Touch & Go (Tessa Leoni, #2)(77)

Another bite. Z chewed. Z swallowed. “Cash?” he asked abruptly.

“Wired to the fund of your choice.”

“I will not go on camera.”

“We have it all worked out.”

“One wrong word…”

“It’s in our best interests to have this all go as planned.”

“Nine million dollars,” he repeated, a concession of sorts.

“Three apiece. Or, more likely, five for you, two for each of your men.”

Radar didn’t look concerned by this split. Z actually smiled. And once again, the cobra tattoo seemed to twist and shudder around his perfectly shaved head.

“The background report,” he declared dryly, “had not indicated that you would be a problem.”

“Would you like another cinnamon bun?”

Z smiled again. Then his gaze switched to my husband, and the sudden coldness in his eyes made me start. He despised my husband. I could see it clearly, in the directness of his gaze. Hatred at a level that was beyond professional, had to be personal.

And for just one second, I hesitated. Maybe ransom was a bad idea. The exchange of money for hostages was inherently complicated. So many things could go wrong. A simple misstep could lead quickly and catastrophically to further violence, even death.

Especially when dealing with a man who’d covered his head in a giant fanged viper.

“Radar.” Ashlyn’s voice from beside me. My daughter no longer reaching toward me, but across the table toward the youngest commando.

Radar? Why would my daughter ask for…

I turned quickly, grabbing for Ashlyn’s arm but missing, as without another word, she slid off the back of her stool and dropped limply to the floor. Blood, so much blood, pooling on the lower half of her orange jumpsuit.

“Ashlyn!” Justin, already on his feet, then immediately drawing up short. “What the…”

Ashlyn’s staring up at me. Eyes, so much like my own, now filled with regret. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

And in that moment, I understood.

The men were scurrying around. Radar pushing back his stool, Z announcing in an authoritative voice for Justin to come with him, for Radar to tend to us.

I ignored them all. I focused on my daughter, who’d tried to warn me yesterday that we didn’t talk to her anymore. Not just moments in a marriage, I realized now, but moments in an entire family, when you stopped seeing one another. When you shared space, but no longer yourselves with one another.

I did my best to see her now. To gaze into her eyes. To comfort her with my own presence. As I knelt on the floor and held my daughter’s hand while she miscarried.





Chapter 27


WYATT GOT THE CALL just as he and Tessa were leaving Chris Lopez’s neighborhood. Nicole, or should he say, Special Agent Adams, sounding crisp and cool as always, reporting that contact had been made. Justin Denbe himself, shortly after ten this morning, had appeared in a video presenting the ransom demands.

Tessa knew how to drive. Her years as a state trooper? Or just a lifetime living in Boston? Wyatt couldn’t begin to hazard which, but half a dozen white-knuckle moments later, they were careening down the alley that ran behind the Denbes’ town house, where sure enough, the FBI’s huge mobile command center squatted like a fat linebacker in the middle of an old lady’s tea parlor.

Inside, they found Nicole’s partner, Special Agent Hawkes, manning a laptop at a small table, flat-screen monitor mounted above. Nicole paced in the limited space behind him, obviously agitated. As Tessa and Wyatt walked in, she gestured to the oversize monitor with a jerk of her chin. Nicole had her arms crossed over her chest, one finger tapping her elbow restlessly.

She wasn’t just agitated, Wyatt realized. The FBI agent was upset.

He and Tessa exchanged a glance. He gestured for her to take the remaining seat across from Hawkes, while he stood next to Nicole. With all of them in viewing position, Hawkes hit the play button on his keyboard, and the rest of the story emerged.

The ransom demand had been delivered via a video message. It featured a single close-up shot of Justin Denbe, his face a black-and-blue battered mess, staring into the video camera with one good eye as he slowly listed the kidnappers’ demands. Nine million dollars, to be wired directly into a single account by 3:00 P.M. EST on Monday, at which time the entire Denbe family would be safely released. Failure to meet the demands would result in further harm to the Denbe family. More details to follow.

At the end of the twenty-second clip, Justin held up the front page of the morning paper. A brief close-up of the Sunday edition’s date, then the screen went blank.

“Union Leader.” Wyatt identified the Manchester-based newspaper. “Means they’re still in New Hampshire.”

“But no word on the rest of the family?” Tessa asked. She was leaning toward the computer screen, as if that might help.

“Justin Denbe contacted his insurance company via telephone at ten twenty-three this morning,” Nicole provided, fingers still tapping. “He demanded to speak to a manager, saying that he and his family had been abducted. He was afraid for his life and evoking the special circumstances clause in the kidnapping policy: Essentially, in the event that the policyholder faces credible risk of imminent death, the company will pay out half of the value of the life insurance policy as additional ransom. Given that a dead Justin Denbe would cost the company ten million in life insurance, it’s in the company’s own best interest to pay up more now, in order to save later.”