Mariah Stewart - Cry Mercy

“Sure. You call the shots.”

She smiled in the darkness. Somewhere she'd read the line, “Promises made in haste are the first to be broken.” She didn't believe for a minute that Nick would keep his word.

“So when do we start? And where?” he asked.

“ We start with the email addresses and phone numbers I expect to get from Hayley tonight.” She checked her rearview mirror before taking the exit that would lead them from I-95 back to Conroy. “In the morning, I'll call the chief in Eastwind to see if we can get our hands on the surveillance tapes from the museum, see if we can get a picture of this guy who was stalking Belinda. It could mean something, or nothing.”

“Why don't you just call the museum and ask to see them?”

“That would constitute a huge security breach for them. The firm that handles the security isn't going to want anyone to know where their cameras are or what measures they take, and I certainly don't blame them. The only way we can hope to get a look is by subpoena, and the museum and the security company will probably want to fight that-again, not that I blame them. My guess is that the case will be solved before the legal issues are resolved, but since you never know for sure how things will play out, we'll get that ball rolling anyway.”

“All right. I can start calling some of these kids. Maybe I can arrange to meet with-”

Emme shot him a loaded glance, and he caught it.

“What?” he asked.

“Did we not just agree that I call the shots?”

“Well, yes, but…” He held up one hand in surrender. “Right. Sorry. When you've run your own business for as long as I have, you're used to being in charge. It can make you bossy and impatient at times.” Nick took a deep breath. “Just tell me what you want me to do.”

“I think I'm going to like this new Nick.”

“You like men who do whatever you tell them to do?” He frowned as if the idea was foreign to him.

“There are times when it works for me.”

“I'll keep that in mind.”

“I'm counting on it.”

He raised an eyebrow, but did not comment further.

“In the meantime, we need a game plan. There are too many questions, too few answers right now. For starters, I think we want to approach the kids who were at the art museum on January twenty-fourth. Maybe one of them will have a better description of the guy Hayley says was flirting with Belle.”

“Hayley said that after lunch, Belinda and one of the other girls went in one direction, the others went somewhere else,” Nick recalled. “Maybe she'll be able to tell us if the guy followed them, and if Belinda spoke with him.”

“That was Ali, I think. So we'll put her near the top of the list. And then Henry and Lori. Maybe Ali can shed some light on just how far your niece had gotten on her search for their donor, and where Belinda went after they left the group. After that, we go on to the others on the message board, see if anyone knows anything or has heard anything from our missing girl.”

Emme thought for a moment, then added, “And we need to find this kid, Aaron, to find out exactly what he told Belinda to do that would help her find her donor. I'm pretty sure I saw a reference to him when I was reading through some articles online. I think we need to know, step-by-step, what formula he followed to find his donor, and if he gave those same instructions to your niece.”

“The next obvious question being, if he did, did Belinda follow them?”

“And if she followed, where did they lead?”

It took a great deal of patience to sit through the dinner Trula had kept warm. As thoughtful and as much appreciated as that dinner was, and as congenial as the company may have been, Emme was eager to get back to the hotel, settle Chloe for bed, and get to work on her laptop.

Settling Chloe wasn't easy even after they'd returned to their room. She was wound up from her afternoon with Trula and overtired after having been out a little later than she should have been. It was almost nine before the bedtime storybook had been selected and the story read a sufficient number of times. Finally, Emme tucked Chloe in and turned off the light next to the bed. She retreated quietly to their tiny sitting room and set up her laptop on the desk. Moments later she was skimming her mail.

There, as promised, was the email from Hayley.

Emme opened it and quickly read its contents, pleased to see email addresses for all other eight members of the Donor 1735 message board. Several, however, had no phone listings. She dashed off a reply to Hayley, thanking her for the information and asking about the missing phone numbers. She busied herself on the website of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and awaited a reply. It was forthcoming in minutes.

Will and Wayne don't have cell phones, their mom doesn't like them. Go figure. I never had a number for Justin, just email, but I wouldn't have called him anyway. Jessie must have gotten a new phone when she moved to France ′cause the old number doesn't work anymore and no one has a new one for her. No one's heard from her since she moved.

Emme studied the list, then forwarded the email to her work computer so she could print it out in the morning before Nick showed up. She'd called the house and tried to gauge Robert's feelings on having Nick come to the house to work with her, but he seemed ambivalent. Finally he said, “Oh, for heaven's sake, this is not Fort Knox. If you need to work here, there's a conference room on the second floor. Someone should use it once in a while.”

Having that settled, Emme shot off an email to Nick, giving him directions to the Magellan estate. Five minutes later, the cell phone Mallory had given her on the first day began to ring.

“What time tomorrow?” Nick asked.

“I'm usually there by eight, but you don't have to be that early,” she whispered.

“I want to get an early start.” She noticed he'd lowered his voice.

“I don't know how early we want to start making phone calls.”

“If kids are still in school, they're probably up, right? Unless they had a late night of partying the night before. Is Thursday night a big party night?”

“I don't know. Listen-”

“Why are we whispering?”

“My daughter is sleeping about fifteen feet away and I don't want to wake her. She had a big day at preschool.”

“What do kids learn in preschool these days?”

“Letters. Numbers. Colors.” Emme thought back to her earlier conversation with Chloe. “And apparently foreign languages. Chloe hit me with a little Español this afternoon.”

“Good for her. It's a very useful language to know.”

“Agreed. Listen, while I'm thinking of it, what kind of car did Belinda drive? And where is it now?”

“She had a white BMW sedan, the smallest model. And as for its whereabouts, I have no idea what happened to it. All I know for certain is that the Philadelphia police did not have it in their impound lot, and it hadn't been towed from where she parked it.”

“Which means it was driven from where she'd parked it.”

“It was reported missing but it's never been recovered-as far as I know, anyway.”

“Not to cut you short, but-”

“But you're going to cut me short.”

“I don't want to wake Chloe.”

“And just when I was getting used to whispering. It makes for a kind of intimate conversation, don't you think? Anyone ever tell you that you have a very sexy voice?”

She laughed softly.

“I'll see you in the morning, Nick.”

She was still smiling when she slid her phone back into her bag, turned off the laptop and the light, and made her way into the bedroom for the night.