The Search

The second book in Gordon Korman's Kidnapped trilogy picks up shortly after the events of The Abduction. Eleven-year-old Margaret (Meg) Falconer, daughter of criminologists John and Louise Falconer who were wrongly imprisoned for treason and later released, has been kidnapped and held for two million dollars in ransom. The FBI's rescue attempt has already failed. Meg is trapped in the trunk of her captors' car, held by three kidnappers she has nicknamed after the masks they wore during the abduction: Spidey, a burly and violent man; Tiger, a calm and ruthless woman; and Mickey, a nervous twenty-year-old.

After more than fifteen hours in the trunk, Meg finds two bullets and a tire iron. Recalling a technique from one of her father's detective novels featuring the fictional hero Mac Mulvey, she steadies a bullet against the wheel well and strikes it, blowing out the driver's-side tire. When Mickey opens the trunk, Meg hits him with the tire iron and flees across farmland. She narrowly avoids a charging bull, but Mickey recaptures her and Tiger knocks her out with chloroform.

The kidnappers keep Meg inside the car with Spidey's gun trained on her. At a garage stop for a new tire, Meg devises a way to signal her brother, Aiden Falconer. Recalling another Mulvey novel in which the hero clogs toilets with tissue rolls to attract attention, she replicates the method at the garage restroom and repeats it at three more stops along Route 119, a rural road winding west toward the Appalachian Mountains. Her captors grow suspicious but conclude she has nothing to work with.

At the Falconer home, Aiden plays chess with his best friend, Richie Pembleton, while their parents wait in anguish. Rufus Sehorn, a blogger who runs the website where the kidnappers posted their ransom demand, arrives with news: The FBI has replaced lead agent Emmanuel Harris with Mike Sorenson, a by-the-book agent. Aiden privately worries that Sorenson will prove less competent than Harris.

Meg's captors carry her to an isolated mountain cabin and lock her in the cellar. Meanwhile, Aiden scours news websites and finds an article about "bathroom vandals" who clogged four consecutive toilets along Route 119 using the identical method. He connects the pattern to his father's novel and concludes Meg is signaling him. He traces Route 119 as a road heading west from the DC area, consistent with the kidnappers' escape route. Aiden presents his theory to his parents and Sorenson, but all three dismiss it. He calls Harris and leaves a voicemail, but Harris does not receive it because his phone was recently damaged.

Determined to find Meg himself, Aiden borrows Richie's cap and jacket, slips past the FBI agent outside the house by posing as his friend, and boards a Greyhound bus into Virginia. Richie stays in Aiden's bed to delay discovery. Aiden recognizes the town of Kerwin as a stop on Route 119 and leaps off the bus. He hitches a ride on a farmer's hay wagon, spots the mechanic's garage, and questions the mechanic, who confirms a young girl matching Meg's description visited with two men and a woman heading west in a possibly green car.

In the cellar, Mickey tends to Meg's head wound and reveals his motivation: His younger brother got involved with a gang, and Mickey needs money for a lawyer to keep him out of prison. Meg feels a reluctant connection to his devotion, recognizing a parallel to her bond with Aiden. She eyes gardening tools nearby and begins forming a new escape plan.

Harris discovers Aiden's voicemail on his replacement phone and returns to the case. He arrives at the Falconer home just as Sorenson threatens to arrest Richie for aiding Aiden's departure, defuses the confrontation, and insists on investigating Aiden's theory.

Aiden's journey grows chaotic. He stows away in a pickup truck occupied by a drugged billy goat stolen as a high school prank. The goat eats his printed maps. When police arrest the teens involved, Aiden is caught in the roundup. Sheriff Atkin of Alberta County locks the group in a double-wide trailer. Drawing on another Mac Mulvey novel, Aiden unbolts the toilet from the floor, exposing a hole beneath the trailer, and escapes while the other teens cover for him.

At the cabin, Meg pries fieldstones from the cellar wall and tunnels upward through packed earth. She breaks through a hard layer but finds herself mired in foul-smelling muck, believing she is buried alive. Spidey pulls her out, and Tiger reveals that Meg dug into the cabin's composter: She had reached the surface but failed to recognize it. The kidnappers force Meg to pose with a copy of USA Today for a new ransom photo. Seeing the date, she realizes the next day is her twelfth birthday and breaks down crying.

Harris traces Aiden's path along Route 119. At the Falconer home, Sehorn delivers a new photo of Meg and a ransom demand increased to three million dollars. Sorenson declares it government policy never to negotiate or pay ransom, leaving the Falconers with no strategy.

Mickey makes a critical discovery by browsing Spidey's laptop: visits to extremist anti-Falconer websites calling for the family's execution. He realizes Spidey intends to kill Meg, not collect ransom. Horrified, Mickey resolves that he is no murderer. When Spidey strikes Meg during a small birthday celebration Mickey arranged, his resolve deepens. He secretly slips Meg a nail file, and she begins sawing at her ropes.

In the mountain town, Aiden learns from a store clerk that a man and woman matching the kidnappers' descriptions bought groceries that morning. A deputy spots him on a stolen bicycle and gives chase. Aiden veers onto a ski slope where snowmaking machines create whiteout conditions and escapes into the woods.

Meg frees herself, climbs out the bedroom window, and sprints into the forest. Spidey accuses Mickey of helping her. All three kidnappers head out to search, but Mickey quietly whispers good luck to Meg as he follows.

At dusk, Aiden spots a dark green sedan and traces it to a nearby house. He breaks in but finds no trace of Meg: The family is innocent. The homeowner's son, Johnny Harper, recently returned from military service, catches Aiden with a knife at his throat. Harris and Sheriff Atkin arrive just in time, and Harris draws his weapon to save Aiden.

Harris handcuffs Aiden and begins driving east. Aiden begs to continue searching, but Harris warns that a major blizzard is approaching. Aiden calls his mother, but the conversation yields no leads. He feels he is abandoning Meg.

Meg flees through the dark woods and twists her ankle. She constructs a shelter from pine boughs against a fallen log and waits for dawn. Tiger tells Spidey that Meg cannot survive alone in the mountains in winter. Lost, injured, and cold, Meg recognizes that for the first time since her abduction, she is free. The book ends on a cliffhanger as she watches a single snowflake drift to the ground, the vanguard of the approaching blizzard.