Chapter 4

Ryan's eyes were starting to hurt.

He, Calleigh and Jesse, accompanied by four patrol officers, drove slowly down Hoffstead Road, the last place Maggie Hayes was reported to be. They crept along at a snail's pace, scouring the road and the shoulders for any signs of the missing young woman.

Ryan gnawed on his thumb frustratedly. His own heartbeat pounding in his ears ticked off the seconds flying by. With a sick feeling in his stomach, he knew that with each passing moment, Maggie Hayes was one moment closer to being brutalized by Casanova.

Ryan couldn't let that happen. Not again. This monster was not going to get away this time. He would make damn certain of that.

Calleigh, driving the Hummer right in front of him, suddenly braked. Ryan looked up, his heart starting to race. Had she found something?

Calleigh and Jesse got out of the Hummer. She beckoned to Ryan, who practically dove out of his Hummer and fought himself to keep from sprinting to her.

They were out in the borderland of the Everglades, near the canal. They were approximately five or six miles away from where they had found Rachel Pope that very morning. Birds and bugs swarmed, buzzed and chattered all around in the tall grass. The road beneath his feet was dirt; they had left pavement behind a while ago.

Ryan hurried to where Calleigh was walking in front of her Hummer. "What do you got?" he asked anxiously.

She pointed, walking toward the right shoulder of the road. "Tire marks," she said.

The three CSIs gathered around the distinct impressions in the earth.

"Boyfriend says she drives a Trailblazer," Jesse told them.

"That's about the right size," Ryan commented.

"I got some glass here," Calleigh said.

Jesse and Ryan watched as she picked up a big shard of green glass with a pair of tweezers. It wasn't any sort of glass that would be used on a car; it looked more like bottle glass.

"There's a lot of it here," Calleigh pointed out, tucking the glass into an evidence envelope.

Something clicked in Ryan's mind. "The boyfriend said he heard a pop and then a rumble when he was on the phone with Maggie," he told them quickly. "Maybe she popped a tire on this glass?"

"A flat tire would have made a loud rumbling noise," Jesse added.

Calleigh looked around. "It's pretty isolated out here," she said, shading her eyes. "If the kidnapper was following her, there wouldn't have been much stopping him if she had car trouble. She was a sitting duck."

"So, if Maggie blew a tire right here," Jesse said, continuing Calleigh's train of thought. "Why wouldn't she tell her boyfriend when he was on the phone?"

"She probably hung up and got out of the car to check," Ryan guessed.

"And then she would have called someone, a tow truck or 911," Calleigh said.

"But she didn't," Jesse said. "Her cell phone records showed no calls made or received between the two calls to her boyfriend."

The three CSIs looked at each other, thinking everything over.

"Why didn't she call for a tow truck?" Ryan asked.

"She changed the tire herself?" Jesse postulated.

"Or someone stopped to help her," Ryan said.

"No," Calleigh said, pointing.

The men looked at her. Her gaze was not on them, but on a dark shape a long way down the road. Ryan squinted to see it better.

It was a building.

"Why waste the money on a tow truck when someone right down there might be able to help?" she said.

"Let's check it out," Jesse said eagerly.