Out of Reach: A Novel by Patricia Lewin Page A

there was an ice-cream vendor here.”
    “Odd time to be selling ice cream.”
    “I thought so, too.” She took a deep breath, then folded her arms. “He did sleight-of-hand tricks for the children. And I—”
    “Wait. Go back. What was that?”
    She looked at him oddly. “Coin tricks. You know, pulling them from the air or from behind children’s ears. That sort of thing. He had quite an audience by the time he started handing out ice cream.”
    Alec suddenly felt uneasy, not liking the leaps his own thoughts were taking.
    “Are you okay, Agent Donovan?”
    He came back to himself with a start. “I’m fine. You said he was doing magic tricks . . .”
    “Do you know of this man?” she asked.
    Only by rumor, and the testimony of a traumatized young girl years ago. No one gave her account any credence. Except Alec. “What else, Dr. Baker?”
    She watched him a moment longer, then said, “I knew I’d seen him before, but couldn’t place him. Then, when I heard the news about the missing girl, I remembered.”
    “Where?” He had to force himself to breathe.
    “A park in Miami.” For the first time, a slight tremor shaded her voice. “The day my younger sister was kidnapped.”
    Alec’s mind raced. Was it possible?
    The man she was describing wasn’t supposed to exist. He was fiction, a myth in law enforcement circles. No one wanted to believe there was a predator out there, stealing children for profit, getting away with it for decades, too organized, too disciplined to be caught.
    “When was this?”
    She hesitated, as if wishing he hadn’t asked this particular question, but answered, knowing he would. “Nineteen eighty-five.”
    Alec did the math. “Nineteen years ago?”
    “I know how it sounds, but I also know what I’m talking about.” There was no hesitation in her voice now. “It was the same man.”
    “Describe him.” He nodded to the young officer, who wrote down everything she said.
    She did, describing a fairly average-looking, middle-aged man. Someone you’d see a dozen times in fifteen minutes walking down any city street. When she was finished, she hesitated again, then added, “But it wasn’t his looks that were the same.” Another brief pause on her part, as if she knew that what she was about to say, too, was weak. “It was his hands.”
    “You recognized his hands?” It seemed a stretch, but then everything about her story was a stretch.
    “The way he moved them. The magic tricks—” She stopped, as if realizing how crazy she sounded.
    A woman sees a man, who reminds her of someone she’d seen nineteen years earlier, on what might have been one of the most traumatic days of her life. And it had Alec thinking about a little girl’s words.
    He was magic. And I knew he wouldn’t hurt me.
    But he’d taken her from her family and sold her to others, who would have done more than hurt her.
    Alec had to be crazy even to consider taking this woman’s claim seriously. Even for him, a man who’d built his reputation on following odd hunches and offbeat leads, this one was a leap. But he knew he had to make it, had to trust the voice that was no longer whispering, but screaming now, that this woman could lead him to more than just Chelsea Madden and Cody Sanders, but to an evil predator who’d stalked the innocent for years.
    “Would you recognize this man if you saw him again?” he asked.
    “Yes.” No doubt in her voice.
    He was going to catch hell for this. Especially if his instincts about this woman were wrong.
    “Officer”—he glanced at the man’s badge—“Lamont, get the name of the ice-cream franchise—”
    “Kauffman Farms,” Dr. Baker offered.
    Alec snorted in disbelief. This woman was full of surprises. “Get me a name and address of this Kauffman Farms,” he said to Lamont. “I need the person in charge.” He glanced at his watch. After seven. “And I expect I’ll need a home address. Then give Detective Smith a call and tell him I’m going