by Gail Bowen
My daughter looked terrible, exhausted, and edgy. “Ever since I heard about Bridie I’ve been beside myself,” she said. “Whenever I think about her …” Mieka’s sentence trailed off.
“I know,” I said. “She’s such a vulnerable child.”
“They’re all vulnerable,” Mieka said fiercely. “That’s what’s driving me crazy. I opened the UpSlideDown play centres because I love kids. I wanted a place where they could be safe and happy and explore new things. I can’t stop thinking about the children I know – not just Madeleine and Lena – but all the kids who come through the doors at UpSlideDown and UpSlideDown2.” She chewed her lip, always a sign that she was anxious. “No matter what we do, we can’t keep them safe, Mum.”
I put my arms around her. “Why don’t I take the girls to the lake tomorrow after school. We can stay till Monday morning. Give us all a chance to catch our breath.”
“The girls need that,” Mieka said. “They were whispering half the night, and this morning when I went to awaken them, Lena had crawled into bed with Maddy. She hasn’t done that in years. As soon as I close UpSlideDown on Saturday, I’ll join you at the lake.”
I gave her a final squeeze. “To quote Zack, ‘Finally, something to look forward to.’ ”
That night after we’d eaten, Zack and I took our tea out to the terrace. The evening was muggy and overcast. This was the time when we exchanged news of the day. Often our talk would be punctuated with laughter or mock groans at the weirdness of the world, but that night we were content just to sit in the gloaming and drink our Earl Grey. When Zack’s phone rang, I said, “Don’t answer it. We need time to lick our wounds, and I’ve already got the bottle of Petal to the Metal on my bedside table.”
Zack gave me a quick grin and checked the caller ID. “It’s Debbie,” he said. After he’d spoken to her, he shook his head. “Slater denies everything. He says Bridie’s five years old, and she often has trouble distinguishing between reality and her fantasies about what she wishes would happen.”
“So Bridie’s hell continues,” I said.
“Yeah,” Zack said. “But so does Slater’s. Debbie said Slater seemed genuinely stunned when the cop in charge of the investigation confronted him with Bridie’s story about the friendly stranger who was going to take her to her mother. Apparently, Slater’s sweating bullets, and the cops have no intention of letting up on him. They don’t buy his story, and they’re going to keep hammering at Doyle till they break him.”
“Good,” I said. “But meanwhile Bridie’s somewhere frightened and alone. Zack, I can’t stop thinking about how her hand felt in mine.”
Zack wheeled closer and rubbed my leg. “I noticed the unopened package of wedding photos on the sideboard when I came in. The pummelling never quits, does it?”
“No,” I said. “But we can’t let ourselves be overwhelmed. There’s too much at stake. We have to believe that Bridie will be found, and she’ll be found safe. I’m certain Slater is complicit in this, but he wouldn’t let anything happen to his daughter. The problem at the moment seems to be that Slater has painted himself into a corner. He needs an exit strategy.”
“Let’s hope he finds one. In the meantime, let’s have a long, hot shower together, and I’ll give you that pedicure.”
CHAPTER
15
The next morning as I dressed for my run, Zack was in the shower singing the old Johnny Cash song “I Walk the Line,” clearly steeling himself for whatever came next. I was determined to be ready too. After we’d exchanged rings on our wedding day, Zack drew me to him and whispered, “This is forever. A deal’s a deal.” As far as I was concerned, the crisis with Slater Doyle was part of the deal, and I was determined to get us through.
The dogs and I met Brock on the stoop of our condo. The day was overcast but breezy – a good day for a run. Brock and I seldom talked when we ran, but that morning after Brock made a fuss of the dogs and took Pantera’s leash, he didn’t start running. “Michael called a few minutes ago,” he said. “Slater Doyle’s interrogation by the police did not go well. Michael is certain that Slater is lying when he denies telling Bridie someone was coming to take her to her mother.”
“What’s Michael going to do?”
“You’ve seen him with Bridie. He loves her. Michael is through with Slater, but he’s convinced that staying with Slater is his best chance of finding out where Bridie is. Quinn Donnelly is keeping a close eye on how Slater fares with the police. Michael is hoping that Slater will fall apart in the next interrogation, and Lancaster will cut him loose.”
“And then Slater will turn to Michael,” I said.
“Yes and then, if the stars are aligned, Michael will be able to lead us to Bridie.”
As we began our run, the bands that had tightened around my chest when Brock told us that Bridie had been abducted began to loosen. Suddenly it seemed possible that Bridie would come home safely. Without realizing what I was doing, I repeated the last line of Ernest’s prayer out loud. “ ‘Hoping that will happen,’ ” I said.
Brock smiled. “Ptane ekosi teyihki,” he said. “Might as well say it in Cree too, Joanne. Just in case the Creator doesn’t speak English.”
When I came in, Zack had the dogs’ water dishes filled and a glass of water on the counter for me. I took a deep sip. “So what’s going on around here?” I asked.
Zack handed me his tablet. “The police received a new picture of Bridie this morning and Debbie sent it to me. Check it out – same caption, different setting.” Bridie was in an old farm kitchen that had faded gingham curtains hanging on the window and a coal-oil lamp at the centre of a table. A wooden highchair was drawn up to the table. She was clean. Her hair was neatly combed; her barettes were in place, but there was a large bandage on her arm and her eyes were puffy from crying.
“I think the Creator heard us,” I said.
Zack shot me a questioning glance.
“I think this picture might be an answered prayer. Who else has seen it?”
“Debbie just sent it a few minutes ago. I imagine she’s sitting on it till she figures out what to do.”
I looked at the picture again. “Zack, have the police looked at Simon Weber’s photographs? Because they should. The houses in both photographs of Bridie are very much like the ones in the photos Simon took that are in the new private dining room at the Scarth Club. I don’t know if this is one of them. And I don’t know enough about photography to explain why I’m making the connection. I just think the police should look at Simon’s photos.”
Zack leaned forward. “Jo, you don’t believe Simon abducted Bridie, do you?”
“No, not for a single moment. But if he can identify the building where Bridie’s being held, the police might have a chance to rescue her.”
“I’ll call Debbie.”
“Good, but when you do, could you ask her to give me an hour before she makes the photo public? I’m going to take this to Slater Doyle.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not. Look at that child’s face. Enough is enough.”
Zack turned his chair towards the door. “I’m coming with you.”
“If you come, Slater will start bleating about how you’re using the power of the mayor’s office to coerce him.”
Zack shook his head. “I don’t think you should go alone.”
“This is no big deal,” I said. “I’m just showing a father a picture of his daughter and asking him to do the right thing.”
I called Brock, told him my plan, and asked him to find out where Slater was. He got back to me almost immediately. Slater was still at home, and he was still in bed.
“I’ll get there before he brushes his teeth. Put him at a disadvantage.”
Brock seemed taken aback. “You’re really loaded for bear, aren’t you?”
“When you see that picture of Bridie, you’ll understand,” I said. “I have to shower and change. Could you call Michael and tell him I’ll be leaving here i
n fifteen minutes tops? He should probably just let me in, then make himself scarce.”
Michael’s home was a large split-level in an older, carefully landscaped neighbourhood near the university.
Michael met me at the door with a question. “I’m not sure about this,” he said. “Slater is unstable. Who knows what might happen if you confront him.”
My heart was pounding, but my voice was assured. “You’ll be standing right here with your phone. Slater will be half asleep and hung over. We have to do this.” I showed Michael the photo of his daughter. He closed his eyes against the image and stood aside to let me in.
“Where’s Slater?”
“Still in bed.”
I followed Michael down the hall. He opened a door and I stepped inside. The drapes were drawn and the room was shadowy. Michael called out, “You have a visitor.”
Slater’s voice was heavy with sleep. “Too early,” he said.
“It’s after nine,” I said.
As soon as he heard my voice, Slater sat bolt upright. “What the hell’s going on?” he said.
“An ambush,” I said. “Slater, no more games. Find your glasses. The police received a new picture of Bridie this morning.”
Slater wasn’t wearing a pyjama top. My guess was he wasn’t wearing anything at all. Modest as a maiden, he gathered the sheet around him and fumbled on the nightstand for his glasses. I went over to the bed and handed him my tablet. He picked it up, glanced at the photograph, and made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a sob.
“Look at your daughter,” I said. “Her arm is hurt. Her eyes are almost swollen shut from crying, and she’s petrified. You used her, Slater. You used your own child as a pawn in a fight over bylaws.” When I spit out the word bylaws, Slater cowered. “I’m not through,” I said. “You were prepared to sacrifice Bridie so Lancaster could win the referendum and you’d save your job, but it’s not too late. You know who has Bridie, and you know where she is. Bring her home. The police will crucify you, and you’ll lose your job, but you will have done the right thing and you’ll have your daughter back.”
I didn’t give Slater a chance to reply. I picked up my device and left. Michael was in the living room. “Well?” he said.
I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said. “There’s not a doubt in my mind that Slater knows where Bridie is. Keep at him.”
I was still shaking when I got back to our condo. I was running on empty, and I knew that Zack was too. When I called him at City Hall to tell him about my encounter with Slater, he reassured me. “You did the right thing,” he said. “It’s in Slater’s hands now.”
Our family had been counting the hours to the weekend, and it turned out to be worth the wait. Everything clicked. The weather was great. Zack’s law partners were all there with their families and we walked, swam, canoed, kayaked, waterskiied, and caught up on one another’s news. UpSlideDown closed on Saturdays at three-thirty, so Mieka was at the lake in time for our traditional Saturday-night dinner at Magoos, a diner across the lake that offered succulent burgers, greasy shoestring fries, straw-clogging milkshakes, and a Wurlitzer that played nothing that had been written after 1970. The girls and I checked the garden three times a day to see if anything had sprouted. Nothing had yet, but we live in next-year country, so we were hopeful.
It was an idyllic weekend, but by definition idylls don’t last forever. All weekend I had kept an ear open for a call from Michael telling Brock that Slater had brought Bridie home. The call hadn’t come, but when Brock’s cell rang as we were loading up to go back to the city Sunday night, my nerves twanged. I watched Brock’s face for a sign of relief, but he looked increasingly troubled. After he hung up, Brock turned to me. “That was Michael,” he said. “Slater’s missing.”
“Missing,” I said. “How long has he been gone?”
“Michael doesn’t know. After you left on Friday morning, Slater and Michael quarrelled. Slater accused Michael of betraying him. Slater said he didn’t need to involve the police. He was going to handle the situation himself, and then he took off. He didn’t come home Friday night or last night. Michael assumed Slater was afraid to face him, and he wasn’t concerned until Quinn Donnelly called an hour ago, said he’d been trying to track Slater down for two days, but Slater’s phone was going straight to voicemail and he wasn’t responding to texts.”
“Slater hasn’t been a paragon of reliability lately,” I said.
“True, but according to Michael, Slater will do anything to keep Quinn from firing him so it’s really strange that he wouldn’t answer her calls.”
“Out of sight, out of mind,” I said. “Maybe Slater thinks that if he doesn’t answer her calls, Quinn can’t give him the axe.”
“Maybe,” Brock said, but he sounded doubtful.
Slater’s whereabouts did not particularly concern Zack or me. I’d written him off long ago, and his apparent refusal to rescue Bridie confirmed my assessment that Slater was not worth talking about. Taylor had driven back to the city with Declan, so Zack and I were on our own. On the drive home, we organized the week ahead. Slater’s name was not mentioned once. Had it been, I would have said something unkind. In retrospect, I was glad the subject hadn’t come up.
Five minutes after we got back to the condo, Debbie buzzed from downstairs. “I have to talk to you,” she said. I let her in, called Zack, and we both met her at the door. “Slater Doyle’s dead,” she said. “Joanne, we followed up on your suggestion and got Simon Weber to go through proofs of the photos he took for his book on abandoned farmhouses. I’m sure there were well over a thousand photos, but Simon stuck with it. He recognized the house in the first picture of Bridie, he was able to lead the officers to it.”
Debbie’s laugh was short and sardonic. “God works in mysterious ways, but having the prime suspect in one murder case help our officers find the site where a kidnapped child was held and where, unbeknownst to us, the child’s father was murdered is really stretching it. At any rate, both the front and back door of the farmhouse were locked from the outside. The locks were industrial, and apparently our officers had a hell of a time getting them off.
“When they did, they found Slater in the room with the rocking horse. He’d been shot three times in the chest – point-blank. He never had a chance.”
“The shooter was someone he knew.”
“Apparently.”
“And Bridie wasn’t in the farmhouse,” Zack said.
“No, she’s been moved – there was a used bandage on the floor. Forensics will check the blood type, but Bridie had a bandage on her arm in the second picture, so I’m guessing that was a clean one and the one we have in the evidence bag was discarded and the blood type will match hers.”
“The officers on the scene couldn’t be specific about how long Slater had been dead, but their guess is that it had been a while – at least forty-eight hours.”
“So at the end, Slater was trying to do the right thing,” I said.
“Let’s hope that’s how it went down,” Debbie said. “From the moment we heard your granddaughters’ story, I was certain Slater knew where his daughter was. My guess is that he told whoever was holding her that he was coming to get Bridie, and they moved her. When Slater showed up, they shot him.”
I felt light-headed and grabbed Zack’s wheelchair to steady myself. “They’ll kill Bridie,” I said. “While Slater was alive, Bridie was safe because Slater knew who they were. Now that he’s dead, they’re free to get rid of her.”
“That’s not necessarily true,” Debbie said, but her voice lacked conviction. “I should get back to the office now, but I wanted you to be aware of the situation. It’s only a matter of time before the media gets wind of this, and then …”
“All hell will break lose,” Zack said. “We need to control the narrative, as they say. Are you and the RCMP planning to make a statement tonight?”
“We’re waiting for tomorrow morning at eight, so we catch the local morning shows.”
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“So the situation’s in hand,” Zack said.
Debbie raised an eyebrow. “Nope, this investigation suffers from scope creep,” she said. “We’re putting serious money and personnel into it. So is the RCMP, and since Slater’s body was found in their jurisdiction they’ll be involved in this case as well Lee’s. And we’re all tired. It seems that for every answer we get, there are four new questions. This kind of investigation is like a house renovation that goes amok – no matter how much you spend or how hard you work, new cracks keep appearing in the foundation.”
We escorted Debbie to the elevator. After the doors closed, Zack said, “While we’re here, we might as well go down and break the news to Brock.”
“He may already know,” I said. “Michael is Slater’s next of kin. The RCMP has probably notified him.”
“You’re right. For all we know, Michael might already be at Brock’s. Probably best to leave this one alone.” Zack frowned. “I know Slater Doyle was a miserable excuse for a human being, but it’s sad to know that there’ll be nobody to mourn him.”
“Bridie will,” I said. “If she’s still alive to mourn.”
Zack and I swam for half an hour before we went to bed, and I smoothed my body with lavender oil before I put on my pyjamas. Two sure-fire relaxation aids, but I slept fitfully and woke early the next morning, feeling apprehensive.
There were dark circles under Brock’s eyes too. We did our stretches in silence. Before we started off, I said, “How are you doing?”