Touch & Go (Tessa Leoni, #2)(54)

“Pretty girls don’t need to use ugly words—”

“Who says I want to be pretty? Maybe I like using ugly words. Maybe someone in this family should finally be honest about how they feel. Maybe Mom should start using the work f*ck, instead of running around trying to be so perfect and accommodating. Maybe, if she said the word f*ck once and a while, you wouldn’t have found another woman to f*ck. There’s a thought.”

Justin paled. I sat, frozen across from him, staring at my daughter as if she’d just grown two heads.

Then Justin reached up and slowly, but firmly, pinched our daughter’s lips shut. “I do not want to hear that word from your mouth. Not now. Not ever. You might be fifteen, but I’m still your father and in this family, we have standards.”

Ashlyn crumbled. From shock, from shame, I couldn’t tell which. She collapsed on the bunk beside me, buried her face against me and wept. I stroked her long wheat-brown hair, wanting to ease the moment, but not knowing where to start.

“It’s not fair,” Ashlyn moaned. “You did everything to make him happy, and for what? Men are pigs. Men are pigs. Men are pigs!”

The way she said the words gave me a second jolt. A female didn’t speak with that much vehemence in defense of another woman’s feelings, but in defense of her own.

I closed my eyes, wondered what his name was, how long it had been going on and when we had all drifted so far from one another. Even nine months ago, I would’ve sworn we were a solid little family. Sure, Justin’s job took its toll…. But I would’ve said that we loved each other, trusted each other, told each other everything.

A whole family can’t fall apart just like that. Even with infidelity. There had to have been cracks, weaknesses in the foundation. But I hadn’t seen them, or hadn’t wanted to see them. Ashlyn was right about one thing: I did run around trying to be perfect and accommodating. I wanted my husband happy. I wanted my daughter happy. And I hadn’t thought that was such a bad thing.

Justin still wasn’t speaking. He watched me comfort our daughter and he didn’t appear angry anymore as much as hollow.

“You shouldn’t have told her so much,” he said finally, to me.

“I didn’t.”

“I figured it out for myself,” Ashlyn interjected. “I’m not an idiot, Dad.”

She pressed her head harder against my shoulder, giving him her back. I continued to stroke her hair.

“We need to stop fighting,” he tried again.

Ashlyn sobbed against me.

“We need…” His voice caught, he soldiered on. “We need to rest. It’s been a long day. But if we just stay calm… They’re going to ask for ransom. The company is going to pay it, and then we’ll go home. Tomorrow is Sunday, so it’ll probably take a few more days. But two, three days tops and this will all be over. We’ll be back in our house. Everything will be okay.”

Ashlyn remained with her head buried against me, so I returned Justin’s look, nodding once so he knew that I had heard him. Then, because I just couldn’t help it, I smiled at my husband sadly.

Poor Justin. Through sheer force of will he’d quadrupled his father’s company, completed dozens of hundred-million-dollar projects and become one of the foremost names in construction. Of course he thought his word was law, that if he could think it, he could make it so.

But he was wrong about things. In a few days, this would not be all over. Kidnapping or no kidnapping, ransom or no ransom, it didn’t matter.

Best I could tell, the total destruction of our family was just beginning.





Chapter 21


TEN P.M., the meeting in the conference room broke up. Not to go home. In an investigation with this much ground to cover, sleeping was a luxury reserved for people who didn’t know the Denbes, had never worked with the Denbes and were not currently assigned the task of finding the Denbes.

In a missing person’s case, the odds of finding the people alive diminished dramatically after the first forty-eight to seventy-two hours. Which was worrisome, because the Denbe family had now been gone for almost exactly twenty-four hours. And as of this moment, the police had no direct contact from the family, no eyewitness accounts of a kidnapping, nor any reported sightings of the family from the general public.

Tessa texted her daughter good night. She had not heard from Sophie all day, which either meant that Mrs. Ennis was doing a great job of keeping her occupied, or that Sophie was currently plotting her revenge. Tessa placed her odds at fifty-fifty, then told herself to let it go.

If Sophie was upset, that was a conversation for later.

Right now, the Denbe family needed her more.

Tessa joined the blond FBI agent, Nicole, and the burly sergeant, Wyatt Foster. They were interviewing Anita Bennett first, and not only was Bennett Tessa’s paying client, but as COO, the person most in the know about possible corporate scandals.

Anita led them to her office. An expansive corner suite with light wood-paneled walls, a stunning Boston view and its own leather sofa. Definitely some money in the construction biz.

Tessa wondered how hard Anita had worked to get this office, a top woman in a predominantly male industry. She had a feeling that for all of the room’s opulence, this was mostly the place where Anita worked, worked and worked some more.

She took a seat on the chocolate-colored sofa. The blond FBI agent positioned herself in a hardback chair directly in front of Anita’s desk. The North Country detective didn’t sit at all, but leaned casually against the wall. He seemed enamored by the fine wood paneling, running one hand along the grain.