Chill Factor by Sandra Brown Page A

her car,” Mrs. Gunn said in a voice so reedy Dutch could barely hear her. “It was still in the parking lot behind the store. How could she have left without her car?”
    â€œMaybe a friend took her somewhere,” Dutch said. “Because of the widespread panic her disappearance has caused, that friend is afraid to come forward now and ’fess up, afraid that he or she will get into trouble along with Millicent for scaring us out of our wits.”
    Mr. Gunn frowned doubtfully. “We’ve had our problems with Millicent, same as all parents with teenagers, but I don’t think she’d pull a stunt like this to spite us.”
    Mrs. Gunn said, “She knows we love her, knows how worried we’d be if she just up and ran off.” Her voice faltered on the last few words, and she crammed a soggy Kleenex against her lips to contain a sob.
    Her misery was painful to witness. Dutch focused on his desk blotter, giving her a moment to compose herself. “Mrs. Gunn, I’m sure that deep down she knows how much you love her,” he said kindly. “But I understand Millicent wasn’t too keen on that hospital you sent her to last year. You checked her in against her will, isn’t that right?”
    â€œShe wouldn’t go voluntarily,” Mr. Gunn said. “We had to do it, or she was gonna die.”
    â€œI understand,” Dutch said. “And probably, on some level, Millicent understands that, too. But could she be holding a grudge over it?”
    The girl had been diagnosed with anorexia, and she was bulimic. To her parents’ credit, when her condition became life-threatening, they had borrowed against nearly everything they owned in order to send her to a hospital in Raleigh for treatment and psychiatric counseling.
    She was there for three months before being pronounced cured and sent home. The scuttlebutt around town was that she had reverted to her bingeing and purging habits as soon as she was released, afraid any weight gain would keep her off the high school cheerleading squad. Having been a cheerleader since sixth grade, she didn’t want to miss out her senior year.
    â€œShe was doing good,” her father said. “Getting better, healthier every day.” He gave Dutch a hard look. “Besides, you know as well as I do that she didn’t run away. She was took. A blue ribbon was tied to her steering wheel.”
    â€œYou’re not supposed to talk about that,” Dutch reminded him. A blue ribbon had been leftat the scene of each woman’s supposed abduction, but that fact had been withheld from the media. Because of the ribbon, the unknown kidnapper had been nicknamed Blue.
    The cell phone on Dutch’s belt vibrated, but he let it go without answering. He was addressing a serious issue here. If word had leaked out about the blue ribbon, you could bet the feebs would think the leak had sprung from Dutch’s department. Maybe it had. Of course it had. Nevertheless, he would do all he could to contain it and try to avoid blame.
    â€œDamn near everybody already knows about it, Dutch,” Mr. Gunn argued. “You cain’t keep something like that a secret, especially since the sumbitch has left that ribbon five times now.”
    â€œIf everybody knows about it, then more than likely Millicent does. She could have put the ribbon there as a decoy to make us all think—”
    â€œThe hell you say,” Ernie Gunn retorted angrily. “She wouldn’t be so cruel as to scare us like that. No sir, Blue’s got Millicent. You know he does. You gotta get out there and find her before he . . .” His voice cracked. Tears formed in his eyes.
    Mrs. Gunn stifled another sob. But it was she who spoke next. Her expression had turned bitter. “You coming from the police department in Atlanta and all, we thought you’d catch this man before he had a chance to get our Millicent or some other