The devil.
“Oh God. Why’d you let him take my baby?” She pounded the mattress. “Why?”
Swatting back tears, she reached for the phone.
“It’s Sadie O’Connell,” she said when Jay Lucas picked up.
“I was going to call you. Can you come to the downtown station?”
“Why? Have you found Sam?”
There was a brief pause. “No, but we do need to talk to you again.”
“Should Philip come too?”
“No, just you.”
She hung up and dressed quickly, distracted by her thoughts.
Why did Jay want to talk to her alone? Had he somehow guessed that she’d been lying? Did he suspect that she had seen the man who had taken her son?
After signing in at the front desk, she was escorted to a small office where she sat down uneasily. Jay entered the room, carrying a gray folder. He shook her hand, then sat down behind the desk.
“Ms. O’Connell,” he began. “What I’m about to tell you is highly sensitive and cannot leave this room. I shouldn’t even be discussing this, but it could be pertinent to Sam’s case. A word of caution though. If you mention any of this to your husband or anyone else before it becomes public, we’ll be forced to charge you with interfering in our case. Do you understand?”
“I-I… yes, I understand.”
“Are you aware that your husband is being investigated for fraud and embezzlement?”
“What?” she sputtered. “What are you talking about?”
“Fraud division’s been investigating him for the past year. I didn’t see the connection at first because I had you both listed under the name of O’Connell, since you called it in. But when I amended your husband’s last name, it was flagged.”
“B-but that’s impossible. Philip would never—”
“Your husband’s associate Morris Saunders is under investigation too. We suspect that they’ve been siphoning their clients’ funds into offshore accounts. About eight million dollars in total.”
Eight million dollars?
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her husband—Mr. Defender of Justice—was an embezzler, a thief.
“Aren’t people supposed to be presumed innocent?” she asked in alarm.
The aging detective gave her a rueful look. “Fraud had someone undercover. Someone who knows your husband quite well.”
“Who?”
“I can’t tell you right now. But you’ll know soon enough.”
Sadie was silent for a long moment.
“Ms. O’Connell?”
“I… I thought you wanted to talk to me about Sam. I thought maybe you had found—” Her voice broke and she slumped forward, her hands covering her face.
“I’m sorry, Ms. O’Connell.”
“Please,” she said into her hands. “Just call me Sadie.”
“Look… Sadie. I know you don’t need any more on your plate, but—”
Her head snapped up. “But what? Eight million dollars is more important than my son? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
Jay reached a hand across the desk. “Please, hear me out for a minute. Most kidnappers are related to the victim. Often it’s a spouse. Philip could have staged the kidnapping—”
“You think he took Sam? For what, ransom money?”
“He may have thought the bank would loan him money, or that he could get it from family or the law firm. If he thought he could get the money to pay them back and save himself, he could have taken Sam somewhere.”
Sadie was outraged. “No! Philip would never do that!”
“Desperate people do desperate things, Ms. O’Con—Sadie.”
Shoving her chair back, she jumped to her feet. “My husband may be a coward and a thief, but he would never put Sam’s life in danger for money. Never!”
Jay shifted in his chair. “It’s also possible that one of Philip’s clients took Sam. Your husband took money from some very dangerous people. People who would do anything to get it back. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
She gaped at him. “You think they took Sam to get back at Philip?”
“It’s possible.”
“No! It was The Fog.”
Sharp eyes pierced hers. “How do you know that?”
She opened her mouth, readying to tell him everything. But then the Fog’s hoarse voice filled her ears. “Little bloody pieces.”
Her stomach twisted in knots.
Should she say something? Tell him what she knew?
“Mrs. O’Connell, if you know something—”
“No,” she said, turning away. “I don’t know anything that would help you find Sam.”
“Then why are you so sure it was The Fog?” Jay repeated.
Careful, Sadie.
“I just know. Call it instinct.” She paused in the doorway and gave the detective a hard look. “When you find The Fog, you’ll find my son.”
Afterward, Sadie drove to Gray Nuns Hospital. She’d been feeling a bit better as the day progressed, but she wanted to ensure that nothing was broken. Her ribs weren’t so tender—until the technician asked her to flounder around like a fish out of water on the x-ray table. Turn on her right. Then on her left. Then on her back. She was in more pain when she left the hospital. She drove home and took a couple of Tylenols.
With nothing else to do, she waited.
And waited some more.
When Philip returned home that evening, he retreated to his office. Sadie stared after him as fury boiled in the pit of her stomach. She was infuriated that the police weren’t looking for The Fog and stunned by the revelations of her husband’s criminal activities.
She knocked, then opened the door. “Philip, I need to talk—”
The words caught in the back of her throat.
The office was in absolute chaos. It looked and smelled like a bachelor pad. The sofa along one wall was covered with twisted sheets and blankets, while a pile of Philip’s clothes had been kicked into the corner. It was impossible to tell if they were clean or dirty. Empty pizza boxes and other take-out containers covered a table by the window, and two Fleming Warner coffee mugs, half-filled with congealed week-old coffee, sat on the oak desk. One of them had left a coffee ring on the wood surface.
But what shocked her even more was Philip.
He had a gun.
“What are you doing?” she asked slowly.
Philip calmly wiped the weapon with a cloth and placed it in a cedar box. “Don’t worry, Sadie. It’s just for show.”
“Show for who?” she sputtered. “Are you crazy? We can’t have a gun in the house. Not with Sam—” She broke off and glanced at the floor.
“It’s not loaded,” he said, like that made any difference.
“It’s illegal. How’d you get it in the first place?”
She watched as he pushed away from the desk, strode toward the closet and nudged the box onto the top shelf.
“Someone got it for me,” he said. “He owed me a favor.”
“And you think you need it—a gun.”
She looked at him closely, wondering why he was so nervous, why a man who had followed every law—except fidelity—had a weapon that was meant for one purpose. To kill.
Her mouth thinned. “You’re afraid of whoever you took the money from, aren’t you?”
Philip looked shocked. “They contacted you?”
“No, the police did. They told me everything.”
“That’s impossible,” he said with false bravado. “They don’t know everything.” He sat down at his desk.
“They know enough to drag me into the station and threaten to charge me if I told you they talked to me.”
“Then why are you telling me?”
She sank into the chair across from him. “The police think that Sam’s disappearance is related.”