No one could have known, but I felt heartsick and responsible anyway.
"How well do you know the Devines?" Conklin asked Henry Tyler, who was furiously pacing the perimeter of the room. There were pictures of Madison on every wall and surface – baby pictures, family portraits, holiday snapshots.
"It's not them, okay? The Devines didn't do it!" Tyler shouted. "Madison is gone!" he yelled, holding his head with both hands as he paced. "It's too late."
I dropped my eyes back to the sideboard and the block letters on the plain white bond that I could read from five feet away:
WE HAVE YOUR DAUGHTER.
IF YOU CALL LAW ENFORCEMENT, SHE DIES.
IF WE FEEL ANY HEAT, SHE DIES.
RIGHT NOW, MADISON IS HEALTHY AND SAFE, AND WILL STAY THAT WAY AS LONG AS YOU KEEP QUIET.
THIS PHOTO IS THE FIRST. YOU WILL RECEIVE A NEW PICTURE OF MADISON EVERY YEAR. YOU MAY RECEIVE A PHONE CALL. SHE MAY EVEN COME HOME.
BE SMART. BE QUIET.
ONE DAY MADISON WILL THANK YOU.
The photo of Madison that came with the note had been printed out on a home-style printer within an hour of the time she was abducted. The girl seemed clean and unharmed, wearing the blue coat, the red shoes.
"Could he know that we didn't get the note? Could he know that we didn't mean to defy him?"
"I just don't know, Mr. Tyler, and I can't really guess -"
Elizabeth Tyler interrupted me, the cords of her neck standing out as she strained to talk.
"Madison is the brightest, happiest little girl you can imagine. She sings. She plays music. She has the most wonderful laugh.
"Has she been raped? Is she chained to a bed in a basement? Is she hungry and cold? Is she hurt? Is she terrified? Is she calling out for us? Does she wonder why we don't come for her? Or is she past all that now and is safe in God's hands?
"This is all we think about, Officers.
"We have to know what has happened to our daughter. You have to do more than you ever thought you could do," Elizabeth Tyler told me. "You must bring Madison home."
Chapter 97
A PLASTIC BAG WITH THE KIDNAPPER'S NOTE INSIDE was positioned on my desk so that Conklin and I could both read it.
IF YOU CALL LAW ENFORCEMENT, SHE DIES.
IF WE FEEL ANY HEAT, SHE DIES.
We were still rocked by those words, unable to shake the sickening feeling that by actually working the Ricci/Tyler case, we might have brought about Madison's death.
When Dave Stanford arrived at noon, we turned the kidnapper's note over to the FBI. Jacobi ordered a pie from Presto Pizza. Conklin pulled up a chair for Stanford, and we opened our files to him.
An hour later, it still all came down to one lead: the Whittens in Boston and the Tylers in Pacific Heights had the Westwood Registry in common.
We divvied up the client names that Mary Jordan had copied from the Register and started making phone calls. By the time the square box was in the round file, we were ready to go.
Conklin and Macklin went in Stanford's car. And Jacobi and I paired up, partners again for the day.
It was good seeing Jacobi's homely mug beside me, his expanding heft in the driver's seat.
"Pardon me for noticing, but you look like you've been keelhauled," he said.
"This goddamned case is making me sick. But since you mention it, Jacobi, I'm wondering about something. Did it ever occur to you to lie to me when I look like hell?"
"I don't think so, no."
"I guess that's one of the things I love about you."
"Ah, don't get mushy on me now." He grinned, took a hard right onto Lombard, and parked the car.
Over the next five hours, we tracked down and interviewed four Westwood Registry clients and their nannies. By the time the sun was lighting up a swath of pink cotton-candy clouds across the western sky, we had joined Macklin and the others back at the Hall.
It was a short meeting because our combined twenty-five man-hours had yielded nothing but praise for the Westwood Registry and their imported five-star nannies.
At around seven p.m. we told one another we'd pick it up again in the morning. I crossed Bryant, got my car out of the lot, and headed toward Potrero Hill.
Streetlights were winking on all across the city as I parked outside my home sweet home.
My hand was on the car-door handle when something eclipsed the light coming in from the passenger-side window, throwing me into shadow.
My heart hammered as I swung my head around and a dark figure came into view. It took a few seconds for my brain to put it all together. Even then, I doubted my eyes.
It was Joe.
Chapter 98
IT WAS JOE. It was Joe.
There was no one in the world I wanted to see more.
"How many times have I told you…" I said, heart racing, getting out of my car on the street side, slamming the door.
"Don't sneak up on an armed police officer?"
"Right. You've got something against telephones? Some kind of phobia?"
Joe grinned sheepishly at me from where he stood on the sidewalk. "Not even a hello? You're tough, Blondie."
"Ya think?"
I didn't feel tough, though. I felt depleted, vulnerable, close to tears, but I was determined not to show any of that. I scowled as I drummed my fingers on the hood of my car, but I couldn't help noticing how great Joe looked.
"I'm sorry. I took a chance," he said, his smile absolutely winning. "I just hoped to see you. So anyway, how have you been?"
"Never better," I lied. "You know. Busy."
"Sure, I know. You're all over the newspapers, Wonder Woman."
"More like, wonder if I'm ever going to solve a case," I said, laughing in spite of myself. "And you?" I said, warming up to Joe through and through. I stopped drumming my fingers and leaned a little bit toward him. "How's it going with you?"
"I've been busy, too."
"Well, I guess we're both keeping out of trouble." I locked the car, but I still didn't take a step toward him. I liked having that big hunk of metal between us. My Explorer as chaperone. Giving me a chance to think through what to do with Joe.
Joe grinned, said, "Yeah, sure, but what I meant was I've been busy trying to get a new life."
What was that? What had he just said?
My heart lurched and my knees started to give. I had a flash of insight – Joe looked and sounded great because he'd fallen in love with someone else. He'd dropped by because he couldn't tell me the news on the phone.
"I haven't wanted to call you until it was final," he said, his words dragging me back to the moment, "but I can't move the damned request through the system fast enough."
"What are you talking about?"
"I put in for a transfer to San Francisco, Lindsay."
Relief overwhelmed me. Tears filled my eyes to the brim as I stared at Joe. Images flashed, nothing I could help or stop, snatches of our months of high-flying romance, but it wasn't the romantic part that I remembered most. It was those homey moments, with Joe singing in the shower, me sneaking a peek in the mirror at his receding hairline when he didn't know I was looking. And the way he crouched over his cereal bowl as if someone might take it from him because he'd grown up in a house with six brothers and sisters, and none of them had the exclusive rights to anything. I thought about how Joe was the only person in my life who would just let me talk myself out and didn't expect me to be the strong one all the time. And okay, yeah, I flashed on the way he handled my body when we made love, making me seem small and weightless, and how safe I used to feel when I fell asleep in his arms.
"I've been given assurances but nothing definite…" His voice trailed off as he stared at me. "God, Lindsay," he said, "you have no idea how much I've missed you."