She wondered what she’d missed during that time, and how Logan had managed to communicate with the kidnappers after he’d struck her, because she was certain that their cellphone had fallen down the bank with her and was around here somewhere. She stood still for a second, looking around and listening. Again, the only sound was the breeze in the trees.
She switched on the flashlight app on her own phone and shone the light across the ground in front of her, searching for the kidnappers’ cell. If she had that, there was at least a slim chance she could talk to them. She thought about the money then. Had Logan simply handed it over to them? It wouldn’t have surprised her. After the way he’d attacked her just now, nothing he could have done would have surprised her.
The flashlight picked up something up on the bank a few feet above her, resting against a tree root. She climbed up closer and felt an irrational surge of excitement as she realized that it was indeed the kidnappers’ phone. She picked it up and pressed the home button, lighting up the screen. The phone looked undamaged, and she checked the call log. There were four incoming calls recorded, all marked as coming from the same cellphone. The photo of Paige that the kidnappers had sent them earlier was no longer on it.
Four calls. She was sure Logan had only told her about three. So what had the other one been about?
She leaned against a tree for support, knowing that she had to think logically about what had happened. Paige was almost certainly still alive. She might be up in the nursery somewhere, either alone or with Logan. They might even be looking for her …
Except they weren’t. She was still within ten feet of where she’d landed, so she wouldn’t have been hard to find.
Knowing she wasn’t going to solve anything by staying down here, Brook put the phones in separate pockets and then, slowly and carefully, climbed up the bank, using the tree and plant roots to help her. She almost fell back down twice and had another dizzy spell halfway up, but eventually she managed to half-scramble, half-roll over the top and lay there for a moment, breathing heavily, before getting to her feet.
The nursery was exactly the same as it had been earlier. Dark and empty. There was no sign of Logan or the kidnappers. The only explanation was that he’d gone somewhere with them. Maybe to collect Paige. But when she thought about it, she realized that didn’t make sense at all. The kidnappers were going to do as much as possible to protect their identities, so they weren’t going to want Logan in their car, or travelling with them to wherever it was they were keeping her.
Slowly she made her way back through the nursery the way she’d come. She called Logan’s name. Quietly at first, then louder. Then she called Paige’s, this time at the top of her voice.
There was no reply, and she felt a sudden aching loneliness, as if she was the last person left in the world.
Taking out the phone, she called the kidnappers’ number, but wasn’t surprised when an automated message came back saying that it was no longer in service. They weren’t going to be that stupid.
But they weren’t going to be geniuses, either. At some point – and it might have happened already – they were going to make a mistake, and it was that which would lead her to Paige. Now, though, was the time to involve the police. She couldn’t do this alone.
She climbed through the hole in the fence and immediately saw her car in the shadows where she’d parked it.
Wary of an ambush, Brook approached it as silently as possible, all her senses alert, keeping a few yards away as she checked it out back and front to make sure no one was hiding there. Then she looked inside the windows. She’d seen a movie once where a woman driving a car had been attacked by a man concealed in the back, and she wasn’t going to have that happen to her. But the car was empty.
She opened the door and got inside, half-expecting someone to come running out of the trees and attack her, and now she felt a real urgency to get out of there. Starting the engine, she turned the car round in a cloud of dust and accelerated back up the track onto the road, before turning right towards home.
She drove fast, making the journey in less than half an hour, ignoring the pain in her jaw and her throbbing headache, hoping against all the odds that somehow Logan would be back there with Paige, and that Paige would be unhurt and mentally unscathed, not even realizing she’d been abducted, and they could all be a family once again. Brook knew she wasn’t that easy to live with, and now that she was at risk of actually losing everything she held dear, she regretted her own behaviour. If the three of them could be together again, she’d make far more effort to make her marriage work.
Please be there …
The lights were still on as Brook turned into the driveway and drove up to the front of the house, but no one came out to greet her, and she couldn’t see anyone inside. Rosa’s Honda was still there, a terrible reminder of what had happened to her and of how, even if Logan and Paige were okay, nothing in any of their lives would ever be the same again.
Brook swallowed, fighting back tears. Rosa meant a lot to her. She was kind, maternal and good fun, too. She’d taught Brook how to make the perfect enchiladas, her chief tip being to fry the tortillas briefly in hot canola oil before filling and rolling them, to prevent them soaking up too much of the sauce and disintegrating. Sometimes they’d drunk beer together out in the yard, and Rosa had told her about her childhood growing up in a dirt-poor village near Guadalajara. They’d grown close. They would have grown closer over the years. But now, even if she was still alive (and Brook didn’t think it likely), Rosa would be horrifically traumatized.
Brook backed the car into the garage, already playing over in her head what she was going to say to the police.
It was only when she’d got out of the car that she saw it – a glimpse of something through the tinted rear window of the trunk, an area she hadn’t bothered checking when she’d got back in the car earlier.
Brook’s heart started thumping, her imagination already going into overdrive. She looked closer. There was something in there that hadn’t been there earlier. Something big.
She walked round the back of the car, feeling a sense of dread, and stood there for a long moment, before finally forcing herself to pop the trunk.
It opened steadily with a faint hiss and, as she saw what was inside, Brook reeled in shock.
This was not how it was meant to end.
13
The police interview room
Now
‘So what was in the trunk, Brook?’ asked Detective Tyrone Giant, knowing full well what the answer was.
Brook took a drink of water and wiped her mouth. ‘It was Logan,’ she said at last. ‘He was lying in the foetal position. His eyes were closed and there was a …’ She paused. ‘There was a knife sticking out of his side, with a lot of blood around it. He was obviously dead.’
‘And are you sure about that?’ asked Giant gently.
She nodded emphatically. ‘I’m sure. I felt for a pulse. First in his neck, then on his wrist, but there was absolutely nothing. He was gone.’
Giant had been watching Brook like a hawk as she’d been recounting her version of events, listening out for any contradictions in her story. It had been his and Jenna’s plan to hand Brook the rope and let her hang herself with it. Liars, however good, always made mistakes, especially when the stories they told were as elaborate as this one. However, so far Brook Connor had sounded like a woman telling the truth about a terrifying ordeal. The emotions in her voice, and on her face, had been almost visceral in their intensity.
It was, he thought, time to up the pressure.
He sat forward in the plastic chair and shook his head, as if in disappointment. ‘I still don’t understand why you didn’t come to us in the first place, when this whole ordeal began. It would have been the logical thing for any concerned parent to do. We could have helped. And not only would you have saved yourself from this, but you would have saved a lot of lives.’
Brook sighed and ran a hand roughly throu
gh her newly short hair. ‘I know that now, but as I told you, we were both too scared. These people were professionals. They were watching us.’
‘Really?’ said Jenna. ‘We searched your whole house from top to bottom, and we didn’t find any signs of cameras anywhere.’
‘Well then, maybe they removed them.’
Jenna looked sceptical. ‘They seem to have been able to move very freely around your house.’
‘They kidnapped my daughter. They knew what they were doing.’
‘And that’s the other thing that’s bothering us,’ said Giant, not liking what he was about to say next.
Brook looked at him. ‘What?’
‘Paige is not your actual daughter, is she?’
14
The shock of seeing Logan there had been enough to make Brook cry out. For a moment she thought Paige might be dead in the trunk, too, which would have been too much for her to bear, but Logan was alone, and Brook felt a guilty sense of relief. They hadn’t killed Paige. Amidst all this carnage, that at least was something.
But even as she felt for a pulse, knowing instinctively that she was too late and her husband was already dead, it was also dawning on her that this looked very bad for her indeed, and that her plans to call in the police were going to have to be put on hold. At least temporarily.
In the meantime, she knew who she had to call.
Two hours later she was sitting at the centre island of the family kitchen, nursing a large gin and tonic to calm her nerves and holding an ice-pack to her left cheek to combat the swelling where Logan had struck her, while a few feet away stood her lawyer, Angie Southby, hands on hips, dressed in a smart two-piece business suit and immaculately made-up, considering the hour, and doubtless wondering why she’d been dragged out here in the middle of the night.
‘Okay, Brook,’ she said, ‘before you start talking, you have to appoint me as your lawyer. That way, anything you tell me is covered by attorney–client privilege.’
‘Consider yourself appointed,’ said Brook, her voice sounding woozy to her own ears. She was on her second drink and she’d already taken a couple of painkillers. Knowing that she had to keep a clear head, she pushed the drink away.
Angie looked round. ‘Where’s Logan?’
Brook didn’t speak for a moment, steadying herself, and then came out with it. ‘Logan’s dead.’
Angie couldn’t keep the shock off her face. It hit her hard and she wobbled a little on her feet. She and Logan had been friends years back in San Francisco, which was how Brook had initially met her.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Brook. She stood up. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
The shock seemed to pass. Angie was a tough woman, which was why Brook had wanted her as her lawyer now.
‘What happened?’ Angie’s voice was tight and she looked uncomfortable as she glanced around the room, as if she half-expected Logan to leap out of one of the cupboards and shout, ‘Surprise!’
‘It’s a long story,’ said Brook. ‘And before you get any ideas, it wasn’t me who killed him.’
‘Did he to do that to you?’ Angie motioned towards her swollen cheek.
Brook nodded, realizing how that must make her look. Her husband punches her. Now he’s dead in the trunk of the car. ‘Like I said. It’s a long story.’
‘You’d better tell it, then,’ said Angie, opting to remain standing, the glint of suspicion already showing in her eyes. ‘And if you don’t mind, I’m going to record everything. It’s all covered by client confidentiality, so no one – apart from you and me – will ever hear it, but I find it a lot easier than making notes.’ She removed a portable tape-recorder from her purse, set it on the table and pressed Play.
Brook cleared her throat and, starting from the beginning and putting in as much detail as she could, told Angie everything, finishing up with the part where she opened the trunk to reveal her husband lying there.
Angie didn’t interrupt the whole way through, nor did her expression change, remaining cool and inscrutable right up until the final revelation. Only then did her eyes widen. ‘Jesus Christ!’ she whispered, finally sitting down, although on the other side of the island from Brook. ‘So how do you think he got in the trunk in the first place?’
‘Well, I guess the kidnappers put him there,’ said Brook.
‘But that doesn’t make sense. Even if they killed him and took the money, it would be a needless complication to carry him over to the trunk of your car, with the murder weapon sticking out of him, and manhandle him in there.’
‘That’s what happened,’ said Brook, sensing the suspicion in Angie’s tone. ‘I promise you.’
‘I’m your attorney now, Brook, so everything you tell me is in confidence. I need to know, because it’ll help me construct the best possible defence. Did you kill your husband?’
‘No, of course I didn’t. Why would I do that?’
‘Why do people do anything? Who knows? But the point is that they do. Husbands and wives fight. Things get out of hand.’
‘That’s not what happened. It’s exactly as I told you.’
‘But Logan did punch you in the face. You need to get that looked at, by the way.’
Brook put the ice-pack down. It was making her face too cold. ‘I don’t know why he did that,’ she said. ‘He’s never hit me before. I think the pressure must have been getting to him.’
‘And what happened to the money?’
‘It’s gone. The kidnappers must have taken it.’
Angie nodded slowly, looking worryingly unconvinced. ‘And Paige is still missing. I’ve got to be honest with you, Brook. This doesn’t look good. Especially when you consider that you’re not her birth mother.’
The words were like a hammer blow to Brook. ‘You’re not her birth mother.’ How many times over the years had people given her looks that told her that that was exactly what they were thinking? ‘You’re not her real mom.’ Paige had been less than a year old when Brook had met Logan. The fact that she’d had an affair with a man whose wife was dying of cancer was bad enough, but the fact that there was a child involved made it even worse. And yet Brook had always sought to do the right thing and bring up Paige in a way that would have made her mother proud. She even encouraged Paige to look regularly at the photo album that she and Logan had put together for her, full of pictures of her with her mom when she was a baby. Brook had never wanted to replace Anna. She’d just wanted to do the best she could.
‘I know how it looks,’ she said wearily. ‘But I’d give my life for Paige without a second thought.’
Angie looked as if the idea of that kind of sacrifice was completely alien to her, which it doubtless was. ‘I know you love her, Brook. I’ve always been able to see that, but the fact remains that if you and Logan had ever split up, you’d almost certainly have lost Paige. And that gives you a motive.’
Brook was only too aware of that. It was, in truth, the main reason she’d hired Chris Cervantes. It was also why it was so hard to say what she had to say next. ‘There’s something else as well. The knife used to kill Logan … it’s one of ours.’ She pointed at the knife block in the corner of the kitchen, where the handles of eight different knives jutted out from the foam. ‘There’s one missing. I recognized it immediately.’
‘Had you noticed it missing before?’
Brook shook her head. ‘It could have been taken at any time. With everything that was going on, I was never going to spot a missing knife..’
‘You said the kidnappers cut off Rosa’s finger and left it for you in a gift box. Is it still here?’
Brook nodded. ‘I got Logan to put it in the freezer, in case we needed to show it to the police. I couldn’t face having it in the fridge. Do you need to see it now?’
Angie frowned through her Botox. ‘I can’t think of anything I’d rather see less, but I think I’m going to have to, so I know exactly what it is we’re dealing with here.’
‘I’ll get it.’ Brook got up and went
over to the freezer. As she bent down, a magnet on the door with a photo of Logan, her and Paige, all grinning at the camera, stared back at her. It had been taken at the Children’s Fairyland theme park in Oakland two years ago, when things were still pretty good between her and Logan, and she was suddenly hit with a devastating feeling of gloom. Logan was dead, and she was never going to speak to him again. Everything he’d ever felt and experienced was gone. Rosa was almost certainly dead, too.
For a second, Brook thought she might collapse under the strain of it all, but then she steadied herself. There’d be time to grieve later. Now she had to concentrate on saving herself and Paige.
Logan had told her he’d put the gift box in the bottom drawer of the freezer, away from all the food, but when she checked it now, it wasn’t there. Her heart thudding, she checked the other drawers, and then the fridge, but there was no sign of it.
The evidence was gone.
‘It’s not there,’ said Brook, walking back to her chair and picking up her drink, sinking the contents in one go and noticing that her hand was shaking. ‘But I know that was where he put it.’
Angie didn’t say anything. Her expression was grim.
‘I’m telling the truth, Angie, I promise you. I saw that finger with my own eyes, and it belonged to Rosa, and there’s no sign of her – or it – anywhere.’
‘Okay,’ said Angie, not giving anything away. ‘Have you still got the phone the kidnapper, or kidnappers, left you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can I see it?’
Brook took it out the back of her jeans and pushed it across the worktop. ‘It hasn’t got the photo of Paige on there any more, though. Logan removed it, like the kidnappers told him to.’
We Can See You Page 7
