Page 229 of Hidden Nature

“No.” O’Hara nodded. “You’re not wrong. We’re leaning toward a woman to do the flagging down, only her visible.”

“He’d stop for someone having car trouble,” Sloan agreed. “But be less alert with a lone woman than with a couple, or a man. They probably repeated the routine they used with Celia Russell. But for all of them, they’d have to make the grab fast, keep the victim from fighting back, making noise.”

“People tend to shut up if you shove a gun in their face.”

“But do they?” Sloan shifted to Nash. “First instinct, shout, scream, throw your hands up. Beg, bargain, even struggle. They don’t have time for that.

“Janet Anderson, broad daylight,” she continued. “Grocery store parking lot, the day before Thanksgiving. Store’s bound to be busy with people just like her.Shit, I don’t have enough eggs. Damn it, I forgot the evaporated milk.It has to be quick and quiet.”

“We’re thinking they may use a fast-acting sedative.Oh, would you mind helping me—and jab. Before they can react, they’re in the van.”

“Which brings us back to medical personnel, past, present, retired, fired, or working every damn day,” Sloan finished.

“We’ve followed some leads that didn’t pan out. The best we have is the woman in the hotel lot when Tarrington was snatched. And a van that may or may not be white.

“I’ve been working this since February and Tarrington. You putting the bring-back-the-dead angle gave us a pattern. But every time we think we’ve got something hot, it goes cold.”

He polished off his coffee.

“They’re not frigging masterminds, and when we get them, they’re going to turn out to be loonies. But meanwhile, they’ve got Terry Brown.”

“I think they’re in West Virginia, or just this side of the border in Maryland or Pennsylvania.”

O’Hara studied her. “We’ve got focus there. How do you figure?”

“Major hospitals in Morgantown. Some of the victims went to others, but when you see the location patterns of the majority of the grabs, they’d feed into that area.”

“You should show him your wall.”

O’Hara’s brows quirked. “What wall?”

“The wall of my as-yet-unfinished office standing in as a case board.”

“I wouldn’t mind a look.”

“Don’t judge,” she said as she rose. “There’s still a lot of work to be done in the house.”

“He’d be handy with that. You know what scared me most when my kids were kids? ‘Some assembly required.’”

He went with Sloan to the room off the kitchen and stood, hands in pockets, studying her makeshift case board.

“You’re putting in some time.”

“It won’t let go.”

“I hear that. We got a fancier one for the task force, but this does the same thing.”

Nash made them more coffee, then stayed out of the way while they talked.

“You’ve covered ground we’ve covered. From the looks of it, you covered some of it first.”

“And ended up in the same place. Nothing quite solid enough.”

“We’ve got three states involved, but they intersect right there.” He circled his fingers where Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia met. “Cumberland’s as far east as we’ve tracked them, Uniontown north, Morgantown west. But it’s concentrated, like you said, here.”

He tapped the hospital on the map. “They’re not masterminds,” he repeated. “And if they’re doctors, nurses, EMTs, medical support staff—and I’m with you there—this?” He tapped the hospital again. “This is the big one. Largest staff, patient influx.”

He puffed out his cheeks. “We’re looking, Sloan. Nobody’s rung the bell yet, but we’re looking.”

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