Murder in the City: Blue Lights (9 page)

“I can’t believe this happened. That some car just pulls up and the mayor’s little girl is allowed to jump in, sight unseen.” It was incredible.

“People get lulled by routines. Every morning at that time, the car pulls up and she jumps in.” He shrugged. “Who would even believe something like this could happen?”

She swiveled suddenly to look at him. “And now, this demand. That the cops get taken off furlough.”

Brice turned on the radio just as the noon news started. The top item was the mayor’s daughter.

“We’re going straight to the mayor, who is giving a news conference at this moment,” the newscaster said.

Lainey leaned forward and turned up the volume.

“Immediately, I am suspending the furloughs of police officers. A benefactor has come forward to supplement the city’s budget to provide the money needed for their pay for one year. By then, we should be back into the black and can continue with our regular schedules.”

“Already!” Lainey’s attention jerked to Brice’s face. “Already, the mayor has met the kidnapper’s demand.” Maybe that meant Julie was coming home with Tiana. Maybe this nightmare would be over very shortly.

Brice’s face was taut, his jaw tense.

“Let’s go back to the mayor’s.” He sawed the steering wheel to the right, circling back the way they’d come.

With one hand, he pulled out his cell phone and punched in a number.

“Hey, yeah, it’s Brice. Can you bring the mayor’s driver to her place? We’re going over there.” He hung up.

“Can you believe this?” Lainey looked at Brice, but he his eyes straight forward, driving with intent and purpose.

“Unbelievable,” he bit off in a tone as sharp and concise as his driving.

The man could go from joking to deadly serious in a manner of seconds. She’d seen that manner in the courtroom and the day she’d been attacked.

His serious expression gave a reassuring steel promise. Now that she was on this side of the victim line, she wanted deadly serious.

As if he felt her studying him, he reached over and grabbed her hand for a brief second. Then, released it to grasp the steering wheel again.

But that momentary contact shot strength into her soul.

* * *

Brice walked ahead of Lainey, clearing a path through the reporters and photographers outside the mayor’s house. He walked under the yellow tape, stepped through the front door and met the mayor’s intense gaze. Desperately, the mayor looked at him, a mother’s eyes, searching only for her daughter, praying that her daughter was coming home soon.

Lainey crossed the threshold an instant after him and the mayor looked quickly away. Deviousness hid there in that glance. She looked away, almost as if she hadn’t seen Lainey.

But she had. Brice watched the mayor for more clues that might slip out, clues to what exactly was going on.

Lainey closed the distance between herself and the mayor quickly.

“Julie called me,” Lainey blurted out. “Wanted you to call off the furloughs.”

They had an odd relationship, Lainey and the mayor. He needed to know more about that.

The mayor nodded, still not looking Lainey directly in the eye. “A benefactor came forward, said he’d heard about the demand.”

“Heard?” Lainey asked. “How could anyone have heard so soon?”

Brice placed a hand on Lainey’s shoulder and she swiveled her head to look at him, her eyes desperate, crazed almost, like a fox that would gnaw his hand off.

The mayor shrugged. “It must have been on the news.”

“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. “That’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.