License to Shop (23 page)

“
I am,” Deb said, taken
aback.

“
Molly’s daughter is
sleeping in Dr. Stubbs’ office. Do you think you could search the
rest of the place first. She’s not feeling well.”

“
Of course,” Deb agreed,
giving me a questioning look.

“
I couldn’t help it. The
school called me and I had work to do.” I stressed the word work,
so that she knew I meant the spy job had influenced my decision,
not the admissions counselor job.

Deb nodded, and held out
her hand.

I handed Deb the drive,
and she bagged it and handed it off to the nearest officer. “Take
this back to the Fed, Bristol.”

He nodded, and
left.

Deb turned back to me.
“Molly, do you want to show us where to start?”

I led them back to the
open area, and the ring of offices. “I think Robert Quartermaine’s
office has been thoroughly searched at this point,” I said. The
only things you’ll find there are my daughter’s pillows, blankets,
stuffed animals, a cooler of ginger-ale and a thermos of
soup.”

Deb looked at the other
officer, “We can skip that one.” She pointed to the office closest
to the windows. “Start there, and work your way around.”

Deb and I watched him — he
was easy on the eyes, I admit — toss the place, quite
efficiently.

I told her, “I didn’t find
anything when I searched earlier. But I didn’t do such a thorough
job.”

She shrugged, indicating
that they’d have to search anyway. “I’m sorry Anna is sick. I hope
Connery appreciates that you’ve gone over and above on this
one.”

I smiled at the thought of
Connery categorizing anything I did for him as “over and above.” He
seemed to think I should give my life to the Bureau.

I told her, “Funny thing
is, if she hadn’t been sick, I wouldn’t have found the drive. It
was hidden in the dog bed. I avoid dogs, and all things dog, if I
can.”

Deb smiled. “Jasmine will
cure you of that.”

“
Maybe.”

As we stood there watching
Officer Cutie-Pie search methodically through the offices, Deb’s
phone rang. She listened, asked a quick question and then
said,

“
Dr. Stubbs went straight
to the police department, instead of coming back here.

“
Did she confess?” I tried
to picture her admitting any crime, and couldn’t.

“
No.” Deb shook her head.
“She claims she’s innocent. She’s called in her lawyer.”

“
Does she know we have the
hard drive?”

“
We’ll get her, don’t
worry,” Deb said. “You did well, Molly. I think the chief is likely
to make you detective before he does me,” she said
ruefully.

“
I’m going to ask James
Connery to put in a good word for you.”

“
I’m not sure the chief
can hear good words about me,” she lamented.

I would have tried to
continue to encourage her to follow her ambitions, but just then
Penny came in.

She looked shocked.
“What’s going on?”

“
The FBI has a warrant to
search the office,” I explained. “I didn’t think you were going to
be back.”

She said, “I forgot my
iPad, so I had to run back for it.”

Deb stepped between Penny
and her desk. “Sorry. You’ll have to leave it.”

“
What? My iPad?
Why?”

“
We have a warrant for
everything we find on the premises — computers, drives, phones,
iPads. Everything.”

Penny looked unhappy, but
she didn’t complain. “Does anyone know where Kecia is?”

“
Out front,” I
said.

“
No. She’s not.” Penny
shook her head firmly.

“
Maybe she went to walk
the dog,” I said, as we, all three, headed toward the reception
area. No Kecia.

I peeked into Dr. Stubbs’
office. Sofia was sleeping peacefully in her dog bed.

But Anna was
gone.

CHAPTER
TWENTY

Aiming Straight for the Heart

“
Kecia took Anna.” I said, feeling numb. The storm had come,
and it was much worse than even I could have imagined.

“
Are you sure? Maybe Anna
is somewhere else.”

We looked everywhere, but
there was no sign of Anna, or her blanket.

“
She wouldn’t hurt her,” I
said feigning calm. “She has a daughter of her own.”

I lifted my cell phone,
trying to decide who to call first. Seth? James Connery?

My phone beeped at me,
warned me the battery was very low, and turned itself
off.

I stared at it, feeling
betrayed. Anna would have chided me for letting the battery get so
low. If she were here.

Deb took the phone from my
hand, and said gently, “I’ve called James Connery. We’ll get her
back.”

And then I put my head
against her shoulder and tried very hard not to cry. Kecia was a
mom. She had rescued the puppies. She had a butterfly on her wrist,
for goodness sake. She wouldn’t hurt Anna. Would she?

I thought of Robert
Quartermaine. Young. Vibrant. Strong. Full of life. Until he
wasn’t.

I had to find
Anna.

My deepest secret, the one
I hadn’t told my mother — wouldn’t tell, except maybe on my
deathbed — is that my little “walk away” dreams aren’t really
exercises in coping. I visualize my worst nightmares right up to
the point where the bad stuff starts to happen because that keeps
me here.

I hadn’t asked my mom if
that was how she felt. It would have come to close to admitting my
own secret. I hoped that when Kecia was found, I could ask her if
she had been motivated a walk-away dream much bigger than I’d ever
conceived possible. I had a feeling she had been.

I’d walk now, except it is
too late. Anna is missing. I was focused on spying for James
Connery and doing research for Dr. Stubbs and I took my eye off my
daughter.

Anna is missing, and it is
too late to walk away. I tried to put myself in Kecia’s mind. She’d
seen that I’d taken the drive. That Deb had it. That Deb would give
it to the FBI.

She was a ringmaster.
Brilliant, young, patient, a student about to graduate, a temp with
no permanent bonds to anything or anyone but her
daughter.

Now that she’d been
exposed, what would she do? Where would she go?

I looked at the uncharged
phone in my hand. I raised my head from Deb’s shoulder. I have to
charge my phone. I need to get to my car.”

“
Molly…”

“
Anna has the number
written on the inside of her shoes. She could call me.”

“
Oh.” Deb nodded.

We headed to the parking
lot without a further word, both of us walking so fast we didn’t
have the breath to speak. Or the will, because all the words would
be useless to bring Anna home. We knew who had her. We just didn’t
know where she was, where she would go, or what she intended to do
with my daughter.

I turned on my car,
plugged in my phone, and called Seth.

“
Anna’s missing. I’m in
the parking lot right outside the Admissions building with
Deb.”

“
What? Molly…”

“
Anna is missing,” I said.
It was all I could manage.

“
I’ll be right there.” He
ended the call without saying anything else, or asking any more
questions. I pictured him running down the stairs of his building
and heading across campus for the parking lot.

I stood outside the car,
with the door open in case Anna called my phone, which was slowly
recharging.

Deb paced the parking lot
as she fielded calls from Connery and her police chief. I heard the
conversations, plucking the important facts from the rest of the
conversation.

Kecia’s daughter was not
at her daycare.

Kecia’s roommate was not
at home, or in class.

There was an APB out on
someone with Kecia’s description, and an Amber Alert for
Anna.

I saw Seth approaching,
and I wanted to run to him. But my phone was tethered to the car,
charging. And Anna might call.

So I watched him, his
approach too slow for me, even though he was practically running as
he scanned the parking lot for me, for the car.

At last, he reached me. I
could see the questions written all over his face, but I just
buried myself in his arms and whispered, “She was sick. I brought
her to work with me and the ringmaster kidnapped her.” Then I burst
into tears.

Seth turned to Deb, “What
happened? Who the hell is the ringmaster?”

Deb, her voice taking on
the calm, measured tone of a consummate police woman, gave him a
quick rundown of what was happening.

Listening to her voice
calmed me enough that I could stop crying. I wasn’t much of a cryer
anyway. Crying didn’t solve problems, it just put off dealing with
them.

By the time Deb had
finished explaining, Seth was white-faced and silent. He had
questions, lots of them, I could see them in his face, and in the
way he kept opening his mouth to ask, and then shutting it again
without saying a word. I knew exactly how he felt.

Deb said, “Connery’s
people are decrypting the hard drive. It may tell us where Anna
is.”

I drove behind Deb, to the police station. “Anna
threw up in her classroom today,” I said randomly to Seth. “I
should have kept her home.”

“
She said she was feeling
okay. She wanted to go to school.”

“
I liked Kecia,” I rambled
aimlessly, hoping to understand why it was that Kecia had taken
Anna. “She was just about to graduate. She has a
daughter…”

“
If she hurts Anna…” Seth
began, but couldn’t finish.

“
She won’t. She wouldn’t.
She’s a mother, too. She’ll keep her safe. She’ll take care of
her,” I repeated this silently as I drove, wanting to believe it.
Needing to believe it.

When we pulled into the
police station parking lot, James Connery was there to greet
us.

“
What’s he doing here so
fast?” Seth muttered.

I realized, as Connery
came closer, his expression grim, I had a lot more explaining to do
to Seth. “I’ve been trying to help them find the leader of the
identity-theft ring.”

“
Molly.” He said only the
one word before James Connery was there beside us, but it held a
world of hurt.

I ignored the FBI spy who
had gotten me into this mess, as I tried to explain why I hadn’t
told my husband I’d gone undercover again. “I couldn’t tell you. It
would have compromised your standing with the dean if you had had
to lie to him. This way I’m the only liar in the
family.”

He said nothing. James
Connery stood there, his gaze going back and forth between us. He
looked uncharacteristically awkward, as if he wished he could back
away and give us our space, but duty prevented him from doing
so.

“
No one was ever supposed
to know. Once it was all done, then I would have told you, and it
wouldn’t have mattered, because the murderer would have…” I trailed
off. Murderer. I whimpered. Had Kecia murdered Robert Quartermaine?
Had Anna been kidnapped by a murderer?

I looked at James Connery.
“Did I just introduce my daughter to a murderer?”

He shook his head. “No.
Robert Quartermaine was not murdered by Kecia.”

“
How do you know?” Seth
asked him, his voice hard and disbelieving. “She kidnapped an
innocent eight-year old. She could just as easily have murdered
someone.”

“
Come inside, I’ll
explain.” James Connery said.

He looked at me, his
grimness softening a little, “I know it doesn’t help right now,
Molly, but the thumb drive you found yesterday, plus the
information that the Quartermaine family provided us, led us
directly to Robert Quartermaine’s murderer. She’s in custody, and
she has no ties to Kecia or to the identity-theft ring.”

“
She?”

He started to give the
official line that he couldn’t say more, but then he looked at me,
and then at Seth, and decided we needed to know for certain that
our daughter had not been kidnapped by a murderer, but only by a
criminal mastermind.

He lowered his voice. “She
was a temp bookkeeper in the Alumni office. Apparently, she gave
Quartermaine considerable information on the most generous of the
university donors.”

“
Why would she kill him
because of that?” I asked. “He probably used that information to
help recruit students.”

“
He did,” Connery nodded.
“But he also kept records of the information she gave him, and
meant to take it with him when he left to join his brothers at the
family brokerage firm.”

“
She would have lost her
job,” Seth said. “But only if anyone found out. I still don’t see
how that would be a reason for her to kill him.”