Lisa Gardner - Touch & Go

And in that moment, I understood.

The men were scurrying around. Radar pushing back his stool, Z announcing in an authoritative voice for Justin to come with him, for Radar to tend to us.

I ignored them all. I focused on my daughter, who’d tried to warn me yesterday that we didn’t talk to her anymore. Not just moments in a marriage, I realized now, but moments in an entire family, when you stopped seeing one another. When you shared space, but no longer yourselves with one another.

I did my best to see her now. To gaze into her eyes. To comfort her with my own presence. As I knelt on the floor and held my daughter’s hand while she miscarried.

Chapter 27

WYATT GOT THE CALL just as he and Tessa were leaving Chris Lopez’s neighborhood. Nicole, or should he say, Special Agent Adams, sounding crisp and cool as always, reporting that contact had been made. Justin Denbe himself, shortly after ten this morning, had appeared in a video presenting the ransom demands.

Tessa knew how to drive. Her years as a state trooper? Or just a lifetime living in Boston? Wyatt couldn’t begin to hazard which, but half a dozen white-knuckle moments later, they were careening down the alley that ran behind the Denbes’ town house, where sure enough, the FBI’s huge mobile command center squatted like a fat linebacker in the middle of an old lady’s tea parlor.

Inside, they found Nicole’s partner, Special Agent Hawkes, manning a laptop at a small table, flat-screen monitor mounted above. Nicole paced in the limited space behind him, obviously agitated. As Tessa and Wyatt walked in, she gestured to the oversize monitor with a jerk of her chin. Nicole had her arms crossed over her chest, one finger tapping her elbow restlessly.

She wasn’t just agitated, Wyatt realized. The FBI agent was upset.

He and Tessa exchanged a glance. He gestured for her to take the remaining seat across from Hawkes, while he stood next to Nicole. With all of them in viewing position, Hawkes hit the play button on his keyboard, and the rest of the story emerged.

The ransom demand had been delivered via a video message. It featured a single close-up shot of Justin Denbe, his face a black-and-blue battered mess, staring into the video camera with one good eye as he slowly listed the kidnappers’ demands. Nine million dollars, to be wired directly into a single account by 3:00 P.M. EST on Monday, at which time the entire Denbe family would be safely released. Failure to meet the demands would result in further harm to the Denbe family. More details to follow.

At the end of the twenty-second clip, Justin held up the front page of the morning paper. A brief close-up of the Sunday edition’s date, then the screen went blank.

“ Union Leader. ” Wyatt identified the Manchester-based newspaper. “Means they’re still in New Hampshire.”

“But no word on the rest of the family?” Tessa asked. She was leaning toward the computer screen, as if that might help.

“Justin Denbe contacted his insurance company via telephone at ten twenty-three this morning,” Nicole provided, fingers still tapping. “He demanded to speak to a manager, saying that he and his family had been abducted. He was afraid for his life and evoking the special circumstances clause in the kidnapping policy: Essentially, in the event that the policyholder faces credible risk of imminent death, the company will pay out half of the value of the life insurance policy as additional ransom. Given that a dead Justin Denbe would cost the company ten million in life insurance, it’s in the company’s own best interest to pay up more now, in order to save later.”

Wyatt turned that around in his head: “So, instead of paying out just the four million in ransom insurance, the company will pay that, plus an extra five from the life insurance policy?”

“Precisely.”

“Nine million in ransom versus ten million in death benefits,” Tessa murmured. “Once again, the captors seem to know a great deal about the Denbes’ personal affairs, including just how high they can go with their ransom demand before capping out.”

“Our theory has always been that the kidnappers are professionals.” Hawkes spoke up, recuing the video. “Given that, it makes sense they’d do their homework before embarking on this enterprise.”

Enterprise. It sounded so clinical, even businesslike, Wyatt thought. Until you looked at Justin’s battered face. The man had been worked over good. A ring of crusty blood still plastered to the hairline at his left temple. His lower lip cut and puffy, his right eye entirely swollen shut. Not to mention a massive bruise on his other cheek, plus half a dozen larger and smaller lacerations combining to form one grotesquely misshapen mess.

Yet, the man had stared into the camera directly and spoken in a firm voice. Still holding up, then. Maybe because the kidnappers were picking on him, and not his wife and daughter? Meaning Justin’s own demeanor was a sort of proof of life for the rest of his family?

“We think she’s pregnant.” He hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that, but it happened. Staring at Justin’s battered face, wondering if the guy even knew what all was going on within his own family.

“What?” Nicole, clearly surprised.

“The evidence log. Last page, contents from the garbage in the garage trash bin—”

“When did you get a copy of the evidence log?”

Wyatt shrugged, looked her in the eye. “When didn’t you read it?”

Nicole scowled, clearly taking his point. In her defense, it was a thirty-page document, and given everything she had to review as the lead agent. But still…

“One of those stick things from a home pregnancy test,” he continued now, aware of Tessa and Special Agent Hawkes watching him. “Marked positive.”

“You think Libby’s pregnant? But if it came from the trash, it could have been anyone’s.”

Wyatt arched a brow. “You mean like the sixty-year-old housekeeper’s?”

The FBI agent kept her chin up. “Or the daughter’s. She’s fifteen. That’s old enough.”

“True. Any talk of a boyfriend, or sleeping around?”

“Not yet, but that’s not going to be the first piece of knowledge shared by her closest friends. Frankly, interviewing teenage girls is tougher than approaching Mafia henchmen. They’ll either close ranks, or feed you so much gossip you don’t know what to believe. It’s going to take us at least a couple more agents, not to mention several more days to sort all those stories out.”

“In the meantime,” Wyatt stated evenly, “what was good for the gander may have proved good for the goose. Justin cheated on his wife. She cheated back.”

“Ending up pregnant?” She still sounded dubious.

“As well as addicted to Vicodin. Don’t pity those kidnappers.”

Nicole sighed, abruptly rubbed her forehead. “Meaning we possibly have four hostages. God, what a mess. Well then, all the more reason to make this ransom exchange happen. Shall we?” And she gestured once more to the monitor.

“JUSTIN’S INITIAL PHONE CALL WAS SHORT,” Nicole explained now. “Unfortunately, as we hadn’t anticipated a call directly to the insurance company, we didn’t have a phone tap in place. As a matter of protocol, however, the call was recorded. Our audio experts are working on it now, hoping to enhance the background noises in order to assist our efforts. Moving forward, of course, we’ll establish a designated line at the insurance company, as well as get one of our agents in place. Next time around, a professional negotiator should be able to drag out the conversation, allowing us the opportunity to trace it.”

“Why did he call first?” Tessa asked. “Why call, then send a video?”