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he call us?
”
    “I just don’t know, Barb. It doesn’t make sense to me either.”
    “What time is it there?”
    “Ten thirty p.m.”
    “She probably went for a ride with some cute guy. Got a flat tire. Couldn’t get a cell phone signal, something like that.
     She’s probably all worked up about missing the shoot. You
know
how she is. She’s probably stuck somewhere and
furious
with herself.”
    Levon had held back the truly terrifying part of the phone call. He hadn’t told Barb that the caller had said that Kim had
     fallen into “bad hands.” How would that help Barb? He couldn’t bring himself to say it.
    “We have to keep our heads on straight,” he said.
    Barb nodded. “Absolutely. Oh, we’re going over there, Levon. But Kim is going to be as mad as
bees
that you told the hotel to call the police. Watch out when Kim’s mad.”
    Levon smiled.
    “I’ll shower after you,” Barb said.
    Levon came out of the bathroom five minutes later, shaven, his damp brown hair standing up around the bald spot at the back.
     He tried to picture the Wailea Princess as he dressed, saw frozen postcard images of honeymooners walking the beach at sunset.
     He thought of never seeing Kim again, and a knifing terror cut through him.
    Please, God, oh, please, don’t let anything happen to Kim.
    Barb showered quickly, dressed in a blue sweater, gray slacks, flat shoes. Her expression was wide-eyed shock, but she was
     past the hysteria, her excellent mind in gear.
    “I packed underwear and toothbrushes and that’s all, Levon. We’ll get what we need in Maui.”
    It was 3:45 in Cascade Township. Less than an hour had passed since the anonymous phone call had cracked open the night and
     spilled the McDanielses out into a terrifying unknown.
    “You call Cissy,” Barb said. “I’ll wake the kids.”

Chapter 12
    BARBARA SIGHED UNDER HER BREATH, then turned up the dimmer, gradually lighting the boys’ room. Greg groaned, pulled the Spider-Man
     quilt over his head, but Johnny sat straight up, his fourteen-year-old face alert to something different, new, and maybe exciting.
    Barb shook Greg’s shoulder gently. “Sweetie, wake up now.”
    “Mommmmm, nooooo.”
    Barb peeled down her younger son’s blanket, explained to both boys a version of the story that she halfway believed. That
     she and Dad were going to Hawaii to visit Kim.
    Her sons became attentive immediately, bombarding Barb with questions until Levon walked in, his face taut, and Greg, seeing
     that, shouted, “Dad! What’s goin’ on?”
    Barb swooped Greg into her arms, said that everything was fine, that Aunt Cissy and Uncle Dave were waiting for them, that
     they could be asleep again in fifteen minutes. They could stay in their pj’s but they had to put on shoes and coats.
    Johnny pleaded to come with them to Hawaii, made a case involving jet skis and snorkeling, but Barb, holding back tears, said
     “not this time” and busied herself with socks and shoes and toothbrushes and Game Boys.
    “You’re not telling us something, Mom. It’s still dark!”
    “There’s no time to go into it, Johnny. Everything’s okay. We’ve just — gotta catch a plane.”
    Ten minutes later, five blocks away, Christine and David waited outside their front door as the arctic air sweeping across
     Lake Michigan put down a fine white powder over their lawn.
    Levon watched Cissy run down the steps to meet their car as it turned in at the driveway. Cissy was two years younger than
     Barb, with the same heart-shaped face, and Levon saw Kim in her features, too.
    Cissy reached out and enfolded the kids as they dashed toward her. She lifted her arms and took in Barb and Levon, as Barb
     said, “I forwarded our phone to yours, Cis. In case you get a
call.
” Barb didn’t want to spell it out in front of the boys. She wasn’t sure Cis got it yet either.
    “Call me between planes,” Cis said.
    Dave held out an envelope to Levon. “Here’s some cash, about a