards. Sometimes he trains police departments in small towns on use of assault weapons and personal defense.”
    “And you’re successful at this?”
    Ethan’s smile was grim this time. “Yeah, Randi, we are.” They were good at what they did, he and Clay. He could only pray they were good enough to find Alec.
    He finished entering the information and let the software do what it had been designed to do—trace e-mails to the point of origination. Felt a surge of relief at the result. “Well, at least we’re not dealing with anybody who knows anything about servers. This message came straight through.” A more sophisticated person might have rerouted the message a few times before landing it on Randi’s server.
    “Then . . . then that’s good?” Randi’s voice was small, but Ethan heard a flicker of hope.
    He looked over his shoulder, met her eyes. “Yeah, that’s good.” He did a reverse search. “This e-mail came from . . . Campus