A Deadly Influence (Abby Mullen Thrillers #1)(44)

Like her, Isaac had firsthand experience of how a police visit to a cult could go wrong. For a second an image blinked into her mind. Holding the phone, a gun pressed against her temple. Isaac’s frightened eyes meeting hers. Then running. Smoke.

A shout: “Abihail, get away from there!”

Isaac’s hand on her shoulder.

A searing pain in her neck.

She shook her head, tearing herself away from the memories. She sent him a thumbs-up emoji and put the phone away.

Glancing out the window, she said, “Oh. Trees.”

“I always thought you were unusually perceptive when we were in the academy,” Carver remarked. “And now I see I was right.”

At some point they’d left the busy urban landscape of the city, and now trees lined the road on either side, and traffic was pleasantly sparse. When had she last driven out of the city? It had to be months. More than a year? Surely not.

Okay, possibly more than a year. That camping trip at Cranberry Lake. Why hadn’t they done that again? It had been so much fun. Ben watching the fishermen, more interested in the worms they used as bait than the fish. Samantha reading a book while sunbathing. And then later, a night of a crackling fire, fingers sticky from endless s’mores.

She took out her phone and sent her daughter a message asking if she was awake.

Sam didn’t respond. No way to know if she was asleep or simply ignoring her. Abby sent her another message asking her to let her know when she woke up. She also checked up on Ben, and her mother wrote back that Abby’s father had taken him to the park.

“So when do you think the kidnappers will call again?” Carver asked.

“I don’t think they’ll call today,” Abby said. “We can see from their behavior so far that they’re careful. They know these calls are risky, which is why they use burners and call from different locations. They called frequently at first because they wanted Gabrielle to get the message and start raising the money. But now they can just wait. In fact, they can literally see the ransom being raised from the comfort of their own home. They have no reason to call as long as the ransom fund keeps rising.”

“Do you think this hurt us?”

“I think it’s not ideal,” Abby said. “If she’d come to us beforehand, we could have told her to wait, let the kidnappers call a few more times. We would have crafted a better message for her to post, one that gives the kidnappers reasons to keep contacting us.”

“Yeah,” Carver muttered moodily.

“But she did a pretty good job of humanizing Nathan. If the kidnappers are trying to distance themselves from him, it’ll make it harder for them. And she made them feel like things were going their way. They feel in control, which is a good thing.”

“Because they are in control.”

“For now.” Abby shut her laptop and slid it into the bag. “Listen, can I put some music on?”

“Sure, feel free.”

“What’s your jam?” Abby hooked her phone to the auxiliary cable.

“My jam?”

“Yeah, what do you like to listen to?”

“I don’t really listen to music.”

Abby blinked. “What? At all?”

“Well, when I drive, I usually listen to podcasts. And I can’t really concentrate with music, so I don’t listen to anything while I work. And in the evenings I prefer watching TV or reading a book.” Carver mulled it over. “I usually listen to music when I do my annual income tax paperwork.”

“Once a year. You listen to music once a year.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“So how does it feel to be dead inside? Is it like . . . sad? Or just very relaxed?”

Carver glanced at her, grinning. “I get along fine. Okay, you know what? I do enjoy music. I like that new song they keep playing on the radio.”

“Which song?”

“By that band. You know. Na-nana-naaaa-na-na.”

“I never heard that. It doesn’t really sound like anything.”

“Oh, come on. It’s super popular.”

“That song you just hummed. Whose words you don’t know, by a band whose name you don’t remember.”

“You know what? I changed my mind. You can’t put music on.”

“Too late. You’re getting educated.” Abby scrolled through her music library. “Okay, this might awaken even your husk of a soul.” She hit play, and the fast notes of “Baba O’Riley,” by The Who, began playing.

“Oh, I know that song,” Carver said beaming at her. “It’s ‘Teenage—’”

“No.”

“Yes! I know this song from high school. It’s ‘Teenage Wasteland.’”

“It’s not ‘Teenage Wasteland.’ There’s no song called ‘Teenage Wasteland.’ It’s called ‘Baba O’Riley.’ But plebeians think it’s called ‘Teenage Wasteland’ because it has those two words in the chorus.”

“You know something, Lieutenant Mullen? You’re a musical snob.”

She laughed. “I get that from my daughter.”

“That’s not how genetics works.”

“Sometimes it does.”

“How many kids do you have?”