"We'll stay together until we get the building in sight," Lucas said. "Then split up to search the area."
Jaylene checked her watch and said, "It's almost ten. As much as we'll all hate the lost time, we should definitely stick with the plan and meet back at the station for food and caffeine at midnight. Otherwise, we'll never be able to keep this up all night."
"That is the plan." Not saying whether he agreed with it-or whether he intended to have more than his customary coffee at the break-Lucas concentrated on moving as silently as possible, his gaze probing the dark road ahead of them. "The good news is, we'll be able to move faster once dawn breaks tomorrow."
"And the bad news?" Champion murmured.
"You said it yourself. Not much hope of getting through every property on our list. So we'll have to find her before we do that."
"Maybe we'll get lucky, and she'll be here or the next place we check," the deputy offered.
"I never had much faith in luck," Lucas said. "Unless I make it myself. And I like shortcuts."
"I'm game for anything you suggest," Champion said promptly. "Lindsay's a friend as well as a fellow cop." He paused, then added less certainly, "I guess you've already talked to Miss Burke."
Jaylene thought he was one of the very few around here who would refer to Samantha with so much respect, but she left it to Lucas to reply.
"That's why we're searching these properties, Deputy."
Jaylene heard the note of frustration in her partner's voice but, again, remained silent. She had picked up absolutely nothing from Samantha's belongings at the station but was nevertheless aware of much the same uneasiness he felt.
If they had not been so desperately pressed for time, she had little doubt that Lucas would be at the Carnival After Dark, doing his best to get at whatever it was that Samantha was keeping to herself.
As it was, they simply had no time for anything but the concerted search for Lindsay.
"We should be able to see the building as soon as we top this rise," Champion breathed.
He was right. As they emerged from the dense forest surrounding them, the top of the rise showed them a moonlit clearing just ahead, with a dark, hulking building at its center.
This was the third property they had checked, so their responses as a team were becoming more certain; with barely a gesture wasted between them, they split up and moved cautiously across the clearing to the barn.
After the long journey to get here, it took no more than ten minutes for them to reach the barn-and see, from the two big doors that were open and half off their hinges, that no one was being held in this derelict place.
Still, they were all cops and all thorough, so they turned on their big flashlights and began to search the interior.
"Moldy hay," Jaylene said, her voice normal now. "Rusted farm equipment. And"-she stiffened but managed not to cry out when something skittered across her foot-"and rats."
"Okay?" Lucas asked her.
"Oh, yeah. I just hate rats, is all." She continued searching the old barn.
"Judging by all this junk, the building hasn't been used for anything but storage in decades," Champion said, his flashlight directed to one wall holding a hanging collection of rather lethal-looking farm implements.
"Hold on a second." Lucas had stopped near one corner, where an old stump-years dead, but still in the ground the barn had been built around-sprouted a rusted hatchet.
Champion said, "Probably used that to slaughter livestock at one time. Chickens, at least. For Sunday dinner."
"I doubt a farmer left this," Lucas said. "Take a look." When the other two joined him, he indicated the folded piece of paper wedged in between the edge of the hatchet and the stump.
While Jaylene held her flashlight steady, Lucas produced a small tool kit and used a pair of tweezers to carefully extract the note and then unfold it on the stump. And they could all see what was block-printed on the paper.
BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME, LUKE.
Samantha wanted nothing more than to fall into bed and sleep for about twelve hours, but instead she found herself waiting in the conference room of the sheriff's department for the search teams to return to the station for a scheduled midnight break.
Nobody had offered her so much as a cup of coffee, but one deputy kept sticking his head in the doorway, clearly keeping an eye on her so she didn't disturb the stacks of foldqrs on the other end of the table or steal a pencil or something.
She thought about that as she sat and stared at the walls. It wasn't a lot of fun being an outcast.
Of course, carnies were, by definition, outcasts of a sort, since they traveled from town to town, never putting down roots and seldom building relationships outside their own close-knit groups. But since her Carnival After Dark friends were the only family Samantha had ever really known, she had never felt an outcast among them or as one of them.
Being psychic was something entirely different.
Viewed as a fraud at best and a freak at worst, Samantha had become accustomed, over the years, to scorn and disbelief. She had become accustomed to aggressive "Tell me what I'm thinking, I dare you!" in-her-face confrontations with bullies, and "routine" questioning from cops whenever there was a problem anywhere near her.
She had become accustomed to the needy, desperate people who visited her booth, with their hungry eyes and pleas for help, for the knowledge they craved. She had even become accustomed to the occasional attractive man being interested in her until, ironically, he discovered that her "act" was at least partly genuine and she was in fact psychic.
She had become accustomed. But she had never learned to like it. Any of it.
"They tell me you've been here more than an hour." Lucas came into the room, carrying two cups. He sat down on the other side of the conference table and pushed one across to her, adding, "Tea rather than coffee, right? With sugar. Sorry, there was no lemon I could find."
Samantha thought he looked very tired and more than a little grim, and even the simmering anger she felt toward him couldn't stop her from appreciating the courtesy.
He was most always courteous, Luke.
Damn him.
"Thanks." She sipped the hot tea. "I gather you guys have had no luck."
He shook his head. "No luck finding Lindsay so far. But the bastard apparently guessed where we'd look. He left a note. For me."
"What did it say?"
"Better luck next time."
Samantha winced.
"He's been more than a step ahead all along," Lucas continued. "You were obviously right about this being some kind of twisted game or contest in his mind."
"You couldn't have known that."
"I should have figured it out, and long before now."
Samantha shook her head. "I don't think he wanted you to before now. I think he was busy figuring you out, learning to understand how your mind worked, how you search for lost people."
Lucas frowned. "Are you saying he knows I'm psychic?"
From behind him in the doorway, Sheriff Metcalf said, "What? You're what?"
"Shit." Lucas couldn't help giving Samantha a look, but she was shaking her head.
"No, I didn't ambush you. He popped into that doorway like a jack-in-the-box as you were speaking. I didn't know he was out in the hall, honestly." Metcalf came into the room and moved around the table so he could see Luke's face. "You're psychic? Psychic?"
"Something like that."
"You're a federal agent."
"Yes, I am. And my psychic ability is just another tool to help me do my job, like my training, my weapon, and my proficiency with numbers and patterns."
"No patterns here," Samantha murmured, hoping to turn the focus of the discussion from the paranormal to the scientific.
"That's been one of the problems," Lucas admitted. "Nothing to latch on to, either logically or-intuitively."
"Except that now you know he's matching his wits against yours."
Lucas nodded. "Now I know. Which means I'm playing catchup. If you're right, he knows a hell of a lot more about me than I know about him."