The Couple Next Door(8)

Marco lifts the coffeepot and pours coffee into three china mugs on the spotless stone counter. Rasbach notices that Marco’s hand trembles as he pours. Marco offers the detective one of the mugs, which Rasbach accepts gratefully.

Marco leaves the kitchen and returns to the living room with the other two mugs.

Rasbach watches him go, steeling himself for what is ahead. Child-abduction cases are always difficult. They create a media circus, for one thing. And they almost never end well.

He knows he will have to apply pressure to this couple. It’s part of the job.

Each time Rasbach is called out on a case, he never knows what to expect. Nonetheless, each time he unravels the puzzle, he is never surprised. His capacity for surprise seems to have evaporated. But he is always curious. He always wants to know.

? ? ?

Rasbach helps himself to the milk and sugar that Marco has left out for him and then pauses in the doorway of the kitchen with his coffee mug in his hand. From where he stands, he can see the dining table and the sideboard near the kitchen, both obviously antiques. Beyond that he can see the sofa, upholstered in dark green velvet, and the backs of Anne and Marco Conti’s heads. To the right of them is a marble fireplace, and above the mantelpiece hangs a large oil painting. Rasbach doesn’t know what it is a painting of, exactly. The sofa faces the front window, but more immediately in front of the sofa there is a coffee table and, across from that, two deep, comfortable armchairs.

Rasbach makes his way into the living room and resumes his previous seat across from the couple, in the armchair nearest the fireplace. He notes how Marco’s hands still shake as he brings the mug to his mouth. Anne simply holds the cup in her hands on her lap, as if she doesn’t realize it’s there. She has stopped crying, for the moment.

The lurid lights of the police cars parked outside still play across the walls. The forensic team goes about its tasks in the house quietly, efficiently. The atmosphere inside the house is busy but subdued, grim.

Rasbach has a delicate task before him. He must convey to this couple that he is working for them, doing everything possible to find their missing baby—which he is, along with the rest of the police force—even while he knows that in most cases when a child goes missing like this, it is the parents who are responsible. And there are factors here that certainly make him suspicious. But he will keep an open mind.

“I’m very sorry,” Rasbach begins. “I can’t even imagine how hard this is for you.”

Anne looks up at him. The sympathy makes her eyes instantly well up with more tears. “Who would take our baby?” she asks plaintively.

“That’s what we have to find out,” Rasbach says, setting his mug on the coffee table and taking out his notebook. “This may seem too obvious a question to ask, but do you have any idea who might have taken her?”

They both stare at him; such an idea is preposterous. And yet here they are.

“Have you noticed anyone hanging around lately, anyone showing interest in your baby?”

They both shake their heads.

“Do you have any idea, any idea at all, who might want to do you harm?” He looks from Anne to Marco.

The two parents shake their heads again, equally at a loss.

“Please, give it some thought,” Rasbach says. “Take your time. There has to be a reason. There’s always a reason—we just have to find out what it is.”

Marco looks like he’s about to speak, then thinks better of it.

“What is it?” Rasbach asks. “This is no time to hold back.”

“Your parents,” Marco says finally, turning to his wife.

“What about my parents?” she says, clearly surprised.

“They have money.”

“So?” She doesn’t seem to understand what he’s getting at.

“They have a lot of money,” Marco says.

Here we go, Rasbach thinks.

Anne looks at her husband as if dumbfounded. She is, possibly, an excellent actress. “What do you mean?” she says. “You don’t think someone took her for . . .” Rasbach watches the two of them carefully. The expression on her face changes. “That would be good,” she says, looking up at him, “wouldn’t it? If all they want is money, I could get my baby back? They won’t hurt her?”

The hope in her voice is heartbreaking. Rasbach is almost convinced that she has nothing to do with this.

“She must be so scared,” she says, and then she falls completely apart, sobbing uncontrollably.

Rasbach wants to ask her about her parents. Time is of the essence in kidnapping cases. Instead he turns to Marco. “Who are her parents?” Rasbach asks.

“Alice and Richard Dries,” Marco tells him. “Richard is her stepfather.”

Rasbach writes it down in his notebook.

Anne regains control over herself and says again, “My parents have a lot of money.”

“How much money?” Rasbach asks.

“I don’t know exactly,” Anne says. “Millions.”

“Can you be a little more precise?” Rasbach asks.

“I think they’re worth somewhere around fifteen million,” Anne says. “But it’s not like anybody knows that.”

Rasbach looks at Marco. His face is completely blank.

“I want to call my mother,” Anne says. She glances at the clock on the mantelpiece, and Rasbach follows her gaze. It’s two fifteen in the morning.