The Shadow Tracer

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Acknowledgments

1

Under the wind, snow needled Sarah Keller’s face. She ran, slipping on leaves and mud. There was no path. The forest swelled around her, thick with fir and Ponderosa pine. In her arms, the baby stirred.

Sarah tugged the blanket around Zoe’s tiny shoulders. “It’s okay.” She whispered it raggedly. “Shh.”

Branches loomed in front of them, camellias flowering red. Shielding the baby, she pushed past. Her foot snagged on a root.

“No—”

She pitched to her knees and slid, cradling Zoe. “Dammit.”

She caught herself. In the rush of wind, her voice would carry. Christ.

She struggled back to her feet. Zoe’s face screwed up and her hands balled beneath her chin. Her little cotton watch cap had come askew. Sarah rearranged it.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, shh.”

Mud from her hand streaked Zoe’s cheek. The little thing opened her eyes, mewled, and turned away from the sting of the snow.

“Quiet, quiet.” Please. She wiped Zoe’s face. And stopped. Her palm had smeared the baby’s cheek with blood.

She turned her hand. “Oh—”

She was cut, a long slash along her palm. For an instant it startled her, a raw gash, sharp and numb, before the pain grew thorns and stung.

She looked over her shoulder, past the grasping roots, up the trail she’d crashed through the forest. Beyond shivering branches the house sat still and dark in the strange, shadowless morning. Sarah blinked, from shock and pain and tears.

It looked unexceptional and hideously wrong. Doors shut, shades down: abandoned. Though her coat was pulled up to her ears, the cold bored through her. The house looked like its soul had been stolen.

She turned away from it and from everything in it. Gone. She, Zoe, everything—gone. Chest heaving, she plunged through the trees.

Her truck was a quarter-mile away, parked on a switchback. An instinct had warned her when she drove up the mountain earlier, an eerie undertone that sighed, Don’t pull in the driveway. Keep driving. Someone’s there, watching. This place was a backwoods idyll, secluded in the coastal mountains south of San Francisco. It was lonely and wild and studded with redwoods. California dreamin’. A waking nightmare.

And it was snowing. Goddamn snowing, ten miles from the beach. The wind drove flakes against the baby’s face. She squirmed and let out another mewling cry. Sarah pulled the blanket up.

“Shh. I gotcha.”

Six weeks old. Barely old enough to grasp Sarah’s finger and smile. And now this.

Why? Why now? They’d just gotten home. They’d had a safe trip. They’d run the gauntlet and come out untouched. Everything was okay.

Except it wasn’t. The hairs on the back of Sarah’s neck prickled. She glanced back again. Screened by the pines, barely visible now, the house wore a wraith’s face. Windows, its blank eyes, watched her.

Veiled beneath the wind, another sound rose, a dark flow that seemed ready to take solid form. Shivering, she turned and aimed for the switchback.

The man appeared directly in front of her. He seemed to materialize from the gray recesses of the trees.

“Jesus.” She jerked to a halt, breathing hard, and pulled Zoe against her chest.

He moved silently into her path. He was dark-eyed and somber, his face raw from the wind. His voice was low.

“Don’t move.”

Her chest heaved. “You’re too late.”

Behind her rose a crackle. The ashen light of the woods flickered and turned orange. It burnished the snow and reflected in his eyes. The house was burning.

He stood between her and the truck. Zoe let out a tiny cry. Sarah backed up a step, trying not to look toward the switchback.

He raised his hand, gesturing stop. “Don’t.”

She shook her head. “I’m not staying here.”

With a glass chime, the windows of the house blew out. He tensed. Eyes on the distance, he reached inside his jacket and drew a semiautomatic pistol.

He held it as though it ended all arguments, as though it answered any question she could possibly ask. But the wind shook the trees and the snow blew harder. Around them ghosts seemed to rise. She held still. Because the forest was deep, and he wasn’t the only one carrying a gun.

2

Five years later: Present day

9:03 A.M. Outside the memorial, Sarah snapped a photo and slid her phone into her jeans pocket. On the cyclone fence, mementoes fluttered in the spring breeze. Photos, flowers, miniature flags. Teddy bears. She stood alone at the gates, but as long as she looked solemn she’d be taken for a tourist, not a threat.

Not a stalker, and never a thief.

The morning was warm, the sky porcelain blue. On Harvey Avenue, rush-hour traffic rolled downtown. Across the street, the vintage red Porsche was parked, locked, and unguarded. The driver had been gone eleven minutes. He hadn’t noticed Sarah. He flicked the remote and walked away, preoccupied, leaving the 911 sitting there like a 300-horsepower lollipop. She paced along the fence.

Fifty yards away, a group of schoolchildren clustered outside the entrance to the museum. They bounced and giggled while their teachers and parents shushed them through the doors.

Let ’em laugh, Sarah thought. The sound seemed to skip off the reflecting pool. Let it echo and fill this place with life.

She continued along the fence. She’d gone full rodeo this morning: low-slung jeans and a belt with a hefty silver buckle; a plaid work shirt knotted over a ribbed white tank; city-girl cowboy boots. It was straight from the Barrel Racer Calendar, and around here, this disguise worked better than a sniper’s ghillie suit. Her brown hair hung halfway down her back in the warm sunshine.

A jogger ran by, earbuds leaking Muse. The man she was tracking, the driver of the Porsche, had disappeared into an apartment high-rise down the street.

She glanced again at her watch. How much longer? Maybe she’d miscalculated. Maybe they were playing Trivial Pursuit, or making insane love, or figuring out who had set them up and why.

A police car cruised past. The officer at the wheel glanced at her.

At the museum, the kids’ silvery voices ebbed. In the resulting quiet the sunshine seemed to hum from the Field of Empty Chairs—168 of them, 19 smaller than the rest.

The pines stirred. Beyond them one corner of the Murrah Building had been left after demolition: concrete and twisted rebar, plaster charred black by the heat of the explosion. City skyscrapers looked out over the memorial park, a beautiful and heartbreaking view.

On the cyclone fence, key chains glinted. Beside them hung a pair of baby shoes. Sarah stopped. Tiny Mary Janes, dangling from the fence.

Sarah glanced again at the museum entrance. Zoe had a field trip this morning too. Her kindergarten class was climbing on the bus about now.

The last of the parent chaperones shooed kids through the doors. The woman laughed quietly, staring at her phone.

That phone probably had GPS turned on, and would broadcast the woman’s position to all her social media accounts, so the planet could know exactly what time she and the kids would step onto the grounds of a terrorist atrocity. Sarah never activated her phone’s GPS. She knew where she was: in the center of a block drenched with ghosts, in the middle of Oklahoma City, completely on her own.

OKC was a big city, the metro area more than a million people. Sarah had found that, with effort, she could remain comparatively anonymous. Nobody got suspicious if she protected her privacy. But the place was unpretentious. Folks were friendly. They tried to take care of each other. Perhaps because of what had happened in 1995, near the spot where she stood, when Timothy McVeigh parked his Ryder truck, lit the fuse, and walked away.

The baby shoes on the fence were black patent leather. She touched them and turned away from the morning sun.

The driver of the Porsche emerged from the apartment high-rise and stalked along the sidewalk toward his car.

His name was Derek Dryden. He was a physician, a fast car nut, and an adulterer. He rented his mistress an apartment in the Cadogan Towers, and if Sarah was playing things right this morning, he’d just had a flaming argument with her.

Dryden looked harassed. He glanced around, acting exactly like a man who didn’t want to be spotted.

Showtime. Sarah checked traffic and crossed the street, heading in his direction.

Her Glock was in the pickup, secure in a stainless-steel lockbox. But in her messenger bag she had a spring-lock military knife. She didn’t know Derek Dryden, and planned to take no chances. A stethoscope didn’t guarantee he’d be nonviolent.

The sidewalk radiated heat. The street was prairie flat, with pale grass struggling to cover red dirt, studded with a few hardy oaks; a sun-drenched and exposed walk. She and Dryden were the only people on it.

Two things had given him away: a speeding ticket and his trash. Getting him here had taken a week of Sarah’s time, two hundred miles of driving, and a few pairs of latex gloves. Now came the endgame. Dryden didn’t know he was being played—she hoped. Because Dryden wasn’t her target. His mistress was.

Kayla Pryce had the hard body of a workout freak. In photos, she looked as though she could crack a man between her thighs like a nut. And she had a heart of acid-eaten steel. She had worked for a children’s hospital charity in Houston. When its bank account turned up empty, the charity’s director of finance was charged with embezzlement. The day after the cops took him in, Kayla Pryce skipped town.

The finance director was about to stand trial. His attorney planned to defend him by putting the blame for the missing money where it truly lay: on Pryce. The defense had issued a subpoena compelling her to testify. She was ducking it.

Sarah intended to change that.

But the trial was only four days away. The defense attorney was scrambling. Find Pryce, he said. We don’t have much time left.

The problem was, he didn’t have much information either. Just Kayla Pryce’s full name, her date of birth, and a rumor that she was in Oklahoma City.

Sarah’s initial digging came up empty. No address, no phone number. A criminal background check turned up nothing. Pryce’s car was registered in Texas and her credit report gave Houston as her last known address. She’d canceled her rental, canceled all utilities and her cell phone account, and blown town without a forwarding address.

People on the run, people attempting to hide, stayed out of the sunlight. Often they couldn’t be seen directly. But they left shadows. And that’s what Sarah traced.

Kayla Pryce was sly, but she was also careless. Like most twenty-first century Americans, she suckled at the cyber-teat and couldn’t wean herself from social media. Instead of deleting her accounts, she changed her settings to Private. But that didn’t block Sarah from seeing her Friends list. And those friends talked to her, and about her, and eventually one shared a photo Pryce had posted, for all the world to see.

It was a photo Pryce had snapped of herself—standing by the side of a rural highway, loitering while her date got a speeding ticket. It showed her Texas hair, gym-sculpted shoulders, and duck-lipped pout. It also showed a corner of the car: a vintage red Porsche. Plus a highway marker: U.S. 62 West. And the bottom portion of a sign: ELCOME TO KIO.

The tagline: SO CLOSE TO THE COUNTY LINE.

That was enough. It told Sarah the Porsche had been ticketed where Kiowa and Comanche counties met. And that sent her to the courthouse nearest to the line.

Most people didn’t realize that speeding tickets were public records. It took her two hours, but she found it: the citation for a 1976 Porsche 911, clocked doing 93 mph. The ticket bore Derek Dryden’s name and his address in Oklahoma City.

His house was a mock-Tudor mansion near the country club. When Sarah staked it out, she discovered that Dryden cheated on his wife but faithfully hauled the trash can to the curb every Wednesday night.

The trash can was where she grabbed the Hefty bag that contained a receipt for the wide-screen television Dryden had purchased—the one he’d had delivered to the Cadogan Towers.

Unfortunately, the receipt was torn. The apartment number was missing. Sarah had called the store, trying to get the apartment number. No luck. She called the front desk at the Cadogan Towers, pretending to be the store, and asked if the TV had been delivered to the correct apartment. Got no joy.

So this morning she had walked into the lobby of the apartment building, carrying two dozen red roses.

“Delivery from Moonflower for Kayla Pryce,” she said.

The receptionist smiled. “Aren’t those gorgeous?”

Sarah walked past her toward the elevators. “And it’s apartment number …”

“You can leave them with me.”

“That’s okay. I can take them up—”

“I’ll see that they’re delivered.”

She left them. Ten seconds later she was back on the sidewalk, walking toward the memorial. She’d hoped the flowers would get a reaction out of Kayla Pryce. She wanted them to bring Pryce down to the street, chasing her for information. After all, she had signed the card: For my one, my only, my incredible Janelle. Love, Derek.

But Pryce hadn’t appeared, or phoned the number for Moonflower—which was a spoof number that would be forwarded to Sarah’s phone. However, ten minutes after Sarah left the roses, the Porsche had pulled up and Dryden had gone into the apartment building. Now, thirteen minutes later, he was returning to the car. Alone.

Kayla Pryce was everything Sarah hated: a cheat, a leech, a thief. She was cunning, devious, and remorseless. Maybe Derek Dryden knew what she was. Maybe he didn’t care to know. Either way, he wasn’t Sarah’s concern.

Sarah watched him stomp toward his car. He looked back once at the apartment tower.

Perfect. He feared that Pryce was watching him. He wouldn’t do that unless her apartment faced the street.

Sarah put on her game face. She walked up to the Porsche. Slowing, she admired it a moment, then leaned against the hood. She crossed her feet and waited for him, as if she owned the thing. Or the guy driving it.

Dryden huffed up to her, annoyed. “What are you doing?”

“This machine is a work of art.” She ran her hand along the car’s flank as though stroking a thoroughbred. “It’s a seventy-six, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Get off.”

“I’ll give you 10 percent above Bluebook for it.”

“Not for sale.”

“Cash. Or cashier’s check. I can have the money for you in twenty minutes.”

He neared, hands out, gesturing shoo. “What did I just say? Move.”

“Fifteen percent over Bluebook. It’s a beauty.”

“Am I talking to a wall? Get your cowgirl ass off my car.”

He was four feet away. Not yet within arm’s reach but close enough to set her tingling with apprehension. He was six-two and looked fit, as if he worked the weights and maybe a heavy bag. He smelled strongly of cologne and sweat.

Steady. She stood up. “I represent a collector who will pay top dollar for vintage cars like this. Let me know what it will take. At least let me give you my card.”

She reached toward him—suggestively, she hoped.

He brushed past her. “Forget it.”

He got in and slammed the door. She went to the driver’s window, leaned down, and put one hand against the glass, plaintively.

“If you change your mind …”

He fired up the engine, set his hand on the gearshift, and paused. His head flicked around. His gaze clouded.

Uh-oh.

He threw open the door. “Who the hell are you?”

“Whoa.” She raised her hands and backed away. “Sorry, mister.”

He got out and stepped toward her. “Did you send the flowers?”

She kept backing up. “What flowers?”

He reached for her arm. “What kind of bullshit game are you playing?”

She didn’t need to feign alarm. She batted his hand aside. “Don’t.”

He stopped himself, seeming to realize he’d crossed a line. He jabbed a finger at her. “If I find out …”

“Forget it. Keep your car. I don’t want it.”

She continued to back down the street. His pointing finger hung in the air a second longer. He shook his head in seeming disgust, climbed in the Porsche, and screeched away. She stood in the street, hands at her sides.

Well, that was fun.

On the sidewalk was a mailbox. She walked over, wound up, and kicked it. Reminded herself: Showtime. This is why you wore the hard-toed cowboy boots. She kicked it again. Wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Then she walked, slowly and in open view, to the coffee shop on the corner. She went in and slumped in a seat by the window.

Sarah was no game player. She was a hunter, a manipulator, a professional liar. She was a skip tracer. She looked out the window at the Cadogan Towers, waiting.

3

Everybody on the bus.”

The kids climbed the steps and scattered down the aisle, backpacks bouncing. Outside the door, Zoe Keller paused.

The teacher, Lark Sobieski, smiled and said, “Come on, honey.”

Zoe stayed put. “Do the cheetahs have room to run?”

“We’ll find out.”

Zoe’s face was grave. In the morning heat her cheeks were as pink as the giant strawberry on her shirt. She was a thoughtful child, dark-eyed and observant. She sometimes saw things sideways, things none of the other kindergartners noticed or even imagined. She was dexterous, one of those kids whose fine motor skills developed before their gross coordination. She’d suffered plenty of playground scrapes—Lark kept a box of Band-Aids in her desk that could be labeled Zoe’s. Some days, Lark thought Zoe would be an astrophysicist, or a shaman. Other days, when she smiled, bottom teeth missing, she just seemed like a little girl going to the zoo.

“I hope so,” Lark said. “Go on, honey, get a seat.”

Zoe watched her a second longer, as if checking for signs of untruthfulness, before she took a big step and climbed aboard. At the top of the steps she turned back.

“Because if they don’t have room, they need a place. In Kenya. Or a park. But with a fence.”

The driver, busy texting, said, “Can’t argue with that.”

Zoe leaned toward Lark and whispered, “You’re not supposed to be on the phone when you drive.”

Turning, she skipped down the aisle and hopped up on a seat next to Ryan Fong.

Lark hung in the doorway. Unsettled, she said, “Sir?”

The bus driver looked up sheepishly and set his phone on the dashboard. “All set?”

“Ready to roll.”

He fired up the engine. Lark took the front seat. The door closed slowly, easing shut with a pneumatic hiss that left her inexplicably ill at ease.

Sarah was halfway through her second cup of coffee when the door opened and Kayla Pryce walked in. Pryce was in full makeup, with sugar-frosted curls, wearing a black velour track suit and a Rolex that could double for brass knuckles. Sarah set aside her cup and checked that she had a clear path to the exit.

She had been warned that Kayla Pryce liked three things: doctors, diamonds, and sharp objects. Pryce had once, she’d heard, defaced the portrait of a love rival by stabbing out its eyes with an ice pick. She had scratched a woman in the face in a dispute at the gym over a Thighmaster. And at a designer dress salon, she’d gone after a seamstress with a pair of scissors for remarking that her new gown needed to be let out in the ass.

Sarah clenched and unclenched her fist. The long gash in her palm had healed to a white weald of scar, a slice that made her lifeline untraceable. Luckily, Your Morning Joe didn’t set out real cutlery. If Kayla Pryce wanted to slash, stab, or carve her up, she’d have to use toothpicks and bendy straws.

“You.”

Pryce’s voice rang like a school bell. Sarah reached into the messenger bag as though hunting for her car keys, and stood up.

“You. Janelle.”

Around the coffee shop, conversation stopped. Peripherally, Sarah watched Pryce approach.

A skip tracer couldn’t show fear. As an old hand put it, skip tracing was a dark business: Every time you found someone, you made an enemy. You had to be confident, tenacious, and crafty.

“Don’t ignore me.”

Sarah turned. Pryce was taller than she’d expected, by half a foot. And that didn’t count her hair. The duck lips had been plumped to new extremes. She stamped up to her like a furious ostrich, and for a second Sarah thought Pryce planned to peck her face off.

“Sorry?” Sarah said.

“Why were you talking to Derek?”

Sarah looked around, as though for an invisible friend. “I’m here by myself.”

“Outside. You were all over him.” Pryce flapped her hands. “His one, his only Janelle.”

“Not even close.”

“Don’t play innocent.”

Nearby a barista watched anxiously, a coffeepot in her hand. “Ma’am …”

Sarah raised a hand. “It’s okay.”

Pryce said, “Look at me when I’m talking to you. Stay away from Derek.”

“I don’t know any of these people you’re talking about.”

“So who the hell are you?”

“Priscilla, Queen of the Cowgirls. Who are you?”

“I’m his fiancée,” Pryce said.

Sarah cocked her head. “Kimberly?”

“I’m Kayla. Who the hell is—”

“Kyla? You’re Kyla DeMint?”

Pryce’s ostrich lips parted. “Kayla Pryce. Jesus, who are those other women?”

Sarah seemed to hear a sound like slot machines paying off. Pryce had just identified herself, and in front of twenty witnesses. From the messenger bag Sarah pulled the manila envelope that contained the subpoena.

“Maybe this will explain.”

Pryce grabbed it. As she tore it open, Sarah said, “You’re served.”

Pryce gaped at it. Then, as though it had turned into a silverfish, she threw it on the table and jumped back. Sarah turned for the door. Rule number one for service of process: Once you get what you’re after, don’t hang around. Get your ass gone.

Pryce shoved a chair at her. “You bitch.”

Sarah stopped the chair with her boot. Pryce blocked her path.

The barista came toward them, trying to be conciliatory. “Ma’am, if you don’t mind …”

Pryce grabbed the young woman’s arm and yanked the coffeepot from her hand.

The place erupted. People would happily watch a catfight, but scorned women and scalding coffee made for bad juju. Sarah hoisted the chair in front of herself.

The coffee flew first, a hot spray. Then Pryce smashed the glass carafe against a table.

“This is about the trial in Houston? You’re their hound?”

The glass swung near Sarah’s face, gleaming like broken teeth. She felt a white spark of fear. She hated sharp objects. And hated being part of a scene. She raised the chair.

“Take it back,” Pryce shouted. “I refuse service.”

That was like refusing gravity, but Sarah didn’t bother to explain. The barista had ducked behind the counter. She came out, face flushed, and this time she wasn’t holding a coffeepot.

Sarah lowered the chair to ensure that Pryce’s eyes were on her. “Enjoy the flowers. In jail you’ll get cavity searches, not roses.”

Pryce lunged at her. Sarah ducked and raised the chair.

And the barista stepped up behind Pryce and Tasered her.

Pryce jerked, hit herself in the head with the broken carafe, and toppled to the floor. She hit with a thump and lay there twitching.

The barista said, “She shouldn’t have done that.”

Sarah set down the chair. “I’ll say.”

Pryce barked like a little dog and flailed at the barista’s ankle with her nails. The barista scooted back.

Sarah groped some cash from her wallet and jammed it in the barista’s hands. “Cupcakes for everybody. On me.”

She rushed out the door. Got her, she thought. By knockout—a clean win. It took her two blocks to realize that she was running. In cowboy boots.

Ten minutes later, as she sat in the truck filling out the Proof of Service, her heart was still pounding. Her ears had barely stopped ringing when the phone started.

4

The emergency room at St. Anthony was racked with noise. Kids were crying. Nurses in scrubs called to each other. Parents shouted into phones. Sarah rushed in and found the teacher, Lark Sobieski, sitting with her arm around a little boy. His shoulders bobbed with sobs. Lark’s forehead had a bloody gash.

“Where’s Zoe?” Sarah said.

Lark glanced up, scattered.

“Zoe,” Sarah said.

Lark pointed at the examination area down the hall. Sarah took three quick steps toward it and turned back.

“Everybody here?” She couldn’t bring herself to phrase it any other way.

“A minivan cut us off,” Lark said. “The bus slid into a ditch.”

“The kids?”

“Most of them walked away.” She cuddled the little boy under her arm. “Everybody’s here, yeah.”

“You okay?”

“It’s nothing.” Lark touched the gash. Her fingers came away bloody.

Sarah squeezed the young woman’s shoulder and hurried to the desk. Her eyes stung. She tried to speak and her tongue felt thick.

“Zoe Keller. She was on the school bus.”

The nurse said, “You family?”

Sarah nodded and fumbled to pull her wallet from her messenger bag. Lark called, “She’s Zoe’s mom.”

With trembling fingers Sarah took out her driver’s license. The nurse read it. “Your daughter’s being examined.”

“Is she okay?”

The nurse called a hospital volunteer, a woman in her seventies who wore a red vest. She led Sarah through double doors into the fluorescent bay of the ER. They passed kids from Zoe’s class. Doctors. Mothers Sarah recognized. At the far end of the room, a nurse leaned over a hospital bed.

On it Zoe sat cross-legged, watching the nurse take her blood pressure. She focused attentively on the inflating cuff.

The floor softened beneath Sarah’s feet and the walls seemed to shiver with light. The volunteer put a steadying hand beneath her elbow.

“Thanks, I’m okay,” Sarah said.

She wasn’t, she couldn’t even spell okay, but she was back from the brink. The volunteer patted her arm and headed off.

Zoe looked up. “Mom, they’re squeezing my blood.”

With her two bottom teeth out, Zoe whistled when she talked. Sarah grasped the railing of the bed. “I see.”

For the first time in five years, she felt herself praying. Not with words, but with a clear singing tone that seemed to spin around her and infuse the air. Thank God.

“How you doing?” she said. She eyed the nurse. “How’s she doing?”

The nurse tore off the blood pressure cuff. “She’s all right. Just shaken up.”

Zoe’s brown hair, bobbed short like a flapper, was held off her forehead with a clip. It had a big fuzzy bumblebee on the end. No unicorns or kittens for Zoe. She went for things that sting.

“The bus turned on its side,” she said.

Sarah’s throat locked. She put a hand on Zoe’s head and kissed her, shutting her eyes to hide her tears. She felt a bandage on the back of Zoe’s scalp.

The nurse took Zoe’s pulse. “She has bruises and she complained of a sore neck—we got some x-rays.”

“What did you find?”

“No neurological signs of head trauma, only abrasions and minor lacerations.” She set Zoe’s hand down. “The doctor will speak to you about her results.”

Zoe eyed Sarah soberly. “On the bus, grass and dirt came in the windows. Like a cheese grater, only we were on the inside.”

“I’m so sorry, pup.”

“Ryan Fong fell on top of me. Then we crawled out the emergency door. Miss Lark busted it open with a little hammer.”

Sarah lowered the rail, sat on the bed, and pulled Zoe into her arms. “You’re going to be okay.”

“I know.”

At that, Sarah smiled. This child.

To the nurse, she said, “When can I speak to the doctor?”

“He’ll be here in a few minutes.”

Zoe said, “They took blood.” She held up her arm. A cotton ball was taped to the crook of her elbow. “With a needle, and I didn’t cry.”

“You were very brave.”

“I saw the van crash into the bus.”

Once again Sarah’s nerves crackled. She stroked Zoe’s hair. “I’m sorry it was scary.”

“It zoomed around the curve.” She pulled her knees up and hugged them. “The lady driving the van was drinking a soda and talking on her phone.”

Great. Her little eyewitness, prepping for testimony. The nurse raised an eyebrow.

“You saw that?” Sarah said.

“She yelled at the phone and threw it at the windshield. She was talking to her boyfriend, I think.”

The nurse looked wry.

“Maybe …” Sarah stopped. Her own phone was ringing. She excused herself.

It was her boss. “Danisha,” she said.

“Keller. Did you serve Kayla Pryce?”

Danisha Helms Legal was an attorney support service. The business handled service of process, court filings, document research, and Sarah’s field, skip tracing. The company’s name was both simple and canny: people would hide in a closet if they knew a process server was at the door, but they’d drop the chain and open up if they heard, “It’s DHL.”

“I served her,” Sarah said, “and I’m at St. Anthony. Zoe’s school bus was in an accident.”

“Oh my God. Is she okay?”

Bless the woman. Cool and ruthless and always looking like she wanted to reach for a Marlboro or a .45, Danisha Helms could soften like a lullaby.

“Cuts and bruises. They took some films, and she may need stitches, but not in a place that will leave a visible scar,” Sarah said.

No distinguishing marks. That was always the goal. “I’ll bring the proof of service as soon as I can.”

“Sugar, you stay there and take care of that little girl. Don’t fret about the office,” Danisha said.

“I’m not.”

“Your voice is shaking. I’ll be right there.”

Sarah thanked her, grateful, and ended the call.

The nurse said, “Mrs. Keller?”

It was Miss Keller, but Sarah didn’t correct her. She kissed the top of Zoe’s head. “Don’t know about Zoe’s accident reconstruction. Kids see the world in creative ways.”

Zoe was an inventive little girl. Wonderfully so, 95 percent of the time. The other 5 percent, the freaky five, the wild beasts of her imagination would see a mirage and conjure it into a hurricane.

The nurse just looked bemused. “It’s not that. It’s her test results.”

“Is something wrong?”

“The attending physician will need to speak to you about her x-rays.”

All at once she felt chilly. “What about her x-rays? What are you talking about?”

The nurse’s expression had gone flat. She eyed Sarah up and down in a way that made her feel naked. “You’ll have to speak to the attending about it.”

“No—tell me. Please.”

A man’s voice stopped her dead. “Is this some kind of sick joke?”

Sarah turned. Standing there was the attending physician, Derek Dryden.

5

Sarah’s internal alarm system flashed straight to Red.

So did Dryden’s face. “What kind of game are you playing?” He pointed at the nurse. “Call Security.”

Sarah raised her hands. “Stop. This has nothing to do with the subpoena I served on Ms. Pryce.”

“You have to do better than that. Nancy, call them.”

The nurse bustled to the wall and picked up a phone.

“Please, don’t,” Sarah said. “This is about Zoe. The nurse said you need to speak to me about her test results.”

“You’re her mother?”

Zoe said, “Of course she is.”

Go, Zoe.

Dryden inhaled so sharply his nostrils flared. For a second, Sarah thought he would throw the chart to the floor and stomp out. Instead, he retracted his anger behind a neutral expression. He smoothed his tie. He headed for the hallway, jerking his head for her to come along. The nurse hung up the phone and trailed after them.

The double doors closed behind them. Sarah said, “Dr. Dryden, I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot earlier.”

“Is that what you call your little piece of street agitprop?”

“Is Zoe all right?”

Dryden crossed his arms and held the chart against his chest. “That depends.”

“On what? Please, is she okay?”

He stalked down the hall to Radiology. Inside, he turned on a light box, pulled an x-ray from Zoe’s chart, and jammed it up on the wall.

Sarah scanned it. “What’s wrong? What am I looking at?”

He tapped the film. “That.”

The x-ray showed Zoe’s skull and spine. Between her shoulders, buried deep, was a white spot no bigger than a grain of rice.

“Why have you microchipped your child?” Dryden said.

“Jesus.”

It tumbled out before she could stop herself. Dryden turned toward her, slowly, pivoting like a mummy. He eyed her for a long moment, seeming to check for signs she was gaming him again. His gaze slid over her shoulder to the nurse. The woman took it as a silent signal. She left the room.

“That’s an RFID microchip,” he said. “And you didn’t know?”

Radio Frequency Identification. RFID chips were essentially sophisticated bar codes. Next gen product identification. The chip was a tiny transmitter.

Sarah’s nerves began to pop. RFID chips were used in industry—to track cars on the assembly line or drug inventories in pharmacies. And pets and livestock sometimes had tags injected for identification. They were twenty-first-century cattle brands, scored into chattel with a hypodermic needle instead of a red-hot branding iron.

And one had been injected inside Zoe.

Sarah steadied herself. Don’t lie. Not if you can help it. Not yet.

“No. I didn’t know that,” she said.

“Excuse me if I find that bizarre.”

The implications coursed through her. Bad. Worse. Unbelievably awful.

Dryden stared. Say something.

“Her father,” she said.

“What about him? You’re saying he had the chip implanted?”

“He must have.” She stared at the x-ray. “I can think of nobody else who would have done this.”

He examined her with open suspicion. “Where is Zoe’s father?”

“He’s not here.”

“Can you contact him?”

“No. And it doesn’t matter whether he had the chip inserted.”

“I take it you two are no longer together.”

She held her hand up, gesturing stop. This was nearing dangerous territory. Her instincts told her to tread gingerly. They told her that one slip could be fatal, and that everybody was out to trip her up.

“I want it removed,” she said.

She wanted it burned. She wanted to grab Zoe and get out of the hospital before this went nuclear.

“Now?” Dryden said.

“I never gave permission for that thing to be implanted, and I want it the hell out of her.”

“Very well, but it’s not a medical emergency. Who’s her pediatrician?”

Cool it. She disliked the nosiness behind his question. “If she’s got the all clear, I want to take her home.”

His voice turned neutral. “Once we finish her paperwork.”

He glanced out the door at the hallway. And Sarah understood where the nurse had gone.

“Oh, no.” She rushed out of the radiology suite.

“Wait,” Dryden called.

The pounding of her heart seemed like a warning bell. She ran back to the ER. On the bed sat Zoe, knees bouncing, while the nurse examined her with an electronic device that looked like a bar code reader.

“What are you doing?” Sarah said.

The nurse looked past her at Dryden. “Doctor, come see this.”

Sarah had to get Zoe out of there now. “Is that an RFID reader? You were scanning …”

She stopped. Zoe was staring at her.

Bright-eyed, Zoe said, “The nurse waved it over me. It’s like a Star Wars gizmo that looks inside and sees what’s going on.”

The nurse had almost certainly borrowed it from the hospital pharmacy. She handed it to Dryden. He read the display.

“Your name is Sarah Keller, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And Zoe’s father is named Nolan Worthe?”

Zoe turned to him, her eyes abruptly huge with curiosity.

“Yes,” Sarah said. It was the first time she’d ever admitted that in public.

Dryden peered at the display, and at her. “Then who’s Bethany?”

Sarah remained silent.

“Ms. Keller. This readout says Zoe’s mother is Bethany Keller Worthe. So who the hell are you?”

Meg Gardiner

THE SHADOW TRACER

MICHAEL JOSEPH

Contents

THE SHADOW TRACER

1

2

3

4

5