Katie pulled the blanket more closely around his shoulders, and whispered to Keely, “He’ll be okay, sweetie. You just stay there, keep him really warm.”

After a moment, Keely said, “I would have saved myself, too, Mama.”

“I know you would have, Keely. Now, let me get information in Virginia and find Sam’s daddy.”

When the phone rang, Miles jumped nearly three feet. He’d been telling the agents again how the government contracts worked, who his competitors were, and how much money was involved. Agent Butch Ashburn, the lead on Sam’s kidnapping, nodded to the other agent, Todd Morton, who’d just swallowed a doughnut too fast and was choking.

“Showtime,” Agent Ashburn said.

Savich, who’d just gotten to the Kettering house, laid his hand on his friend’s arm and said, “Everything’s set, Miles. Just answer the phone. Keep calm, that’s more important than I can say.”

Miles Kettering forced his hand to reach for the phone. He didn’t want to touch it, didn’t want to because he was afraid that Sam was dead. So many children were kidnapped and so few survived. He could hardly bear it.

It had been a day and a half. This was the first word. His hand shook as he lifted the phone.

“Hello? This is Miles Kettering.”

“Hello, Mr. Kettering, my name is Sheriff K. C. Benedict from Washington County, Tennessee. Don’t worry, I have your boy, Sam. He’s just fine. He managed to escape his kidnappers. He’s with me. Mr. Kettering? I promise you, he’s okay.”

Miles couldn’t speak. His throat worked. “I don’t believe you. You’re the kidnapper, right? What do you want?”

Butch Ashburn and Todd Morton were standing there staring at the phone, trying to look both calm and competent. Savich took the phone from Miles’s hands. “Who is this?”

Katie understood. She said again, “This is Sheriff K. C. Benedict from Washington County, Tennessee. Sam is just fine. He managed to save himself. I’ve got him with me. Tell his parents not to worry, he’s okay.”

“This is Dillon Savich with the FBI, Sheriff. Thank you very much. Give me your exact location and we’ll be there as quickly as we can.”

Katie gave the man directions. She’d never before met a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She patted Sam’s shoulder, whispered, “Your daddy’s going to be here soon now, Sam,” but Sam didn’t hear her. He was asleep.

She heard Mr. Kettering say in the background, “I want to talk to Sam.”

She said to Agent Savich, “Sam’s asleep. Do you want me to wake him?”

Miles Kettering came on the line. “No, let him sleep. I’ll see him soon. Please, Sheriff, tell him I love him. What about the people who took him? Did you get them?”

“I’m very sorry, but they escaped. But we’ve got a group of my deputies in the field and they’ll do their best.”

When Katie hung up the phone, Keely said, nearly asleep herself, “What about his mama?”

“She’ll probably come, too. If I were her, I’d beat his daddy here to get him.”

“Stealing Sam was a bad thing, Mama.”

“You’re right.” And she thought, I should have just brought the bastard down, not given him a kiss in the arm. I should have kicked his butt like Sam said.

6

Katie’s phone rang at a quarter of seven that evening. It was Alice Hewett from Hewett’s Pharmacy, and she was out-of-breath excited.

“Oh, Katie, that man who kidnapped the little boy—I think it was him. He just left. I called the station house and Linnie told me to call you at home.”

Katie’s heart started to pound, deep and hard.

“Was he the fat one, Alice?”

“No, he was the other one, tall, almost sick-looking thin, but he wasn’t wearing that long black leather coat Wade told everyone about, just a white shirt and jeans, and some scarred black boots. But he had a ponytail, like you said. And he was shivering, which means he left that leather coat in his car because he was afraid to be seen in it. He bought bandages and antibiotic cream and some Aleve. And when he was leaving I saw blood on the back of his sleeve.”

“He was in his forties?”

“Yes, I’d say so.”

“And he had a ponytail.”

“Yeah, wet and stringy-looking. He didn’t say anything, just brought the stuff up to me at the register, and paid cash. He had a really big roll. I saw a couple of hundreds, lots of fifties.”