“This is weird,” he said at last, determined to lighten the mood. “I’ve never laid in bed in the dark talking with a woman who wasn’t in that bed with me. Wanna come over here and snuggle while we continue this conversation?”
“Is that what they’re calling it these days?”
“You’re not suggesting we might do something other than talk?” he asked innocently, focusing on the deeper shadow on the other bed that was her.
“Are you suggesting we wouldn’t?”
He laughed. “It’s nice to know I’m not the only one thinking that way.”
Her voice sounded huffy, or maybe just muffled by the covers as she turned over. “As long as thinking is all we do…”
And now he wasn’t going to be able to think about anything else.
His smile faded, and for a long time he listened to the sound of her breathing, slowing, steadying, lulling. When he was pretty sure she was asleep, he whispered, “Good night, Cate.”
And after another long time, she whispered back, “Good night, Justin.”
* * *
Thanks to Justin’s heavy foot and a relative absence of troopers on the interstate, they reached their first destination in Atlanta just before eleven. They drove past the house belonging to Martin and Denise LeFrancois twice before he parked a few doors down on the quiet street.
“These two are both in internet businesses,” Cate said while scanning Amy’s email. “He’s a partner in a search engine and online auction company, and her company provides virtual personal assistants to the rich and lazy. They share an office in the Peach Tree Complex. Their financial records do show payments to a pediatrician and a nanny—” a relieved sigh shivered through her “—but Amy didn’t find any school records for seven-year-old Graciela.”
She shifted her gaze from the tablet to the LeFrancois house. Like the Clarences’, it was an old beauty kept in impeccable condition. Huge trees dominated the yard, a lot probably ten times the size of hers. A privacy fence of brick and wrought iron blocked the view into the back, and the four garage doors—four, with only two adults in the family—were all closed. “They’re probably both at work. Doesn’t anyone stay home these days?”
Justin gave her a wry look. “I don’t know, Dr. Calloway. Would you give up medicine if a baby Calloway came along?”
“That isn’t going to happen. I’m a doctor. I know what causes pregnancy and how to prevent it.” Besides, though she hadn’t told him, she agreed with his view. There were too many kids already in the world who needed parents. If she ever developed the longing for a child, she would adopt long before having one of her own.
“Hello.”
His soft exclamation redirected her attention to the house, where the front door had opened and a young woman was maneuvering the Rolls Royce of strollers out onto the stoop.
“Come on, doc, let’s go for a walk through our new neighborhood.”
She got out hastily, stepping over a strip of grass lush enough for a country club to reach the sidewalk. Justin fell in beside her, taking her hand in his. Her fingers automatically curved to fit inside his, and once more that little sense of security quivered through her.
It was just a show, she reminded herself. They didn’t want to arouse suspicion. Claiming to be husband and wife was one thing; acting the part was another.
The woman she presumed to be the nanny was nearing the end of the drive at the same time they approached. He smiled broadly and said, “Hey. Nice day, isn’t it?”
Young, Latina, shy, the woman bobbed her head and would have gone on if Cate hadn’t blocked her way. Crouching, she locked gazes with the blue-eyed, blond-haired baby strapped into the seat, probably about a year old, chubby-cheeked and fair, with two fingers in his mouth. He grinned without removing them.
“What a little sweetheart,” Cate gushed—she, who had never gushed over a baby in her life, not any of her nieces, not even the first baby she’d delivered. “He’s such a doll with those big blue eyes.”
“Yes,” the woman agreed with a nod and a move to leave.
Cate remained where she was, wrapping one hand around the padded bar at the front of the stroller as if she needed it for balance, and Justin launched into their cover story while she continued to coo at the little boy.
“My wife, Daisy, and I—”
She darted him a sour look, and he grinned expansively without missing a beat “—have just moved in down the street, and our neighbors said that a girl about the same age as our daughter, Lily, lives here. We’d love a chance for her to meet someone before she starts school next week. Are you Denise?”
The nanny’s smile quavered as she shook her head emphatically. “Mrs. LeFrancois is at work. I take care of the baby.” Her English was heavily accented, and her gaze darted everywhere except Justin’s direction. “We must go now. Time for baby’s walk.”
Cate nearly lost her balance for real when the woman tugged on the stroller. She stood, smiling with as much forced warmth as she’d shown when she’d met Trent’s parents for the first time. “It’s a beautiful day for a walk. Do you take care of the LeFrancoises’ little girl, too, when she’s out of school?”
Darting a look over her shoulder toward the house, the nanny tightened her grip on the stroller and backed away a few steps. “There is no little girl. Just the baby. We must go.”
“No little girl. Really, you’re sure? Yeah, of course you would be. You live here, right?” Justin’s smile was pleasant and charming but didn’t reach his eyes. “I guess our neighbor must have been wrong. Have a good walk.”
The woman swiveled the stroller in the opposite direction and walked along the sidewalk. Every few feet, she glanced back at them and picked up her pace a bit more until she and the baby were practically jogging. When they reached the corner two houses down, they turned and disappeared from sight.
“Who do you think she was scared of? Us? Mrs. LeFrancois?”
Justin, staring at the house, absently answered, “Or immigration. If the LeFrancoises went south of the border to get a kid, maybe they also got their nanny there. How better to get good, cheap help than to hold arrest and deportation over their heads?”
After a moment, he took her hand. “Let’s get out of here before someone who is home calls the cops on us for hanging around where we don’t belong.”
Still part of the show, she reminded herself. Nothing more.
It was a forty-minute drive across the city to the next house on their list. They stopped for lunch when they reached the area, then drove into yet another neighborhood of expensive homes. Unlike the last two, though, these houses were new, built to seriously impress, with tons of brick, slate roof tiles and columns on every other mini-mansion. Elaborate wrought-iron gates marked the entrance, but they stood open.
“No point living in a gated community if you’re not going to close the gates,” Justin murmured.
“Yours didn’t do much to keep the Wallaces’ punks out of your house,” she reminded him drily.
“No, but these would have kept us out. I don’t know how to bypass an electronic lock. Do you?”
“Sorry. They didn’t teach that in medical school. There it is.” She gestured to a faded brick monstrosity two blocks in on the left. The slate roof soared at so many angles it was dizzying to look at, and the leaded windows were tall and narrow, reminding her of defensive ports on centuries-old forts. The similarity summoned the far-from-reassuring thought of Mr. or Mrs. Grayson waiting behind one of those windows with a crossbow, a pot of flaming oil or an automatic weapon.
“You want to go or do you want me to?”
You go. Her stomach was knotted and her chest hurt as if she’d cracked a few ribs and couldn’t breathe deeply. But when he parked a few feet in front of the garage, she undid her seat belt. “I’ll go. I look way more harmless than you.”
“I’m harmless,” he protested, then grinned at her snort. “Go ahead, ring the bell. They’re probably not home, either.”
> She was about to close the door when he leaned over. “I won’t be able to see you at the door. Scream if you need me.”
“I’m a great screamer.” Hands clammy, she shut the door, then followed the curve of the sidewalk to double doors deep inside the entryway. The metalwork on the doors was iron, huge black straps that reminded her again of ancient fortresses. As a welcoming feature for the home, they fell far short of the mark. The bell echoed distantly, a discordant peal for attention. Not expecting an answer, she studied the iron sconces mounted on each wall, the worn brick beneath her feet and the sculpture to one side that was all sharp edges and angles. It looked as if it belonged in a torture chamber, not in the entry of a multimillion-dollar Atlanta home.
The door opening startled her, and she snapped a smile into place as she turned. Halfway through the motion, she lost the smile and the only turning she wanted to do also involved running. Her feet seemed frozen, though.
The man who stood in front of her—Hector Grayson, her brain supplied, though its fight-or-flight mechanism had apparently stopped working—was tall, muscle-bound and fierce. With salt-and-pepper hair pulled into a ponytail, heavy brows drawn together, a hawkish nose and a bandito mustache, under the best of circumstances he would have made her uncomfortable. Under these circumstances, she was having trouble breathing.
“It’s for you,” he said, his voice somewhere between a growl and a snarl. When he thrust out his hand, she cringed, but still her body didn’t heed her desire to flee. It took a moment to realize he held a phone in those thick fingers, a moment more to realize he expected her to take it.
Don’t shake. Don’t let him see he scared you. Aw, hell, it was way too late for that. She took the phone without touching him, barely managing to close trembling fingers around it, and lifted it to her ear. “H-hello?”
Grayson folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the jamb, watching, waiting, still scary.
“Dr. Calloway. I’d like to say it’s a pleasure, but I’m sure you’ll understand why I can’t.” The voice was male, lightly accented, smarmy and oozing with feigned graciousness. “I was under the impression that you and Mr. Seavers were looking for the records he helped steal from my employers.”
“We—we are.”
“And you believe they might be at Mr. Grayson’s home? Or Mrs. LeFrancois’s or Mrs. Clarence’s?”
She didn’t know what to say. Didn’t have a clue. If she were braver, or more foolish, she would reply that he’d been under the impression that she and Justin were still in Cozumel; obviously, he was wrong. She would tell him that of course the records weren’t at those people’s homes, but then, neither were the girls they had supposedly adopted.
But she wasn’t brave, or foolish, and she couldn’t find the clearness of mind to form any response at all.
“I’m very disappointed, Doctor. I wonder why you and Mr. Seavers are harassing the foundation’s clients. I wonder why you’re not devoting your time to recovering the records, as we asked. I wonder why I should wait another hour to prove to you that this business is serious. I wonder why I’m not giving the order to dispose of Mr. Calloway as we speak.”
“You don’t want to do that,” she blurted. Grayson’s bored, disinterested manner made her skin crawl, and she wanted to turn her back to him but couldn’t do it. Instead, she took a few steps to the side so the brick wall of the entry was behind her and he was in her peripheral vision. “You want the files back, don’t you?”
“I’m not so sure now. You’ve apparently found someone who can decrypt them.”
“Only one. Only the file with the girls’ names and the parents they were placed with. That’s it. Nothing else. And we can recover the flash drive with the rest of the files. We just need a little more time.”
“Where are they?”
“We’re not sure yet. Justin and Susanna overreacted. They wanted to get the flash drive with the files as far away from them as possible, in a place where you could never find it. They passed it off to a friend who gave it to another friend who gave it… You get the idea.”
The man chuckled. “Amateurs. They should never have taken it from the island.”
“They should never have taken it from the foundation,” she pointed out, and he laughed again.
“I like you, Dr. Calloway. You’re pragmatic. If you ever decide you want to live in paradise, we could find a place for you at the foundation.” When he spoke again, the good humor was gone from his voice. “Leave our clients alone. Get the files. We’ll give you forty-eight hours to contact us. Mr. Grayson will give you the number. After that, start checking the news reports for Cozumel. You never know when another body will wash up onshore. Unfortunate boaters, fishermen…divers. Good day, Doctor.”
The call clicked to an end. Dazed, she listened to silence for a moment before Grayson’s movement made her stiffen. He held out one hand for the phone, a slip of paper in the other. When they’d made the exchange, he growled, “Get off my property before I throw you off. And if you come back, I’ll drag your scrawny ass inside and shoot you for an intruder. Got that?”
Eyes wide, she started to nod, then decided to hell with it. Spinning, she rushed back to the car, fumbled with the door, with getting in, with the seat belt, chanting as soon as she got in, “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.”
Thankfully, Justin didn’t ask questions; he shifted into Reverse, backed out fast and headed toward the gated entrance at a fair rate of speed. Once outside the gates, Cate eased her grip on the door handle a bit; after they’d put several more blocks between them and Grayson’s subdivision, her heart slowed enough that cardiac arrest didn’t seem imminent.
She was in the middle of her first deep breath in a long time when Justin abruptly cut in front of an oncoming car and turned into a strip-center parking lot. Her head whipped around, searching for something suspicious behind them, but she saw nothing. Just life as usual on an Atlanta afternoon.
Would she ever have a life as usual again?
Instead of finding a parking space, he drove behind the shops, about halfway down the length of the building, where a row of Dumpsters blocked them from the street. He shut off the engine, got out and came around to her side of the car. His hands were unsteady as he loosened the seat belt, then he lifted her out of the car, pulled her close and wrapped his arms tightly around her.
He felt so solid and strong, and she’d been scared forever, it seemed. Her knees gave way, and she sagged against him, face pressed into his shirt, shudders ricocheting through her. She’d been threatened before, but by patients who talked a lot and were rarely in a condition to act. But this man on the phone, and Grayson—they could both act and feel no remorse. Grayson could have snapped her like a twig before she’d been able to do more than croak Justin’s name.
He stroked her hair, but this time he didn’t bother assuring her that everything would be okay. They were long past the okay mark, and she didn’t know if they would ever find it again.
Slowly the rush of emotion that made her feel so fragile passed, but she didn’t step away. Instead, she wrapped her arms around him, clasping her hands behind him, standing as close as she could. She was afraid in a deeply fundamental way she’d never known before, and he was the only safety she knew.
Her shivers had stopped and the pressure around her lungs lessened before she spoke. “When Mr. Grayson opened the door, he handed his phone to me. It was the man who’s called you.” Drawing comfort from him, she repeated the conversation, amazed by how many details her brain had stored in total recall in the midst of total panic.
“So either Mrs. Clarence or the nanny doesn’t like uninvited guests.”
“The nanny was scared. She probably called her boss as soon as she got away from us.” Swallowing hard, she tilted her head to see his face. “He gave us forty-eight hours, Justin. If we don’t call to arrange a time to return the files by then, they’re going to kill Trent.”
“Where’s the number?”
For a moment she stared blankly, then let go of him. The paper was still crumpled in her left hand, the ink, thankfully, unsmeared. He tucked it into his pocket, then gazed into her eyes. “You okay?”
She nodded. It was a lie, and she was pretty sure he knew it. “We can’t let them kill Trent.”
“We can’t,” he agreed.
“But if we give them the files, they’ll kill all of us.”
“They will. I don’t know about you, doc, but I’m not eager for that to happen.” He pulled her to a nearby bench, used by shopping center employees on smoke breaks, judging by the number of cigarette butts on the ground around it. “You still think we should contact Trent’s GBI agent cousin?”
The part of her that had just been threatened and insulted at the same time—scrawny ass, indeed—by a big scary guy wanted to say hell, yes. Some stronger part stopped her. “We have a deadline and not much to tell him. No proof that Trent and Susanna have actually been kidnapped. No proof that the Wallace brothers are involved. No proof that the girls were ever delivered to the parents on that list. No proof that the other encrypted files on the flash drive have any incriminating evidence in them. If we went to Rick, he would at least look into it, but it would take him more than forty-eight hours to learn anything. And if the Wallaces found out…”
“It would be too late for Trent and Susanna.”
She scooted closer to him, until the warmth from his body seeped into hers. “And for us,” she whispered.
He settled his arm over her shoulders as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “We need to find just one of those girls.”
“How? If the Wallaces warned Grayson about us, they’ve probably warned everyone.”
They sat in silence for a time. The air was warm, the street sounds muted. A plain board fence faced them on the opposite side, defaced—or maybe improved—by graffiti, and the odors from the Dumpsters mixed with leftover cigarette residue for an unpleasant perfume. It could have been worse, though. Apparently none of the Dumpsters were used by restaurants.
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