to keep tracking Hayes showed it. As soon as she hung up, she called Peggy in the crime lab.
“Peggy? It’s Maggie. I’ve got a heads-up for you. Gonzales may come poking around. He wants a smoking gun so he can stage the press conference to end all press conferences.” She laughed at something Peggy said, then asked, “Any luck?” She looked disappointed. “I know. Sorry to add to the pressure. Did Danny show up for work yet?” She paused. “Didn’t think he would. I can’t just sit around. I’m going to go question the daughter again. She may know something and not realize it. Call me if you find anything.”
As she drove toward the foster home where she had dropped Sarah Hayes off the night before, I could tell Maggie felt her window of opportunity to find Alan Hayes slipping away from her. She was determined to use every waking moment to locate him. And as dangerous as he was, I wondered if Maggie wasn’t equally as dangerous in her own way—at least to him.
Hayes wondered, too. Within a few miles, I spotted his car. It was not yet noon. With most of the town still in church, the roads were relatively empty. Hayes was hanging back a block and trying to hide behind a red truck headed in our direction, but it was impossible for him to conceal himself completely. When we hit a straightaway, the road widened, then curved, giving me an unmistakable view of his SUV as he sped up to keep pace with Maggie. I could not see inside the SUV, but it was the same model and the same shiny black finish. It darted from lane to lane, clearing other cars like a shark slicing through a school of smaller fish.
It could have been someone else, of course, but when I saw it again, turning into the road ahead of us, after taking a parallel road to pass us first, I knew it was Hayes. He turned right soon after, away from us, but before long he had pulled back in behind us. Maggie was being careful. She checked the rearview mirrors frequently, but Hayes knew how to follow without being detected. You’d have to really be looking to spot him.
I guess he’d had a lot of practice.
Maggie led him straight to the house where his daughter was staying.
My only consolation was that the daylight revealed what I had missed the night before: this was more than a foster home. This was a safe house for kids whose parents had been deemed a danger to their children. An eight-foot-tall link fence of commercial-grade chain enclosed the backyard. Hayes would not be able to spy on Sarah from the rear of the house, at least not without risking being seen by someone as he climbed over that fence.
Maggie rang the doorbell. A redheaded boy who looked to be about eight years old opened it immediately. He was breathing hard and his face was creased with a smile—we had interrupted his fun.
“Ask who it is first!” a voice reminded the boy from another room.
The little redheaded guy, with the door wide open, inquired, “May I ask who you are before I unlock the door?”
Maggie suppressed her smile and showed him her badge.
“Maggie.” Sarah Hayes stepped out from behind a doorway, face flushed. Four smaller children, all of them under age five, were hanging off her arms and legs. “Sandy went to the grocery store to get more milk. I’m babysitting.”
She was a new girl. One day and she was becoming a whole new person. The resilience of children is breathtaking, I thought to myself. Would that we could keep that ability as adults. I could tell Sarah was proud of being able to help out. The expression on her face finally fit her age.
“Again!” one of the smaller children squealed and began tugging on her arm. Sarah was pulled under by a sea of squirming bodies. She was wrestling four little children at once—and giving them a run for their money.
Maggie watched, smiling, until the kids had pinned Sarah to the floor. They jumped around the room in triumph as she scrambled to her feet, face flushed, and adjusted her long ponytail. “They’re hard to beat,” she told Maggie.
“I can tell. But you hold your own.”
Sarah smiled at this, but it reminded her of something else far less happy. Her eyes lingered on the front door, then she walked over to it and locked the four deadbolts