Mac Ferguson thought he was at the point in his career, and certainly his life, when the down-and-dirty private detective crap was behind him. He had flunkies to do this shit, but the client, more precisely the client’s money, had been too enticing to hand this job off to a subordinate. Once again, his instincts had paid off. He stepped into the doorway of a rundown apartment building and placed a call.
“Yes?”
“I found her.”
“You’re sure.”
“I’m sure. Told ya, the key was the father. It’s like WITSEC. Eventually, they all break routine or do something dumb. Unless he’s got a thing for much younger tail, Daddy just paid her a visit. Man, she’s a looker.”
“My employer will be quite pleased.”
“Yeah, well, if that gal’s your employer’s ex-wife, I’m the Pope, but as long as the money’s green.”
“Black on one side, green on the other, Mr. Ferguson.”
“I’m going to stay on them for another hour or so. I’ll meet you at the coffee shop by your hotel at, say, 10:00 p.m. I’ll give you the pertinent information.”
“The alley just beyond. We don’t need a nosy waitress monitoring our actions.”
“Agreed.”
After dinner, the three of them walked off their cheeseburgers window shopping on Spring Street. Her dad groaned.
“Good thing I’m only allowed one of those a month. I’m about to fall asleep. I was hoping to get some work done on the drive back.”
Shortly after Emma was rescued, her father had sold the Connecticut house where they lived and moved them to the estate in Georgia where she spent the rest of her childhood. He also bought a large but less imposing home in Amagansett in the Hamptons, so he could take her inconspicuously by helicopter to the beach—well, as inconspicuously as one could manage, traveling by helicopter. He kept the Nantucket house for eleven years, in the hope that the man or men pursuing her would be caught or killed, and they could go back one day. Then unexpectedly, on her twentieth birthday, he’d sold it without remorse or regret. It had broken her heart a little. Nathan’s father had sold their place on the island when Nathan’s mother left him. Selling the Webster home closed the book on a very happy chapter in Emma’s life. In any event, her father now divided his time among the Hamptons house, a London brownstone, and a house in Bermuda that she had never seen.
“You’ll wake up. It’s only 8:30. Do you want me to grab you a coffee?” She tilted her head toward a corner Starbucks.
“Actually, yes, Beauty. A half-caf.”
“Be right back.”
Caroline pulled on Jack Webster’s sleeve. “Oh, Mr. Web, come look at this tie in the window at Thomas Pink. I thought Dad would love it for Father’s Day.”
Emma heard her father grouse as they rounded the corner, “You’re actually going to give him a tie?”
Emma walked right up to the counter of the nearly empty coffee shop where a still perky barista greeted her. She placed the simple order and waited while the teenager poured the drink. She glanced through the glass and caught sight of a man. Standing across the street, he was wearing a cheap Mets bomber jacket and just staring into the coffee shop. He creeped Emma out, but he was so unabashed about his staring that she took him more for a deviant than a threat. She took the coffee and headed outside.
Joining in the debate over acceptable Father’s Day presents, they made their way back to the apartment.
Upstairs, after hugging her father goodbye on the sidewalk, Caroline and Emma both changed into sweats and T-shirts and plopped on the couch for some bad TV and good girl talk; the man outside the coffee shop was completely purged from her thoughts. A perfect night.
At 10:00 p.m. sharp, in an alley that smelled of rotting garbage and piss, Mac Ferguson handed over a food-stained paper file containing his findings. He was so focused on the envelope of cash in the other man’s outstretched right hand, he didn’t notice the syringe in his left.