In Broad Daylight by Marie Ferrarella Read Free Book Online Page A

believe what he was saying. "So I got him first, is that it?" she demanded heatedly.

    There was an edge to his voice. Because the risk wasn't foolproof. But rules needed to be
    established. "He's right, he's got all the cards. But if he feels that way, we stand less of a chance of getting the girl back, even if we do hand over the money."

    "If?" she echoed. "We're not going to do what they say? This isn't a statistic, Detective, this is a little girl we're talking about. A living, breathing,please God,little girl. Wehaveto
    do what they say." Her eyes narrowed accusingly as she looked at him and then toward the
    telephone. "Provided, of course, that they call back."

    "They'll call back," he said with a conviction he didn't quite feel. The others said nothing to contradict him, but he knew that Nathan didn't approve of what he'd done.

    Dax sweated out the next minute and a half as they dragged themselves up, a microsecond
    at a time.

    The phone rang again.

    Though she'd been waiting for it, praying for it, the sound made her jump. Relief flooding
    through her, her knees feeling almost too weak to support her, Brenda jerked the receiver
    up and placed it to her ear.

    "Hello?"

    She was aware of Dax peeling the earpiece back from her ear so that he could hear.
    Brenda resisted the urge to hold it in place.

    "Don't you ever, ever do that to me again, bitch!" There was barely suppressed fury in the kidnapper's voice. "Or you get to hear the bullet go through her head. Understood?"

    She couldn't even swallow. There was no saliva left in her mouth. "Understood."

    Again there was a pause. She could feel the moments pulsating.

    "You'll have your picture," the clipped, metallic voice finally told her. "I'll call back tomorrow and tell you where you can find it."

    "Tomorrow?" Brenda thought of Annie having to endure the night as a prisoner
    somewhere. Annie, frightened, thinking no one would come for her. That nobody cared.
    "Why not today?"

    "Because I said so."

    The line went dead.

    "Hello? Hello?" Helpless, she looked up at Dax. "He hung up."

    Very gently, Dax took the receiver out of her hand and replaced it in its cradle. "You did
    great," he told her. The woman looked as if she was going to sag to the floor right in front of him. He put his arm around her shoulders, offering her support. She seemed to stiffen
    against him. "You want to sit down?"

    Brenda deliberately shrugged him off. "No. What I want is to find Annie."

    "Yeah, we all do." Battling to keep frustration at bay, he scrubbed his hand over his face, then looked at her. He'd heard everything she had, but she'd been a mi-croinch closer to
    the receiver. Maybe that was enough. "Did you hear anything in the background, anything
    at all?"

    She shook her head. "It was like talking to ET's evil twin. I couldn't even tell you if it was a man or woman. But 'he' kept switching his pronouns, interchanging 'I' and 'we' several
    times. That means there's at least two of them."

    He nodded. It just reinforced his suspicions that the bogus couple who'd asked for a tour
    of the school were the ones who had taken the little girl. It would have helped
    ifHarwoodAcademyhad surveillance cameras in place, but for a prestigious school, they
    were appallingly lax in electronic security. A condition he figured the headmaster was
    going to fix—if he was given a chance. He suspected the kidnapping was going to cost the
    man some withdrawals.

    He looked at Brenda. Unlike the housekeeper, she'd kept her cool throughout the ordeal.
    He knew it couldn't have been easy on her. "Quick thinking on your part, using that
    accent."

    "I thought they might know theTylershad an English housekeeper." She realized the
    admission underscored the fact that she subconsciously agreed with the detective.
    Someone had gone through a great deal of trouble to plot this all out. Her eyes lit as
    information worked its way forward through her brain. The kidnapper hadn't demanded to
    speak to