AFTER THE SECOND CUP of coffee, Luke felt human. Not awake —four hours’ sleep was not enough —but human. He arrived at church an hour before service time and alone. Madison would come with her grandparents in time for the service a little later. He doubted the governor’s call would come before the service started.

“Pastor Luke.”

The tiny voice startled him. He knew he wouldn’t be the first in the sanctuary. The pastor was already here and so was the worship team. But he wasn’t expecting the petite teenage girl he saw appear from the shadows to his left. It was Janey Sanders.

“Janey, I’m so glad to see you. Where have you been?” He grabbed her in a safe half hug and didn’t miss the fact that her eyes were red from crying.

“My stepdad didn’t want me to come to youth group. He thinks because Nadine ran away, I might run away too.” She sniffled and rubbed her nose with a sleeve. “Why haven’t you found her yet?”

The question pierced like a knife. Luke sighed and directed Janey to the back of the sanctuary, where they could sit and talk. The worship team was onstage, but they hadn’t started playing yet.

“I’ve looked everywhere I can think to look. Is there anything else you can tell me? Are you sure Nadine didn’t say something that might be a clue as to where she could’ve run away to?”

Janey shook her head. “The only weird thing that happened was something my stepdad told me not to mention.”

Luke sat back in his chair, biting off a sharp “What was that?” A question that would ask Janey to disobey her father. Did he want to go there? Janey must have seen the struggle in his features.

“I have to tell you if it might help find Nadine.”

“What happened?”

“These two guys came to Crunchers to talk to my stepdad. They creeped Nadine out and weren’t very nice. She said she had to turn up her music because they were yelling and cussing.”

“What were they upset about?”

“She didn’t say. They were yelling at my stepdad, and she said they looked scary.”

“Scary how?”

Janey looked down at her feet. “You can’t tell my stepdad, but he has a security camera at Crunchers that he can access from home. No one else is supposed to touch it; he has it password protected. I was home and Nadine texted me, saying I had to look because one of the guys in my dad’s office reminded her of André the Giant from The Princess Bride.”

“Were you able to do that? What about the password?”

Janey rolled her eyes. “Please. He picks the easiest ones. Anyway I only looked for a minute, but she was right; he was big like André and mean-looking. Later she texted that they had left and she felt like the place needed to be fumigated because of all the bad language that had been used.”

Luke thought about the big man who’d shadowed him and Bill while they searched for Nadine. “Did these guys say something to Nadine to make her want to run away?” His phone buzzed, but he ignored it, letting it go to voice mail. He’d wanted to speak to Janey for a week and a half.

“I don’t know. All I know is it’s the only thing that happened out of the ordinary. I had to tell you. Maybe it means something. Anyway, the guys were mad at my stepdad about something.”

“Do you know what made them mad?”

She shook her head and chewed a thumbnail. “I think Nadine said they wanted something and my dad didn’t know where it was. Uh . . .”

“What? Is there something else?”

“I just realized —you know Nadine wants to be a police officer or an investigator like you someday.”

“Yeah, she’s told me as much.”

“She might have . . . Well, she was curious about what the men wanted. Suppose she wanted to find out?”

Luke frowned. “How could she?”

She studied her bitten nails. “Promise you won’t tell my stepdad?”

“I can’t make that promise if I don’t know what you’re going to say.”

She thought about that for a minute. “Okay, we know how to review the security tape. One time I thought my dad was meeting with another woman. We figured it out.”

Luke knew this was important. He’d never seen cameras at Crunchers, but if they were there . . .

“The office is videotaped?”

Her head bobbed up and down. “The whole place has cameras everywhere. My stepdad is paranoid about people stealing from him. He records everything.”

Luke didn’t say anything as he considered this new wrinkle.

“You think she saw something that got her in trouble?” Janey’s voice was close to breaking, and Luke realized his expression probably scared her.

“No, no, I’m just thinking; that’s all. Tell me what the second guy looked like.”

“He was tall and skinny, but I didn’t see his face.”

A couple of smacks from the drummer signaled that the worship team was starting to warm up. Janey glanced toward the stage. “I missed practice, so I can’t sing today. Do you mind if I go down and sit in on warm-ups? Worship helps me to pray for Nadine.”

“No, go on. I’ll catch up with you later.”

Janey bounded down the aisle. Luke sighed and pulled the phone from his pocket to play the voice mail. When he heard Abby Hart’s voice, he leaped up and ran to the office to tell someone he had to leave.