A half-drunk cup of coffee was already sitting on the coffee table. Larry signaled a passing cocktail waitress. “The lady will have a diet Coke,” he said without bothering to ask.
Joanna’s world spun out of control. If Larry Dysart knew all about Joanna’s drink of choice, that meant his information could have come from only one source. Butch Dixon, the nice man! Butch Dixon, the feeder of starving multitudes! Butch Dixon, that blabbermouthed son of a bitch!
“What have you done with Jenny and Ceci?” Joanna demanded angrily.
“Shhhhhh,” Larry said, casually waving his coffee cup to encompass the rest of the lobby. “You wouldn’t want the whole world to hear our little discussion now, would you? It should be public enough so no one can pull anything off the wall, but private enough so no one else hears, don’t you think?”
“I don’t care if the whole world hears. Where are the girls?” Joanna asked, not bothering to lower her voice. “If you have them, I want you to tell me where they are.”
“I won’t tell you where they are, not right now. They’re safe, at least for the moment. But they won’t be forever, not if you insist on being stupid. Lower your damn voice!”
Gripping the end of the armrests, Joanna forced her breath out slowly. When she spoke again, her voice was a bare whisper. “What is it you want?”
“That’s more like it,” Larry said.
Joanna stared back at him. Years of battling with Eleanor had taught her the futility of raised voices. What Larry most likely misread as terrified compliance was, on her part, nothing more or less than self-contained fury.
“I want you and Carol Strong off my back,” he said easily. “I want to leave town. I want things to go the way they would have gone if you hadn’t come around sticking your nose into things that were none of your concern.”
“What things?” Joanna asked, willing her face to remain impassive.
Larry looked at her and didn’t answer. His lips smiled; his eyes didn’t. There was no relationship between his eyes and mouth. It was easy to imagine that the two curving lips and the implacable eyes belonged to two entirely separate faces. The effect was disconcerting, but Joanna didn’t look away.
“You mean like letting Jorge Grijalva’s plea bargain go through?” she asked. “You mean like letting Dean Norton go to prison for a crime he didn’t commit? And as for Dave Thompson ...”
In answer, Larry let his glance shift briefly from her to his watch. “I want you to call Carol Strong.”
“It’s too early. She isn’t due into the office until four.”
“Call her anyway. Have them find her. And when you reach her, tell her we need to talk. Tell her I have the girls.”
Hearing him say the words aloud, Joanna’s heart skipped a beat. “How do I know that you—”
Before Joanna could finish framing the sentence, Dysart reached down beside his chair, picked up one of the Hohokam’s plastic laundry bags. He tossed it into her lap. There was something wet and heavy in the bottom of the bag. The weight of it sickened her. Afraid of what warped trophy might he inside, Joanna didn’t want to look. And yet, she had to.
Stomach heaving, she finally peered inside. Jenny’s still-wet bathing suit lay in a soggy pink wad at the bottom of the bag. Larry Dysart had told Joanna that he had the girls, but visible confirmation more than words brought the horrifying reality of it home to her.
Larry Dysart really did have Jenny. And Ceci, too. The awful realization rocked Joanna to her very core. The lunchtime bowl of turkey noodle soup curdled in her stomach.
“Where are they?” she asked, fighting to keep her voice steady.
“Like I said, they’re safe enough for right now,” Larry told her. “Where they are doesn’t really matter. What does matter is whether or not you’re going to do as you’re told. Go call Carol Strong. Now. Use the pay phone over there by the elevators so I can see you the whole time. Don’t try anything funny. And remember, if anything happens to me, the girls die. You do have her number, don’t you?”
Nodding woodenly, Joanna stood up. She walked across the room feeling like she was balancing on a tightrope hundreds of feet above the ground—a tightrope with no safety net. A monster chess-master held Jenny’s life in his hands and he was using her as a sacrificial pawn. Carol Strong would never agree to a deal. She couldn’t possibly. But with Jenny’s and Cecelia’s very survival hanging in the balance ...
It took forever for Joanna to fumble a quarter out of her purse. Then, when she tried to put it in the coin slot, her hand trembled so badly, it was all she could do to make it work. And even after she finally heard the buzz of the dial tone, she could hardly force her fingers to do the dialing.
“Detective Strong, please,” Joanna said. At least her throat and voice still worked. That in itself seemed amazing.
Expecting to be told Carol wouldn’t be in until after four, Joanna was surprised when the clerk said, “Who’s calling, please?”
“Joanna Brady,” she answered. “Sheriff Joanna Brady.”
Carol Strong came on the line a moment later. “Thank God it’s you,” she said breathlessly. “I’ve been calling your room every five minutes. I didn’t want to leave a message on the voice mail for fear Jenny, not you, might pick it up. I think we’ve got him, Joanna. I should have figured it out lots sooner than this. I mean it was right there in front of me all along, but until I talked to Serena’s attorney just now—”
“Larry Dysart has Jenny,” Joanna interrupted. “Jenny and Ceci Grijalva both. He told me to call you and tell you he wants a deal.”
Carol stopped abruptly. “You know about Larry Dysart?” she asked. “You say he has Jenny?”
“Yes.”
“Damn! What kind of a deal is he looking for?”
“He says he wants to leave town with no repercussions. He wants us to let him go.”
“Where are you?” Carol asked.
“At the hotel. In the lobby. We’re sitting right in front of the fireplace.”
“I can be there in five minutes. I’ll call in the pecial Ops boys—”
“A SWAT team?” Joanna almost screeched into the phone. “No way! Are you crazy? The hotel is full of people. Someone would get hurt. Not only that, he says that if anything happens to him, the girls will die.”
“He’s bluffing.” Carol Strong’s answer was firm and brisk, but that was easy for her. It wasn’t Carol Strong’s daughter who was missing.
“Carol,” Joanna insisted. “Listen to me. He’s got the girls. This isn’t a bluff!”
There was a long pause. “Get a grip, Joanna,” Carol ordered.
“Get a grip?” Joanna echoed. “What the hell do you mean, ‘get a grip’?”
“I mean stop thinking like a mother and start thinking like a cop. What if it’s already too late? What if he is bluffing and the girls are already dead?”
The stark words hit Joanna with the force of a smashing fist to the gut. The sheer pain of it almost doubled her over. Nausea rose in her throat. She fought it down, but somehow the terrible shock of hearing those words vaporized her rising sense of panic.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked finally.
“Tell Dysart I’ll deal,” Carol continued. “While I’m arranging backup, you open negotiations. Ask him what he wants. Try to keep him talking.”
Leaving the phone dangling off hook, Joanna walked back across the room. It was only then that she realized that the Thanksgiving pumpkins were all gone. She saw the poinsettia- and Christmas-tree-decorated lobby for the first time. And, though the spacious lobby wasn’t crowded, then were still far more people there than she had noticed earlier.
Near the desk, a harried young couple tried to check in while riding herd on two active toddlers and a cartful of luggage. A silver-haired, knickers-clad golf foursome stood just inside the lobby door, noisily rehashing the day’s golf game. On the other side of the bank of elevators, teenage organizers from a church youth group were setting up registration tables for a weekend conference. All of the people in the room—hotel employees and guests alike—were going about their business with no idea of the life-and-death drama playing itself out in their midst. And of all of them, only Joanna Brady was wearing a Kevlar vest.