stop me.â
Honsa put himself between Bobby and the front door. âThink, Lieutenant Dunston, about what youâre going to do,â he said.
âIâm thinking about my daughter.â
âSo am I.â
âBoys, boys, boys,â chanted Harry.
âShut the hell up, Wilson,â Bobby said. He waved the Glock at him. Bobby doesnât wave guns, I told myself. Only this was a different Bobby than the one I knew. I wondered what I was going to do about it when Bobby reached for the doorknob and Honsa moved to intercept him.
Shelby called from the staircase. âBobby.â She was sitting on the steps and peering through the posts that supported the banister, holding one in each hand like the bars of a prison.
Bobby turned toward her.
âListen to what he has to say,â she said.
Honsa took his cue. âScottie Thomforde isnât holding all the cards anymore,â he said, âbut he still holds the most important one. He has Victoria. Thatâs what we have to think about now.â
âI am thinking about her,â Bobby said.
âNo, youâre not, Lieutenant Dunston. Youâre thinking about what you want to do to Thomforde.â
Bobby stared hard at Honsa for a few beats, then dropped his eyes to the Glock in his hand. He slowly holstered it.
âVictoria comes first,â Honsa said. âThomforde, now that we know who he is, we can pick him up anytime. Heâs not going anywhere. Until we get Victoria back safe and sound, we want to give him the illusion of space. We want him to think that heâs in control, that he has options. The last thing we wantâthe very last thingâis for him to panic, and if he sees us coming, he might do just that. Lieutenant Dunston, if Thomforde feels trapped, if he feels that his plans are shit and that everything is going against him, heâs not going to blame us. Or himself. Heâs going to blame the girl.â
âI understand,â Bobby said.
âDo you?â
âYes. Butâ¦â
âBut what?â
âSo many things can go wrong. You know that. My fault, your fault, his fault, nobodyâs faultâso many things can go wrong that we canât allow this opportunity to go by. If we can find himâ¦â
âWhat about his partner?â Honsa asked. âWe know Thomforde has at least one. He keeps saying âweâ and âweâre,â and then thereâs Katieâs story. She said a man grabbed your daughter and carried her back to the van. Who was driving the van?â
âSo Scottie has a partnerââ
âWhat is he going to do if we arrest Thomforde?â
âWe donât have to arrest him. We can surveil Scottie until he leads us to Victoria.â
âHow do we find him without tipping our hand?â
We all took a few moments to think about it. Harry supplied the answer. âThomfordeâs parole officer.â
4
Karen Studder had the face of a woman whose prettiness was five years behind her. She was built large on top, with a narrow waist and hips and tennis-player legs. Her skin was burnished bronze beneath her dark blue shirt and khaki skirt; apparently she was one of those women who are convinced they look better with a tan despite evidence that itâs the sun that turns grapes into raisins. She would still be pretty if not for the sun.
âNo,â she said. âI donât know where Scott Thomforde is. I know where heâs supposed to be.â
âYou donât keep track of your people?â Bobby said.
We were all standing in the space between Bobbyâs living room and dining room. Karen was on one side; we were all on the other. She must have felt outnumbered.
âI supervise about a hundred offenders,â Karen said. âI donât follow each and every one of them around. I donât know the exact moment that theyâre in violation. When an offender is paroled to
Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton