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  Hope, sweet and bright, lit her face. “Really?”

  He made himself smile. “Sullivans stick together, right?”

  She didn’t smile back, and her voice trembled. “Do I have to see her? Do I have to talk to her? Do I—”

  “No.” He prayed he could make that the truth.

  Her eyes, so blue, and now so robbed of innocence, looked into his. “She let them scare me, and hurt me. And I know what ‘lover’ means. She scared you, too, she hurt you, too. She doesn’t love us, and I don’t ever want to see her again. She’s not really my mother, because mothers don’t do that.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that.”

  “I don’t feel sad about it,” she claimed, even as tears started to roll. “I don’t care. I don’t love her either, so I don’t care.”

  He said nothing; he understood completely. He felt exactly the same. Torn to bits, desperate not to care. So he just gathered her close, let her cry it out, cry herself to sleep.

  And while she slept, he sat alone with her, watching the fire.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Deputy Michaela Wilson had pursued and accepted the job in Big Sur because she wanted a change, because she wanted community. And, though she wouldn’t admit it, because the man she’d lived with for two years, the man she thought she’d live with for the rest of her life, decided that being with a cop equaled too many complications.

  She, a woman who believed to the marrow in law, order, rules, procedure, in justice, could admit she’d put the job ahead of their relationship more than once.

  But to Michaela, that was the job.

  She’d been an urbanite all her life, so the change of locations, of culture, of pace equaled an enormous personal challenge.

  She’d wanted just that.

  She wouldn’t deny that her first few weeks had tested her. She wouldn’t deny she thought of Red Buckman as Sheriff Dude. The man had a bikini-clad (well-endowed) woman riding a wave tattooed on his biceps.

  He often wore an earring. Not to mention the hair.

  All that added into the too laid back, in her opinion, too unbuttoned, and—she’d thought—too damn slow.

  It wasn’t an easy matter for Michaela Lee Wilson to admit a mistake, especially one of judgment. But in the past eighteen hours or so, she’d had to admit this one.

  He might look like a middle-aged surfer, but he was all cop.

  She got another good dose of that cop when they sat in interview with Charlotte Dupont and her high-priced lawyer.

  She didn’t know much about Charles Anthony Scarpetti, but she knew he’d flown up from L.A. in his private jet, wearing his sharp suit and Gucci shoes. And she knew—because Red had warned her—Scarpetti was the type who’d play to the media and pop up on Larry King.

  Red sat placidly while Scarpetti pontificated in his slick lawyer way about motions for dismissal, about harassment, intimidation, filing for full custody of the minor child, spousal abuse.

  Apparently he had a lot of rabbits in his lawyer hat. Red just let them hop around awhile.

  Even twenty-four hours before, that placidity would have had Michaela metaphorically pulling her hair out. Now she saw it as carefully crafted strategy.

  “I’ve got to say, Mr. Scarpetti, that’s a lot, and some really fine, shiny words in there, too. If you’re finished for now, I’ll tell you why you and your client are going to be disappointed.”

  “Sheriff, I intend to have my client back in her home in Los Angeles, with her daughter, by this evening.”

  “I know it. I get that clear impression. It’s not going to happen, and that’s a disappointment for both of you.” He leaned forward, but in a friendly way. “I have a really strong suspicion your client hasn’t been honest and forthright with you, Mr. Scarpetti. I could be wrong—lawyers gotta do what they gotta—but having some little experience with your client’s ways and means, I have to figure she served you up a whole platter of bullshit.”

  “Charles!” Charlotte turned to him, managed to look beautifully indignant in her orange jumpsuit.

  He just patted her hand. “My client is distraught—”

  “Your client is an accessory to her own daughter’s kidnapping—by her own admission.”

  “She was distraught,” Scarpetti repeated. “Confused, groggy from the sleeping pill her husband forced on her. Her child, also distraught, told you what her father had coached her to say.”

  “Is that so?” Red shook his head as he studied Charlotte. “Man, you are some number. Deputy, why don’t you play back the recording on your phone, from when you took Ms. Dupont upstairs to dress.”

  Michaela set her phone on the table, cued it up.

  Charlotte’s voice, a little breathless, but very smooth, flowed out. “Police don’t make much, especially women police, I imagine.”

  In contrast, Michaela’s voice hit clipped and dispassionate. “You’re going to want shoes, ma’am.”

  “I’ve got money. I can make your life easier. All you have to do is let me go. Tell them I ran out, give me ten minutes’ head start. Ten thousand for a ten-minute head start.”

  “You’re offering to pay me ten thousand dollars to let you escape from custody? How are you going to get me the money?”

  “I’m good for it. You know who I am! Look, you can take this watch. It’s Bulgari, for Christ’s sake. It’s worth more than you pull in in ten years.”

  “You’re going to want to put on shoes, ma’am, or go out barefoot.”

  “Take the watch, you idiot! Ten minutes. I’ll get you cash, too. Take your hands off me! Don’t you dare put those things on me.”

  “You attempted to bribe a police officer, and have shown yourself to be a flight risk. Sit down. Since you’re now cuffed, I’ll get you some shoes.”

  Michaela cut off the recording during the stream of curses.

  “I bet she didn’t tell you about that one.” Red scratched the side of his neck. “Now, before you start saying that was just a desperate plea from a desperate woman, let me save you the breath. It’s bribing a police officer, period. I also have your client’s confession on tape—including the Miranda warning before she gave it. We have BOLOs out now for her two partners, and we will apprehend them.”

  “You said you already—”

  Red just smiled when the lawyer cut Charlotte off.

  “Had them?” Red finished. “You might’ve gotten that impression. We will have them. You know, they were both mostly careful about wiping things down, but it’s hard to get everything. Especially when you’re moving fast because, hey, the kid got loose, and the cops might be coming. We got prints.”

  “We’re not disputing the child was abducted,” Scarpetti replied. “Ms. Dupont had no part in this terrible crime.”

  “I guess she didn’t know where they took the kid, where they held her. She would never have been there.”

  “How could I know! I don’t even know what I said on that recording of yours. I was so loopy from the pills Aidan made me take. It’s not the first time he’s forced me to . . . do things.”

  She turned her head away an instant after she let a single tear slide down her cheek.

  “I guess you didn’t know the Wenfields. The people who own the cabin.”

  “I don’t know them. I don’t know where the damn cabin is. I only go to Big Sur when Aidan makes me. Charles!”

  “Charlotte, you need to be quiet. Let me handle this.”

  “Doesn’t know the Wenfields, has never been to the cabin. So saying that,” Red considered, “you wouldn’t have any idea they’d be out of town, that the house would be empty.”

  “Exactly! Oh, thank God.”

  “Now I’m confused. How about you, Mic? Are you confused?”

  She kept her stony face on, but smiled a little inside. “Not really.”

  “Just me then. I’m confused how it is, when you don’t know the Wenfields, don’t know where their cabin is, how your fingerprint—right index finger—ended up o
n the light switch of the downstairs powder room.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  “I guess you got a little careless. How I see it, you checked the place out with your partners, needed to use the facilities. And just didn’t think about tapping that switch.”

  “They planted it. Charles—”

  “Quiet now.”

  Michaela saw the change in his eyes. Whether or not he cared if his client was guilty or not, he cared when the evidence piled up.

  “Your story’s so full of lies and holes and shifts, it’s hard to keep up. But I’m damn good at riding the wave. The blackmail? It’s bullshit. Extortion’s one thing, and getting caught at it’s going to mean some time. But drugging and abducting a minor? Use of a deadly weapon? That’s a whole different level. A man’s after a pile of money. I don’t see him risking that different level by helping grab Caitlyn. That’s not his job, not his play.”

  “He had pictures!”

  “Charlotte, stop talking. Don’t say another word.”

  “She’s not loopy from a sleeping pill now, and she’s back to blackmail. Another shift back from her daughter being coached to accuse her. They stuck a needle in her.”

  Laid back vanished as Red slammed a fist on the table. “You picked the spot where they could grab her, and they stuck a needle in your ten-year-old daughter.”

  “For money,” Michaela added. “For more Bulgari watches.”

  “For love!”

  This time, Scarpetti reached over, gripped Charlotte’s arm. “Not another word. I need to consult with my client.”

  “Surprise, surprise.” Red got to his feet, stopped the recording. “He’s going to tell you the one who rolls first gets the best deal. He’s not wrong. You want a Coke, Mic? I could use a Coke.”

  When they walked out, he signaled another deputy to take the door, then gestured to Michaela to follow him through the interview area, the bullpen area, and into his office, where he kept a cooler stocked with Cokes.

  He got out two, passed her one before sitting down and putting his high-top Chucks on his desk.

  “Okay, so let’s tell the state’s attorney it’s about that time. Fancy lawyer’s going to look for a fancy deal.”

  “How much time is she going to get? Whatever it is, it’s not enough, but how much do you think?”

  “Well.” He scratched the side of his neck again. “You got kidnapping a minor, for ransom. You got the use of drugs on the kid, the gun. Thing is she can carry on about how she didn’t know about the gun, so we’ll let that slide. And her being a parent, she can use that. But the ransom, that’s going to sting even when she rolls.”

  “And she will. There’s no loyalty in her.”

  “Not a bit. Five to ten, I figure. Her lover and the other? Twenty to twenty-five, easy. Depending on how stupid they are, they could get a full life sentence. But I figure the three of them are going to throw enough shit at each other, plead it down, get the twenty to twenty-five. If we can prove who waved the gun around? That one’s twenty-five to life.”

  He took a long, long gulp of Coke. “But that’s the lawyers and court. Us? We gotta catch them. She’s going over, and if Sullivan has a brain—and I think he does—he’s already filing for full custody, for divorce, and getting himself a restraining order in the possible circumstances she makes bail.”

  He took another swing. “You did good, Mic.”

  “I didn’t do that much.”

  “You did the job, and you did it good. You go on, let the state’s attorney know we’re going to play Let’s Make a Deal.”

  Michaela nodded, turned toward the door. “That little girl? The media’s going to swarm like flies, Sheriff.”

  “Yeah, they are. Nothing we can do there but give a statement when it comes to that, then go into no-comment mode, and stay there. She doesn’t deserve what’s coming next.”

  No, Michaela thought as she went out. None of them did.

  Five minutes after Charlotte began to spin shaded truths, outright lies, and self-serving excuses, Scarpetti cut her off. He told her with stone-cold clarity he needed the truth, all of it, or he’d walk away.

  Because she believed him, Charlotte spilled her guts.

  While she spilled, Frank Denby lounged on the bed of his motel room just south of Santa Maria, watching porn while he iced down his black eye and swollen jaw.

  His ribs ached like a mother, so he’d driven as far as he could before calling it. Now after a pop of Percocet, some weed, some ice, he figured he’d head out again in a couple hours.

  Sparks had kicked the shit out of him when they’d discovered the brat had gotten out. Like it was his fault. Not that he hadn’t gotten a couple of shots in. Yeah, he’d landed a couple.

  But he understood Sparks might have killed him if Sparks hadn’t known he shared the blame.

  So the job had gone to shit—all that money blown—and now he, down to a few hundred cash, one stolen credit card he wasn’t ready to use, what remained of the nickel bag in his duffle, had to lie low.

  Not that the kid could ID him, but when a job went south, so did he. Mexico felt right. Cruise on down south of the border. A little grifting, a lot of beach time. Hit the tourist spots, make a few bills.

  Sparks might have a sweet gig going with his personal training game and banging a movie star mark, but for himself, Denby preferred short, simple cons.

  He crunched into a handful of barbecue chips, sulked a little because the guy on the crappy motel TV was getting a blow job and he wasn’t.

  He should never have let Sparks talk him into the game, but it had seemed so damn easy. And his share of the two million those rich assholes would pay?

  Jesus, he’d live like a king in Mexico with a million bucks. And all he’d had to do for it was help set up the cabin and watch the kid for a couple days.

  Who’d’ve figured the brat would climb out the damn window and go poof?

  But the brat hadn’t seen his face, or seen Sparks without a disguise, and the movie star couldn’t blab unless she wanted to trade in her Armani for prison blues.

  Besides, the bitch was hot for Sparks.

  Good old Sparks knew how to string the rich ones along.

  He took another toke on the joint, held that sweet, sweet smoke in his lungs, then expelled it, watched it drift away and take most of his worries with it.

  Sun, sand, and señoritas, he thought.

  Things could be worse.

  Then the cops broke down the door, and they were.

  Grant Sparks was neither as sanguine nor as stupid as his sometime partner. He’d worked on the blackmail/kidnapping game for nearly a year. Getting Denby on board had been as simple as dangling a million-dollar payoff. Denby thought small, was small, so he’d swallowed that they’d split two mil without a doubt or question.

  Which would’ve—damn well should have—left the brains of the game with nine million.

  Then he’d take his payoff, spend a couple of years in Mozambique—no extradition—living off the fat.

  He knew Charlotte wasn’t quite as stupid as Denby—and was a better liar. He knew how to read women, how to play them. He made his living at it.

  Obviously, and it pissed him off, he hadn’t read the damn kid. Maybe a part of him admired how she’d conned him—she had to have flushed the fucking milk. Damn smart kid. And that meant she’d been awake when he’d been in her room, when Charlotte had called.

  He’d gone over the conversation—his side of it—a dozen times while he packed up. Nothing there, nothing to lead back to him, or to Denby, or to Charlotte.

  Except . . . he’d asked about the nanny’s phone. If the kid remembered that, repeated that, it might be trouble. Still, for all he knew, the kid wandered around in the dark, fell off a damn cliff.

  Maybe he hadn’t intended to hurt her—more than necessary—but he wouldn’t be sorry if she’d ended up dead on the rocks.

  But dead or alive, he couldn’t take chances. Because women, those he
could read, and he knew Charlotte would screw this up. If anything went wrong, she’d flip to save her own ass.

  He’d have done the same.

  Better, he thought as he packed the TAG Heuer Charlotte had given him, to play it safe. Take a little trip, get out of L.A. before they found the kid—or the body—and she fumbled it all.

  He had money. The personal-trainer-to-the-stars gig paid well enough. And the tips paid even better.

  He had a Rolex as well as the TAG, Tiffany cuff links and more gifted to him over his eighteen months running this con. Charlotte had stood out, so he’d focused on her.

  She didn’t give a crap about the kid, so the kidnapping idea had blossomed. She despised the Sullivans, had a shitpile of envy going for their status—and their money.

  Soaking them for millions—she’d loved the idea. Thinking back, he probably hadn’t needed Denby and the blackmail scheme to get her on board.

  It should’ve worked.

  He packed up his laptop, tablet, prepaid phones, took a last look around the apartment he’d lived in for nearly three years. A long stretch for him, he thought, but the pickings had been good.

  Time to head out, head east, he decided, swing through the Mid-west. Had to be plenty of rich, bored housewives, sex-starved widows, divorcées to pluck from.

  He shouldered the strap of his computer case, rolled the first of his two suitcases to the door. He’d come back for the other.

  When he opened the door, he recognized cop in the eyes of the men, one of them with a fist raised to knock.

  And he thought: That fucking kid.

  Throughout the day, Red sent deputies out on calls, answered a couple himself. He tackled paperwork, had a burrito for lunch at his desk.

  Until the lawyers finished hammering out what they hammered, he didn’t want to stray far.

  He answered his phone, listened to a colleague with the state police. Nodding, he made notes. Then hung up and called Michaela into his office.

  “Staties just picked up Frank Denby at a motel outside Santa Maria. He was watching porn, getting high. Just another genius.”

  “Do we get him?”