by Rob Thomas
She didn’t answer. The raw cut along her throat throbbed gently. There wasn’t any way of knowing for sure what had happened to those girls—but after what she’d just been through, the little flicker of hope that she’d been holding on to throughout her investigation was guttering.
They turned left into Veronica’s neighborhood. Here the houses were dark and silent, their occupants still asleep. Somewhere a dog barked, deep voiced and lonely.
They pulled up in front of the bungalow. She suddenly realized she’d have to tell Keith what had happened in a few short hours. That would be a nightmare. Thank goodness for the U.S. Navy. I can at least put off telling Logan. The last thing I need is for my boyfriend to pick a fight with an international crime syndicate.
“You want me to come in with you?” Wallace turned his head to look at her, his brow furrowed. She shook her head.
“No. I don’t want to wake up Dad.” She reached across to pat his arm with a forced joviality. “I’m okay. I’ll call you tomorrow. At a reasonable hour this time.”
“Veronica …” He hesitated, then shook his head. “You sure you’re okay?”
She gave a weak smile. “I’m always okay.” Then, seeing he wasn’t buying it, she hugged him around the neck.
“Thanks again, Wallace. For everything.”
She jumped out of the car and headed up the stairs to her house. He waited until she’d gotten in the door before driving back out to the street.
And for about the millionth time in her life she felt an overwhelming gratitude for her best friend. Because she knew he wouldn’t mention this afterward; she knew he wouldn’t take it as a sign that she was losing her nerve or was in too deep. There weren’t many people in this world who would let you be vulnerable and still believe you were strong.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The sun was thin and pale on the courthouse steps the next morning as the crowd of reporters gathered before it, cameras at the ready. The dramatic capture of Willie Murphy by the Balboa County Sheriff’s Department had made the early morning news, and Lamb had called a 9:00 a.m. press conference to make it all official. A low buzz rippled over the crowd as well-coiffed newscasters murmured to their viewers that in just minutes, they’d have exclusive live coverage involving the missing Neptune spring breakers.
Veronica was facing the podium, Keith on one side of her and Mac on the other. She would have been happy to watch the coverage from home, but Petra Landros had called her a little over an hour earlier asking her to be there. She hadn’t been able to sleep; her nerves had been too ragged. But she’d showered and pinned her hair in a sleek, professional bun. Somewhat passive-aggressively, she wore a scoop-neck top under her blazer, making the long red line across her neck as obvious as she could. Go on and let someone ask me about it, she thought. I’ll let them know who did this in no uncertain terms.
She looked out of the corner of her eye at Keith. He stood with both hands propped on the head of his cane, his expression stony. That morning he’d been silent, his face drawn as he listened to her describe the events of the night before. Then he’d hugged her close, seemingly unable to speak. She’d seen his eyes dart to the revolver in the wooden box, but Keith refrained from lecturing her. By the time she’d come out of her room, groomed and ready to go to the courthouse, he’d been in a suit and tie, waiting by the door. And he must have called Mac, because she met them there, bleary-eyed but anxious, with three coffees in to-go cups.
Veronica was grateful. Standing in front of all these people alone, waiting to hear Lamb act as though the case were solved while ignoring the most important piece—the violent cartel cousins—might have put her over the edge.
She glanced around the crowd. The Dewalts stood a few yards away, Mike’s arms wrapped around Ella’s shoulders from behind. Crane looked strained, edgy, his eyes wide and panicked. Tears rolled down Margie’s cheeks. Veronica glanced around to look for her mother and found her, near the back of the crowd, with Hunter gathered in her arms, her face buried in his neck. Next to her, Tanner stood and stared blankly around like a man who didn’t know where he was. She wondered if Petra had asked them to come too, or if they were as desperate for information as the reporters.
“Ms. Mars?”
She turned around, startled, to see Petra Landros right in front of her. Her thick dark hair was pinned back in a somber twist, and her Armani suit was an understated charcoal gray tailored to hug her curves.
“You must be proud,” Petra said, shaking Veronica’s hand. “You caught the bad guy.” She turned to face Keith. “And you must be the notorious Mr. Mars. I’m so pleased to meet you.”
Keith’s eyebrows shot up. “Notorious?”
“Your tenure as sheriff wasn’t the most probusiness we’ve ever had, you know. But your name came up again and again as the Chamber talked about whom we should hire to find Hayley. Everyone says you’re the best.” The hint of a smile tugged her lips upward. “In any case, your daughter’s certainly upheld your firm’s reputation.” She turned back to Veronica. “Now, shall I wire you payment, or would you like to come to my office for a check right now?”
Veronica frowned. “Usually I don’t get paid until the case is closed, Ms. Landros. We still haven’t found those girls.”
Petra’s smile faded quickly. She adopted a concerned, sincere expression.
“Of course,” she said. “If we can recover the girls, we’d love to do that for the families.”
Veronica’s jaw tightened involuntarily. It wasn’t hard to read the writing on the wall. As far as the Chamber of Commerce was concerned, the case was resolved. Willie Murphy was a perfect suspect, whether he’d done anything to the missing girls or not.
The semblance of law and order is just as good as the real thing, right? As long as it keeps the tourist dollars flowing, who cares if we’ve got the right guy?
The crowd suddenly went still as Lamb made his way to the podium. Cameras shuffled around, microphones bristling forward. Veronica straightened up a little. Lamb’s khaki uniform was perfectly pressed, each button gleaming in the sun. He gave a dramatic pause as he stared arrogantly around the gathered crowd, then looked down at his notes.
“Early this morning, at just after twelve a.m., we arrested a suspect in the disappearances of Hayley Dewalt and Aurora Scott. William Murphy, age twenty-four, was seen with both girls prior to their disappearances. I can’t discuss the evidence in an ongoing case, but …”
The reporters broke into a clamor. Next to her, her father stood with his knuckles white on the handle of his cane. Mac gave a contemptuous little grimace, shifting her weight. At the podium Lamb lifted his hands with a benevolent, patronizing smile. “One at a time, please. One at a time.”
“What are you charging him with?” shouted a bespectacled man with wisps of hair across his scalp. “Do you know what happened to Hayley and Aurora?”
“Has Murphy confessed?” asked a dark-haired woman in a violet-flowered suit. “Or do you have some physical evidence linking him to the crime?”
“Where are the girls?” Veronica couldn’t tell where the voice came from, but the question was echoed a few more times around the courtyard.
“Where are Hayley and Aurora?”
“Are you going to be able to bring them home?”
Lamb cleared his throat. “At this time, we are moving ahead with a murder investigation.”
A spike of sound went up from the crowd. A few gasps, a ragged sob. Veronica exchanged a glance with Keith. Had Murphy copped to something, or was Lamb going for maximum effect?
“Again, I’m not at liberty to discuss the specifics of the case at this time, because we are still talking with the DA about how to move ahead. But the important thing is that we’ve got this guy off the street, and Neptune is safe again.”
“Sheriff Lamb, some people are saying that Murphy is involved with a larger criminal organization. Can you speak to these rumors?”
So they weren’t completely stupid. Veroni
ca wasn’t surprised that the question had come from Martina Vasquez, a reporter for San Diego’s local news station. Lamb’s eyes darted toward her, his mouth gaping for just a moment before he collected himself.
“Well, Martina, I can’t respond to rampant speculation, and frankly, I think it’s irresponsible for the media to report hearsay as fact.” He leaned one arm on the lectern, smiling at Martina as if she’d just made some cute and childish mistake.
Mac made a strangled noise in the back of her throat.
“Hard to believe he’s single, isn’t it?” Veronica whispered. But she couldn’t hide her grin. If anyone was going to dig a little deeper, it would be Martina Vasquez, who seemed to like the Sheriff’s Department about as much as Veronica did. Maybe she could even send Martina an anonymous tip or two about the Gutiérrez boys. A little media attention might help Lamb take an interest in the cartel’s laundering operation.
“Do you think Murphy will lead you to the girls’ bodies?” someone asked from the crowd.
Lamb fidgeted with the note cards he’d prepared. “So far he’s not offering any information. But I have faith we’ll get it out of him sooner or later. Once he realizes he’s got no choice, it’ll just be a matter of time.”
Next to her, Veronica heard Keith exhale a small, exasperated sigh. His jaw was tight, but he watched the proceedings without any other reaction. She knew that poker face from experience. The deeper the anger, the harder the puzzle, the higher the stakes, the calmer Keith Mars looked. Which meant that right now, he was pissed.
A few yards away, Margie Dewalt wept silently into her handkerchief. Veronica met Ella’s eyes for one long, awful moment, forcing herself not to look away. Her breath felt tight in her chest. She saw Mr. Dewalt, pulling his phone out of his pocket, sticking his finger in his left ear to block out the sound of the crowd as he answered. His expression was confused. Then the crowd shifted, obscuring him from sight for a moment.
“All right, if there are no further questions—”
“Oh my god! She’s alive!”
People turned and craned their necks to see where the sudden cry had come from. A moment later Veronica caught sight of Mike Dewalt, his face a mask of anxious astonishment. He had a cell phone clamped to one ear.
A murmur went up from the crowd, only to die down as Mike spoke. “Hayley’s still alive.” His voice was a breathy croak. His eyes looked wild. “And so’s the other girl. They’re still alive.”
He held up the cell phone, as if it was some kind of proof. His eyes were fearful and excited all at once.
“Their kidnappers just called. And they want a ransom.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Interrogation room B hadn’t changed at all in the almost ten years Veronica had been away. Dark wood wainscoting, dingy yellow paint, a chalkboard scrawled with what at first looked to be clues to some convoluted mystery but that turned out to be fantasy football scores. It was just like stepping into a time warp.
Except instead of a vain, lazy, incompetent Sheriff Lamb, now we’ve got a vain, lazy, corrupt Sheriff Lamb. She looked across the table at Lamb’s glowering face. He’d just been upstaged, and he wasn’t happy.
The room was at capacity. Veronica and Keith sat across from Dan Lamb and Petra Landros. Mike, Margie, and Ella Dewalt sat close together on the side to Veronica’s left, Crane standing behind them. To Keith’s right sat the Scotts. Lianne was inches from Keith, which sent an anxious, electric charge up the back of Veronica’s neck every time she glanced their way.
Keith and Lianne hadn’t seen each other in more than ten years now; their divorce had been quick and uncontested, a signature on a piece of paper. Veronica had worried their presence in the same room would be like matter and antimatter, exploding on contact in a rush of blinding light. But all that had happened had been a smile, a handshake. A civil exchange.
“Hello, Keith.”
“Lianne. It’s good to see you. I’m sorry for the circumstances, though.”
And then they’d sat down. That was all.
Veronica looked around the table at the other faces. Mike Dewalt’s eyes were bright with relief. Margie couldn’t stop crying, her face hidden behind her enormous handkerchief. Ella looked pale, her lips and eyes like dark marks on paper. Behind them, Crane clutched the back of a chair, his fingers white. On the other side of the table, Tanner and Lianne held hands. Hunter sat on her lap, resting his head against her shoulder and looking at no one.
They’d all just heard that their daughters had been murdered, only to get what felt like a reprieve minutes later. A sense of cautious relief hung on the air.
“The e-mail address it came from is just a bunch of scrambled numbers,” Mike said, setting his phone on the table. “But it had a … a sound file in it. What’s it called, sweetie?”
“MP three,” Ella said, in a soft, distant voice.
“MP three,” he repeated. “Here, listen.”
He hit Play. A man’s voice came through the speaker, garbled through some kind of voice modulator so it sounded like a child’s toy robot.
“Dewalts: Your daughter is alive. If you want to see her again, follow our instructions to the letter. We want six hundred thousand dollars in unmarked, nonsequential bills. Pack it in a small suitcase. Do not try to put any trackers or dye into the money; this will result in your daughter’s immediate death. Do not involve the cops; this will result in your daughter’s immediate death. We will be in contact on the evening of the twenty-sixth to instruct you on where to leave the money. Do not try to set up some kind of sting, as we are watching every move you make.
“For the time being she is safe and comfortable, but very scared. To prove she’s alive we asked her to tell us something only she would know. She said you once let slip that she’d been conceived to Meat Loaf’s ‘I’d Do Anything for Love.’ She said only you, Mrs. Dewalt, Mr. Dewalt, and she know that fact.
“Do not try to outsmart us. If you follow the instructions to a T, you will have your daughter back again by the weekend. We do not want to be violent, but if we have to, we will.”
Margie hid her face entirely now, her sobs loud and ringing in the quiet room. Ella wrapped a slender arm around her mother’s neck, her face pinched and scared. For a moment, no one spoke.
“Someone’s been tracking the money on the website,” Veronica said. Her voice felt too loud in the quiet room. “They’re asking for the exact amount of money raised. That’s not an accident.”
“Ours is almost the same,” Tanner finally said. He wore a T-shirt with a picture of his daughter printed across the front. It said find aurora in large dark pink letters across her forehead. The creases in his face seemed deeper, more graven than before. He thumbed a button on his phone to play the message.
He was right; it was the same, word for word, until it got to the paragraph on proof of life.
“Aurora said she and Lianne made gingerbread pancakes together in the middle of the night during Tanner’s last relapse. You were waiting for him to come home, and you made the pancakes to kill time and fed them to the dog.”
“That was years ago,” Lianne whispered. “She was twelve or thirteen. I don’t think we’ve ever talked about it since.” She took a shuddering breath and looked around the room, her eyes round, hopeful. “But this is good news, right? It means the girls are still alive. It means we can get them back.”
Lamb cleared his throat. He seemed to be fighting to keep his face sympathetic, but it wasn’t a natural expression for him—the effect came across almost passive-aggressive, like he actually was going to kill someone with kindness.
“I don’t want to dash your hopes, folks, but there are almost always hoax ransom demands that come in after a disappearance. The Lindbergh baby, JonBenét … it’s possible that this is some kind of prank or con.”
Margie let out a gasping sob. “There’s no way Hayley would have told anyone about that song. She was so embarrassed. It came on the radio one night when we were makin
g dinner, and I … I thought it was funny. I couldn’t help myself. I had to tell her. But she ran to her room and hid for the rest of the night.”
“She might have told a friend, a boyfriend …,” Lamb said.
“No. You don’t know Hayley like I do. She was furious that I told her. I can’t imagine her telling anyone else.”
Lamb sighed. “Look, I just want to caution you all to not get your hopes up. We’ll look into every possible lead here, but the fact is, we have a suspect in custody who we can place at the scene of both crimes. And we have physical evidence tying him to one of the disappearances. The signs are not looking good, and it would be a mistake to comply with these demands.”
That was when Lianne spoke, and Veronica saw it—saw a glimpse of her mother, the woman who’d been married to a cop, who’d been willing to fight for things she loved when the vodka wasn’t pickling her brain.
“A mistake?” Lianne leaned forward. “Listen to me, Sheriff. As long as there’s a chance of finding Aurora alive, we’ll take it. We’ll do anything we have to do to get her back.”
Landros, her face much more convincing than Lamb’s in its mask of sympathy, held up her hands. Her pillowy lips were turned down, her dark eyes gentle. “Please, Mrs. Scott. We’re here to help. Rest assured that we will do everything in our power to bring the girls home, alive and well.”
With startling intensity, Lianne whipped her head around to face Keith and Veronica. “What do you think, Keith?”
Keith shook his head. “I haven’t been working this case. I can’t really speak to the details. It’s Veronica we should be asking.”
All eyes settled on Veronica. Her heart picked up speed, and her hand, almost unconsciously, drifted up to touch the cut at her neck.
“Well,” she said carefully. “I don’t know anything for sure. But I’m not convinced Willie Murphy’s our guy.”
Lamb looked at her incredulously. “You’re the one who brought me the evidence, Mars. Now you’re saying—”
“I’m saying that we don’t know the whole story yet,” she said, speaking over him. “Murphy risked his life to help me back at the Gutiérrez house. I think he knows something about what happened to the girls—but I’m not convinced he’s a kidnapper. Or a murderer. And we’re all ignoring the fact that he was in custody when the ransom notes came in. Either he has an accomplice—or he didn’t do it.”