The Abduction by Mark Gimenez Read Free Book Online Page B

Gracie.
    Devereaux replaced the magazine and said, “Maybe this really is a ransom grab.”
    He hoped it was. A ransom grab was the only real chance the girl was still alive: you don’t ransom a dead girl.
    “The father,” Floyd said, “he’s a basket case. I don’t think he’s up to taking the call, if there is a call. We may need to go with the mother … defense lawyer, white-collar perps.”
    From down the hall, Devereaux heard a voice, female and firm: “Hilda, your only job is Sam.”
    The victim’s mother—forty, slim build, intense expression—appeared at the far end of the gallery, marching toward them with an entourage trying to keep pace: the family nanny, a young Hispanic female; an older white female of Eastern European descent in a maid’s uniform; and a local cop, young, flattop, muscular, wearing an expression that said he would rather be in a shootout with a Mexican drug cartel than taking orders from the mother. She was dressed for the office, looking impeccable in a tailored suit and heels. Her hair was done, and her makeup was in place. She was a woman you would notice on the street. Her finger was punching holes in the air.
    “Find him, feed him, follow him. Don’t let him out of this house or your sight. Comprende? ”
    “ Sí, señora .” The Hispanic woman exited the entourage.
    The mother, to the maid: “Sylvia, call the caterer. They can’t find my daughter on empty stomachs.”
    “Yes, ma’am.” She was off before the words had died.
    To the officer: “Get those people off my front lawn.”
    “I’ll try, Mrs. Brice, but—”
    “No buts. Do it. Shoot them if you have to.”
    “Uh, yes, ma’am.” The young officer was no match for the mother; he surrendered, shaking his head.
    As the mother came closer, Devereaux noticed her eyes, alert and focused, not the vacant, lost eyes he was accustomed to seeing on mothers of abducted children. Devereaux gave her a sincere nod—“ma’am”—as she passed him in the foyer. The morning after her daughter’s abduction and she was dressed for court and in control, barking out orders. Devereaux knew that this was her way of coping, acting as if she were still in control of her life. Of course, she wasn’t; her daughter’s life—and so her life—was now controlled by the abductor.
    “She’s one tough broad,” Floyd said.
    “She’ll need to be,” Devereaux said, “if the girl wasn’t taken for ransom.”

8:39 A.M.
    God, please let it be ransom.
    Alone for the moment, Elizabeth Brice paused, leaned her head against the gallery wall, and closed her eyes. Her adrenaline was pumping at a verdict’s-about-to-be-read velocity, but she had no place to go this day, no guilty defendant’s case to plead, no prosecution witness to brutally cross-examine, no closing argument about truth and justice to make to a jury of good and gullible citizens. Nothing to do but pace the house and hope and pray. That morning, in the shower, she had said her first prayer in thirtyyears.
    God, please let it be ransom.
    She inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. Her heart was beating like she had just put in an hour on the StairMaster. Her disciplined body had surrendered to fear, just as her equally disciplined mind had to anarchy, a mob of thoughts running wild through her head: Where was Grace? Was she dead? Was she alive? Who had her? What had he done to her? Did he want money? Why hadn’t a ransom call come yet? Did the FBI know what they were doing? Would she ever come home? Why me? Why my child? How could John have let someone take her? How?
    Damn him!
    She felt the rage rise within her, the rage that resided just below her surface, always ready to emerge and take control of any situation, the rage she fought to suppress every day of her life like a patient taking chemotherapy to force the cancer into remission. The battle was proving particularly difficult today because it was completely incomprehensible to Elizabeth Brice how her daughter