"To us," Alison said."If it wasn’t—" She stopped dead when Special Agent Hartley entered the room.Then she leaped to her feet.Just a few simple words would make her the happiest person in the world.
Hartley shook her head."Not yet," she told the room."He was spotted outside of Stockton, waking on the side of the highway.At least, they think it was him."
"Stockton?"Derek asked."How long ago?"
"A few hours," Hartley said."We’re sending a team out three now and setting up roadblocks."
"Between there and here," Alison commented.
Hartley paused before nodding."Yeah."
"He’s coming back," Alison said."Back to the place he knows, the only familiarity he has ever had."
"He’s injured, tired, with nowhere to go.You have nothing to worry about," Hartley said.
"He’s armed," Derek pointed out."I want to go out there.I want to be the one to bring him in."
"No, you need to stay here," Hartley ordered."If he is coming back, we have no reason to believe he’ll come back here.We still have eyes on his home, and it’s far more likely he’ll go back there.Still, you need to be here just in case."
"I’ll stay," Derek said.
"I’ll be here, too," James said from the kitchen.
"I'm sorry to interrupt," Hartley said, raising a hand."I just thought you should know."
Alison wanted to ask her to stay, to share in some camaraderie with them, but she also wanted Hartley back out there, coordinating the search for Mills.
"Thanks for coming," Alison said.
"I’ll show myself out," Hartley said.
"I’ll come with you," Detective Moore told her."I won't be able to sleep with this going on, so however you can use me, please do."
Alison smiled as she watched Hartley and Moore head for the door.
"You don't need to worry, I’m here with you, and James is here, too.You have a security system, and I have a gun."
Alison nodded."He’s coming back to the city," she said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Alison stood at the window again, looking out over the city that was now fast asleep.It had been more than twenty-four hours since Hartley had visited to tell them about the sighting near Stockton.Since then, he hadn’t been seen.They were monitoring the roads between Stockton and Oakland, and he hadn’t been seen, but there was a chance he had slipped past, gone through some farmland.
There was also a chance that he had succumbed to his bullet wound, if he did have one, and he would be found early one morning by a farmer.
Alison wondered how logical it was to be standing at the window when Mills might be back in the city with a gun.Would he come for her?Sarah Hartman had blamed people for what her brother did and what happened to him, and she’d gone after them.Would Mills come after her?Did he blame her?Derek?Her father?Would he take a shot at her from the bushes?He’d shot a cop.
It felt like an act of defiance to stand at the window.Twenty-two years she had been searching for the man who killed her sister, and she wouldn’t cower away now that she knew who he was.Still, it felt like something of an anticlimax.What if he did succumb to his injuries and was found in a field somewhere?Would that be justice?He would be dead, and he couldn’t kill anyone else, but she wanted to look him in the eye.Just like Derek, she wanted to be the one to bring him in after searching for him for so long.For more than twenty years, she had been the only one looking for him.
"Still nothing," Derek said when he returned to the living room."Are you sure you don't want to try and get some rest, and I’ll wake you the first I hear something?
"I won't be able to sleep," she said."They have to hear something soon."
Derek nodded.
They heard footsteps from the kitchen, and Rex, her father’s dog, appeared, slowly padding his way through from the kitchen.He was getting old, but he was still going.James had brought him over to help guard the house, and Alison had tried not to laugh at that.Rex was the most amazing dog, but he couldn’t keep up with time any longer, let alone an intruder.Besides, no one was getting in without tripping the alarm.Her father was also trying to keep up with time, and he was asleep upstairs in the guest room.
"I’ll make some coffee," Derek said.He headed off to the kitchen to put a pot on.
