The living room was empty.

He pulled out his cell phone, dialed Sherlock before he realized it hadn’t worked the last time he’d used it. But she answered immediately.

“Dillon? What’s up? You having problems with the car?”

“Sherlock, I’m glad I reached you. The last time I tried to use the cell, it was dead. Something’s happened.”

A brief pause, a touch of panic in her voice, then, “Are you all right?”

“Yes, I promise, but something’s happened.”

“Tell me.” As quickly as he could, he took her through it. When he told her about something knocking him out of the attic, he kept his voice as calm as he could.

“She’s gone. I imagine she’s run away again. She was so terrified, so hysterical, that I couldn’t get anything out of her. We’ve got to find her. I don’t know if she’s still in danger, but she believes she is. It’s cold outside and she didn’t have on a coat, she wasn’t even wearing a sweater. She could freeze to death.”

“Dillon, I think you should go to the sheriff’s office in Blessed Creek. I remember passing it, right there in the middle of Main Street. I’ll be there with Sean as soon as I can. I’m going to call the sheriff, ask him to meet us at his office. You be careful, Dillon, drive slow and careful, keep your eyes open for that woman. Don’t worry. We’ll get this all figured out. I love you.” He could hear Sean singing away in the background. Now, that sounded normal. He smiled.

Ten minutes later, Sherlock climbed out of Jimmy Maitland’s old jeep, which he left at the cabin for his boys’ use. She was worried about Dillon, feeling more scared than usual, perhaps because they were on vacation and this was so unexpected. With Sean asleep in the backseat, snoring little puffs of cold air, she could let the worry show on her face. She stood a moment, looking into the sheriff’s small office, with its single light shining in the wide front windows. She saw an older man with a thick shock of white hair, fiddling with a coffeemaker. Good, he had to be the sheriff. He’d taken her seriously.

Sheriff Doozer Harms stood in the middle of his office, his back to his coffeepot, his arms crossed over his beefy chest as he watched a man pull up behind the woman’s jeep. The man opened the jeep’s passenger side, unfastened the child’s car seat strap, and lifted out a sleeping boy. They all huddled close, then turned, as one, toward his office.

The man pulled his I.D. out even as he stepped into the office. “Sheriff Harms? I’m Agent Dillon Savich, FBI, and this is my wife, Agent Lacey Sherlock. We have a problem and we need to move quickly. My wife is the one who called you.”

“Yes, she did,” said Sheriff Harms as he looked them over. Well, well, two FBI agents, and they were husband and wife, even had a little kid. What was this all about? Agent Sherlock had told him only that her husband had something important to tell him. Doozer wished he was finishing the Bud Light he’d left on top of the TV, and began tapping his foot.

He’d been the sheriff of Blessed Creek for nearly thirty-two years. He figured he’d heard every tourist problem anyone could think of, even if the tourists were FBI agents. But he knew the importance of being polite, knew how to listen even if he was thinking about how much he’d like to be home watching the 76ers.

He shook hands all around, patted the little boy’s head, and pulled out two chairs. “What seems to be the problem, Agent Savich? Your wife said it was urgent that you see me.”

“It’s a woman, Sheriff, she ran out in front of my car, waving her arms, hysterical, yelling that a man was trying to kill her.”

Sheriff Harms didn’t say a word, just leaned a bit closer, his eyes on Savich’s face. He hadn’t heard anything like this before. “Where is she, Agent Savich? This woman?”

Savich told him what had happened, including the bats that had knocked him off the attic ladder and onto the second-floor corridor.

“Bats,” the sheriff said, then nodded for him to continue.

“It’s the only logical explanation I can come up with. We’ve got to hurry, Sheriff. You need to get your deputies together so we can search around the house. She ran away again, and I’m very worried for her safety. She believes a man is trying to kill her, and whatever’s going on, something’s just not right.”

“I can see that you’re worried, Agent Savich. You spoke of driving her back to her home. Where was her home?”

Savich was ready to throw Sheriff Harms through the front window. Time was not on their side. She was out there on this dark night, it was cold, and she had been so disturbed he knew she’d do something stupid. He could see her huddling in the thick trees, shuddering with cold, crying, her hysteria building until maybe the man would find her. Or maybe she’d just die of fright without his help.