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dripping down his chin.
    “Who are you?” she demanded.
    That hurt. Wally wiped his sticky hand on his jersey before extending it to her. She had a very firm grip.
    “Coach Wally … I coach Gracie’s team.”
    “Oh.”
    No apology. She was staring at her hand; the sticky had rubbed off. She was apparently trying to decide whether to wipe her hand on her skirt; she said, “Well, Wally, I had an important case go to the jury today, so I was late for Grace’s game.”
    “No, ma’am, I meant because of, uh … you know … your mother.”
    She looked up from her hand and frowned. “My mother? What about my mother?”
    “Oh, my gosh, don’t you know?”
    “Know what? ”
    Not even his executive experience as a night manager at the Taco House out on the interstate had prepared Wally Fagan to deliver this kind of news. But he had opened his big mouth too far to shut up now.
    “Mrs. Brice, your mother had a stroke.”
    She recoiled. “A stroke? When? ”
    “Uh, today, I guess. She’s in the hospital.”
    She appeared confused. She pointed back toward the field. Wally looked that way; a man was sitting alone in the bleachers.
    “My husband didn’t say my mother had a stroke.”
    “Gracie’s dad was at the game?”
    She was now looking at Wally like he was a complete idiot.
    “He’s sitting right over there in the goddamn stands!”
    Now Wally was confused; he removed his cap and scratched his burr-cut head. He kept his hair cut short because that way he didn’t sweat as much under the hair net at work.
    “You’re not looking for Gracie, are you?”
    She exhaled loud enough for him to hear. “I didn’t come for the snow cones, Wally.”
    “But … but she’s … she’s gone .”
    “Gone where?”
    “To the hospital, to see your mother.”
    “My mother lives in New York!”
    “But your brother said your mother had a stroke and he came to take Gracie to the hos—”
    The woman lunged at Wally and grabbed his jersey, her eyes and face suddenly wild like an animal; she clawed so close he could feel her hot breath on his face when she screamed.
    “I don’t have a brother!”
    Wally was so scared he felt a drop of pee drip out. He dropped his snow cone. The wild woman released him and ran toward the concession stand screaming her daughter’s name.
    “Gra-cie!”
    Police Chief Paul Ryan’s voice mixed with the other voices coming from all around him in the dark, the voices of cops and civilians searching the woods bordering the park for the missing girl, and he thought, Kids don’t get abducted in Post Oak, Texas!
    “Gra-cie!”
    When he had gotten the call, Ryan figured a rich Briarwyck Farms soccer mom was throwing another conniption fit, as they often did over their very special children. His wife, a teacher over at the elementary school, called it the Baby Jesus Syndrome, every rich mom thinking her spoiled little brat’s the second coming. He had no doubt the mom would get a call on her cell phone and learn the girl had gone home with a friend, and the mom wouldn’t say “I’m sorry” or nothing, she’d just wave and climb into her SUV and drive off for the post-game pizza party over at Angelo’s, figuring the police department was her private security force to call out anytime she wanted. But when he had arrived on scene and talked to the girl’s coach, Paul Ryan knew immediately that this was a real abduction: a blond man in a black cap had asked for the girl by name.
    “Gra-cie!”
    All Ryan could see were the five feet of trees and ground cover in front of him illuminated by his Mag flashlight as he advanced deeper into the dark woods.

11:22 P.M.
    He hears the others around him, but all he sees now is a vague vision of trees and vines and undergrowth, dense and impenetrable—a jungle. He’s fighting his way through a jungle on a dark night. He hears a child’s distant cry. He picks up his pace, but it’s like trying to run through molasses. He’s got to hurry, something