Or maybe it was lack of sleep.
She caught her reflection in the mottled mirror over the foyer table. Her long, dark hair and stick-straight bangs looked the same as always, but her eyes were wrong—too large and shadowed, like a terrified character in a silent film.
Aubrey turned to the detective. “I have to let my mother know I’m here.”
“You can’t interrupt right now, but she should be finished soon.”
“What about my brother? Is Kevin here?”
“He and his wife left a little while ago with Kimberly’s parents.”
“Left? For where?”
“They’re all staying at the Coconut Grove Ritz.”
So she wasn’t going to see Kevin just yet. She felt a mix of disappointment and something resembling jealousy. Her brother was in the grip of the Simmers, not his own family.
“The Simmers have also arranged for several meeting rooms at the Ritz,” Gonzalez said. “They’re bringing in their own private investigators.”
Aubrey was confused. “And the police and FBI—you’re okay with that?”
“As long as their investigators don’t interfere with our investigation,” Gonzalez replied. “The FBI will continue to use your mother’s home as its command post. I’ll be back and forth between here, my office, and the Simmers’ hotel. Someone will be with Kevin, Kimberly, and her parents in case whoever took Ethan tries to make contact with one of them. If this is a ransom situation, we still don’t know who they’re targeting.”
“Well, the Simmers, of course,” Aubrey said. The detective had to know that Prudence Simmer was a Baer heiress.
The detective frowned. “Do you know Ernest or Prudence Simmer well?”
“No. Not well.” Aubrey had only seen them a few times, but she doubted anyone knew the Simmers well. They wore their money and power like gold-plated armor, keeping at a distance all but those in their inner circle. And even though Kevin had married into the family and worked at Baer Business Machines, Aubrey sensed they would never treat him as one of their own.
“Here you are, Detective,” said a brusque voice behind Gonzalez.
A tall, stiff man stood in the archway of the foyer. He had a buzz cut and wore a white shirt, tie, and dark tailored suit. Something about the way he held his shoulders back and kept one hand in his pants pocket made him seem as if he thought he were better than everyone else. Aubrey wondered if he was one of the private investigators the Simmers had hired. His light-gray eyes roamed over Aubrey, then returned to the detective. “Do you have a minute?”
“Of course,” Gonzalez said.
“What is it?” Aubrey asked, feeling the prickle of panic at the man’s cold efficiency. “Have you found Ethan?”
The man stared at her, lips flattened, as though surprised by her question. “And you are?”
His tone irked her. “Aubrey Lynd. Ethan’s aunt. And who are you?”
“Special Agent Smolleck. I’m heading up the FBI CARD team. And no, we haven’t found your nephew.” He hesitated, then added, “Yet.”
Aubrey watched the two strangers walk across the dark wood floor of her childhood home and listened to the cacophony coming from the other end of the house.
Twenty-four hours ago, she had been sealed in her own private bubble, concerned about things that no longer mattered.
Twenty-four hours ago, Ethan had been laughing at a carnival in his grandmother’s arms.
And just like that, everything changed.
CHAPTER 4
A stale smell hit Aubrey when she pushed open the door to her upstairs bedroom. She hadn’t been home since Thanksgiving a couple of months before, but at least her room was as she had left it. The delft-blue wallpaper was still peeling away at the seams, still covered by the dozen or so oil paintings of fruit, vases, and favorite objects she had made when she was a teenager. She threw her coat on the white quilted bedspread and set her suitcase on the old footstool, then went to open one of the windows. Her room faced the front of the house, and as soon as she got the window open, reporters shouted up at her.
“Has Ethan been found? Is there a ransom demand?”
She slammed the window shut, then paced on the faded, blue-and-beige Oriental rug, reminding herself it wasn’t the reporters’ fault Ethan was missing.
Her breathing slowed as her eyes settled on familiar, much-loved mementos—her snow globes on the shelf above her desk, and the photo on the wicker nightstand she hadn’t been able to part with, even after Mama had put away all the other photos of Aubrey’s dad.
It was what Aubrey classified in her memory as a “before” photo of the four of them. Before Mama had begun working late most nights and Dad started traveling all the time. Before something had changed her parents’ relationship, which Aubrey had never understood and was afraid to ask about. The photo had been taken twenty years ago, when Aubrey was eight and Kevin was eleven. They were standing on top of a mountain somewhere in Colorado. She and Kevin were smiling at the camera, but the reason Aubrey had kept the photo was because of the way her parents were looking at each other. Not in the polite-but-distant way she’d become accustomed to, but as though they were remembering the first time they’d fallen in love. Aubrey had always wanted to believe this was how they’d really felt about each other.
Even now—or maybe especially now, after her disappointing experience with Jackson—she still did.
How she wished her family could be together to support one another while they waited for news about Ethan! But Mama was unavailable, Dad probably hadn’t arrived yet from Los Angeles, and Kevin was with Kim and her parents. But Aubrey was Kevin’s family, too, and despite his angry words about their mother, she was certain he would want the comfort of the people who loved him unconditionally.
She got her phone out and speed-dialed his number, taken aback when a strange man’s voice answered.