Lisa Gardner - Touch & Go

“Beautiful girl,” he provided immediately. “Definitely her mother’s daughter.”

“Did you do her hair?”

“Absolutely. Very fine, very silky. Yours is coarse. It doesn’t sound appealing, but trust me, coarse hair is easier to work with. Your hair, I can fix.” He gazed at her pointedly. “Ashlyn’s hair we worked to keep as smooth and well-maintained as possible.”

“What’s she like? Quiet, outgoing, athletic, artistic, what?”

“Quiet. Artistic. Gorgeous smile. Like Mona Lisa. You had to work to get it, and even then, the expression was so fleeting you wondered if you didn’t just imagine it. Sweet child. She’d done some school plays, had an interest in her mother’s jewelry, that kind of thing. She liked to ask me questions about cutting hair, running a salon. Always polite, but curious. I think hair and fashion interested her, but her own style was more…eclectic. Not an in-your-face rebellious child, or a spoiled girl, but then, she was only fifteen. Give her time.”

“Did she know there was trouble in paradise?”

James paused, seemed to consider the issue. “How much they told her, I don’t know. But Ashlyn’s sensitive. There was no way she could be living in that household with her mother looking the way Libby looked and still believe her parents were doing fine.”

“Was Libby protective of her?”

“Ab-so-lute-ly! Libby grew up without a father. Yet another reason to keep her fickle, rutting husband around. Heaven forbid her own child should suffer the same.”

“Heard Justin was grooming Ashlyn for the family business.”

“Oh yes. Gave the girl pink power tools for her fifteenth birthday. What teenager wouldn’t be impressed?”

Tessa contemplated James’s tight-lipped expression. The man’s words had radiated sarcasm, his face clear disapproval. “Ashlyn didn’t like the tools? Or Libby didn’t approve?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Probably neither one. Just sounded silly to me. I mean, couldn’t the man be a little more subtle? Just because he doesn’t have a son is no reason to stick a penis on his daughter.”

It occurred to Tessa that her witness might have his own daddy issues. For example, a father who’d wanted other things for his son’s life than hair care brilliance.

“Did you cut Justin’s hair?”

“No. Barber shop. Definitely. Or maybe, he and his crew sit around and buzz each other with clippers, right after picking each other over for nits. That’s possible as well.”

“When was the last time you saw Libby or Ashlyn?”

“Three weeks ago. They came in together. Ladies day.”

“How’d they seem?”

“Usual. Libby was pale, still looked to me like she wasn’t sleeping well at night. I advised more fish oil in her diet; her hair seemed very brittle. But she kept a brave face on, shared some laughs with her daughter. To most people, I’m sure they looked like they were having a very nice time. You had to know them better to read the signs.”

“Such as?”

“The circles under Libby’s eyes. And Ashlyn was glued to her iPod. She kept putting in her earbuds, Libby kept pulling them back out. Talk, she would say. Share. That’s what this day is supposed to be about. I’d never seen Ashlyn quite like that, so…purposefully withdrawn from a situation.”

“Libby disclose anything more about her marriage?”

“No, but of course, she had her daughter sitting right there. They had some shopping bags, though, including Victoria’s Secret. Nothing says wife of a cheating husband quite like new lingerie.” Abruptly, Farias reached across the table, fingering her hair where it was gathered at the nape of her neck. “You know, I could at least tend to the ends.”

“Sorry.” She set down her mug. “Calendar’s a little full today, finding a missing family and all. But I’ll come back.” She made a move to stand.

Farias regarded her steadily. “No, you won’t.”

“Yes, I will. May twentieth, two thirty. I have the little reminder card and everything.”

“No, you won’t. You’ll work too hard, micromanage your child, obsess over your career. Then one day, you’ll wonder why you are not the beautiful, proud woman you remembered yourself to be.” His voice softened. “A good haircut is not about the hair, darling. It’s about the woman beneath. Shortchange her now, and you can’t really blame others for doing so later.”

Tessa had to smile. Because she would’ve thrown away the reminder card and blown off the appointment. Not immediately, but within a week or two or three, when, yes, Sophie needed her for something, or a new assignment was heating up…

She started to understand why Libby came here, and brought her own daughter. In his own way, James Farias ran a side business in nurturing lost souls.

“I’ll return,” she promised.

Farias merely hmmph ed.

“Find my Libby,” he said abruptly. “Whatever happened, wherever they’ve gone… She’s a good person. And there aren’t nearly enough of them left these days.”

“The dinner parties,” Tessa asked. “Who else were among the attendants?”

James sighed, then wrote up a list.

Tessa took it with her. Four P.M. Nearly sundown this late in November. Temperature definitely dropping. As she walked down the street toward her car, she hunched her shoulders reflexively against the chill.

She thought about the Denbes. Couldn’t help but wonder where they were, how they were faring, as day transitioned to another bitterly cold night. Did they have food, shelter, adequate clothes and blankets for warmth? She supposed it depended on how much incentive their captors had to keep them safe and sound.

Personal or professional, that’s what this case would boil down to in the end.

Had the Denbes’ abduction been motivated by vengeance? Maybe a business rival who’d felt personally slighted when Denbe Construction had been awarded a significant building contract? Or perhaps related to Justin’s affair. The jilted ex-lover, having lost her man to his family, striking back? Or, the most sinister and interesting theory, that Justin had staged the abduction of his whole family as an elaborate ruse to disguise the murder of his estranged wife. Because given the threat divorce would pose to his personal wealth, not to mention the family business, Justin would clearly be the prime suspect if anything happened to Libby. Unless, of course, the whole family was attacked, and he and his daughter miraculously happened to be the sole survivors…

Except, why now? Six months later, when the Denbes seemed to have survived the immediate aftermath of Justin’s betrayal? Libby was definitely trying to save her marriage, according to her hair stylist. Maybe not succeeding yet, given her fragile emotional state, but still trying.

Tessa shook her head. For the Denbes’ sake, she hoped this was a professionally motivated crime. Because a team of kidnappers looking for a ransom payout had incentive to keep the Denbes as comfortable as possible. Whereas the people the Denbes thought they knew and held most dear…

Tessa couldn’t help herself: She flashed back two years ago, to her kitchen, the look on her husband’s face. The shock of the exploding Sig Sauer. The feel of the white, white snow against her frozen fingertips. Her daughter’s empty bedroom.

It wasn’t that strangers couldn’t hurt you. It was simply that the people you loved could do it so much better.

Just ask Libby Denbe.

Chapter 16

THE CRAZY BLUE-EYED COMMANDO wanted Ashlyn to step out of the cell first.

“No,” Justin said.

Ashlyn was awake, sitting up on the lower bunk. Her bleary gaze shot from her father to the steel door to her father again. I had my body positioned in front of her, as if by blocking her from view, I could keep the man from remembering she was there.