He didn’t tell Audra about the hours spent with Lloyd, showing the cop pieces of himself before tossing them on the fire. But he told her about Granger. By that time she had grown calm, the food gone. She remained on the bed while he sat on the thinly upholstered chair.
‘There’s a group of men,’ Danny said, ‘very wealthy men. They’ll pay a large sum of money for the right child. Seven figures, I heard. There’s a ringleader. He holds parties at a mansion somewhere out west. Him and his friends, they have these children procured and …’
Audra looked away. Danny cleared his throat.
‘Well, I guess you know,’ he continued. ‘They could get trafficked children easy, refugees, whatever, but they want American kids. White, if they can get them. There’s a specific method, a way of working. They use the Dark Web, it’s like the underside of the Internet, where criminals and perverts hang out. There’s a close circle of dirty cops from around the country who talk to each other there. I’ve tried to find a way in for years now, but I can’t. I was told they discuss ways of making money. Odd jobs for the Mob, evidence tampering, sometimes even contract killings. And these wealthy men have a request out for kids. If one of these cops comes across a vulnerable parent traveling with children, preferably alone, they find an excuse to arrest them, separate them from the kids, then say the kids were never in the car. If they do it right, if they find the right target, suspicion falls on the parent. They can pull it off maybe once a year, twice at most.’
‘Why don’t they kill the parent?’ Audra asked. ‘Why didn’t Whiteside just kill me? That’d be simpler, wouldn’t it?’
Danny shook his head. ‘Simpler for the cops, maybe, but not for the men paying the money. See, my theory is if they just snatch the kids and kill the parent, then the authorities know there’s a murderer out there and they go looking. If the parent’s alive, and the suspicion’s on them, then the authorities waste days and weeks chasing their tails. You look at all those cases where a kid goes missing, there’s a big search, and they find a body. How many times does it turn out it was the father, the stepfather, the uncle, the cousin? Naturally the authorities look to the last family member to have seen the child. And if it’s a parent who does what my wife did …’
Audra finished the thought. ‘Then the case dies with them.’
‘Exactly.’
She sat still and quiet, her gaze on the floor.
‘Do you think I’m crazy?’ Danny asked. ‘Some nut job who just showed up here to mess with you?’
She did not look up. ‘I don’t know what you are. My right mind says to kick you out of here, but …’
‘But what?’
‘But at this moment I don’t have anyone else on my side.’
Danny leaned forward in the chair. ‘Let’s get one thing straight. I’m on my side. Not yours. If I help you, it’s because it helps me get to the men who took my daughter. And, if she’s alive somewhere, maybe even find her. I’m not your Good Samaritan.’
‘Then let me get another thing straight,’ Audra said. ‘I’m only hearing you out because I’ve got no other choice.’
‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘But here’s one more question: Why should I trust you? What if they’re right about you?’
‘You wouldn’t be here if you thought that.’
‘So neither one of us has reason to trust the other. But here we are.’
Audra exhaled and said, ‘Here we are. If you’re right, do you think they’ll have handed Sean and Louise over yet? Or are they still holding them somewhere?’
‘Hard to know,’ Danny said. ‘My guess is they’ll want to move them soon, if they haven’t done it yet. Either way, there isn’t much time.’
Now she looked at him, hard. ‘How do I get them back?’
Danny realized then that this woman was not like Mya. She possessed a strength that Mya had not. Whatever she had survived in her past had put steel in her.
‘There’s only one way,’ he said. ‘We use the cops. You said it was the sheriff who arrested you, and the deputy took your children.’
‘That’s right,’ Audra said. ‘Her name’s Collins.’
‘All right, we go through her. We take her, put a gun to her head, and give her a simple choice: she tells us where the kids are or she dies.’
Audra got to her feet, started to pace the room, shaking her head. ‘No. No, I can’t do that. I’m not that kind of person.’
‘Maybe not,’ Danny said. ‘But I am.’
She stopped mid-stride, looked down at him. ‘Have you killed someone before?’
He didn’t answer the question. ‘We need to take the deputy soon. Tonight, if we can.’
‘No,’ Audra said. ‘We can’t. If it goes wrong, if she gets hurt, then they’ll crucify me. The press haven’t said anything about Whiteside and Collins, I guess because they haven’t been told what I said. As far as the public’s concerned, Collins is just a sheriff’s deputy doing her job. We hurt her, it’ll only make things worse. There has to be another way.’
‘If you’ve got a better plan,’ Danny said, ‘I’m listening.’
‘The FBI agent. Mitchell. We go to her. You tell her everything you told me. She’ll question Whiteside and Collins.’
‘You told her about them already,’ Danny said. ‘Has she questioned them so far?’
Audra looked away. ‘No, not yet. But she hasn’t heard your story.’
‘There was an FBI agent attached to Sara’s case too. Child Abduction Response Deployment, right?’
Audra nodded.
‘My agent’s name was Reilly. I told him all this right before I … Well, I don’t know if he didn’t believe me or just didn’t want to deal with the fallout. Either way, he didn’t do anything.’
‘But Mitchell will,’ Audra said. ‘I know it. She’s a good person.’
‘Good people can make mistakes. They do it all the time.’
‘Let me try.’ She hunkered down in front of him, her hands clasped together, a gesture of pleading. ‘If I can get her to listen, will you talk to her?’
‘That means putting myself at risk,’ Danny said.
‘Of what?’
‘Maybe I don’t want the FBI or the cops looking too close at my case.’
‘Why? What did you do?’
He couldn’t hold her gaze. ‘I won’t talk to the cops or the feds. They won’t help. Not without leverage.’
‘Leverage?’
‘Outside pressure,’ Danny said. ‘If Mitchell hasn’t acted on her own, then maybe a push from elsewhere will force her hand.’
Audra stood and walked from one side of the room to the other, chewing a nail that looked like it hadn’t much left to give.
‘The press,’ she said. ‘I talk to the press. If Mitchell won’t tell them what I said, then I will. Let the public know. Then she’ll have to question them.’
‘It’s risky,’ Danny said. ‘You hit out at the sheriff that way, then he’ll hit back.’
Audra stopped pacing. ‘I’ll take that chance. They want a story? I’ll give them a story.’
31
AUDRA SHOUTED, ‘HEY!’
Some of the reporters turned her way, most didn’t.
‘Hey! Over here!’
More saw her now, and they scrambled. Microphones, cameras, cell phones, anything that could take a picture or record a sound.
Audra stood on the top step outside the guesthouse door. She’d tried to tidy herself up, but she still looked a mess. So long as I don’t look crazy, she’d thought as she checked a mirror in the hall. Mrs Gerber had called to her as she walked to the door, said don’t go out there, but Audra had ignored her. Now she stood waiting, watching the press people scurry toward her like pigs to a trough.
The first of them reached her, microphones outstretched, right under her nose. They shouted questions, but she didn’t hear. She held her silence until all of them had gathered round, jostling with each other for the best angle. Still the shouting, one voice buried by the next.
‘Quiet,’ Audra said.
They only grew louder.
‘Shut up!’ Loud enough to hurt her throat. ‘I have something to say.’
Now they hushed, and the noise of the street seemed to swell around them. Across the road, Audra saw Sheriff Whiteside staring at her from his place on a bench outside the diner. Death in his eyes. The idea of turning around and going back inside fluttered through her mind, but she chased it away. Say it, she thought. Say it for Sean and Louise.