Murder in the City: Blue Lights

by Tatum, Clare

“Did you tell anyone?”

  The mayor’s gaze skated away.

  “Someone might have told someone in the media. You know how these things get out.” The mayor shrugged. “Someone says something to someone they know.”

  “That guy John Canton heard from a tipster, he said.” Lainey’s eyes held a need to believe. “Has anyone heard from Julie or Tiana again?”

  The mayor stood and walked away, to a table where a bottle of water sat. She took it, loosened the top and took a long drink.

  “You said there was a benefactor.” Brice watched her carefully, studied her eyes.

  She nodded, half turning away from him. “The banker whose daughter was kidnapped.”

  Lainey jumped as though she’d gotten an electrical jolt. She moved stiffly, awkwardly, her limbs disjointed as she approached the mayor.

  He let her take the lead right now in the questioning, sensing she might get more from the mayor due to the apparent personal nature of their relationship.

  But, despite the need to gain information to help the kidnapped girls, Lainey’s distress got under his skin, cutting at his nerves, interfering with his ability to do the job, to keep the distance necessary to operate on a mental level alone.

  He wanted to go and take Lainey in his arms. But he needed to concentrate on the information that he could get from the mayor.

  “Helen,” Lainey breathed out heavily. “What is happening?”

  The mayor’s face paled beneath her natural hickory skin tone. “The banker said he knew just what I was going through. Couldn’t bear to see another family put through what they endured.”

  “So, he knew about the demand for an end to furloughs?” Lainey inched closer to the mayor.

  The mayor glanced away. “He called, asked if there was anything he could do.” She shrugged. “I told him he could finance the police furlough days for the next six months.”

  “Did the kidnapper who demanded an end to the furloughs mention Julie? Did he say he would let her go, also, if the furloughs were ended.”

  The mayor’s eyelids slipped down, hiding her eyes as she tilted her head toward the ground.

  “Lainey,” the mayor said in a beaten voice. “I’m hoping for the best outcome for everyone. I’m hoping that when he brings Tiana home, that Julie comes home safe and sound with her.”

  A desperate half sob choked out of Lainey’s throat. “But, he didn’t say that would happen?”

  The mayor raised her face, for the first time meeting Lainey’s gaze straight on. She shook her head. “No, Lainey. He didn’t mention her directly. I said, ‘Both little girls, you’ll bring both little girls home, right?’ And he said nothing.”

  A low moan slipped from Lainey’s mouth. Brice stepped toward her but the mayor beat him.

  She took Lainey by the shoulders. “We’re going to get them both back, Lainey. I promise you. Every resource we have is on this.”

  Lainey sagged for a moment, looking defeated. Then, she glanced over the mayor’s shoulder, meeting Brice’s gaze and he saw a steely purpose there.

  Their eyes held each other’s gaze for a long moment, him reading her resolve to get her sister back and him sending her his silent promise that he would make sure that happened.

  Then, a mounting wave of sound outside the house washed toward them.

  As one, everyone in the room turned toward the door. Something momentous moved toward them, the noise rising in decibels.

  The only sound that stood out above the clamor was a high pitched child’s voice calling, “Mama.”

  Chapter Ten

  The mayor shrieked, the sound reverberating through the room, bouncing off every cell in Lainey’s body. The mayor sprinted toward the front door, ripping it back just as a long limbed pre-teen ran up the front steps.

  Tiana! It was Tiana!

  The mayor and her daughter collided with a clash of flailing arms, kisses and tears.

  Lainey’s heart jerked in her chest, almost feeling like what she would imagine a heart attack felt like. She ran toward the door. Where was Julie? She strained to see behind the mayor and Tiana.

  But, Julie wasn’t there.

  Lainey stumbled down the stairs. Her gaze swept the street and she ran along the home’s front walk that led to the main sidewalk, yelling, “Julie, Julie.” Brice ran after her.

  “How did she get here?” she called to no one in particular, scanning the face of every police man and woman positioned on the road.

  A policewoman stepped forward. “I saw Tiana running down the street not too far from here and recognized her. I gave her a ride here.”

  “Was my sister with her?” Lainey searched the cop’s face for any sign to hope. “Do you know anything about my sister?” Her voice rose to a high pitched screechy imitation of itself. She heard it but couldn’t control it.

  She saw TV cameras trained on her, but didn’t even care how she was coming across. Control, poise and professionalism had always been her mantra when appearing before the press.

  Now, she didn’t give a damn. They could broadcast her image far and wide, acting like a crazy woman. She just didn’t care.

  The policewoman’s sad expression answered and Lainey placed a hand to her head. Brice stepped forward, wrapping an arm around her. “Come inside.” He motioned with his free hand to the police officer. “Let’s all go inside and debrief.”

  He steered Lainey inside, his arms steadying her as she stumbled, her legs weak and wobbly.

  “Mama, it was so horrible,” Tiana sobbed as her mother led her to the couch. “He wouldn’t let Julie go. I begged him, but he wouldn’t let her go.”

  Brice felt Lainey’s body shudder.

  “He held a gun on her, making her stay in the car when he let me out,” Tiana raggedly sobbed out, the last words barely intelligible.

  “Tiana, we’re going to get her back.” The mayor hugged her daughter tightly.

  “You have to, Mama.”

  Brice motioned toward the policewoman who had walked over to another cop, and he and Lainey walked away, giving the mayor a few private moments to calm her daughter.

  He talked to the policewoman, as Lainey listened intently. The policewoman had little new information. She knew only the street where she’d picked up Tiana.

  “Lainey, detective.” The mayor beckoned them over. She sat with her daughter on a small formal couch, her arm still tight around her daughter’s shoulders.

  Tiana’s caramel toned face was dry now, intensity radiating from her features, determined.

  “You have to find Julie,” she said tightly. “This idiot jerk still has her.”

  Idiot jerk, those were fighting words, and what Brice liked to see in his victims. Anger went a long way toward getting justice, much better than dissolving into fear.

  “Did you get a good look at this guy? What does he look like?”

  Tiana’s face faltered. “That’s the weird thing. I never did. He kept the car doors and windows locked so that we couldn’t get out and kept the middle window between the front and the back shut, just speaking to us through the intercom.”

  “How did this whole thing take place?” Lainey sputtered. “Why was Julie with you? Why was she picked up? And not let go when you were?”

  Tiana’s face fell and her mother wrapped her arm tighter around her. “Nobody’s blaming you, Tiana.”

  Lainey quickly reached a hand forward, placing it on top of Tiana’s hand. “I didn’t mean to sound like I was blaming you, Tiana. I’m just so worried about Julie.”

  Tiana looked up, her face fierce and hard. “Me, too, Lainey. I want to get Julie back as bad as you.” Her face twisted. “This jerk took advantage of me and Julie.”

  “Took advantage?” The mayor scanned her daughter’s face, her concern palpable.

  “He used us. He made us make those phone calls to you and to Lainey, to make you have that news conference. I am so mad.”

  “Mad,” Brice interjected, causing Tiana to look at him. “Th
at’s good. Means you’ve got a fighting spirit and we’re gonna need all the fight we can muster to beat this guy.”

  Tiana nodded, agreement written all over her tight smile.

  “So,” he continued. “What did you see?”

  * * *

  Almost half an hour later, Brice and Lainey stood in the banker’s living room, waiting to speak to the man who’d provided the money to stop the police furloughs. “Let’s hope he has more answers than Tiana was able to provide.”

  Somehow, Tiana was never able to see the guy’s face, didn’t even know the guy’s race.

  He’d worn long sleeves and gloves and kept the front compartment sealed off from the back. The only times he’d opened it was to stick a gloved hand through, holding a gun on Julie or Tiana as he’d made them hand over their cell phones, then later make phone calls with his demands, then again as he’d allowed Tiana to exit the car.

  Fury raged through Lainey at the thought of anyone pointing a gun at her little sister, her sweet little sister who didn’t deserve any of this.

  Lainey stood in the middle of the rich man’s living room. Money might as well have been framed and put on the walls.

  She knew how much those couches cost, those draperies and that wallpaper.

  Because she couldn’t afford any of it. After spending time with the mayor’s daughter as well as at the homes of the kids Julie went to private school with, Julie had started saying they needed to redecorate their home.

  Nothing they could afford would have bought the impression the banker’s house made with the name brands that had been emblazoned on Julie’s brain.

  Name brands that would have cost a couple of months pay for Lainey.

  Antiques. That was the word Lainey had thrown out to make Julie feel better. Their house was furnished with antiques and family treasures.

  Lainey had heard those very words come out of Julie’s mouth later when a school friend had been visiting. As if Lainey had written the script. She was glad she’d given Julie an arsenal in defense of their home.

  She’d seen how Julie’s friend had smiled and nodded, as if she’d appreciated the comment.

  As if she’d heard the word antiques thrown about.

  Lainey didn’t sit on the banker’s expensive couch. Instead, she paced until the guy showed up in the doorway.

  “Robert Kaufman,” he said, extending his hand to Brice then a cordial nod of the head to Lainey.

  “Detective Brice.” Brice shook his hand. “I wanted to speak to you about your offer to help the city with the money to stop the police furloughs.”

  “Just a good citizen, trying to help the police out.” His expression was closed, as if a door were holding back something from escaping.

  Was it as simple as he didn’t want to lose control of his emotions? A guy thing, having so recently been terrified that something might have happened to his daughter, he was afraid of embarrassing himself publicly with an emotional outburst.

  “Emm. Really good of you to do it,” Brice said.

  Lainey watched the interplay between the two, almost as if there were subtitles explaining what was really going on between the two men.

  Kaufman wasn’t really interested in talking to them.

  Brice knew, but he didn’t care.

  “How’d it come about, that you showed up with money for the mayor’s furlough program?”

  Kaufman’s expression shut down even further. “I called the mayor and asked if there was anything I could do to help. I knew how she must feel, since my daughter had gone missing so recently. The mayor mentioned the demand to end furloughs and I said I could handle the cost for that.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “It was the least I could do after all the man hours spent when my daughter ran away.”

  Ran away.

  Sounded like a script. Almost the way Julie had repeated Lainey’s words about the antiques. Said just the way the mayor had said it.

  “Your daughter didn’t really run away, did she Mr. Kaufman?” Brice asked.

  The banker glared at him.

  “You can be honest with me, Mr. Kaufman.” Brice tilted his head.

  And the façade broke. The banker’s face reddened. “Can I?” Kaufman almost bellowed. “Can I?” He leaned forward and hammered his finger against Brice’s shoulder.

  “I’m gonna have to pay armed guards to watch my daughter and wife twenty-four hours a day now.” He huffed out a breath. “That’ll go over real well with a teenager and her friends.”

  His almost purple face and shaking hands said as much as his words. The man was terrified for his family. He’d seen just how vulnerable they were.

  Brice didn’t move or change his expression.

  “So, your daughter didn’t run away? She was abducted?”

  The banker jerked his head up, fixing Brice with a stare. “I didn’t say that.”

  “But, that’s the truth, isn’t it? There were ransom demands on her. Someone told you not to go public with that fact.” Brice’s tone and expression softened on the last sentence.

  Kaufman sucked in a deep breath and stepped back. “I do what I have to do to keep my family safe.”

  He expelled a great burst of air, as if blowing out the anger that ate at his insides.

  Brice’s face still was expressionless. “So, someone did extort this offer from you about the money to pay for the officer’s pay so the mayor could stop the furloughs?”

  Kaufman’s face blanched. “I… I didn’t say that.” He turned away.

  Brice’s voice lowered in tone as well as volume. In a deep voice, layered with masculinity, he said, “This is just between you and us, Mr. Kaufman. Level with me. There’s another little girl still missing besides the mayor’s daughter. We need your help.”

  Kaufman half turned and looked over his shoulder at Lainey. He’d probably seen her on TV.

  She stepped forward, laying her hand on his arm. “Please,” she whispered, her voice coming out in a croak because her throat was so raw. She could barely get the words past the aching bite of her overtired larynx.

  Kaufman’s face softened. “I’m so sorry. I hope you get your sister back.” He laid a hand over Lainey’s where she still touched his arm. “I just hope you understand that I’m afraid for my daughter.”

  Lainey pulled her hand away. He wasn’t going to help them. And she got it. The sheer terror of having your daughter, or your little sister, in some maniac’s hands was enough to ensure compliance.

  Because right now, she knew she’d do anything to get Julie back.

  Anything.

  Kaufman met her gaze with a silent, gentle understanding. They’d each do whatever they had to in order to keep their little girls safe.

  Tears pushed behind her eyes, seconds from bursting free, the banker’s compassion unlacing her control.

  “Bobby,” a woman’s voice called from the back of the house, urgent, commanding. The note of panic in her tone reached the front of the house with the power to turn the banker from Brice and Lainey as if they weren’t there.

  He sprinted away down the hall.

  Brice and Lainey looked at each other.

  Instantly, in unspoken agreement, they followed behind Kaufman’s retreating back.

  Chapter Eleven

  The long hall opened up into a combination family room, dining, kitchen area. Homey and warm, it looked more like Lainey and Julie’s home than the formal front area of the Kaufman house.

  She could imagine a little girl growing up here, unafraid to put her feet up, to invite her friends in for after school snacks.

  Suddenly, the banker seemed human, with a real family.

  A blonde woman Lainey recognized from television as the banker’s wife stood next to a television with a local station broadcasting the noon news.

  “It’s that John Canton,” she said, a nervous quiver in her voice. “He’s doing a report on the evidence room at the police department.”

  She exchanged a look with her h
usband that said there was something in that evidence room that was important to them.

  Kaufman walked closer to his wife, and put an arm around her waist. She was younger than him, pretty, slim, well kept. And sweet looking. She looked like a really nice mom.

  Then, she noticed Lainey and Brice.

  “Hey,” she said. Her smile became warm and sympathetic. She pulled away from her husband’s grasp and walked toward Lainey. “I am so sorry about your little sister.”

  Lainey smiled. The woman’s tone sounded sincere and unforced, unlike her husband’s manner. Maybe she would help them. Mrs. Kaufman reached out for Lainey’s hand and squeezed it warmly.

  “What is Canton saying?” Brice brought everyone’s attention back to the television.

  The banker’s wife dropped Lainey’s hand and turned toward the television. “He’s doing a report on how a key piece of evidence in a murder investigation was smuggled out of the evidence room of the Atlanta Police Department.”

  Brice swiveled his head to the television, stepping closer.

  “I’ve got it recorded if you want to see the whole thing when he’s done.” She spoke with such a sweetness that Lainey found herself instantly drawn to her, liking her.

  This woman would help bring Julie home, Lainey sensed.

  Canton’s voice intoned from the TV, “So, again, we find major failings in the Atlanta Police Department. This gun, now believed to be used in several murders lately, was secreted out of the APD evidence room.”

  He held the gun closer to the camera, seeming to bring it directly into the living room of every viewer in the Atlanta metro area.

  “This gun has been implicated in murders since the man who was charged with the murder of Simone Jackson was set free.”

  He lowered the gun so that the camera centered on his face. He looked into the camera, with a deadly serious expression. “The mayor’s daughter goes missing, as do two other little girls in Atlanta, and numerous murders go unsolved.”

  He leaned into the camera. “Now this. Evidence in the murder of Simone Jackson goes missing.” His voice dropped several octaves. “And is used in a string of serial murders.”