Shoot from the Lip (33 page)

But the only real proof was a photo of a girl who looked like Shannon. What if Loreen didn’t recognize Beth Foster as the pregnant woman she and Christine had cleaned for? What did I have then?
Jeff, come on. Call me back.

And then I remembered the notebook. Had White found it, or had Emma tossed it? I grabbed my purse and fumbled through all the useless things I insist on carrying around until I found Don White’s crumpled card, the one he’d given me the night Jerry Joe Billings had been murdered.

I called his cell, and he answered right away with a brusque, “White here.”

“It’s Abby,” I said. “Did Emma let you look in the storage unit for the notebook?”

“What’s going on, Abby? You sound in a panic.”

“I am. The notebook?”

“I’m looking at it, so you can cool your jets. Checking out all these names might take us—”

“There are names?”

“Oh, yeah. But like I said—”

“Can you look for one name in particular?”

“Sure. But what have you got?”

“I think a man named Harrison Foster might be who we’re looking for. Can you check and see if he or his wife, Beth Foster, was a client of Christine’s?”

“Sure, but how’d you find this out, Abby?” he asked.

I wanted to scream at him to shut up and just do what I asked, but I managed to say calmly, “Please, Don. Look for the name first. It’s important.”

What seemed a decade later he said, “It’s here. She cleaned for a Mr. and Mrs. Harrison Foster on Wednesdays.”

There it was. Proof. And I suddenly wanted to throw up.

“Tell me what’s going on, Abby.”

“This man almost killed my aunt this morning. He’s been dating my sister to get close to us. You need to find him. Now.” I gave White the addresses from the PI report, and he said he was on it.

I hung up and the other phone rang. The landline. The caller ID read HEWITT BANK AND TRUST, where we have our CompuCan accounts—the computer business that Daddy left us. What the hell did they want? I couldn’t deal with company business right now. But when the answering machine offered the caller a chance to leave a message, I heard a voice I recognized. “This is Jane Edgar from Hewitt Bank and Trust. It is urgent that I speak with Abigail Rose immediately concerning—”

I snatched up the phone, knowing that Jane Edgar wouldn’t use the word
urgent
if she didn’t mean it. “This is Abby. What is it, Jane?”

“This concerns a transfer of funds, Abby. Can you please verify your address?”

“Transfer of funds? Verify my address?” I said, confused.

“I must verify—”

“You
know
me. You know where I live. What’s this about?”

“I have to go through standard procedure on this, check your passwords, everything. You’ll understand soon enough. Please, let’s go through the steps so I can document that I followed bank protocol.”

I gave her what she wanted, even had to bring up my accounts online and look for a specific account number.

When I was finished with her “standard procedure,” Jane said, “We have a request to transfer five hundred thousand dollars from the joint account you share with your sister, Katherine Rose. It’s to go to a numbered account in the Cayman Islands. As per this account agreement, we must have your authorization to do this for any amount over ten thousand dollars.”

I couldn’t speak. I felt like I was listening to a radio not tuned in to any station, one just giving off static.

“Abby? Are you there?”

“Um ... can I check into this and get back to you? Meanwhile, don’t move any money, okay?”

“I think that’s wise,” she said solemnly. “Please ask for me when you call back.” She disconnected.

I slowly replaced the handset in its cradle. I felt like I was drowning, struggling in a current that threatened to suck me under. There was only one reason Kate would need that kind of money.

Foster. He had her.

And she’d done the one thing she could to send me a message. Rather than transfer money from any of her private accounts, she chose the business account, knowing the bank would call me.

Yes. He
had
her. But where? How could I find her? What would happen if I didn’t okay the money transfer? What would happen if I did?

A cold sweat dampened my forehead, and I tasted blood. I’d bitten my bottom lip without even feeling any pain.

My cell rang, and I started before I grabbed it up. Jeff.

Before he could say a word, I said, “He has her. Foster has Kate, and we have to find her before it’s too late. But I don’t know how to find her and—”

“Hold on, hon. Slow down and explain.”

I did, but the words came out as a halting, jumbled mess, and I thought I’d have to say everything all over again, but Jeff got it.

“Okay, I understand. We’re going to find Kate. Right now, you need to take a few deep breaths—get some oxygen to that very fine brain of yours so we can work on this together.”

I closed my eyes and inhaled, but when I exhaled, the release of air was shaky, and my jaw quivered. “What in hell do we do, Jeff?”

“I’m calling this in to SWAT as a possible hostage situation. The report you sent me has enough information about Foster to offer plenty of leads. Loreen recognized the woman in the picture as the pregnant client she and Christine cleaned for. Must be Foster’s wife. She’s probably in on this, knows the kid she’s been raising isn’t her biological child. We’ll have to get someone out to her house.”

“Could Kate be there?”

“It’s possible.”

“Can I go? I won’t get in the way. I just need—”

“What you need to do is sit tight. If Foster can’t get his money through Kate, if he figures out she’s alerted you, he may call you for ransom.”

“He’s trying to get away, isn’t he? And that means he wouldn’t need to ... to
harm
her. He could take the money and go away and Kate could come home. Can we make that happen, Jeff?”

“Abby, do
not
okay that transfer. For now, he may be unaware there’s a problem with the account, and we can catch him off guard.”

“Catch him off guard
where?
I mean, what if he’s not at his house? What if she was forced to get the money another way or he got angry with her and—”

“Please, hon. Don’t do this to yourself. We
will
find her. But I need to make a few calls to set things in motion. DeShay and White will probably come to your house, perhaps bring a SWAT commander.”

“I already talked to White and asked him to look for Foster. He found the notebook, and Foster’s name was there.”

“Good. Try to stay calm. I wish I could be there, too, but I can’t leave Doris. Bringing her along wouldn’t—”

I heard Loreen in the background say, “Go. Doris and I have girl things to do, and we don’t need you around watching us.”

A short silence followed, and then Jeff said, “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

I closed my eyes and felt tears coming. I managed to mumble, “Thank you,” before ending the call.

Webster’s head rested on my feet, and he looked up at me with questioning eyes. “She’s coming home, buddy. I promise you.”

And then I couldn’t hold back any longer. Good thing I was done with my cry by the time Don White and DeShay arrived. I sure didn’t want to come across as a basket case, too emotional to help find my sister.

We’d gone into the kitchen because I needed water, hoping to somehow swallow the lump in my throat. The three of us remained standing there to talk—standing because you didn’t sit around in easy chairs when someone you loved was in trouble.

I said, “If that bastard has broken even one of my sister’s fingernails he’s going to pay.”

“SWAT is on standby,” White said. “They can’t roll until we know where they need to go. An unmarked unit is checking out the Fosters’ house, and another squad is looking at Foster’s apartment.”

“Foster stole the PI report,” I said. “He’s probably figured out at least a few cops know where he lives. I doubt he’ll go to either place. But ... Oh, my God. Why didn’t I think of this sooner? Kate’s office. He could be—”

“We stopped at her building on the way here,” DeShay said. “The receptionist was busy canceling patients. Said Kate was a no-show after lunch.”

“And April never called me? What’s wrong with her?” I had to direct my anger somewhere, and Kate’s receptionist, whom I hardly knew, seemed as good a candidate as anyone.

White answered, “She says she’s new. Says she thought maybe Kate had an emergency. The young woman felt like the doc would want her to cancel the patients. That was her priority.”

“She was pretty upset when we showed up, Abby.” DeShay’s voice was calm.

But I was not calm. I was angry with myself for not even thinking about Kate’s office earlier. That was where Foster must have gone after he ran from Aunt Caroline’s. He’d certainly hung around there long enough to know Kate’s routine. I started pacing in front of the refrigerator. “I feel so helpless. Isn’t there something else we can do?”

“The bank’s cooperating, and we’ve tapped a line in case Kate calls in. We also have a tech investigator monitoring the computer there if she tries another online transaction.”

“She attempted the transfer online?” I said.

“Right,” DeShay said.

“Bank Web sites are very secure,” I said. “Your tech guy can get the e-mail address she used to access the account and—”

“He’s working on it, Abby. You need—”

Jeff came in the back door and interrupted the rest of what DeShay had to say—probably something on the order of,
Stay out of
this. But I wasn’t staying out of anything.

White and Jeff shook hands, and White said, “Good to see you back.”

Jeff and DeShay did this masculine half embrace, followed by what I assumed was their own special handshake, and DeShay said, “We need you on this one, man.”

Jeff was ready, too. He wore his holstered gun and had his walkie-talkie and badge on his belt. No words were necessary to convey what Jeff and I were both feeling. I saw a little fear in his eyes before he hugged me, but also the steely resolve I had come to know when it came to his work. He gripped my arms. “How you holding up?”

“Waiting around for something to happen is making me crazy. I feel like someone poured battery acid into my gut.” I gnawed on my thumbnail rather than cry again. No more tears. They wouldn’t get Kate back.

“Give me your cell phone,” Jeff said.

I pulled it from my jeans pocket. “Why?”

He held up what looked like a small battery. “I stopped at the bank, picked this up from our tech investigator. It will make it easier to triangulate any calls that come in, find the caller’s location quicker.” He attached the little button near the antenna.

“You think Foster will call?” I said.

“I’m counting on it. You all charged up?”

“Yes. But what if he doesn’t call? What if he gets impatient and—”

“This guy needs to get out of town in a bad way, Abby. He needs that money. When he calls, you know what to do. TV is right about a few things, and you should keep him on the line as long as possible.”

Just then DeShay’s cell rang and the noise made my heart skip. I must have jumped, because Jeff put an arm around me. “Hey, it’s okay. We’re on this.”

I watched DeShay’s face while he listened to the caller, hoping I’d see relief in his eyes, but he gave away nothing. When he finished the call, he said, “No luck with the wife. Her house was clear, and she said she hasn’t seen Foster since last Saturday. She was pretty freaked out, asking all kinds of questions. The officer told her Foster had missed paying a few speeding tickets, but he didn’t think she was buying it.”

“Where the hell do you take someone you’ve kidnapped?” I asked. I started pacing again, thinking out loud. “With cell phones, there’s no need for a landline, but if Kate accessed the Internet, there has to be Internet availability where she is. Foster would need a computer to make sure he got his money transferred to the right place.”

“Keep talking. This is good stuff,” Jeff said. “Would he need a phone line? Or what?”

“A laptop with integrated wireless would do the trick—and that means he’d have to be somewhere he could pick up a signal.” For the first time in an hour, I felt like I could string a few logical thoughts together.

“What? Like an Internet café or a Starbucks?” White asked. “Hard to work with a hostage to get your money in one of those places.”

“These days you can pick up a signal in plenty of locations,” I said, “and if Foster knows anything about computers he could—”

“He’s a software designer,” DeShay said.

“That’s right. Then he knows plenty,” I said. “He could steal the signal and log on. Best place to do that is in residential areas. Coffee shops and other businesses require a security key to tap into their wireless networks, and though you could hack through, that would take longer.”

“Okay, where do people have wireless networks like this?” White asked.

Jeff said, “Upper-middle-class and wealthy neighborhoods are more likely to be equipped with that kind of technology in their homes, right, Abby?”

“Yes,” I said. “When people set up wireless networks at home, they often aren’t adequately secured. A computer with wireless capability could pick up and use their signal.”

White nodded. “I get it. You’re saying people set up home networks themselves and don’t realize someone in the house a few doors down could steal their signal and surf the Net all day and night—and this turd would know that.”

“That’s right,” I said. “Can that information narrow down your—Wait a minute.” An image flashed through my mind—Kate, Emma, Foster and me, standing in Kate’s new house.

“What is it?” Jeff asked.

“Kate just bought a house not far from here. I’ll bet there are home networks up and down that street.” Being able to contribute to the search was helping to quell the fear that had threatened to shut me down. But I still felt like I had a dancing bobber in my stomach.