Hunt had told Amy to get right to it, not to give her a chance to hang up. Wu spoke in measured, even tones. "It's Staci Rosalier, Carol. Staci Keilly. Todd's mother."
"Who is this? Is this the police again? This is pure harassment."
"It's not the police, Carol. You know it's not the police."
"Who is it, then? What do you want?"
"I want my son back. But it's too late for that. I'll settle for Andrea Parisi."
"I'm hanging up."
"I'll leave you alone if you lead me to Andrea."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes, you do, Carol. Don't make me threaten you. I don't want to take Todd and force you to trade, but I will if I have to."
Now through the line, Carol came across in a clear panic. Wu heard her yelling back through the house. "Todd! Todd! Where are you? Come in here. I need to see you. Right now!" She ended in a shriek.
Other noises sounded in the background. Male. Concerned.
Now, back into the phone, no mistaking it, Carol's fear bled out and over into her voice. "He's here. He's fine."
"I know that. I'd never hurt my own son. But I would take him from you."
"Tell me who you are!"
"I've told you that. Where is Andrea?"
"I said I don't know! I don't know."
"All right," Wu said. "I've warned you. Look out your back windows. I'll call back in exactly five minutes."
In the dining room off the kitchen at the château, Carol stood holding the phone, breathing hard, her face gone pale. Ward had come in with the earlier screams, followed by Todd along with the security guard who'd admitted Juhle earlier, and Todd's nanny. Now the four of them hovered in the doorway.
Looking at the phone as though surprised that she still held it, she put it down into its receiver and turned back to the rest of them. "Oh, Todd," she said, moving toward him, arms extended. "My baby. Are you all right? Tell me you're all right."
"I'm fine, Mom. I'm good. Are you okay?"
She was down at his level, hugging him tightly. "I'm good," she said, but her voice broke. Her shoulders heaved and then heaved again. She tried to stifle a desperate sob.
"Carol." Ward was down next to her. "What's this about? Talk to me."
But instead she gathered herself, stood, and faced the guard. "Has anyone been here to the house today besides Inspector Juhle?"
"No, ma'am."
"You're sure?" Her voice snapped at him. "Don't look at Todd! I want your answer. Was anybody here?"
Stunned by the violence of the outburst, the guard backed up a step. "No, ma'am. I'm sure. Nobody."
Ward reached out his hand. "Carol…"
She held up a warning finger to her husband, came back at the guard. "When we drove up, he was outside. Juhle. Had he been out there alone for long?"
"No, ma'am. A minute, two minutes at the most, before you got here. I watched him the whole time."
"What did he do?"
"He sat in his car for a minute, no more, then got out and walked to where the driveway drops off."
"And what did he do there?"
"It seemed like he was looking at the view."
"And that's all? He never went around the back."
"No, ma'am, he didn't have time for anything like that. You and Mr. Manion arrived about a minute later. Almost immediately, in fact."
She whirled around to the nanny. "And you've been with Todd all day, too?"
"Sí, señora. Toda el día."
She turned to her son. "Todd? Is that true. All day?"
The boy, now frightened by his mother's madness, moved a step away toward his nanny. "Mo-om."
Ward came over and put his arm around his wife, dismissing the others with an impatient wave, wanting to get her away. He walked with her a few steps into the living room, whose enormous west-facing windows featured full-length white drapes now drawn against the afternoon sun. "Who was that on the telephone now that's got you so upset? Is it more of this, this police business?" He reached after her as she moved away. "Carol? Please…"
She had reached where the drapes met in the center of the windows and now threw them open with enough violence that one of them ripped at the runners above. Then, stepping back as if stung, her hands to her mouth, she whimpered through her fingers.
In silver paint on the glass, backward so they could be read from inside, someone had spray-painted the capital letters: T-O-D-D.
"Hello." Mrs. Manion's voice now barely audible in the cell phone, laced with panic but still managing to maintain a tenuous control.
"Don't interrupt. You can send everyone else away," Wu said, using the exact, carefully rehearsed lines they'd agreed upon. "No one else has to be involved. This is about Andrea now, not about you. We'll be watching."
Amy had gone pale, her hand shaking as she handed the phone back to Hunt-it had grown hot to the touch. "God!" she said, blowing out with each breath. "Oh, my God."
Jason put his arm around her. "You okay?"
She shook her head no. Blew out again. "Shit. Shit shit shit. That was horrible."
"It was awesome," Mick said.
"I think I might be sick."
"Here." Jason lowered her to the ground, sat with his arms around her.
Hunt went down on a knee, lifted her chin with his finger. "That was perfect, Ames," he said. "You did good."
She nodded, her breath still coming hard, and Jason looked across to Hunt. "So what do we do now?" he asked.
"Now, you guys-Amy and Jason-you take off. You've both done plenty. You get caught in any part of this, your jobs are at least severely compromised if not over. You've got too much to lose."
"Like you guys don't," Jason said.
Hunt waved away the objection. "I've changed jobs before. It didn't kill me. I can always do something else. And Devin's a big boy who's here because he wants to be. Everybody else-Mick, Tammy, Craig-they're on the payroll. I'm sure they'll get a huge bonus."
Mick perked right up. "How big?" he asked.
"Huge," Hunt said, "unprecedented." He went back to Amy and Jason. "But you guys are volunteers who've done some great work, and now you've got to get out of here and go home. I mean it."
"And what are you all going to do?" Amy asked.
Hunt said. "The rest of us, we play this way."
Juhle and Hunt had been together at the base camp for three hours since Amy's call to Carol. Now Mickey was back in his car, parked again where the road cut into the Silverado Trail, where he would be ready to tail the Manions should all of them, including Carol, come off their mountain by car and try to make some kind of getaway.
Juhle hung up from the "I'm going to be late" call to his wife and walked over to where Hunt, his binoculars mounted on a tripod in front of him, half-leaned against the hood of his Cooper. "How long you gonna give this?" he asked.
Hunt looked at his watch, at the declining sun, at the château, finally at his friend. "As long as it takes," he said. "You want, go on home. I'll call you from wherever we find Andrea. You can come out then and get famous."
"You still think this is going to work?"
"I don't know."
"It's taking a while."
"I figured it would. She's got some choices to make. She could come clean to Ward-or mostly clean, enough to get him to cooperate with her. Either that or convince him and everybody else in the house that she can handle whatever it is herself, that she's not having a breakdown. If that's her choice, then she's got to get rid of them, send them out to dinner, say she's got a headache, something. Whatever it is, it's going to take some time."