by Harris, Lisa
“I’ve got someone trying to get ahold of him now.”
She’d been scared in that classroom, but at least she’d known Rafael. Maybe she’d been wrong, but a part of her had never really believed he would do anything to hurt her or Tess. But now … Rafael was dead, and she had no way to know who was behind this.
Oh God … I’m trying to trust you in this situation. You know where she is. You know we have to find her.
She glanced up as her father came running toward her.
“Daddy.” She let him gather her into his arms, trying not to remember that the last time she’d seen him, Tess had been with them.
He pulled back, his arms still around her. “What’s going on? I was just told that Tess has been abducted?”
“I received a text message.” She heard the sound of her own voice. No inflection. No emotion. She was running on autopilot. “Someone’s taken her.”
“What? Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Her father turned to Mason, the creases across his forehead pronounced. The gray more evident than she remembered. Her father was strong, but he’d already lost so much this year.
“Has the text been traced?” Thirty years of police experience snapped into play.
“I’ve got Tory working on it, but if it’s a burn phone she won’t be able to trace it.”
“School surveillance footage needs to be gone over.” Her father jutted his chin toward the school. “I’ll speak to the principal about getting that set up, then make sure the captain’s aware of what’s going on. You ensure we’ve got teams out there looking for my granddaughter, starting with the school grounds. Question anyone who might have seen something.”
Mason nodded. “One other thing, sir. We found the keys to your car in the bushes in the parking lot.”
Emily glanced up at her father. “Where was Tess?”
Her father’s eyebrows furrowed. “The captain called and told me he needed to speak to me in private. He offered to send one of his officers to wait with Tess at the car, because I didn’t want her to be alone.”
“Do you have the name of the officer?” Mason asked.
“One of the new recruits … Officer Reed.”
“Good,” Mason said. “I’ll have someone track her down.”
“We’re going to find her. But please …” Emily grasped her father’s arm as Mason rushed off. Standing around doing nothing would push her over the edge. “Let me help with the footage. I need something to do.”
“You and me both.” His frown deepened. “I can’t believe I let Tess out of my sight—”
“You didn’t know.” She worked to match his long stride as he hurried toward the office. “None of us did. The danger was supposed to be over.”
Now wasn’t the time for either of them to allow guilt to cloud their vision. All that mattered was finding Tess.
“Emily, before we go in there …” Her father stopped just outside the entrance of the school. Dark clouds hovered overhead, bringing with them a light flurry of the predicted snow. But Emily’s focus was on the worry in her father’s expression. “I need you to listen carefully to me, sweetheart.”
She shuddered at a gust of cold wind that seemed to blow right through her. “Daddy … what’s wrong?”
“I don’t know who’s behind this, or what’s going on, but I want you to stay here in the school offices until I get back.”
“Okay, but—”
“There’s one other thing. If I get delayed, I need you to know you can trust Mason.”
“Mason?” His words caught her off guard. “Why?”
He squeezed her hand. “If I’m not here to keep you safe, he will.”
“What do you know?” Fear was back. The nightmare still lingered. Emily shook her head. “Tell me what’s going on. Please.”
“I can’t—”
Her father’s phone went off, and he pulled it out of his jacket pocket.
His face paled. “Another text just came through. It’s from the kidnappers.”
“What do they want?”
“The two million dollars they didn’t get the first time.”
19
We’re missing something.
Mason stood for a moment, staring out across the school lawns that were now covered with a dusting of white, then pulled out his phone. He was cold, tired, and emotionally drained. He hadn’t heard from the captain. Or Emily’s dad, for that matter. And after twenty minutes of searching the school and its grounds, there was still no sign of Tess. If they didn’t find her soon, they were going to have to extend their initial search radius. They needed a solid lead. Evidence from the surveillance footage, a witness who had seen what happened in that parking lot, a confession from the men being held in conjunction with Eduardo’s case … anything that would help them find Tess. So far, they had nothing.
He punched in Carlos’s number, praying the detective had an update for him.
Mason heard the noisy precinct in the background as Carlos picked up. “Mason, hey. I was just getting ready to call you.”
“I’m looking at a bunch of dead ends here. I need something.”
“We might have a lead,” Carlos said, “but first the bad news. We struck out on the messages sent to Emily and her father. No way to trace them, but I can tell you it was a different phone from the one that called Rafael and his mother this morning.”
“What about the guy from the funeral home you dragged in?”
“His name’s Juan Carter. When we told him we could tie him to a string of recent kidnappings and murders, he confessed to kidnapping Eduardo, but nothing more. We’ve tied him to a local gang—Griffin is running that angle down right now—but while he admits Eduardo’s kidnapping had to do with a dispute over a drug debt, he swears he doesn’t know anything about Tess or Mrs. Cerda’s disappearance.”
“And Jacobs?”
“Still not wanting to cooperate and insists he doesn’t know anything about the kidnappings. I think he’s telling the truth.”
Mason ran his fingers through his hair and paced the sidewalk in front of the school. Even if they could tie the kidnappings to one of the local gangs, something wasn’t right. He still believed that Rafael had somehow been manipulated. That his mother had been used as leverage. That implied that someone else was involved. “So what’s the lead?”
“You remember about six months ago, when someone broke into the department’s evidence locker?” Carlos asked.
“Yeah. They stole a couple weapons, some jewelry, cash, and fifty-thousand dollars’ worth of heroin.”
“Exactly,” Carlos said. “Here’s the kicker. The gun Rafael used is a match to one of those stolen weapons. Unregistered and impossible to trace back to the original owner.”
“Which makes it the perfect weapon.”
Mason’s mind spun as he ran through the timeline in his head. Eduardo had been taken early Sunday morning. Mrs. Cerda disappeared Monday morning just after seven. Rafael walked into the school with the gun around eight. Emily had been convinced someone was manipulating Rafael, but the only motivation that made sense was that whoever had taken Eduardo in the first place had grabbed Mrs. Cerda as an extra guarantee that they got their money. But a ransom situation in a school wasn’t the normal cartel MO. Unless … unless someone else had kidnapped Mrs. Cerda and given Rafael a gun and enough incentive to walk into a school with a weapon.
“Whoever was behind the thefts at the precinct knew what they were doing, which points to an inside job,” Mason said. “So what if we’re looking at two separate cases?”
“Two kidnappers?” Carlos asked.
“What if someone found out about the first kidnapping and decided they wanted a piece of the cash?”
“It’s possible, but who else besides you knew about Eduardo’s kidnapping?” Carlos asked.
The department mole.
It was the one thing that made sense. It wasn’t as common as accepting bribes or falsifying reports,
but he’d heard of officers who had participated in organized crime themselves. What if someone else had known about Eduardo’s kidnapping, had the stolen gun, and decided to play it to their advantage.
The pictures had never been out of his possession. The door to Avery’s office had been shut, because he hadn’t wanted anyone listening in. He brushed a patch of snow that had fallen on his neck, barely feeling the stinging cold. He might be grasping at straws, but what if someone had overheard their conversation?
“Mason … what are you thinking?”
He shifted his thoughts to Carlos’s question and tried to formulate them into something coherent. “What if we’re looking at a second kidnapper? Someone who had nothing to do with Eduardo’s kidnapping? Someone who took Tess and maybe Mrs. Cerda as well.”
Someone who thought they could take advantage of the situation. Someone who thought they could walk away with two million dollars if they played their cards right.
“I don’t know, but it’s worth looking at. Who else knew about your meeting with Rafael?”
“According to Rafael, he didn’t tell anyone else. The people who took his brother made it clear they didn’t want anyone to know—especially the police. He was taking a chance contacting me.”
“So let’s assume he didn’t tell anyone else. Who did you talk to?”
“After talking with Rafael, I took the photos straight to Avery. I knew she was involved in the Torres investigation, and I thought there might be a connection.”
“Was anyone else in the room with you while you were talking?”
“No one. I felt the situation needed to be kept under the radar.” There was another possibility. “What if there’s a bug in Avery’s office?”
“You seriously think someone might have bugged her office?”
He understood the incredulity in Carlos’s voice. His first thought was that it wasn’t possible, but on the other hand, it would explain how someone inside the department had been able to access sensitive information over the past few months. “Where are you right now?” Mason asked.
“I’m heading for her office now. Give me a minute.”
Snow crunched beneath his shoes as Mason started pacing the sidewalk in front of the school. A second kidnapper meant that the dynamics had just shifted from a clear-cut ransom case with a list of possible suspects to not knowing who the players were.
Two million dollars was a lot of motivation. An open opportunity for someone ready to take a risk.
“Anything?” Mason asked.
“Not yet.”
The snow was falling harder. He stepped under the awning that ran along the front of the main building. Most of the parents had left hours ago with their children, leaving the parking lot empty except for a couple of reporters and the team of law enforcement officers searching for Tess.
He drummed his free hand against his leg. They both knew what to look for. Something small, compact, and not easy to find. If they had more time, they could bring someone in to sweep the room, but time wasn’t on their side.
“Mason … I’ve just stepped back outside her office, but I found something. A listening device mounted beneath her desk with a magnet.”
So he’d been right. Someone had been listening in, had found out about the kidnapping, and decided to take advantage of the situation.
“What did it look like?” Mason asked.
“It’s a small, silver canister, about the size of a dime. Maybe a bit smaller.”
He’d used similar devices before. Had met a guy who sold electronic surveillance devices and had learned everything he could from him. While working undercover, he’d bought and sold illegal drugs, catching suppliers in the process by using the same kind of electronic surveillance as Carlos described. But that equipment wasn’t supposed to be used inside the department.
“Were there any serial numbers, dates, or any kind of markings?”
“Not that I could see, but I’m leaving it intact for evidence.”
“Good.”
Mason worked through their options. If someone on the force was involved, they’d probably been at the school all day. Which meant there was a good chance that there was a partner involved who had done the actual communicating with Rafael. And had possibly taken Tess. There had to be a connection between the two cases.
“I’ll call you back as soon as I can, Carlos. I need to find the captain.”
20
Emily’s vision blurred as she stared at the school’s surveillance footage on the computer screen. She’d spent the last thirty minutes sitting next to Detective Rogers, going frame by frame through the video that had been taken from the time Tess left for her father’s car until Emily received the text. After seeing nothing out of the ordinary, they’d expanded the search—and the timeframe—to look for anyone who seemed out of place. But whoever had taken Tess had managed to avoid getting caught on camera.
And Tess was still missing.
Emily scooted back her chair before addressing the detective. “I need to take a short break. My eyes are crossed and my head is killing me.”
“Of course.” He nodded, his eyes still fixed on the monitor. “Take as long as you need.”
She dug a bottle of ibuprofen from her bag, then reached for her water that sat on the edge of the desk where she’d been working. Fifteen minutes ago, she’d called Jackson for an update on her sister. Avery’s blood pressure had dropped on the way to the hospital, and she was groggy from painkillers, but the doctors expected her to make a complete recovery—as long as she rested the next few days.
Emily washed down two of the capsules with a swig of water, unable to stop her smile when she thought of Jackson’s disclaimer. Convincing Avery to rest was like convincing the moon to stop rotating around the earth. She had, though, advised him not to tell Avery about Tess—not yet anyway. She knew her sister. She might be furious for initially being kept in the dark, but what she didn’t need was the added stress of knowing her daughter was in danger when there was nothing she could do about it.
“Emily?”
She looked up at Mason, who had just stepped into the front office, his leather jacket covered with a dusting of snowflakes, his expression reflecting how she felt. Cold, tired, and frustrated.
Emily bridged the distance between them, hesitant to ask the obvious question. “Did you find Tess?”
He shook his head. “Not yet, but there are some things we need to talk about.”
She caught the edge in his voice and felt her blood pressure spike. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ve just finished talking to the captain.”
“And …”
He glanced around the office, still filled with a half-dozen law enforcement officers and school staff tracking down leads on Tess’s disappearance from their makeshift command post. “Let’s go outside. It’s more private.”
He waited for her to grab her purse before taking her hand and leading her out the front door of the school. It would be dark in a few hours, which meant it would be harder to find Tess. She might not be a cop, but even she knew that in missing person cases, time was the enemy. And at the moment, the enemy was winning.
Outside, the wind caught the edge of her coat, sweeping the afternoon chill straight through her. She shivered. She’d been able to change out of her blood-stained outfit from when Philip had been shot, but the knee-length charcoal sweater dress and tights she’d had stashed in her room in case of emergency weren’t nearly warm enough. “You’re scaring me, Mason. What’s happened?”
“There’s a lot more involved with Tess’s abduction than we originally thought. I know you’re scared, but I need you to trust me. I need to get you somewhere safe.”
Somewhere safe? At the moment, she wasn’t sure such a place existed.
“Why? Where’s my father?”
“He’s with the captain.”
I need you to trust Mason.
She tried to squelch the unsettled feeling spreading through her.
Her father had told her to trust Mason. She felt Mason’s hands press gently against her shoulders to steady her, but the school and the grounds still swirled in the background.
“Emily, I need you to come with me.”
Trust Mason.
She was trying to, but she needed answers first. “Why?”
“We believe your life could also be in danger.”
“Who believes that?”
“The captain. Your father. Me.”
She tugged on the edges of her coat sleeves, feeling frustrated and vulnerable. “What does Tess’s disappearance have to do with me?”
“We don’t believe Eduardo’s kidnappers are behind Tess’s abduction.”
“Wait a minute.” She stopped and looked up at him. “Are you trying to tell me you think there’s another kidnapper?”
“Yes. Maybe it’s nothing more than a string of coincidences, but we can’t take any chances until we know exactly what’s going on. And I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
She tried to read his expression, wanting to ask him if this had become personal to him. If his concern and desire to protect her was more than the fact that he wore a badge.
“What about Tess? There has to be something we’re missing. Someone who saw something. Who walks away with a thirteen-year-old, from a crime scene with half the city’s police force in the vicinity?”
“That’s what we have to find out, but in the meantime, I promised your father I’d take you somewhere safe. Come with me, and I’ll tell you everything I know on the way.”
“I need to talk to my father.” She pulled out her phone and dialed his cell.
“You won’t get ahold of him. He’s interrogating a suspect with the captain. That’s why he sent me.”
She let it ring, but Mason was right. After three rings, her father’s phone switched to voice mail. The truth was, she was too tired to fight. She trusted her father. She was going to trust Mason as well.
He escorted her toward his unmarked vehicle on the edge of the parking lot. Right now, she should be getting ready to go home from school. A couple hours of Christmas shopping with Grace. A quiet night grading papers. Normal. Ordinary. Except nothing about today was normal.
