by Lisa Gardner
TESSA AND WYATT DANCED AROUND WITH LOPEZ for another thirty minutes. What had he been doing on Friday night?
“Local bar. Circulate my photo; at least half a dozen regulars will confirm I was there.”
Last time he saw Libby and/or Ashlyn Denbe?
“I’m telling you, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Just because I got a beef with how my boss handles women doesn’t mean I’d harm a hair on his head.”
But he had access to the security code for the Denbes’ residence.
“Sure. All of us on the build team know it. Justin isn’t the most organized guy in the world, and sometimes he’d have us pick up a few last-minute things. If Libby was around, she’d feed you a cookie. I’m telling you, Justin deserves to be knocked down a peg or two. But not his family.”
And Ashlyn?
Lopez’s face had turned red. “I’m not talking about her! I can’t even think about her. Assaulted in her own home… You want to save the legal system some dough? When you find out who did this, just say the word and me and the guys will take care of the rest.”
Using the skills he’d learned as an army ranger? Probably had some contacts, too, the kinds of guys who’d know how to quietly break into a house and quickly subdue a grown man and his wife and daughter?
“I’m fifteen years out. The guys I know are either picking sand from their teeth, having been called up from the reserves, or are finally being cut loose because they now dive for cover every time a car backfires. The first group of guys is deployed too far away. The second group is too drunk. You want to make some headway, go hound Anita Bennett. Now, there’s a woman who has reason to eliminate the entire family. Starting with the fact that it would make her own child the sole surviving Denbe male. Don’t royals do that sort of thing all the time? Why not big business? Hell, we’re talking a hundred-million-dollar corporation. Some imperial inheritances have gotta be smaller than that.”
“We’ll take that under advisement,” Tessa assured him. She glanced over at Wyatt, who’d returned to perusing the evidence log. When he didn’t offer up any more questions, she pushed back her chair. They’d learned as much as they were going to learn, she judged. At least until they had time to research the pieces of Lopez’s latest story and push back harder. For now, however, probably best to hit the road.
The old black Lab had curled up at her feet. Now he stood to his feet with a giant yawn. She gave him a final pat on the head, feeling an unexpected pang. She liked his company. Thought Sophie would like his company. Something to consider, getting a dog. Then maybe, both she and her daughter would finally sleep through the night.
Lopez escorted her and Wyatt back to the front door. The conversation had clearly agitated him. Tessa just couldn’t decide whether he was frustrated they didn’t magically accept his claims of innocence, or nervous that they were still poking around.
Wyatt had been right about two things: Anita Bennett had been involved with Justin’s father. And, yes, the whole crew seemed to be a bunch of liars.
Wyatt waited until they were around the corner to start speaking. Tessa had assumed his first words would be I told you so, so he startled her by declaring:
“I think you’re on to something.”
“Me? You’re the one who caught Anita’s personal relationship with Denbe, senior.”
“Which is interesting if the rumors about her youngest son are true. But you got me thinking about Justin’s affair. After all, the Anita Bennett, Dale Denbe thing is at least twenty years old. Whereas the biggest recent stressor for Justin and Libby has been his involvement with Kathryn Chapman.”
“Which Libby found out about six months ago,” Tessa countered.
“Because one of Justin’s own guys decided to rat him out,” Wyatt filled in.
“Except it doesn’t sound like the marriage is necessarily over. We’re hearing more stories of date night than divorce lawyers.”
“Maybe Libby isn’t as naive as Lopez thinks. Maybe she looked up the prenup, did a little digging and realized just how financially devastating divorce would be.”
“So she arranged for them all to be kidnapped?” Tessa wasn’t following.
“I’m not saying the affair led directly to the kidnapping. I’m wondering if the fallout from the affair didn’t put things in play for Friday night.”
“Such as?” They’d arrived at her car.
“Well, we got Lopez, Justin’s second in command, looking at his boss with fresh, angry eyes. Combine that with maybe disgruntlement over the direction things are going at the company level and…”
“Then there’s Anita Bennett,” Tessa picked up. “She was once the other woman, even, possibly had a son. Got her nowhere. Now Justin is engaging in similar behavior, perhaps aggravating old wounds, new prejudices.”
“Then we got Libby, doping herself up with Vicodin to cover her pain. And maybe engaging in other new behaviors as well.” Wyatt slid into the passenger seat, holding up the evidence log. “While you and Lopez wrapped up your tango, I finished reviewing the inventory list for the trash recovered from the Denbes’ brownstone. Garage bin. Item thirty-six down. Best guess, based on trash pickup, is that the contents are no more than two days old.”
Wyatt pointed. Tessa peeked.
“A pregnancy test? A positive home pregnancy test?”
“Yep. Question is, does Justin Denbe know he’s a father again? Or…is he?”
Chapter 26
IS MY HUSBAND A CHAUVINISTIC PIG? I suppose, if you look at our marriage, he appears sexist. And yet, he is the father of an amazing fifteen-year-old girl. Who he personally taught to cluster six shots to center mass time and time again. Let alone, from the day of her birth, he’s actively spoken of Ashlyn’s future as head of the family firm. No need to try for a son. For Justin, from the moment he held his daughter in his arms, she was absolutely, positively perfect.
I always preferred to think of us as coworkers whose areas of expertise happened to fall along traditional lines. My husband works. He loves his job; he’s at his best when wrestling with a multimillion-dollar-contract issue. And I love my job, which includes creating our house, raising our child and crafting a lifestyle that reflects who we are as a family.
I’ve never thought of my role as lesser. I’ve never thought of Justin as the “one in command.” At least, not until six months ago. But even then, I didn’t view myself as the weak half of the marriage. I simply viewed myself as a failure. Because if part of my job was to meet the needs of the family, how well could I be doing, considering my husband had taken up with another woman?
Of course, I understand deep down inside that from the beginning, one of the things Justin had most loved about me was my independence. And eighteen years later, there wasn’t much of that left.
There is a breed of men out there, you know, who are attracted to strong women. They just don’t know what to do once they win us over.
So that’s how I view my husband, the strong man, driven to pursue a strong woman, then mostly at a loss forever after. If that’s patronizing, well then, maybe that makes me the chauvinistic one. Because given the family history, I can’t say I was totally surprised that my husband cheated on me. I was mostly ashamed for not figuring it out sooner. And hurt, because I had wanted us to be different. I had imagined myself to be special enough, attractive enough, smart enough, to forever hold Justin’s interest.
Love is risk.
I took it, and I got burned.
But someday, my daughter will take the same risk. And I don’t have the heart to tell her to take the easy road. Because there is a breed of women out there who are attracted to alpha males. We just don’t always know what to do with them once we have them.
JUSTIN WAS CONVINCED he knew how to handle Z. Let him do the talking, and we’d be ransomed out of our prison cell by the end of the day. Which meant the first thing Ashlyn and I had to do was talk him down. We’d tried fighting fire with fire. We’d made a stand, we’d even attempted
rebellion. To date, it had gotten us Tased and battered.
If Z and his crew were former military, then warfare was their specialty.
We needed a different approach. One outside the alpha dog’s normal realm of experience. I had a few ideas on the subject, which Ashlyn seconded. Given Justin’s current condition, we slowly but surely wore him down. One of us, he might have dismissed. Two of us, he eventually gave way. My idea, our plan. We would execute as a team, our first family project in six months. And we would win. I was convinced of it. There was finally enough at stake.
The hardest part was waiting.
We sat, Ashlyn on the top bunk, Justin and I below. First rule of psychological warfare: He or she who initiates the discussion has by definition given up ground. We couldn’t afford to give up ground.
So we practiced patience.
My tremors were returning. My headache, the deep, dragging exhaustion, punctuated by moments of excruciatingly painful cramping. The pills, whatever Radar had given me in the middle of the night, seemed to be waning, placing me once more on the withdrawal express.
I could confess to Justin. Tell him once and for all what I’d spent the past few months doing. Just how great a spouse and parent I’d turned out to be.
But again, she who initiates the discussion has by definition given up ground.
So I held my tongue.
We had no sense of time anymore. Daylight outside. Constant fluorescent lighting inside. Morning, mid-morning?
Eventually, we heard footsteps. Steady, not rushing, but I found myself holding my breath, hands already forming into fists. On the top bunk, I saw Ashlyn ease into the farthest corner of the bunk, assuming the crouch position…
The steel door swung open. Z stood there, Radar beside him.
“Breakfast,” Z stated crisply.
And in that one word, I knew we could win.
PER PROTOCOL, JUSTIN LEFT THE CELL FIRST, hands secured at his waist. Z stood with him, while Radar came in to fetch me. Radar kept his back to the door, blocking the window and, I realized, the security camera, as he slid two round white pills into the palm of my hand.
No words were exchanged. I had a brief image of the flat white tablets, numbers stamped in the back, then I dry swallowed both pills without question. A millisecond in time, then he had the restraints secured around my wrists and I joined my husband in the dayroom. Radar followed with Ashlyn and we fell in line, Z leading Justin by the arm, Radar escorting me and Ashlyn half a dozen paces behind.
We offered no resistance, behaving as three dutiful hostages who’d just spent a long night learning their lesson.
Our captors were freshly showered. Their hair still damp, Z in a crisp new outfit of 100 percent commando black, Radar in a fresh pair of baggy jeans and a new dark blue flannel shirt. I tried not to hate them, but given my own rank smell, it was difficult.
In the kitchen, our wrist restraints were removed and we were once more tasked with cooking. I conducted a quick inspection of the pantry and walk-in refrigerator. No additional supplies. Then again, when would they have had the time to restock? The lack of refurbishment reassured me, however, spoke of a set timeline. Z and his crew didn’t plan to spend eternity here, just long enough.
I pulled butter, bacon and eggs from the cavernous refrigerator, then an assortment of dry goods from the walk-in pantry. I’d have to do the recipe off the top of my head, but after all these years, that wasn’t a problem.
I put Justin in charge of crisping bacon and scrambling eggs. Ashlyn already knew her assignment: She was to set a table. Use whatever she could find, but somehow create the impression of a real, honest-to-goodness kitchen table.
While I made homemade cinnamon rolls.
Z disappeared, leaving Radar alone. Our youngest captor took a seat by one of the stainless steel counters, paying more attention to Justin, who stood, with half his face battered and one eye swollen shut, over a sizzling frying pan. I prepared the dough, then sprinkled flour onto the stainless steel prep surface and started rolling out. Once I’d created a large, thin rectangle, I spread butter across the entire surface, followed by liberal handfuls of white sugar, brown sugar and cinnamon. I rolled it up into one long cinnamon-dusted snake, then sliced it into inch-thick sections.
The ends appeared ragged and ugly. Without saying a word, I trimmed off both, handing one doughy piece to Ashlyn, her favorite part of the cinnamon-roll-making process. The second, I handed to Radar.
He didn’t even acknowledge me. But he picked up the bite of dough and popped it in his mouth. Just like that.
Some negotiations are not a matter of heavy battery, but slow advancement. Gains made so subtly, your opponent doesn’t realize you’ve even moved until they’re forced to watch the victory dance.
I made two dozen rolls, given that men of Z and Mick’s size ate at a certain volume, let alone if one homemade cinnamon bun was a treat, then three to four was an act of gluttony destined to be followed by a state of satiated lethargy, if not an outright sugar coma.
This kind of yeastless roll, thin and flaky versus thick and doughy, was Ashlyn’s favorite. I’d evolved the recipe twelve years ago, when my three-year-old hadn’t the patience to wait hours for homemade baked goods. Turned out, basically using pie dough halved the prep time while still yielding plenty of cinnamony delight. Our family recipe, now being shared with our family kidnappers.
While the commercial kitchen filled with the warm scent of baking cinnamon and caramelizing sugar, I inspected Ashlyn’s table. My daughter has always been creative, and her latest efforts didn’t disappoint.
She’d taken over one of the rolling stainless steel prep tables. Given that the overall color scheme in prison had a tendency to be stark white, she’d placed six red cafeteria trays to serve as institutional placemats. Each red tray was topped with a plain white plastic dinner plate. Then, she’d taken smaller salad plates, centered each on a dinner plate and written, in brightly colored condiments, the individual’s name.
Z’s single initial was particularly impressive, standing out in bright red ketchup script. For Radar, she’d used yellow mustard. Mick got green pickle relish, and for a moment, my child and I shared a smile; Ashlyn loathed relish. Always had, always would.
In the middle of the table, Ashlyn had filled a glass bowl with multicolored layers of dried lentils, topped with an artful arrangement of three eggs, a wire whisk and a single piece of cooked bacon, stolen from her father’s pan. Add in the collection of plastic cups, silverware and rolled-up paper napkins, and the overall effect was rustic and charming. A piece of home.
The oven timer chimed. The cinnamon rolls were ready. Justin plated the eggs and bacon. We positioned the platters on the table, and just like that, showtime.
Z appeared five minutes later.
His own power play, I would guess, as he entered the kitchen in slow, measured strides, his face perfectly expressionless even as the wafting scents of fresh-baked buns and crisp-cooked bacon must’ve hit him like a wall.
Radar was already at the table, perched on the edge of a metal stool. He had a slightly glazed-over look on his face and was staring at the cinnamon rolls as if they were the last drop of water in a desert. But he remained still, hands at his side.
Z took in the table, still advancing steadily. Now his gaze flickered to me, where I stood next to my waiting stool, as did Justin and Ashlyn.
He smiled and I could tell he saw right through me, understood completely every step I’d just taken and why.
Z dished up first. Two rolls, half a plate of eggs, half a dozen pieces of bacon. He passed each platter to Radar, who filled his plate, then dished up a plate for Mick, presumably working the control room, before returning the remaining food to the middle of the table. I hadn’t been around last night, but Justin and Ashlyn seemed to be waiting for something.
“Eat,” Z ordered at last, and they each took a seat.
A reminder of who was in charge. I wasn’t concerned. Second b
ite of the cinnamon roll, Z’s eyes fluttered down, the quick rush of buttery pastry and gooey cinnamon sugar hitting his bloodstream, intoxicating his senses.
I wondered what he was remembering right now. A mother, a grandmother, even just a moment in time when Z had felt warm, safe and loved. The true power of comfort food. It didn’t just fill one’s belly, it evoked a mood. And now, my food was triggering Z’s memory, forming an association between my handmade rolls and his own sense of well-being that would be difficult to break. Hence the past eighteen years I’d spent making homemade treats for Justin and his build crew. Because nothing earned undying devotion faster than freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. Then, even the toughest of the tough turned instantaneously into a little boy, savoring a childhood treat while gazing upon the provider of that treat with fresh adoration.
I could use some adoration right about now.
My family was already eating. I picked at my own food, avoiding the greasy bacon, nibbling on a single roll. I should eat to build my strength, but I didn’t completely trust my stomach yet. Not to mention Z and his crew had commandeered the majority of the food. I didn’t want to take even more away from my daughter and husband.
“You’re going to ask for something,” Z said after the second cinnamon bun, while reaching for a third. “You anticipate my mind will be so muddled by your homemade rolls, my senses so overwhelmed by this lovely display of domesticity that I will say yes.”