The balcony was narrow, barely wide enough for furniture, but it wrapped around the entire apartment. She leaned against the balustrade, taking in the impressive view.
To the north were buildings that had once been the skyscrapers of Miami but now looked like mere toys relative to the new construction. To the south, the bay stretched off into darkness until it reached the bridge from the mainland to Key Biscayne. She could see the lights of the cars crossing, like two rows of tiny diamonds.
She looked down at the engagement ring Jonathan had given her, with its halo of diamonds.
Did someone really believe she would kill Jonathan in exchange for Ethan’s life?
She held on to the railing. Directly below was a square of green, where she and Jonathan sometimes sat. She was overcome by a powerful wave of dizziness. She pulled herself back. The wind whipped her hair around. Forty-two stories up.
No one would survive a fall from this height.
Could she do it to save Ethan’s life?
She looked out toward the black bay, at the tiny lights on the bridge. They began to blur.
Was saving her grandson worth the price of Jonathan’s life?
A rolling noise behind her startled her.
“Here you are, darling.” Jonathan was beside her in one stride. He hugged her against him. “I’m so, so sorry.”
She buried her head against his neck and felt the light scratch of his evening whiskers, smelled the Eau Sauvage and his own scent that she had come to love. He was wearing an overcoat. He had come from Washington to be with her. Because he loved her.
She cupped his gentle face with her trembling hands and looked at him. A few wrinkles on his freckled skin, mostly laugh lines behind the horn-rimmed glasses, around his hazel eyes. The wind blew a few reddish-gray hairs across his bald spot.
“I’m here now, darling,” he said. “I’ve come to take care of you.”
The pressure and pain that had been building since Ethan disappeared rose to the surface, and the terror she had held back broke loose.
She clung to the man she loved and whom she had, for one brief instant, considered killing.
And for the first time since her grandson had gone missing, she began to cry.
CHAPTER 14
The shower hadn’t cleared her head. Aubrey was annoyed that she had opened herself up to Smolleck’s scrutiny, but at least she had taken a couple of things away from her talk with him. For some reason, the FBI continued to be interested in her parents’ past. Smolleck had also brought up something disturbing about her father—his unwillingness to take a lie detector test.
She thought about her mother’s odd behavior at the park when Aubrey had suggested Dad may have left the note. Mama’s language was too emphatic, too defensive.
Don’t be ridiculous. Why would I protect him?
It had reminded Aubrey of the stonewalling she’d gotten as a child when she’d asked her parents whether anything was wrong. She’d always retreated, afraid to upset them further.
But she was no longer a child.
Although she was satisfied her father hadn’t been directly involved in Ethan’s kidnapping, she sensed he knew something. Something that might help them get Ethan back.
She dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved jersey, then went into her mother’s bedroom. She grabbed the extra set of car keys Mama always left for her in the top drawer of her dresser, then hurried down the stairs, hoping not to attract the attention of the FBI team.
Smolleck would expect some explanation of where she was going and why, and a visit to her father might arouse his suspicions further.
She left the house and walked around to the driveway where her mother’s old red BMW 325i convertible was parked. She backed out of the driveway, maneuvered her way through the narrow streets to US 1, then headed toward South Beach.
When she’d called her father earlier, he had told her that he and Star were staying at a time-share, and invited Aubrey to come up for a drink. She wasn’t happy about seeing Star again but didn’t want to suggest someplace else and risk having her father change his mind. She had to confront him and try to unravel this mess before someone got seriously hurt.
The traffic was light, and she drove the old car just over the speed limit. She remembered when her mother had gotten it, shortly before Aubrey’s eighth birthday. Mama had put the top down and taken Aubrey and Kevin for a ride across the bridge to Key Biscayne, singing along to an oldies station, then stopping at the marina for conch fritters and Cokes.
It had been a great day.
It was also the only time Aubrey could remember her mother taking the top down.
A short time after Mama had gotten the car, everything changed in the Lynd household. Her parents began fighting, then Mama had gotten sick and stayed in bed for what seemed like weeks or months to Aubrey, though it had probably only been a few days. Years later, she realized Mama had been suffering from a vertigo attack, and she’d wondered whether Jimmy Ryce’s kidnapping and murder had changed Mama, too.
It took Aubrey twenty minutes to get to Meridian Avenue in Miami Beach: a pretty, tree-lined street of old pastel-colored apartment buildings and narrow houses. The address her father had given her was of a three-story, mustard-colored art-deco building that looked more like someone’s residence than the luxury time-share she’d been expecting. It was across from a neighborhood park, which was enclosed by a chain-link fence.