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“No. None of the local motels or inns have anyone registered with Illinois plates. And I’ve checked almost all of them.”
“There can’t be many.”
“A dozen. At least within twenty miles. Maybe we’ll have to look farther.”
“Keep trying, Maya.”
“Iwill. How are you holding up?”
“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. Listen, I have to go. Love you, sis.”
“Love you, too, Kara.”
She disconnected and turned to Selene. “They’d have to be pretty stupid to put Illinois plates on a hotel registry,” she said slowly. “I mean, they had to know we’d be looking for them that way.”
Selene nodded. “You’re right. And it’s not like anyone checks. You just write the information in the book and they hand you a room key.”
“So chances are Maya’s phone calls are useless. The only way we’re going to know for sure is to drive to those motels and look for that car ourselves. I just wish I knew where to start.”
“Well then let’s find out!” Selene pulled the car off onto the shoulder of the road, sending up a cloud of dust. She reached past Kara to open the glove compartment, and from it she took a small velvet drawstring bag. “Grab the map and get out,” she said.
Kara didn’t question. She knew better than to question her kid sister. She rummaged in the glove compartment for a map of the area and got out of the car. Then she went around to the front, where Selene was already standing, and she unfolded the map on the hood of the car.
“No, no. Spread it on the ground. I don’t want the car’s electronics interfering. Right here.” Selene pointed.
Kara laid the map on the ground, just off the side of the road. The wind kept catching it, so she gathered four small rocks and placed one at each corner to keep it from blowing away.
Selene knelt on the ground in front of the map and opened the drawstring bag. She drew a chain from it, and as it emerged, Kara saw the crystal suspended from its end. “Selene?”
“It’s a pendulum,” Selene said. “I’ve been practicing with it. Pick a spot on the map where a hotel or motel is.”
“Here,” Kara said, pointing. “There are three west of town, right off the highway.”
“Okay. Now just think about Tyler. Put his face in your mind, and I will, too.”
Nodding, Kara thought of Tyler. His beautiful silky hair. His dimples, so like his dad’s. The mischievous twinkle in his eyes. As she watched, Selene held the pendulum perfectly still, suspended over the portion of the map Kara had indicated.
At first nothing happened. The crystal just hung there, motionless. But then slowly, almost imperceptibly, it began to move. The motion was so slight at first that Kara thought she might be imagining it. But she wasn’t. It moved faster, its arc growing larger, until it was swinging back and forth, from side to side.
Selene snapped the chain and caught the crystal in her hand. “That’s a no,” she said. “Tyler isn’t there. Where else?”
Kara swallowed hard and racked her brain to think of other hotels and motels within driving distance. She pointed to another spot on the map, and Selene repeated the entire process, getting the same answer again.
And again Kara searched her mind, thought of a motel east of Big Falls and pointed. Selene let the pendulum dangle. This time the movement started immediately. There was no subtlety, no question. It swung, making a perfect and ever-widening circle over the spot on the map.
“That’s it,” Selene said. “That’s a yes. That’s where he is.” She lifted her eyes to Kara’s and probably saw the doubt there.
“It’s outside the radius of the search,” Kara said. “It’s almost forty miles away.”
“What can it hurt to drive out there and check?’ Selene asked.
“Nothing. It can’t hurt anything at all.”
CHAPTERFOURTEEN
Jim looked at the men around him. His own boss, Chief Wilcox, had flown down from Chicago and stood beside the Big Falls police chief, Earl Wheatly, and Colby had checked himself out of the hospital and joined them at the scene as well. Local officers and deputies, men he didn’t know, were there, all bonding behind a single cause. His boy. His Tyler.
“We’ve checked every hotel and motel in the area. None have any record of them under either of their names,” Chief Wheatly said.
