RALEIGH -- As the search for a missing employee passed its fourth day, Progress Energy offered up to $10,000 on Saturday for any information that would lead police to Cynthia Moreland.

The 48-year-old woman was last seen early Tuesday as she headed from her home in Wendell to her job as a technical design specialist at the utility's headquarters in Raleigh.

Investigators believe she made it to the garage where she usually parked, but not to her office. Her car was found Wednesday morning, parked on a street in southeast Raleigh.

Antonio Davon Chance, 29, a registered sex offender, was charged Friday with kidnapping and obtaining property by false pretenses after using Moreland's debit card at a store, police said.

"Cynthia is a valued and dedicated Progress Energy employee who has been with the company since 1980," the utility said Saturday in announcing the reward. "It is the company's hope that a reward will help motivate someone to come forward with information leading to Cynthia's whereabouts."

Investigators believe Chance may have been with Moreland in her car for several hours, and they broadened their search for the woman beyond Wake County as a result, police spokesman Jim Sughrue said.

Investigators believe Moreland's car arrived at the parking deck across from her office at 6:40 a.m. Tuesday, then drove out a few minutes later with Chance at the wheel.

They think Chance was driving Moreland's car when he used her debit card to buy toiletries at a Dollar General Store in Garner at about 10 a.m.

What happened in the meantime was not immediately clear.

"There was a lot of time in a car, and so a good deal of distance could have been covered," Sughrue said.

He said there is no indication that Chance and Moreland knew each other before Tuesday, or that anyone else is involved in the woman's disappearance.

Chance was in court briefly Friday, at which he requested a court-appointed lawyer.

His criminal record shows he was convicted of common-law robbery and a second-degree sexual offense in 1994. Police records show that Chance, then 16 and a high school student, was one of three people who physically and sexually assaulted a 32-year-old man in Fuquay-Varina.

He served four years in prison, then was convicted twice, in 2000 and 2001, of failing to register as a sexual offender and served an additional 22 months in prison.

Most recently, Chance spent five months behind bars for possession of marijuana with intent to sell, the records showed.

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