Dear God, he’d just provided an exact description of Krissy’s duffel bag. That meant he had to be watching her when she went on a Daisy Scout outing. Who knew where else he’d been scrutinizing her? Not to mention that he’d specified Hope’s brown trench coat. That meant he’d been watching her, too, probably when she was with Krissy.
The nightmare just kept getting worse.
“Did you get all that?” the voice demanded.
“Yes.” Hope didn’t need to write down the instructions. They were engraved in her brain. “What about Krissy? Will she be at the kiosk?”
“She’ll be on the second-floor parking level an hour later.”
“What proof do I have of that?”
“None.”
Hope barely paused. “I’ll be there.”
“Good. And Judge Willis? If I see anyone but you at that food court, your daughter’s blood will be on your hands.”
A click told Hope the call had been disconnected.
“God. Oh, God.” She sagged against the wall.
“What did he say?” Ashley asked.
Another brief hesitation. “It’s better that you don’t know the details,” Hope told her. “And, Ashley, not a word to Edward or the task force. I’m counting on you. I’ve got to bring Krissy home alive. Forget your cell phone ever rang. Forget anything you overheard. Plus, I’ll be going out twice—once now and once tomorrow around dinnertime. I’ll need you to cover for me. Will you do it?”
Ashley gave a shaky nod. “For Krissy? Yes.”
Hope’s mind was racing. Edward had a large amount of cash in their home safe, mostly under-the-table payments from rich, questionable clients Hope didn’t want to know about. And they had over a hundred-thousand dollars in their safe-deposit box at the bank. Between the two, she could get the necessary cash together without alerting anyone or triggering mandatory bank reports regarding large cash transactions.
Please, she prayed silently. Please let this work. Please bring my baby home.
The disgruntled-father angle wasn’t paying off.
No surprise to Casey. As soon as the men in question heard what she wanted, she ceased to be a pretty redhead tracking them down in their various workplaces and became an intrusive pain in the ass. And they had no intentions of speaking to some outsider they had no obligation to speak to.
Casey kept her questions brief, spending most of her few precious minutes with each potential suspect studying their reactions, their body language, and separating their natural belligerence from their poss
ible guilt.
All four guys were bullies. All four wanted to torment their ex-wives. And all four resented Judge Willis for ruling against them.
But none of them had the brains or the balls to kidnap her child. None of them had the strategic skill to plan this perfectly executed abduction, or the guts to kill a five-year-old girl. And none of them was twisted enough to be a child predator.
So Casey had to agree with the Feds on this one. A personal vendetta against Judge Willis from a custody case in her courtroom was looking like a weak possibility.
It was time to go somewhere the FBI task force hadn’t been.
Casey was surprised to find Vera Akerman alone in the living room. She was sipping a cup of tea, perched at the edge of the sofa.
“Mrs. Akerman,” Casey greeted. “Where’s Hope?”
The older woman looked up, gave a faint sigh. “She went for a drive. After spending the past hour alone in Krissy’s room, she needed some air. Some time by herself. To think. To pray for strength. To get away from the pandemonium. My guess? She’s parked at Krissy’s school, crying her eyes out.”
“I understand.”
“I doubt that.” The words were said factually, without bitterness or accusation. Vera glanced up and met Casey’s gaze. “Do you have children?”
“No, I don’t.”