Murder in the City: Blue Lights (10 page)

Antiques. That was the word Lainey had thrown out to make Julie feel better. Their house was furnished with antiques and family treasures.

Lainey had heard those very words come out of Julie’s mouth later when a school friend had been visiting. As if Lainey had written the script. She was glad she’d given Julie an arsenal in defense of their home.

She’d seen how Julie’s friend had smiled and nodded, as if she’d appreciated the comment.

As if she’d heard the word antiques thrown about.

Lainey didn’t sit on the banker’s expensive couch. Instead, she paced until the guy showed up in the doorway.

“Robert Kaufman,” he said, extending his hand to Brice then a cordial nod of the head to Lainey.

“Detective Brice.” Brice shook his hand. “I wanted to speak to you about your offer to help the city with the money to stop the police furloughs.”

“Just a good citizen, trying to help the police out.” His expression was closed, as if a door were holding back something from escaping.

Was it as simple as he didn’t want to lose control of his emotions? A guy thing, having so recently been terrified that something might have happened to his daughter, he was afraid of embarrassing himself publicly with an emotional outburst.

“Emm. Really good of you to do it,” Brice said.

Lainey watched the interplay between the two, almost as if there were subtitles explaining what was really going on between the two men.

Kaufman wasn’t really interested in talking to them.

Brice knew, but he didn’t care.

“How’d it come about, that you showed up with money for the mayor’s furlough program?”

Kaufman’s expression shut down even further. “I called the mayor and asked if there was anything I could do to help. I knew how she must feel, since my daughter had gone missing so recently. The mayor mentioned the demand to end furloughs and I said I could handle the cost for that.”

He narrowed his eyes. “It was the least I could do after all the man hours spent when my daughter ran away.”

Ran away.

Sounded like a script. Almost the way Julie had repeated Lainey’s words about the antiques. Said just the way the mayor had said it.

“Your daughter didn’t really run away, did she Mr. Kaufman?” Brice asked.

The banker glared at him.

“You can be honest with me, Mr. Kaufman.” Brice tilted his head.

And the façade broke. The banker’s face reddened. “Can I?” Kaufman almost bellowed. “Can I?” He leaned forward and hammered his finger against Brice’s shoulder.

“I’m gonna have to pay armed guards to watch my daughter and wife twenty-four hours a day now.” He huffed out a breath. “That’ll go over real well with a teenager and her friends.”

His almost purple face and shaking hands said as much as his words. The man was terrified for his family. He’d seen just how vulnerable they were.

Brice didn’t move or change his expression.

“So, your daughter didn’t run away? She was abducted?”

The banker jerked his head up, fixing Brice with a stare. “I didn’t say that.”

“But, that’s the truth, isn’t it? There were ransom demands on her. Someone told you not to go public with that fact.” Brice’s tone and expression softened on the last sentence.

Kaufman sucked in a deep breath and stepped back. “I do what I have to do to keep my family safe.”

He expelled a great burst of air, as if blowing out the anger that ate at his insides.

Brice’s face still was expressionless. “So, someone did extort this offer from you about the money to pay for the officer’s pay so the mayor could stop the furloughs?”

Kaufman’s face blanched. “I… I didn’t say that.” He turned away.

Brice’s voice lowered in tone as well as volume. In a deep voice, layered with masculinity, he said, “This is just between you and us, Mr. Kaufman. Level with me. There’s another little girl still missing besides the mayor’s daughter. We need your help.”

Kaufman half turned and looked over his shoulder at Lainey. He’d probably seen her on TV.

She stepped forward, laying her hand on his arm. “Please,” she whispered, her voice coming out in a croak because her throat was so raw. She could barely get the words past the aching bite of her overtired larynx.

Kaufman’s face softened. “I’m so sorry. I hope you get your sister back.” He laid a hand over Lainey’s where she still touched his arm. “I just hope you understand that I’m afraid for my daughter.”

Lainey pulled her hand away. He wasn’t going to help them. And she got it. The sheer terror of having your daughter, or your little sister, in some maniac’s hands was enough to ensure compliance.

Because right now, she knew she’d do anything to get Julie back.

Anything.

Kaufman met her gaze with a silent, gentle understanding. They’d each do whatever they had to in order to keep their little girls safe.

Tears pushed behind her eyes, seconds from bursting free, the banker’s compassion unlacing her control.

“Bobby,” a woman’s voice called from the back of the house, urgent, commanding. The note of panic in her tone reached the front of the house with the power to turn the banker from Brice and Lainey as if they weren’t there.

He sprinted away down the hall.

Brice and Lainey looked at each other.

Instantly, in unspoken agreement, they followed behind Kaufman’s retreating back.

Chapter Eleven

The long hall opened up into a combination family room, dining, kitchen area. Homey and warm, it looked more like Lainey and Julie’s home than the formal front area of the Kaufman house.

She could imagine a little girl growing up here, unafraid to put her feet up, to invite her friends in for after school snacks.

Suddenly, the banker seemed human, with a real family.

A blonde woman Lainey recognized from television as the banker’s wife stood next to a television with a local station broadcasting the noon news.

“It’s that John Canton,” she said, a nervous quiver in her voice. “He’s doing a report on the evidence room at the police department.”

She exchanged a look with her husband that said there was something in that evidence room that was important to them.

Kaufman walked closer to his wife, and put an arm around her waist. She was younger than him, pretty, slim, well kept. And sweet looking. She looked like a really nice mom.

Then, she noticed Lainey and Brice.

“Hey,” she said. Her smile became warm and sympathetic. She pulled away from her husband’s grasp and walked toward Lainey. “I am so sorry about your little sister.”

Lainey smiled. The woman’s tone sounded sincere and unforced, unlike her husband’s manner. Maybe she would help them. Mrs. Kaufman reached out for Lainey’s hand and squeezed it warmly.

“What is Canton saying?” Brice brought everyone’s attention back to the television.

The banker’s wife dropped Lainey’s hand and turned toward the television. “He’s doing a report on how a key piece of evidence in a murder investigation was smuggled out of the evidence room of the Atlanta Police Department.”

Brice swiveled his head to the television, stepping closer.

“I’ve got it recorded if you want to see the whole thing when he’s done.” She spoke with such a sweetness that Lainey found herself instantly drawn to her, liking her.

This woman would help bring Julie home, Lainey sensed.

Canton’s voice intoned from the TV, “So, again, we find major failings in the Atlanta Police Department. This gun, now believed to be used in several murders lately, was secreted out of the APD evidence room.”

He held the gun closer to the camera, seeming to bring it directly into the living room of every viewer in the Atlanta metro area.

“This gun has been implicated in murders since the man who was charged with the murder of Simone Jackson was set free.”

He lowered the gun so that the camera centered on his face. He looked into the camera, with a deadly serious expression. “The mayor’s daughter goes missing, as do two other little girls in Atlanta, and numerous murders go unsolved.”

He leaned into the camera. “Now this. Evidence in the murder of Simone Jackson goes missing.” His voice dropped several octaves. “And is used in a string of serial murders.”

“What’s next? Many people are asking themselves that question. Back to you Andrea,” he threw back to the news anchor.

Kaufman’s wife turned to him, seemingly focused on his reaction. But he gave none.

Instead, he gestured for Brice and Lainey to precede him back down the hall to the formal living room.

Feeling she had no choice, Lainey turned and left the homey back area.

“It was nice meeting you,” Mrs. Kaufman called weakly after them.

Lainey felt if she could only get alone with her, that she could find out a lot. She seemed like she would be much more forthcoming than Mr. Kaufman.

In the living room, Kaufman stuck out his hand to shake theirs as if nothing had happened in the family room.

Lainey shook his hand, nodded and turned, heading for the door. Brice swiveled his head, watching her go. But he didn’t follow her.

She went to the car and got in, her mind racing.

After a bit, Brice came out and slid into the driver’s seat. He looked over at her.

Lainey knew exactly what he was thinking. He was thinking like a cop, assessing her strength, gauging if she were going to be any help to him in the investigation.

Everyone and everything was now a part of his plan to recover Julie. That was perfect, because that was her only objective, her laser focused goal. But, how were they going to do that?

“What does he want from me?” Lainey blurted out.

Brice leaned closer. “The banker?”

She shook her head. “The kidnapper. He’s taken three little girls. One parent had power, one had money. The kidnapper wanted something from each of them. What do I have to provide to get my little girl back?”

“We don’t know that the guy who kidnapped Julie and Tiana is the same guy who kidnapped the Kaufman girl.” Even his expression wasn’t convincing but the false note in his voice sealed the impression.

“Don’t we?”

A fiery burning sensation ran through her body as if someone had pumped acid into her veins.

Not Julie. A wailing moan reverberated deep inside her, aching to be let out.

She leaned forward, rocking, feeling like a giant hand gripped her insides, squeezing and twisting, the pain so raw.

Not Julie. Not Julie. Not Julie.

Brice wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into an embrace that tightened as she rocked. But, she couldn’t stop.

She’d known Julie since she was fifteen minutes old. The special birthing room at the hospital had allowed Lainey inside very shortly after Julie had been born.

Julie had lain there under a light to fight jaundice, naked and squalling.

“That’s your little sister,” her dad had said softly, emotion filling his voice.

Love had welled up in her. She’d put a finger in Julie’s grasping little hand and the baby girl had clutched around her finger, latching onto Lainey’s heart for life.

“She’s my baby,” Lainey had said, with the simplicity of vision that only a fourteen year old can have.

Her dad had laughed. “We’re definitely counting on you helping.”

“She’s my baby,” she’d repeated.

Only eight years later, her words had been actualized in the worse way imaginable. Julie’s care had entirely fallen to her. She’d always done whatever she could to keep her little sister safe and happy.

And she wouldn’t let her down now.

“Buck up,” Brice said.

Buck up?
Did he just say,
Buck up
?

She pulled away from Brice’s arms, sitting back against the seat. “What did you just say?”

“You heard me.”

She laughed harshly and nodded. He’d said it to get a reaction, perhaps to inspire anger that would chase away the despair. He was exactly right. It was time to fight.

“We’re gonna find her,” she said, the words hard and tight, coming from her gut.

She would not let her baby sister down.

Brice nodded and started the engine.

“Who is this guy?” she thought out loud. “Who would take three little girls, then release two of them in exchange for demands?”

“Big demands,” Brice added, pulling away from the curb.

“He made that banker provide the money needed to stop the police furloughs,” she said. “As if he thinks that makes it all right, his kidnapping the girls.”

Brice’s squinted, an ironic smile playing across his lips. “He’s a regular do-gooder, working for the public good.”

She banged the side of the car with her closed fist then grimaced because her little finger had hit the door handle. “I want to kill him. He has no right terrorizing these girls, not to mention their families this way. It’s twisted. Even if he doesn’t physically injure them, what does this do to their minds?”