Hunting Fear by Kay Hooper Page B

upright without his help. He let her go without protest but remained kneeling where he was as she twisted around so she could see all three of them.
    Flexing her fingers, she realized that the white streaks across her palms were numb.
    “Tuck your hands under your arms,” Lucas advised. “You have to warm the area.”
    Samantha badly wanted to get up off the ground and stand on her own two feet but had a feeling that if she tried that too soon, she’d only find herself leaning heavily on Lucas for support. So she crossed her arms over her breasts and tucked her hands underneath to help warm them.
    “It doesn’t make sense,” she told him, trying to gather her scattered thoughts. “It wasn’t cold there. Lindsay wasn’t cold. So why would I—”
    “Lindsay?” Metcalf took a step toward her, then brought himself up short.
    Perfectly aware that while he was eager to hear about Lindsay he was unlikely to believe what Samantha told him, she said, “She’s okay, at least for now. Tied to a chair and wearing some kind of hood over her head, but okay. She was even talking to him. Trying to find a weakness she could use.”
    “Sounds like her,” Metcalf said, again almost involuntarily.
    “Did you see or hear anything helpful?” Jaylene asked.
    “I don’t think so. There was a kind of spotlight over the chair so the rest of the room was in shadow. I never saw him, and his voice was so . . . bland . . . I doubt I’d recognize it if he spoke to me right now.”
    “Did you get a sense of the place?” Lucas asked.
    Samantha tried hard to concentrate, to remember. “Not really. The hum of the lights, a faucet dripping, the sort of deadened echo you get in an underground room with a lot of hard surfaces.”
    “Underground?”
    “I think so. It felt that way.”
    “You didn’t see any windows?”
    “No. Nothing reflective. Just that light shining down on her, and the rest of the room in shadows.”
    “What else?”
    “She was asking him why he killed his victims when they couldn’t identify him. He started to answer her, saying she didn’t understand, that he didn’t kill—something. But I never heard the end of what he was saying, I guess because you pulled me out.”
    His tone more one of explanation than of excuse, Lucas said, “You were white as a sheet and shivering, and you had a death grip on that steering wheel. It didn’t look like a normal vision to me.”
    Metcalf snorted. “Normal vision?”
    Samantha ignored him, saying to Lucas, “It didn’t feel like a normal one. I couldn’t seem to move, to look anywhere else but at Lindsay. That’s never happened before.”
    Lucas nodded, but instead of commenting got to his feet and helped her up. “We still need a place to start. If you didn’t see or hear anything helpful—”
    Remembering, Samantha said, “He told Lindsay he didn’t have any connection to this town, that it was one reason he felt safe in sticking around. But he has to be living somewhere. And there must be a place he kept Callahan and where he has Lindsay now. If I had to guess, I’d say you’re looking for at least two different places. Where he lives, and where he keeps them.”
    “Somewhere private,” Lucas said. “Where he can hold his victims without too much fear of discovery.”
    Jaylene said, “Sounds like a place to start.”
    Still looking at Lucas, Samantha said, “That’s what you asked for. And it’s all I can do. I don’t see any reason for me to return to the sheriff’s department. So, if you wouldn’t mind dropping me back at the carnival before you get started with your search, I’d appreciate it.”
    Metcalf said, “To get ready for tonight’s show, I suppose.”
    “That is how I make my living.”
    “Cheating people. Lying to them.”
    Samantha sighed. “Sheriff, I’m trying hard to make allowances for someone who’s ignorant of what he’s talking about and worried half out of his mind because someone he cares about is missing. But