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been an accident?
    Alarmed, she threw off the covers and sat up. Then the memory of the day's events snapped into place, along with the news snippet she'd watched before bed, and she realized that her caller could be someone else.
    "Thanks, babe." The time on her clock radio indicated it wasn't the middle of the night as Jane had thought. It was only ten-thirty. She'd been asleep for half an hour. "Go back to bed," she told Kate, but her daughter didn't leave.
    Understandably curious--they didn't receive many calls like this--she sat on the edge of the bed as Jane brought the receiver to her ear. "Hello?"
    "Ms. Burke--Jane?"
    It wasn't Skye or Sheridan. It was Gloria, as she'd suspected. "Yes?"
    "They jus' called me," she blurted, so breathless she could hardly speak.
    Jane cleared her throat to eliminate the rasp of sleep. " Who just called you?
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    Latisha and Marcie?"
    "Marcie, I think. I couldn't tell for sure. She was talkin' so low I could barely hear her."
    The mind-numbing fatigue fell away like a cast-off shirt. "What'd she say?"
    "She say, 'Gloria, you gotta help us.' I say, 'Where are you? Tell me where you're at an' I'll be there.' An' she say, 'I don't know.' So I told her to hang up and call 9-1-1. But she say she already tried that an' they put her on hold while they sent a cruiser."
    "A cruiser's good."
    "I know, but she was so terrified she panicked. She hung up and called me. I told her, 'Give me some clue, baby. Help me find you.' But she was cryin' so hard she couldn't talk. All she could say is, 'Oh, God, he's here!' Then the line went dead."
    Jane's blood seemed to freeze in her veins. The girls were alive. But where?
    In what condition? And who had them?
    "Someone has 'em both," Gloria was saying. "She said us. I heard that much.
    They're alive, but I don't know for how long. We gotta find 'em!"
    Jane clutched the phone tighter. If they were alive, they needed someone better than her. Just hearing about Marcie's call-- Oh, God, he's here --made Jane's own past rush up on her like a wave surging from behind. She tried to beat back the fear, but with little success. She'd already broken into a cold sweat.
    "Hello?" Gloria cried when she didn't speak.
    Drawing a deep breath, Jane forced a calm she didn't feel. She had to pretend she was everything Gloria thought she was, had to act as if she knew what she was doing or she'd be letting her client down. What good would it do to add to the poor woman's panic? "Have you contacted Detective Willis?" she asked.
    "I called the number on his card, but it went straight to voice mail."
    Of course it did. Jane hadn't been thinking when she'd asked that question.
    Detectives were basically on call twenty-four hours a day, but that didn't make them available to the general public. "I can reach him at home," she said. "Did your phone show the number Marcie called from?"
    "It did. It wasn't blocked. I got it right here, on my list of incoming calls. But I already dialed it at least a dozen times, and I can't get anyone to pick up. A recording comes on, saying the voice-mail box hasn't been set up yet."
    Jane wished Gloria hadn't done that. The ring might've alerted Marcie's 39

    captor to the fact that she'd made a call. But she didn't want to make Gloria feel bad for doing what anyone would want to do under the circumstances. "Give me the number. If we're lucky, I can find the owner via a reverse directory. Or maybe David can get the information from the phone company."
    Gloria's voice shook as she dictated each digit, but she was careful to enunciate.
    "I'll call David and get back to you," Jane promised.
    Throughout the conversation, Gloria had held up admirably, but now she broke into tears, as she had in Jane's office. "Can you find 'em? You gotta find 'em.
    Right away. I can't live without 'em. They all I got."
    And you're counting on me? Jane was hoping that aborted call to 9-1-1 had been more helpful than it appeared. Maybe it was just a matter of time before