Fenton hung up the phone and came back to Frank. "The night duty nurse didn’t see anyone near your room last night. However, she did say that around 2 a.m. she left the station for a while because one of the patients paged her. When she reached that room, she found out it was a false alarm. She checked with all the patients in that wing, but no one had paged her. Now, the parking lot attendant says he saw two guys bring out a young blond kid in a wheelchair a little after 2 in the morning. They got into a green station wagon and hit Pine Ridge Road. That’s a deserted settlement not far away."

"You think that was Joe?" Frank asked eagerly.

"It’s our only lead," Fenton replied grimly, as he made his next call. To Fred Duerson. He had a very strong feeling that this was all about Mrs. Dilmer, and the only other people who knew what Joe had seen were Duerson’s people.

Since Fenton suspected Fred Duerson was on the take, he decided to plant false information to confirm his suspicions, while he and Frank took off for the road to Pine Ridge. Fenton knew Frank was in danger, so he decided to keep him with him as much as he possibly could.

As they were going, a car matching the description from last night was heading hurriedly in their direction.

"Where is he going?" Frank asked, he also recognized the vehicle, and hoped they didn't have Joe with them.

An hour later they arrived on the outskirts of Pine Ridge. Fenton slowed down to a crawl.

Frank gasped, "There he is!" Fenton looked over and sure enough there was Joe laying on the porch of some old abandoned house.