Wilder swallowed hard. “Where is God right now, Beck? I don’t feel Him at all. I prayed. I asked forgiveness. I’m playing it by the good book. He knows where she is. Why can’t He just tell us somehow? Send us a message. We have nothing other than sixty-two leads. Do you know how long it could be before we narrow it down to a handful? And by then...” His voice cracked. It was too hard to go there.
“Good behavior doesn’t dictate what God will or won’t do. He’s all about grace and mercy. Not works. And just because you don’t feel Him or see Him doesn’t mean He isn’t working on your behalf.” Beckett stood. “I just wanted you to know that I’m not mad at you for that night.” He inhaled, rubbed his jaw. “Did she...did she say anything? Was she...in pain?”
Wilder would spare Beckett. “She didn’t say anything and she went quickly.”
Beck nodded once. “I’m glad she didn’t go alone, you know. That you were there. That was God’s mercy. His grace.”
The back of Wilder’s eyes burned and a knot formed in his throat.
“I’ll check in on the doctors and see what we have.” Beckett quietly left the room.
Now what?
I know good behavior doesn’t force Your hand or get me what I want. So how about some mercy? Please have mercy, God.
Cosette’s phone rang in her purse. That blasted lawyer. What could he possibly want? Wilder’s gut told him to answer. Cosette would be fit to be tied, but he hit the green button. “Hello.”
“Who is this?”
“This is Wilder Flynn. Cosette works for me at Covenant Crisis Management. I think she’s made it pretty clear that she doesn’t want anything to do with your client. I’m only answering because it seems you aren’t good at taking hints. The hint being she won’t reply.”
Leon LaCroix’s lawyer sighed. “I understand. But Leon won’t let up on me calling.”
“You’d think when she didn’t set up a payment system with the prison for collect calls to her cell phone that would have given him a clue.”
“Well, I couldn’t send her a letter. I didn’t have an address. What choice did I have? I work for my client. Would you ask her to please speak with me? I have information that she might need to hear.”
This perked Wilder’s attention. “What kind of information? Cosette isn’t here at the moment.”
“She conveniently left you her phone?” Doubt laced his words.
“I assure you it wasn’t convenient. But I’m as good as you’re going to get, Mr...?”
“Broland.”
One beat passed.
Two.
“Mr. LaCroix informed me that someone came to see him in January. A woman.”
“And?”
“She said she was a close friend of Cosette’s, showed him some recent photos. Seemed believable.”
“But?”
“It wasn’t until a few days after she visited, and his excitement that Cosette might be willing to come and see him—even forgive him—dissipated, that he thought the encounter was strange and felt a need to contact his daughter about it.”
“What was odd about the visit?” And who was this mystery woman?
“She initially started with letting him know that she was coming to see if Leon was worthy of Cosette’s forgiveness—which is odd right there, in my opinion. Cosette has shown no interest in contacting her father, let alone forgiving him for what transpired.”
Transpired? The man had murdered Cosette’s mother in a drunken rage, so that wasn’t the word Wilder would use. But that did sound odd. “Why didn’t that alone raise a red flag with him?”
“Because he’s desperate for Cosette’s forgiveness. He wasn’t thinking clearly. He just emptied himself out to this woman. He told her how he’d become a Christian, was sober. What would you have done?”
Wilder wasn’t sure. Good for Leon, if he truly had found faith in Jesus while in prison. And he had no choice but to be sober. “Is that all? You’ve been hounding Cosette for five months over this?” Wilder might have done the same thing. What was this woman’s motive for visiting Leon LaCroix?
“No. She not only shared stories of her and Cosette, but she peppered him with questions. At the time, they seemed innocent enough. Subtle. But as I said before—it nagged at Leon. He felt Cosette might be in some kind of trouble or danger.”
Daddy LaCroix wasn’t off base. “Anything else?”
Papers rustled over the line. “She mentioned she and Cosette were taking a summer trip.”
“Where?” This could be where she’d been taken.
“Something about a cruise out of New Orleans.”
“Date?”
“Early June. She mentioned Cozumel.”
What in the world? Wilder scratched his head. “These innocent questions. Did he reveal them to you?”
“He did. The one that stuck out most was about Cosette’s mother and where she was buried.”
“Did he answer them?”
“Yes. And then he got worried and called me. He wanted to confirm that Kristy was her friend—”
A name! “Kristy who?”
“Tabor.”
“He give you a description of the woman?” Didn’t matter, Wilder would get it from the camera feed at the prison.
“Dark hair. Dark eyes. Pretty. Slender. Maybe five foot five.”
“Ballpark age?”
“Early twenties.”
Now to decide what to tell this guy about Cosette. “Someone has been stalking Cosette recently. Since January. It could be this woman. Thank you for calling. This is helpful.”
“But she’s okay? Leon will want to know.”
Wilder wrestled with what to say and decided on the truth. “Actually, she’s been abducted. We’re doing everything we can to find her. Tell him this information could be useful. That he’s helped us. I’ll call the prison and get Kristy’s address and phone number and the footage.”
Finally, a lead. He hung up and rushed into the control room. Wheezer and Evan raised their heads. Jody stood at the whiteboard working to connect dots.
“I need everything you can find on a Kristy Tabor, and all cruises leaving from New Orleans the first three weeks in June. And if you can get savvy, I want a manifest with Cosette’s name and/or Kristy Tabor’s. I need it yesterday.”
He blew from there into the conference room. The doctors stopped talking. “Anyone in those files by the name of Kristy Tabor? She’d be in her early twenties now. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Seen anyone like that at the clinic? She’s clearly been lurking.”
Roger flipped through a few folders. “Tabor sounds familiar. I think I may have come across that name. Let me look back over the files.”
Now to call the prison in New Orleans and request that footage. If he played it right, they might email it over and save some time.
An hour later, Roger Renfrow held up a file. “Okay. Tabor is the maiden name of a woman who committed suicide. Her daughter was eight.”
“Name of daughter?”
“Amy Neilson. Ring a bell?”
Wilder frowned. “Amy Neilson...no.”
Five feet five. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Early twenties. The only Amy he knew...
Wheezer, Jody and Evan entered the conference room; Wheezer’s face had turned ghostly white. He was shaking his head.
Evan glanced at his colleague, patted his shoulder, then took the lead. “We found one ship. Carnival. Leaving port June 17. But there is no Kristy Tabor. However, there is a Cosette LaCroix and she’s registered with—” he glanced again at Wheezer “—Amy Payne.”
Amy Payne!
She must have been adopted. “Wheezer, where is Amy?”
He shook his head, still didn’t speak.
“I’m sorry, man, really, but we’ll have to deal with this later,” Wilder stated. “Now we need t
o find Cosette.” At least if a cruise was booked, she planned to keep Cosette alive, which gave him some comfort. He trusted Cosette would use her professional skills to survive but the flip side of the coin was that Amy was unhinged and anything could go wrong at any point in time.
“I told her about Beau Chauvert manhandling Cosette. She was here all the time. She’d easily have known about the dark web and the anonymous software. I basically gave her a tutorial on it because she was interested in the case—but she was simply learning how to navigate under the radar. That’s why we couldn’t trace the jewelry box email.” Wheezer was clearly stupefied. “She could have easily stolen Frank’s ball cap. She’d know where he ate every day,” Wheezer added. “This is all my fault.”
“Sweetie, let’s not play the blame game again,” Jody said. “The girl fooled us all. Played us all. Could easily have stalked and befriended Kariss Elroy and Malcolm Hayes—got Malcolm to torch the stable wearing those clothes, and she may have asked to borrow Kariss’s car. Not sure where Jeffrey Levitts comes into play, but who knows... So ease up on yourself, okay?” She rubbed Wheezer’s back and gave him a squeeze.
“If she’s boarding a cruise ship, she’s in New Orleans,” Wilder said.
Aurora had come in with fresh coffee and pursed her lips and shook her head. “She asked for the summer off. To take a vacation with her mother. She meant Cosette!”
Wheezer grabbed a fistful of his coppery-blond hair. “She was on her way over. I told her to wait because the police were here, taking Cosette, and I might have work to do. She said that was fine, because her mother came into town early and they were going to be gone for a few days. I guess she had to think fast and grab Cosette now, so she lied to me. Amy must have planned to hold Cosette somewhere until time for the summer cruise.” He slumped into a chair. Wilder understood that kind of guilt. But Wheezer couldn’t have known. This wasn’t his fault.
“Well, wouldn’t you have wondered what happened when she didn’t show up in a few days?” Evan asked.
“She had accomplished her mission. Taken Cosette. I would be a moot point. All of us.” Wheezer held his head in his hands.
“It’s gonna be okay, Wheezer,” Wilder said. He just wasn’t sure how yet.
“If she’s living in the past, she might take Cosette to the place it all began,” Dr. McMillian offered. “Amy’s childhood home.”
Roger agreed. “I have the address of the house in New Orleans.”
Wilder bit down on his bottom lip, thinking. He could be there in an hour and a half, direct flight, but he’d want weapons. Not just one. Senator Townes owed him a favor; they’d saved his life not long ago during a shooting at a rally. He owned a private jet. But a lot could happen in an hour.
“You considering going alone or calling in NOPD?” Shep asked. “You know what I would do.”
When Caley had been abducted, Shep chose himself over the police department. He had special ops training. So did Wilder. “If I call them, I’ll have SWAT to deal with, and everyone knows they’d rather pull a trigger and call it a day rather than sit for hours in position while someone tries to negotiate.”
“Amy won’t negotiate,” Roger said. “She’s not rational. She’d rather die with Cosette than see them torn apart again.”
An hour and a half of waiting might kill him.
“Carrington Jones!” Wilder and Beckett said in unison.
Carrington was a private investigator in New Orleans. And Teddy’s twin sister. They’d been in the private eye business together until she married and moved to Louisiana.
Beckett grinned. “Great minds think alike.”
“I’ll give her a call. Tell her the situation and have her put eyes on the house. See if Cosette is inside. Safe. If not, I trust her to be swift.” Carrington had been a navy girl, too. “Otherwise, she sits on the house until we arrive.” He grabbed his cell and called Senator Townes.
Wilder would take every shot that came his way. Even if it was in the dark.
ELEVEN
“No! Don’t!”
Amy pulled the trigger.
Cosette was too late.
The poor man was dead. He’d done nothing to deserve it. His family was sobbing, screaming through the gags. Cosette’s lips quivered.
Amy swung the gun around. “You care more about them than me. If they’re dead, you have no one to think about but me.”
“Amy, please!” Cosette held her hands up. “Don’t kill them...” Think fast. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m not focused on you like I should be. Can you forgive me? Please say you can...daughter.” The words tasted sour, but she had to keep this woman and her children alive. They’d need counseling for decades after witnessing this. Blood throbbed in Cosette’s ears.
Toying with the gun, Amy cocked her head, then grinned. “I forgive you. Now let’s go upstairs and pack for our cruise.”
Cosette couldn’t leave this man lying like this. The sobs and screams were enough to make her faint. “Amy,” she said, as demurely as she could, “I think it might make them sad to see their daddy like this. Why don’t we move him?” God, help me! Worst case scenario, but the small children...she had to do something.
Eyes like a shark’s stared back at her. It was a long shot, trying to force a sociopath to feel empathy. And she couldn’t mention what it made Amy feel like to witness her mother’s suicide. She had felt nothing.
“I want to pack. Let’s pack.” Amy put the puppy in his kennel and motioned with the gun for her to go. Cosette caught the woman’s eye. Defeat. Hopelessness. Stark terror. Mouthing that she was sorry, which felt weak at best, she headed upstairs, Amy behind her with the gun. To pack.
“I took some of your clothes from your apartment. Why did you move in with your boyfriend? He doesn’t love you. I love you.”
Cosette chose her words carefully and studied the array of clothing in the master bedroom. Items lying across a bed the poor wife would have to sleep in alone—if she didn’t move away, or die, first. “I was afraid of Jeffrey Levitts.” She left out that they’d thought he was stalking her. Amy would consider all she’d done as gifts and favors. Stalking would be a negative term, and angering Amy was something Cosette couldn’t afford to do.
“Do you know he thought you wanted him? Eww. He’s old.”
“How do you know that?” she asked, as nonchalantly as possible and folded a pair of shorts, then placed them in the suitcase to placate Amy.
“Because when Wheezer told me what he’d done to you and that he’d once been your boyfriend, I knew, and it made me mad. Just like what that mean man did to you at your reunion. Wheezer told me that, too.”
“Amy, did you punish that bad man from my reunion? You can tell Mommy. I won’t be mad.” Cosette gripped a shirt and squeezed.
She nodded, as if she was proud of murdering him. “I did. I drove all night when I found out that he hurt you. And I made him pay.”
She’d beaten him to a bloody pulp. Cosette managed not to cringe.
“And mean old Jeffrey Levitts? Did you make him pay?”
Amy plopped in the chair by the bed and picked up a book that had been lying on the table beside it. A Harlequin romance with a heroic cowboy cover. Cosette needed her hero right now. On a horse. A motorcycle. A trike, for all she cared. Wilder was tracking her down, she had no doubt. But would it be in time? Would he have any idea to search for a woman?
“I sent him an email using that software. Remember that? Those guys used it to frame Evan.”
Cosette nodded. Amy had all kinds of private information.
“He thought I was you. I asked him to meet me at Malcolm’s.”
“You know Malcolm?”
Amy folded her arms across her chest. “Don’t act stupid! You know I know Malcolm. How do you think those tickets and gift card got into your office? I watched him for days and he
was so easy to become friends with. I’m not unattractive.”
She’d stalked him. All this time Cosette thought Jeffrey had the power to do this, but so did Amy and she had.
Poor Malcolm. Cosette had never once suspected him. But when she’d turned her back to retrieve his file, he easily could have placed the envelope there, and he’d been agitated that day. He might not have wanted to do it. Or he was afraid of getting caught. She’d assumed the agitation and panic was from his struggle with wanting to start a fire and knowing he shouldn’t.
“He was an idiot. All I had to do was say ‘fire’ and he was at my beck and call. I gave him that hat and clothing and had him burn that stable down. He should have killed your boyfriend. Had I known he’d be in there, I’d have done it myself. Watched him die.” Her smile turned sinister. Sadistic. “Jeffrey thought he was meeting you at Malcolm’s. Malcolm thought we were meeting someone who could help him stop burning up things. He felt so bad about it. Big deal.” She snorted.
Amy had made it look like a murder-suicide.
“Did you punish Kariss?”
“Kariss was my friend, just like Malcolm was. Until she told me no. She didn’t want to give you those muffins. She was afraid I’d done something bad. But she was weak. Stupid. Sometimes, she let me borrow her car.” Amy giggled with delight, as if it was a secret that she’d been the one to try and run them down, kill them.
Another staged suicide.
Cosette continued packing.
When they were done, Amy forced her to watch an old movie. And she finally agreed to give the hostages a bathroom break, but wouldn’t let Cosette take them, instead making her stand at the door where Amy could see every move she made.
“Could we give them some water?”
“No!”
They were already showing signs of dehydration. It had been almost three days according to the calendar on the refrigerator. They could die. But Cosette didn’t press the issue. Dehydration was better than death...though not far from it.
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