Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [776]
“Grace?”
She hit Pause, turned and looked up at Joyce Ketterson in the doorway to the small conference room.
“It’s the call you’ve been waiting for. Zurich is on line two.”
“Thanks, Joyce.”
She grabbed the receiver, her eyes staying on the paused TV screen.
“Hey, sweetie,” she said. “Sorry I missed your call earlier.”
“I’ve got about five minutes before they begin serving dessert and coffee. How are things?”
Vince sounded tired. She knew without asking that he probably hadn’t slept yet, except for a catnap on the long flight over.
“Things are going okay.” She wouldn’t worry him about Barnett. There wasn’t a thing he could do about it. “How’d the meeting go?”
“It’s still going. So, seriously, I do need to get back in there, but I just wanted to see how you were.”
She smiled. He was doing a good job sidestepping the topic of Barnett, too.
“Hey, what’s with the ceramic gnome?” she asked. “Are you planning some tacky front-yard landscaping? Actually, it’s kind of cute.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Grace.”
“The ceramic gnome?”
“Gnome? You mean like dwarf?”
“Yes, silly. The one you left on the steps down to the garage.”
“Grace, I swear I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. Richard’s waving me back in. I gotta go. You sure you’re okay?”
“Oh, sure, fine.”
“Okay, give Emily a hug for me. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
She decided she’d ask Emily about the ceramic creature. Maybe one of the workers had left it. Although they hadn’t been back since last week. Then it occurred to her—what if Jared Barnett had been in the house? But why leave something like a stupid ceramic gnome?
She shook her head and stared at the TV screen. That was when she saw him again, or rather a sliver of him.
She was certain it was the same kid. He had his back to the camera. His right hand reached up over the door to the freezer case—a strange way to hold it open. But then she saw the reason. A little girl stood below him, getting something from the same case. He was holding it open for her, holding his arm way above her head, so as not to touch her. His hand was in a place where no one else probably touched, where there still might be some fingerprints. And, yes, there at the foot of the screen was one of the bright white high-tops.
She picked up the phone again and dialed.
“Darcy, it’s Grace. There’s something I’d like you to take a look at. Believe it or not, I may have found some fingerprints for us in one of the convenience stores.”
CHAPTER 44
11:17 a.m.
Tommy Pakula sat in his Explorer, the door open, his cell phone in his lap. He could see the Sarpy County sheriff’s deputies, their wide-brim hats bobbing between the trees as they searched the woods around the cabin. Bloodhounds were on the way, but Pakula didn’t think they’d find anything. If it hadn’t been for that farmer panicking and calling in his stolen pickup, they would have had the fucking dogs out last night, though he had to admit he wasn’t sure they could work in the lightning and rain. Hell, they even had to ground the helicopter. The sons of bitches had lucked out.
Pakula ran the palm of his hand over his head. It was a good sign that they hadn’t found a freshly dug grave, and yet the flip side wasn’t much better. He had come close to letting the media reveal who the owner of the red Saab was. They’d find out soon enough if they started digging into the registered vanity plate. He had considered plastering the television stations with Andrew’s name and photo. Someone may have already seen him. Could have called it in. But if the killers saw it, they might see Andrew as a liability. One thing Pakula was sure about, if that happened, these two psychos wouldn’t be letting Andrew catch a ride home.
Pakula left the deputies and drove the short distance to where Hertz and the crime lab techs were still going over the crashed car. He could see they were taking the long way around to avoid sloshing through the tire