He's struck a nerve, Dax thought. But he couldn't get himself to back away. "Husband?"
Brenda wrapped her arms around herself. She felt suddenly cold. "What? No, Wade never blamed me. He was a good man."
So she kept saying. Was it to convince him, or herself, he wondered. "Then who?" Dax pressed, coming up behind her. "Your father?"
Her eyes met his in the reflection. She forced a smile to her lips, reminding herself that the way to face the ordeal of Annie's kidnapping was to be upbeat. She had to believe they would find the little girl. Otherwise, she was never going to get through it. "Let's see, masseur, philosopher, shrink—" She turned around to face him again. "Anything else?"
"Police detective," he said. "Don't forget police detective."
And that, he thought, was his cue. Whatever feelings this woman aroused in him, they were going to have to take a back seat to what was important right now. Finding Annie Tyler.
He picked up the image Brenda had printed up. "Let's get this to where it'll do the most good."
"Sounds like a plan." Brenda paused only long enough to remove the photograph from the scanner and shut down the computer.
They hurried out of the building, unaware that someone was standing at a window on the third floor, nervously watching them leave.
* * *
Chapter 9
« ^ »
"Please bring my baby back. Please call and tell us what you want and where you want us to leave it so that we can get Annie back."
Rebecca Allen-Tyler was doing what she did best. Playing to the cameras. Evoking emotion from her audience.
Brenda stepped back as she looked at the scores of representatives of the news media, who were all crowded around in front of the table where Simon and Rebecca were set up. The long table was littered with microphones, their metallic heads turned upward so not to lose a single syllable. The impromptu press conference had been called less than three hours ago and the citizens of the fourth estate had been summoned to the Tyler mansion to carry the broadcast.
Brenda scanned the area around the couple. There wasn't a non-empathetic face in the crowd. But the woman wasn't really playing to the media. She and her husband were playing to an audience of two who were watching somewhere. Watching and gaining a great deal of satisfaction? She couldn't help wondering if Rebecca and Simon were doing exactly what the kidnappers wanted them to do. Begging.
Still, in Rebecca's position, she would have probably done the same thing. Who knew, maybe the kidnapper did have a heart somewhere in storage and this would bring it out. She glanced at Dax at her elbow. "Think this'll do any good?"
He'd been against this, but it wasn't exactly his call. Besides, the ball had already been rolling by the time he arrived at the mansion.
Standing off to the side, he could only preside over the proceedings. "You mean appealing to the kidnappers' sense of decency? No. But this is probably giving them exactly what they wanted. A sense of power. Of control." He frowned, lowering his head to reach her ear so that his voice wouldn't carry and interrupt the broadcast. "Rebecca Allen-Tyler is literally begging to get her daughter back. She's letting the kidnappers know that she'll pay any price. If one or both of them are after control or revenge, it's got to be a good feeling for them."
"What if it's Simon they want it from?" Annie's father sat solemn eyed beside his wife. His lean face looked haggard. He had said very little, for once leaving the words up to his wife.
Dax saw him the way he imagined the kidnappers would see the man. "He looks pretty beaten up. I'd say that probably feeds their ego, too."
A commotion at the table drew both their attentions back to the man they were discussing. Simon had pulled one of the microphones even closer and was talking into it, interrupting his wife. His anger was almost a tangible thing.
"Call, damn you. Stop playing games with us, with our daughter and call. Tell us how much you want and where you want us to bring the damn money." His impatience and frustration was clearly registered there for anyone to see. Flashes went off and cameras whirled, recording the moment, the passion.
The overwhelming signs of barely suppressed panic.
Dax shook his head. "He just handed everything they wanted to them."
Brenda didn't want to think that way. "But if the kidnappers want the money—"
"Oh, I don't doubt they want the money," he assured her. "But they want the drama, too." As Simon exploded for the camera, Dax drew her back even further from the eye of the storm. "Don't forget, this is California. Where every second person either has a screenplay they've written or a pile of eight by ten glossies sitting in the top drawer of their desk."
"I don't," Brenda quipped.
He only smiled at what he found to be her innocence. For such an independent woman, she did have a naive side. The woman continued to surprise him. "I said every second person."
She pretended to count, silently pointing a finger first at herself, then at him. "That would be you." When he made no hurried denial, she realized he was speaking from experience. Brenda tilted her head, studying him. "Let me guess. Screenplay?"
"Notes for one," he corrected. His grin was quick and easy, and gone within less than a minute. "But that's not for public knowledge."
He hadn't really told anyone else about it, not even his cousin Shaw who was, all things considered, his best friend. But there seemed to be no harm in letting the information slip out. Brenda wasn't really part of his world, at least not a permanent part who could use this information against him and tease him at will, the way his cousins or siblings could.
Or Nathan for that matter, he thought. His mouth curved again. Nathan's idea of writing was signing his weekly paycheck.
Wow, you just never knew about a guy, did you? Detective Dax Cavanaugh would have been the last person she would have thought capable of having the patience to sit down and hammer out a screenplay.
"My lips are sealed," she promised.
His eyes were drawn to her mouth as if to verify her statement. He thought of last night and felt a quickening in his body that was completely out of place in the given situation. Out of place or not, he found himself wanting to kiss her again.
"Keep them that way," he instructed in hushed tones.
Before them, the media surged forward. The excitement of the moment, along with its charged, heightened emotion was quickly making the situation dangerous and possibly volatile. It was time to cut the press conference short.
Dax stepped forward, becoming official again. He waved the reporters back. "Okay, everybody, you've got your story and your sound bite. Now everyone please clear out so we can go about our work."
As one, the reporters refocused their attention and turned toward him. Questions were fired at him from all directions. "Detective, have you made any progress?"
He refused to answer that, knowing that anything he said would be diluted and distorted.
"Any truth to the report that Annie was spotted in Taos, New Mexico?"
"We're checking it out," he responded to the disembodied question while motioning to the patrolmen at the back of the room to usher the media out the front door.
"Is it true you suspect one of the teachers?" someone else shouted. Variations of the question echoed throughout the crowd.
"We're still in the process of ruling out suspects," Dax responded.
"How about her teacher, has her teacher been ruled out?" someone else asked.
Though she was behind him at the moment, he could feel Brenda watching him. "Yes, Mrs. York has been ruled out."
"How about the headmaster?"
"We'll let you know as soon as we have anything," Dax promised. The combined effort of the three policeman had the crowd finally crossing the threshold and on the other side of the front door. Dax closed it with feeling. "When hell freezes over," he added under his breath as he turned from the door.
Simon and Rebecca were still standing in the living room, both shaken, both holding one anothe
r for mutual support. Dax looked at Simon. "You shouldn't have done that."
Instantly, Simon took umbrage. His pale complexion darkened. "I can't just sit here."
Didn't the man get it? According to Nathan, the director was sharp. Supposedly he'd graduated near the top of his class from the University of Southern California. Why didn't book-learning translate into a drop of common sense?
"That's exactly what he wants you to do, Mr. Tyler," Dax told him, struggling with his own temper. "Sit there. He wants you to sit there and squirm while you wait for the telephone to ring."
"But why?" Rebecca asked, her voice frantic. "The sooner he calls, the sooner he can get his money."
"It's not always about the money. Even in a ransom case," he underscored, not wanting the girl's mother to start torturing herself with other, lurid possibilities. "Sometimes the main component in all this is the power."
"Power?" Rebecca echoed blankly. She looked at her husband for an explanation.
But it was Dax who gave it. And he gave it to Simon rather than her because more and more he was beginning to believe that this had been done specifically to Simon not because he was the wealthiest parent at Harwood, but because the kidnapper wanted to extract a measure of revenge along with his money.
"Yes. You have the power of artistic life or death over the people who work on a movie with you. Maybe Annie's kidnapper wants to sample a little of the same. Maybe he's someone you slighted, possibly ruined, and he wants to get his revenge." He had picked up copies of the sketches Brenda had done on their way back to the mansion. He took them out of his pocket now and unfolded them before placing them on the table in front of Simon. "Do either of these two people look familiar to you?"
Simon glanced from one to the other, then shrugged impatiently. The next moment, disgusted, he swept the pages away with his hand. "Look, I've been in the business fifteen years. I see a lot of people. I can't be expected to remember everyone."
Dax's voice was emotionless. He could see that the man was probably a tyrant on the set, the kind more than one person probably swore to get revenge against.
"No, you can't." And maybe that was the point, however twisted it might be, Dax thought. Maybe whoever was doing this wanted Simon to remember him, remember the impact he had on his life.
Kidnapping a man's daughter left quite an impact.
Tucking the pictures back into his pocket, Dax turned away from the Tylers and began to walk out of the living room.
"Where are you going?" Simon called after him.
Dax could see how the man could easily rub legions of people the wrong way. "I've got teachers to question."
He didn't have to look to know that Brenda had fallen into step beside him. He didn't say anything to her until they were outside the building.
"Don't you have someplace to be?"
Now that he'd opened the door to allow her to be part of this investigation, however marginally, there was no way she was going to willingly be left behind. She had to at least try to accompany him.
"Not at the moment. Besides," she said, trying to bolster her argument, "you're going to need a friendly face at your side when you go at them again."
He would have described her face as something other than friendly. Enticing, beautiful were two of the words that came to mind. Dax crossed his arms before him. "You're volunteering your face?"
He was going to let her come. She relaxed slightly. "Like I said, it doesn't have any place to be at the moment."
He nodded toward his car. The media, he could see, was converging again and heading their way. "Get in then, before the sharks go at us again."
He didn't have to tell her twice.
According to the payroll statements, Harwood Academy employed seventeen teachers. Fourteen to handle their classes and three who substituted. They conducted classes that dealt either with computer science, art or music. In addition, there was one librarian, a woman who had been with the academy ever since the first headmaster had opened the school's doors some fifty-one years ago.
"Came to work at Harwood fresh out of college," Amanda Brooks told them proudly, walking back into her tiny, knick-knack crowded living room.
She set down the tray she'd brought in from the kitchen and presented a tall glass of lemonade to each of them before taking one herself. With a contented sigh, she sat down on a comfortable, slightly shapeless chair and faced them across a scarred coffee table. One of her three dogs came to place its head on her feet.
"I don't get much company," she confided, looking down at her dog. "They tend to be kind of shy around people. Butterscotch and Taffy are hiding in the bedroom, but Caramel tends to be the curious one."
She paused to scratch the dog's head, then raised her eyes to her guests. "Nothing like this has ever happened at the academy before." She leaned forward, her body language announcing that she had a secret to share. "One of the teachers had to leave in the early sixties because she got in the family way. She was a single lady, you understand." Amanda shook her blond-tinted hair in mute disapproval. Whether over the teacher or her subsequent censure was unclear. "But other than that, there hasn't been a hint of a scandal. Until now." She sighed over the rim of the glass before taking another long sip. "I don't know what this is going to do to enrollment."
"And you saw nothing out of the ordinary yesterday?" Dax pressed.
Amanda drew herself up and sat ramrod straight. Brilliant blue eyes stared at him accusingly from behind rimless glasses. "A fire is out of the ordinary, Detective."
"But there really wasn't any," he reminded her gently. "Just someone setting Mrs. York's wastepaper basket on fire."
"A fire's a fire, big or small." Primly she nursed her lemonade before speaking again. "As to anything else out of the ordinary, I wouldn't know about that. I was too busy making sure that the youngsters in the library all got out all right. That, and saving Edna."
"Edna?" He hadn't heard the name mentioned before. Was it a student of some special significance? He looked from the librarian to Brenda for an explanation.
Because Amanda appeared to be preparing for an unabridged version, Brenda quickly explained, "That's what Amanda calls the first edition book we have. It's a volume of poems—"
"By Edna St. Vincent Millet. My gift to the school after I was here for twenty-five years," the older woman told him with no small amount of pride. "I found it in a small secondhand bookstore in London. My husband took me there for our second honeymoon. He died two years ago last spring. Butterscotch and Taffy wouldn't come out from under the bed for days. I don't know what I would have done if it hadn't been for Caramel…"
They weren't going to get anywhere here, Dax thought. He realized the woman needed to talk, but he didn't have time to listen. He set his glass down on the coaster Amanda had placed before him.
Amanda ceased her narrative. "Are you leaving so soon?" Disappointment dripped from her words, and she rose to her feet along with them. Roused, Caramel yapped her displeasure and then retreated to her resting place.
Dax looked as apologetic as he could. "I'm afraid we have a lot of other people to talk to."
"I understand perfectly. Never do anything by half measures, that's always been my motto." She accompanied them to the front door, opening it for them. "Will the school be open tomorrow?" Amanda's bright blue eyes watched him hopefully.
Forensics was finished processing the area. The yellow tape across the front entrance was coming down later this evening. "Yes."
Amanda nodded her approval. "Good, I don't like having too much time on my hands. Makes me lazy."
She caught Brenda's arm just before the latter crossed her threshold. Brenda looked at her quizzically. "He's a nice young man," Amanda whispered. And then she winked and closed the door.
Dax looked behind him as Brenda hurried to catch up. "What was that all about?"
Brenda grinned. There were times when the librarian didn't appear to be playing with a full deck, but she suspected that the woman
was just amusing herself. She seemed as sharp as any of the younger teachers. "She thinks you're a, quote, 'nice young man,' unquote."
Dax laughed as he opened the driver's side door. "I am." And then he looked at Brenda over the vehicle's roof. "For the most part."
A slight shiver shimmied up and down her spine. She looked at him in wonder—and amusement. "Detective Cavanaugh, are you flirting with me?"
He pretended to consider her question. "I don't know. Maybe." He got into the car. "I'll get back to you on that."
Brenda followed suit, shutting her door. She had to press her lips together to keep the grin from taking over her entire face.
They saw ten more teachers that day, but it quickly became evident to Dax that there was no new information, no forgotten scrap of a clue to offer. And, more importantly, no feeling in his gut that he had stumbled on to something.
The teachers, all women, struck him as dedicated and eager to do whatever they could to help with the investigation. But no one had seen anything in the least helpful to that investigation. And no one could be sure just where the couple that Brenda had been showing around was at any given time once the fire alarm had gone off
Ordinarily, he would feel that time was growing short. Which meant that it was running out for both the investigation and for the kidnap victim. But, if his theory was correct, then there was the kidnapper's ego to factor in and that might be enough to buy them a little more time.
He glanced at his watch as they left the last teacher of the day. It was getting late.
"Wait a minute," he told Brenda as she began climbing back into the car.
She paused, waiting for an explanation. Instead of giving her one, he punched in several numbers on his keypad. Brenda listened in silence as Dax checked in with the patrolman he'd left in charge at the Tylers' mansion. She watched his face in the light from the street lamp and drew her own conclusions.
"Nothing?" she asked the moment he flipped his phone closed.
He shook his head. "Nothing. There's been no contact made." Annoyed, frustrated, Dax tucked away his phone. "It's as if the kidnapper is trying to see how far he can stretch Tyler's nerves before they snap." He got into the car and snapped in his seat belt. "Either that, or he's changed his mind about the money."
In Broad Daylight Page 10