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York.”
    “Really?” He put down the sketch, rested his forearms on the table and leaned forward, his eyes still fastened on hers. “So you drove all the way to Pennsylvania from upstate New York to return a piece of costume jewelry?”
    Stated that way, her story sounded ridiculous and unbelievable. She clasped her hands, feeling sweat on her palms. She made sure to meet his eyes so he wouldn’t know for certain that she was lying. “Oh, no. I happened to be passing through.”
    “With a sketch?”
    She bit her lower lip so the truth wouldn’t come tumbling out. Her intuition told her the forest ranger could be trusted, but her instincts had failed her in a catastrophic way when she’d run across Amanda and the baby. Itwasn’t difficult to understood why the cops had a hard time believing she’d agreed to babysit for a stranger.
    This man was as much an unknown as Amanda had been. She didn’t need to justify herself. Kelly tapped the sketch with her index finger. “Do you know her or don’t you?”
    “Not as a brunette, as a redhead.” He straightened but kept watching her just as closely. “I have some photos of her I can show you.”
    Adrenaline coursed through Kelly. It made sense that a woman who kidnapped a child might also disguise her appearance. She couldn’t keep the eagerness from her voice. “Where is she now?”
    “If I knew that, I wouldn’t be sitting here,” he said.
    A static-filled voice suddenly came over his two-way radio. He pulled the device from his belt, uttering a quick, “Excuse me. I have to take this.”
    The man at the other end of the line said something about a black bear rooting through garbage at a campsite. The forest ranger listened, nodding, frustration chasing across his features. He signed off.
    “We’ll have to continue this later,” he said. “Are you staying in town?”
    Now that she’d stumbled across a lead, she would be. “Yes. When can you meet me?”
    He glanced at the clock on the wall, which showed it was already past three. “How about seven o’clock? My place. I’ll show you those photos.”
    He reached into his wallet, pulled out a card and handed it to her. Chase Bradford. Pennsylvania Game Commission. “That’s my home address and telephonenumber. Do you have a card? A number where I can reach you?”
    She didn’t dare give him her cell-phone number and she hadn’t yet checked into a hotel. It seemed likely that a forest ranger would have contacts in the law-enforcement community with access to information databases. He had no reason to investigate her now, but she needed to think ahead and be smart.
    “I don’t have a cell phone,” she lied, “but I’ll be at your house at seven.”
    He appeared reluctant to leave her, but she sensed he was a man who didn’t shirk his duties. “I didn’t catch your name.”
    “Kelly,” she answered automatically before her newfound sense of self-preservation kicked in. “Kelly Delaney.”
    “Where are you from, Kelly?”
    Kelly Carmichael was from Wenona, New York. Kelly Delaney, who happened to be a college friend who shared her first name and had also majored in education, wasn’t. She dredged up the name of her friend’s hometown from the Christmas cards they still exchanged. “Schenectady.”
    If the forest ranger got suspicious and had a friend run Kelly Delaney’s name, he wouldn’t find anything to sound alarm bells.
    “I’ll see you tonight, Kelly Delaney.”
    After he left the shop, her shoulders drooped and she cradled her head in her hands. She prayed that Chase Bradford would have information that would lead her to Amanda.
    Because now, in the eyes of the law, Kelly wasn’t only an accused criminal.
    She was a fugitive with an alias.
     
    K ELLY HEARD THE CRIES before she spotted the woman. She sat on a park bench adjacent to a deserted playground, a baby in her arms.
    The gray clouds, heavy with the threat of rain, had kept the regulars away. No children scampered up the