Was that going to be her fate, the fate of her daughter? To die as Marlene Haas and her foster children had died? Or had Lucy already been killed? Was she lying in her bed at home with her throat slit to prevent her from identifying the perpetrator?
And what about Anka? An innocent in the dramas that Carey found herself in. Whatever someone might have had against her, Carey hated to think that one of the few loyal, trustworthy people she knew would be made to pay for her imagined sins.
The voice on the phone late Friday night echoed in her mind over and over: “I’m coming to get you, bitch.”
A man’s voice.
Stan Dempsey’s voice. Or Wayne Haas’s voice. Or the voice of any one of the thousands of people who hated her for having ruled against the admission of Karl Dahl’s prior bad acts as evidence in the case against him.
Or the voice of a man twenty-five thousand dollars richer, courtesy of her husband.
The sound of a door closing startled her from her speculation. Someone who might rescue her? Or her captor?
“Help me!” she called. “Help me!”
Another door slammed, closer. The box dipped down slightly, and an engine started.
She was in the trunk of a car, and the car was backing up.
Whoever sat behind the wheel of this car probably meant to kill her. She had to do whatever she could to prevent that from happening.
She needed a plan.
She needed to focus.
She needed to live.
40
“HOW THE FUCK could this happen?” Kovac shouted at the uniforms. They stood in the Moores ’ study, out of the way of the crime scene team.
Kovac looked from one of the officers to the other.
“I don’t know,” the older one, MacGowan, said. “We never saw anybody go into the house. Neither did the guys ahead of us. We walked the perimeter every half hour. There weren’t any signs of trouble.”
Holding on to his head as if it might break in half, Kovac stalked away from them, turned, and stalked back. “You said you saw the nanny drive out.”
“She waved out the car window and called out ‘Coffee,’” the younger officer, Bloom, said. “She’s the nanny. What were we supposed to do?”
“You’re sure it was her?”
“A blond woman driving a Saab.”
“You didn’t stop her,” Kovac said.
“Why would we?” MacGowan said irritably, getting in Kovac’s face. “She had a pass-she was family. No one said to stop family. So get the fuck outta my face, Kovac. You’re in a suit, so you think you’re Jesus Fucking Christ-”
“Fuck yourself, MacGowan!” Kovac shouted. “You lost a judge. You let some mutt waltz out of here with the one person you’re supposed to be protecting! You’re gonna be a fucking crossing guard when this is over!”
“Gentlemen?” Lieutenant Dawes walked into the room. Her voice was calm, and such a contrast to Kovac’s that everyone took notice immediately. “Officers, wait in the hall, please. I’ll deal with you later.”
Bloom couldn’t get out fast enough. MacGowan lingered, giving Kovac attitude.
Kovac shook his head. “Go sharpen your pencil, asshole. You’ll be writing up jaywalkers till your teeth fall out.”
MacGowan made an angry gesture and walked away.
“Detective Kovac?” Dawes said.
Kovac continued huffing and puffing, pacing back and forth. “I can’t fucking believe this!”
“Sam, get a hold of yourself.” Dawes put herself in his path so that he had to pull up.
When he spoke, he lowered his voice to just below a shout. “How the hell could this happen? Cops here around the clock. The place locked down like a fortress. And someone just drives out of here with Carey Moore? Is this a fucking joke?”
“I don’t think anyone is laughing,” Dawes said. “And we should all get out our umbrellas, because there is going to be a shitstorm raining down on us from on high soon enough. I’ve already had a call from Assistant Chief Harding. There’s a mob of media outside. In the meantime, we need to get our ducks in a row and figure out what’s really happened here.”
Kovac rubbed his hands over his face and sighed, trying to will his blood pressure down. “I was here until about nine last night.”
“Doing what?”
He looked away, looked back, uncomfortable. “She told me she was going to ask her husband for a divorce. I wanted to be here in case the jerk flipped.”
Dawes lifted a brow. “How very chivalrous of you.”
“The guy is a creep, leading some kind of a double life,” Kovac said, scowling. “I didn’t want to take the chance.”
“Where did you go from here?”
“I followed the husband.”
“We had a tail on him to do that.”
“I wanted to rattle his cage,” Kovac said. “He has an apartment in Edina where he’s set up his girlfriend.”
“I’ve already checked with the officers who were here last night,” Dawes said. “They said the nanny left around ten-thirty to go to the 7-Eleven.”
“Did she tell them that specifically?”
“Yes. She backed out of the driveway, slowed as she came near their car, put down her window, and told them what she was doing.”
“Did they speak to her when she came back?”
“No. They were walking the perimeter of the property.”
“Dumb and Dumber out there in the hall said she backed out of the driveway around seven this morning, said the word ‘coffee,’ and drove away.”
“How close were they to her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did she drive away from them or past them?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think the nanny could have done this?” Dawes asked.
Kovac thought about it for a moment. “I would say no. She seemed devoted to the family. But she is very protective of David Moore. She didn’t like me implying he could have had his wife attacked. They seemed a little too cozy when they came back from having breakfast yesterday. I asked her point-blank if she had something going on with him.”
“And?”
“And she denied it, but she didn’t want to look at me when she said it.”
“Do you think she could have done it?” Dawes asked again.
He tried to imagine Anka overpowering Carey.
“Physically could she do it? Probably. She’s young, looks athletic. She’s taller than Carey. And Carey was in no condition to fight,” he said. “And if the girl had a weapon-”
“Or if she didn’t have to struggle with her victim,” Dawes said.
Kovac knew what she was saying. If Carey was already dead, Anka would have had to struggle only with her employer’s corpse. She wouldn’t have had to be careful about it. Shove the body down the stairs, drag it down the hall and out through the kitchen and into the garage.
Kovac called over the lead of the crime scene people and told him to check the stairs for hair, blood, and tissue.
“I haven’t seen any blood,” he said to Dawes. “I guess she could have cleaned up.”
“We don’t know that she didn’t have help,” Dawes said. “When she left last night, she might have picked up an accomplice along with her movie and popcorn.”
Kovac sat back against the edge of David Moore’s desk and crossed his arms, thinking.
“If she had an accomplice, why would she leave the house this morning?” he asked. “It would make more sense to stay behind, play the victim.”
“Not everyone has the sly, conniving mind you do.”
“It’s a gift.”
“Possibilities other than the nanny?” Dawes asked.
“The house was locked tight,” Kovac said. “The alarm system was set. Of course, Moore would have given up the code if he sent someone here to do the job.”
He thought about that for a minute. “That’s some balls to go through with a kidnapping when the cops are already all over you like a bad rash. Moore doesn’t have a set like that; that’s for sure. He nearly pissed himself when I confronted him last night.”