As he moved around the desk, his gaze fell on a brochure for a realty company—Lassiter Realty. The note attached suggested that Andi's dad should hire Will Lassiter to sell his house, and the note was from Will's mother, Kim.

  He opened the brochure and found an older version of Will smiling as he stood in front of a for sale sign and touted his company's work. The realty company provided all services, appraisals and inspections as well as staging services from Pacific Coast Staging.

  He suddenly wondered if the house down the street from the Montgomery's had been listed for sale by the Lassiter's.

  Back then, Will's dad, Steven, had run the company. It was more than likely he'd had that listing and that Will, who'd been working in the office with his dad on weekends and summer vacations, would have had access to any houses listed for sale.

  What if it had been Will all along?

  His heart raced with that thought. Andi had noted in her journal that Will had walked down the street shortly after they arrived at the scene. He remembered that now. Will had come from the opposite direction on foot. He hadn't been in his car. Although, it was possible that he just hadn't been able to drive down the street with the police cars blocking the road.

  Still, Will was just as good a suspect as Kyle was. He lived next door to Hannah. He was a stoner. He couldn't account for his whereabouts that night, either, but he hadn't been interrogated the way Kyle had, because Will had been perceived as normal and Kyle was the weird kid on the street.

  Maybe Burnett was tied to the Lassiters. And that's why Will had gotten a pass.

  He shook his head, his thoughts racing fast. Even if he was onto something about Will being involved eighteen years ago, what about now?

  Will could have seen him and Andi arrive. Or someone else in the neighborhood had. He'd thought they'd be safe here for a few hours, but this had been the worst place they could have come.

  He pushed away the guilty, punishing thoughts, because they wouldn't bring Andi back. He had to do that. They'd taken her alive. They could have shot her in the garage, like they'd shot Burnett. But they hadn't done that, so he had time, maybe a very small window of time.

  He grabbed the phone she'd left on the desk and called Flynn. It was after seven now, and Flynn didn't answer. Dammit. He left a short message for Flynn. "This is Cooper. Andi was grabbed from her father's house. I don't know where she is, but she's in trouble. There might be a link between the house for sale behind Neil's house and the kidnapping. You need to check into Lassiter Realty. I'll explain. Call me back." As he ended the call, he thought about calling 911, but he had no idea where to tell anyone to go, and he didn't know who else to call, who else to trust.

  He pulled out his own phone and turned it on, no longer concerned about someone tracking him. If they'd wanted him, they would have come in the house and grabbed him, too. As his phone lit up, he saw the dozens of messages that he'd missed, including one from TJ that had come in an hour ago, asking him to meet him for a drink.

  Was that a coincidence? Or was TJ luring him into a trap? God! It seemed crazy to believe that a family who had lived around the corner from him could be involved in all this. Maybe he was wrong, jumping to wild conclusions. That was more Andi's style than his. He really wished she was here to help him sort things out.

  He punched in TJ's number. It went to voicemail. He sent him a quick text: Where are you? Would love to meet up.

  No answer.

  He tried to remember what TJ had said about his life when they were having drinks. He had an apartment in Santa Monica. And he had a small music studio in a warehouse in Culver City.

  Cooper looked up studios online and came back with two in Culver city, and one was called Wave Studios. That was it. TJ had talked about his three favorite things: surfing, smoking, and making music. TJ didn't seem like a criminal mastermind. Maybe he was just caught up in the family crime business.

  Or maybe he was completely wrong about the Lassiters. One way or another, he needed to find out, and TJ was his best lead.

  "You should have stayed away. But you always have to stick your nose into it, don't you? Didn't your mother ever tell you curiosity killed the cat?"

  Andi stared in confusion at the blonde woman, who had once been one of her friend's mothers, the helper in her third-grade classroom, the maker of the best brownies at the school bake sale. She had even bandaged up her skinned knee when she'd crashed her bike in her front yard.

  "I don't understand," she murmured. "You're involved in this?"

  Kim Lassiter stared at her with a coldness she'd never seen before. "We've helped a lot of people."

  "You've hurt a lot of people," she countered. "You stole Hannah right out from under her parents, your neighbors, your friends, the people you had barbecues with and shared holidays. How could you do that to the Montgomerys?"

  "It was a desperate situation. Hannah was well-cared for, as you've seen."

  "She's going to figure it out one day."

  "No, she won't. She doesn't remember anything."

  "How was it a desperate situation?" she asked. "I'm pretty sure you're trafficking babies and toddlers for illegal adoption, so what was the deal with Hannah? Why is she part of this?"

  Kim gave her a knowing smile. "You want to get me talking, give your team a chance to find you. It won't work. No one knows where you are."

  "Cooper will figure it out."

  "He won't," Kim said. "He can't."

  Her heart twisted at Kim's words. "Why would you hurt him?"

  "If he's hurt, it's because of you. You were always trouble for him and for his family. I knew you would end up at your father's house, that you'd want to get your little journals. I encouraged him to contact you, to make sure you knew that he had them, that he wanted to give them to you. But after speaking to you the other day, I wasn't sure you'd do it. You were so angry with him. But in the end, you couldn't resist. You played right into my hands. Then I sent someone to get you."

  "Why? Why bring me here?"

  "Because I can't take the chance that you won't keep looking for us. Once you're dead, and the evidence is destroyed, there won't be anyone else to find our trail."

  She felt sick to her stomach because the way Kim was talking, it sounded like Cooper was dead. But she couldn't let her see that her words were destroying her. She couldn't give her that satisfaction. "Why didn't you just have someone kill me in the garage?"

  "Because I wanted to see you. I thought after all your stubborn investigating, you deserved an answer before you died. Call me sentimental. I also couldn't trust that you wouldn't get away again. I needed to see you trapped with my own eyes."

  Kim wasn't sentimental; she was evil, and maybe overconfident. Because as long as Andi was alive, there was a chance she could still get out of this. She did need to keep Kim talking. Maybe no one was looking for her, but at least she'd get more answers. "I assume you're the one who sent someone to blow up my apartment and then try to shoot me."

  "I tried to warn you off, but that didn't work. You're too stubborn, so I had to take stronger action. Unfortunately, you proved to be elusive, and my people proved to be incompetent."

  "Was one of your people Agent Burnett?"

  Kim smiled again. "You figured that out, did you?"

  "How did you make that happen? Did you involve him after the kidnapping or before?"

  "Before. I made him an offer he couldn't refuse, actually more than one offer," she said cockily. "We got very close over the years."

  That thought turned her stomach. "Why did you kill him if he was working with you?"

  "Because he couldn't help me anymore," she said pragmatically. "Jim knew too much, and he was getting soft, worrying about himself. He wanted to magically "find" Elisa so he could win back his boss's respect and save the day. Then he tried to persuade me that that action would get rid of you. But the baby was worth far more to me than his offer, so I started following his communication channels. I kept up with who he was calling and texting."

  "And you saw that he had called and texted me. You're insane, Kim."

  "I'm smart. That's how I've built one of the biggest operations in the country in the past twenty years."

  "What about your husband?" she asked. "Was he part of this?"

  "Of course, Steve was part of it," she said with a shrug. "This started years ago."

  "Did he actually die two years ago, or did you kill him, too?"

  "You have a mouth on you, don't you?"

  She ignored that. "What about my father? Did the two of you have an affair while he was married to my mother?"

  "Yes. He was a very lonely, unhappy man, and your mother was a cold, unfeeling bitch."

  "My mother is a wonderful person. And you were her friend. You betrayed her. You're the cold, unfeeling bitch. And someday everyone will know it."

  "Shut up," Kim said, obviously not liking that she was losing control of the conversation.

  "I'm not going to shut up. You brought me here to talk. So let's go back eighteen years. Who kidnapped Hannah? Was it you? Was it your husband? One of your boys? How did you get Hannah out of the neighborhood? Was she at your house? But she couldn't have been, because the police looked through your home, all the neighbor's houses…" Her voice trailed away, as she remembered the search, and the fact that one house wasn't looked at for two days, because it was for sale, and the owners were out of the country. "Your husband's firm had the listing on the house for sale across the street. He told the police you couldn't reach the owner for consent to search. When you finally got that consent, there was no one there. You'd moved Hannah somewhere else."

  "So, you've figured it out. Bravo." Kim gave her a mocking clap. "It's too bad no one will ever know how brilliant you are."

  "I still don't understand why you took Hannah and then raised her within your smuggling ring. It doesn't make sense."

  "Hannah was sick when we took her. She developed a high fever and a rash and the family she was supposed to go to wouldn't take her when they realized she had medical issues, so we took care of her until she was better. And then…" Kim's lips tightened. "The woman taking care of her didn't want to let her go, so she kept her. She was well-treated. I have nothing to feel guilty about."

  She doubted the narcissistic Kim ever felt guilty about anything. "You're an evil person, Kim."

  "I'm not evil. I'm a businesswoman. I had no other choice. I had two small kids and a lousy husband who ran up gambling debts so high I was going to lose everything. All I had to do was get a few girls into the country, a few poor, desperate girls, who could have a better life by providing a baby to a couple who were also desperate to be parents. It was a win-win."

  "It wasn't a win for the Montgomerys. Why did you take Hannah if you were bringing pregnant girls into the country?"

  "There were a couple of instances where a deal fell through, and there was a lot of money on the line, so we had to improvise. Find a child who was the same age, with the same features. Blonde, blue-eyed children are very popular."

  "Hannah was an improvisation? Was Elisa Benedict as well?"

  "Yes."

  "Is TJ part of this?"

  "No, my youngest son is adorable but a complete idiot and often too stoned to know what he's saying."

  "I can't believe he doesn't know."

  "I don't care what you believe. And we're done talking, Andi. Soon, you'll smell smoke. The room will get hotter. You'll wonder if anyone will notice that there's a fire burning. Maybe you'll even think someone will rescue you, but that won't happen. You're not going to survive, Andi. Not this time. This is your last case."

  Kim pulled out a small device of some kind and hit a button.

  As she did so, Andi heard the sudden sound of a ticking clock.

  "You have about eighteen minutes to figure the rest out," Kim said, with a dark smile.

  Cooper parked in front of Wave Studios, disappointed to see no lights on in the building. He tried the front door, but it was locked. The blinds were closed.

  Andi could still be in there. But it felt wrong. He'd made a mistake. She wasn't here. His heart sank. She'd already been gone an hour, and he didn't like her chances of surviving anything that went on too long.

  His gaze swept the industrial area, which was comprised of big stone buildings, one a tile company, another with bathroom fixtures, and a third belonging to a printer. There was a large warehouse a block away with a sign that read Pacific Coast Staging, and he remembered the flyer he'd seen on Andi's father's desk, that Lassiter Realty was a full-service company, with staging services provided by Pacific Coast Staging. It couldn't be a coincidence that it was on the same block as TJ's sound studio. TJ had mentioned that his mother had helped him find the perfect studio space.

  He started down the street, thinking a warehouse would be the perfect place to hide someone. He'd no sooner taken a few steps when a figure came running around the corner, barreling into him. As he grabbed her arms, he looked into her face and got another shock. The blonde woman in front of him was Natasha, but she didn't look like the young woman he'd seen earlier. Her clothes were ripped and dirty, and there was blood on her face and on her arms.

  "Natasha? Are you all right?"

  "You're her boyfriend or something, aren't you?" Natasha asked.

  "I'm Cooper. Do you know where Andi is?"

  "Yes, but there's no time. Hurry." She ran toward the staging warehouse and as they moved around the side of it, he saw flames dancing in a window. "They set a fire on the first floor, and there's a bomb on the second floor. It's going to go off soon." The words flew out of her mouth in a panicked rush.

  "Where is Andi?"

  "On the second floor. She's tied up. She told me who I was. I didn't want to believe her. But I know she's right. I'm Hannah."

  "We're going to talk about that, but I need to get Andi out first."

  He yanked open the door, and they ran into the smoky building. A fire had been started a few feet away, and it was getting bigger by the second. They were in a huge furniture warehouse with plenty of fuel, but he couldn’t worry about that now. "Where is she?"

  Natasha turned on the flashlight on her phone and led him to the stairs. He turned on his light, as it was dark and smoky and difficult to see. But when they reached the second floor, he was relieved to see there was no fire here—not yet.

  The door in front of him was locked, but that wasn't going to stop him. "Stand back," he said. He gave himself a little space and then kicked the door. It didn't budge, so he threw his whole body against it until it flew open. He ran into the room, his light dancing off more furniture until it found the woman on the bed.

  Andi stared at him in shock and fear. Her hands were tied together and cuffed to the metal bed frame.

  "Cooper, no," she said, shaking her head. "You have to get out of here right now. There's a bomb. Its behind me on the floor. I don't know how much time is left. Kim said eighteen minutes, but that was a while go."

  "Kim?" he echoed.

  "Yes. Kim is probably running this whole thing, or maybe she has partners." She paused as her gaze moved to Hannah. "Hannah?" she said in shock. "You came back?"

  "I had to save you," Hannah said. "I didn't believe you, but then I remembered the song we sang, and I knew you were telling me the truth. I also knew they were going to kill you. I jumped out of the van and ran back here to try to save you."

  While Hannah was talking, he flashed his light around the room until he saw the timer and device on the floor behind the bed. It looked like a very large explosive. And he had no idea what to do about it.

  "Both of you need to leave," Andi repeated.

  "I'm not leaving without you," he told her. "Maybe I can break the bed frame."

  "You can't."

  Ignoring Andi, he turned to Hannah. "Go outside. Call 911. Tell them FBI Agent Andi Hart is trapped in a warehouse. Give them the address. And stay away from the building."

  "Wait," Andi said, as Hannah moved toward the door. "Where are they going, Hannah? Where are Kim and all the others going?"

  "To a private airfield in Van Nuys. They're leaving the country tonight."

  "Tell the 911 operator to call Damon Wolfe at the LA Field Office with that information," Andi said.

  "Okay. But I don't want you to die."

  "And I don't want you to die," Andi told her. "Go now."

  As Hannah ran out of the room, Cooper pulled the burner phone out of his pocket and called Flynn again. This time the agent picked up.

  "I just got your message," Flynn said. "I was about to call you."

  "I found Andi." He explained quickly and tersely where they were, what they'd found out, the need to stop the group at the Van Nuys airport, and finished with the fact that a bomb was set to go off in less than nine minutes.

  "Tell me what the device looks like," Flynn said, not wasting any time.

  He described it as best he could, but the ticking clock and the thick smoke made it difficult for him to see and to breathe.

  "Okay, I think I know what you're dealing with," Flynn said. "I've texted my team and Damon to get to the warehouse, but you're going to need to disarm it."

  "All right. What do I do?"

  "You'll need to pull out three wires in the right order. Can you do that?"

  "I think so."

  "No," Andi said, terror in her eyes. "Cooper get out of here. I don't want you to die with me."

  "We're both going to live. Tell me what to do, Flynn." He squatted down in front of the device, turning his light on it.

  "There should be a longer wire in the back connecting to the clock. It's probably black."

  "I see it."

  "Disconnect the end going into the clock."

  He held his breath, forcing his hand to be steady as he pulled the wire. Nothing happened, and he felt a rush of relief. "It's done."

  "How much time is left?"

  "Six minutes, eight seconds."

  "Do you see a yellow wire on the left side?"

  "I do."

  "And a silver one behind that?"