“Charles!” Charlotte turned to him, managed to look beautifully indignant in her orange jumpsuit.

  He just patted her hand. “My client is distraught—”

  “Your client is an accessory to her own daughter’s kidnapping—by her own admission.”

  “She was distraught,” Scarpetti repeated. “Confused, groggy from the sleeping pill her husband forced on her. Her child, also distraught, told you what her father had coached her to say.”

  “Is that so?” Red shook his head as he studied Charlotte. “Man, you are some number. Deputy, why don’t you play back the recording on your phone, from when you took Ms. Dupont upstairs to dress.”

  Michaela set her phone on the table, cued it up.

  Charlotte’s voice, a little breathless, but very smooth, flowed out. “Police don’t make much, especially women police, I imagine.”

  In contrast, Michaela’s voice hit clipped and dispassionate. “You’re going to want shoes, ma’am.”

  “I’ve got money. I can make your life easier. All you have to do is let me go. Tell them I ran out, give me ten minutes’ head start. Ten thousand for a ten-minute head start.”

  “You’re offering to pay me ten thousand dollars to let you escape from custody? How are you going to get me the money?”

  “I’m good for it. You know who I am! Look, you can take this watch. It’s Bulgari, for Christ’s sake. It’s worth more than you pull in in ten years.”

  “You’re going to want to put on shoes, ma’am, or go out barefoot.”

  “Take the watch, you idiot! Ten minutes. I’ll get you cash, too. Take your hands off me! Don’t you dare put those things on me.”

  “You attempted to bribe a police officer, and have shown yourself to be a flight risk. Sit down. Since you’re now cuffed, I’ll get you some shoes.”

  Michaela cut off the recording during the stream of curses.

  “I bet she didn’t tell you about that one.” Red scratched the side of his neck. “Now, before you start saying that was just a desperate plea from a desperate woman, let me save you the breath. It’s bribing a police officer, period. I also have your client’s confession on tape—including the Miranda warning before she gave it. We have BOLOs out now for her two partners, and we will apprehend them.”

  “You said you already—”

  Red just smiled when the lawyer cut Charlotte off.

  “Had them?” Red finished. “You might’ve gotten that impression. We will have them. You know, they were both mostly careful about wiping things down, but it’s hard to get everything. Especially when you’re moving fast because, hey, the kid got loose, and the cops might be coming. We got prints.”

  “We’re not disputing the child was abducted,” Scarpetti replied. “Ms. Dupont had no part in this terrible crime.”

  “I guess she didn’t know where they took the kid, where they held her. She would never have been there.”

  “How could I know! I don’t even know what I said on that recording of yours. I was so loopy from the pills Aidan made me take. It’s not the first time he’s forced me to … do things.”

  She turned her head away an instant after she let a single tear slide down her cheek.

  “I guess you didn’t know the Wenfields. The people who own the cabin.”

  “I don’t know them. I don’t know where the damn cabin is. I only go to Big Sur when Aidan makes me. Charles!”

  “Charlotte, you need to be quiet. Let me handle this.”

  “Doesn’t know the Wenfields, has never been to the cabin. So saying that,” Red considered, “you wouldn’t have any idea they’d be out of town, that the house would be empty.”

  “Exactly! Oh, thank God.”

  “Now I’m confused. How about you, Mic? Are you confused?”

  She kept her stony face on, but smiled a little inside. “Not really.”

  “Just me then. I’m confused how it is, when you don’t know the Wenfields, don’t know where their cabin is, how your fingerprint—right index finger—ended up on the light switch of the downstairs powder room.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  “I guess you got a little careless. How I see it, you checked the place out with your partners, needed to use the facilities. And just didn’t think about tapping that switch.”

  “They planted it. Charles—”

  “Quiet now.”

  Michaela saw the change in his eyes. Whether or not he cared if his client was guilty or not, he cared when the evidence piled up.

  “Your story’s so full of lies and holes and shifts, it’s hard to keep up. But I’m damn good at riding the wave. The blackmail? It’s bullshit. Extortion’s one thing, and getting caught at it’s going to mean some time. But drugging and abducting a minor? Use of a deadly weapon? That’s a whole different level. A man’s after a pile of money. I don’t see him risking that different level by helping grab Caitlyn. That’s not his job, not his play.”

  “He had pictures!”

  “Charlotte, stop talking. Don’t say another word.”

  “She’s not loopy from a sleeping pill now, and she’s back to blackmail. Another shift back from her daughter being coached to accuse her. They stuck a needle in her.”

  Laid back vanished as Red slammed a fist on the table. “You picked the spot where they could grab her, and they stuck a needle in your ten-year-old daughter.”

  “For money,” Michaela added. “For more Bulgari watches.”

  “For love!”

  This time, Scarpetti reached over, gripped Charlotte’s arm. “Not another word. I need to consult with my client.”

  “Surprise, surprise.” Red got to his feet, stopped the recording. “He’s going to tell you the one who rolls first gets the best deal. He’s not wrong. You want a Coke, Mic? I could use a Coke.”

  When they walked out, he signaled another deputy to take the door, then gestured to Michaela to follow him through the interview area, the bullpen area, and into his office, where he kept a cooler stocked with Cokes.

  He got out two, passed her one before sitting down and putting his high-top Chucks on his desk.

  “Okay, so let’s tell the state’s attorney it’s about that time. Fancy lawyer’s going to look for a fancy deal.”

  “How much time is she going to get? Whatever it is, it’s not enough, but how much do you think?”

  “Well.” He scratched the side of his neck again. “You got kidnapping a minor, for ransom. You got the use of drugs on the kid, the gun. Thing is she can carry on about how she didn’t know about the gun, so we’ll let that slide. And her being a parent, she can use that. But the ransom, that’s going to sting even when she rolls.”

  “And she will. There’s no loyalty in her.”

  “Not a bit. Five to ten, I figure. Her lover and the other? Twenty to twenty-five, easy. Depending on how stupid they are, they could get a full life sentence. But I figure the three of them are going to throw enough shit at each other, plead it down, get the twenty to twenty-five. If we can prove who waved the gun around? That one’s twenty-five to life.”

  He took a long, long gulp of Coke. “But that’s the lawyers and court. Us? We gotta catch them. She’s going over, and if Sullivan has a brain—and I think he does—he’s already filing for full custody, for divorce, and getting himself a restraining order in the possible circumstances she makes bail.”

  He took another swing. “You did good, Mic.”

  “I didn’t do that much.”

  “You did the job, and you did it good. You go on, let the state’s attorney know we’re going to play Let’s Make a Deal.”

  Michaela nodded, turned toward the door. “That little girl? The media’s going to swarm like flies, Sheriff.”

  “Yeah, they are. Nothing we can do there but give a statement when it comes to that, then go into no-comment mode, and stay there. She doesn’t deserve what’s coming next.”

  No, Michaela thought as she went out. None of them did.

  * * *

  Five minutes after Charlotte began to spin shaded truths, outright lies, and self-serving excuses, Scarpetti cut her off. He told her with stone-cold clarity he needed the truth, all of it, or he’d walk away.

  Because she believed him, Charlotte spilled her guts.

  While she spilled, Frank Denby lounged on the bed of his motel room just south of Santa Maria, watching porn while he iced down his black eye and swollen jaw.

  His ribs ached like a mother, so he’d driven as far as he could before calling it. Now after a pop of Percocet, some weed, some ice, he figured he’d head out again in a couple hours.

  Sparks had kicked the shit out of him when they’d discovered the brat had gotten out. Like it was his fault. Not that he hadn’t gotten a couple of shots in. Yeah, he’d landed a couple.

  But he understood Sparks might have killed him if Sparks hadn’t known he shared the blame.

  So the job had gone to shit—all that money blown—and now he, down to a few hundred cash, one stolen credit card he wasn’t ready to use, what remained of the nickel bag in his duffle, had to lie low.

  Not that the kid could ID him, but when a job went south, so did he. Mexico felt right. Cruise on down south of the border. A little grifting, a lot of beach time. Hit the tourist spots, make a few bills.

  Sparks might have a sweet gig going with his personal training game and banging a movie star mark, but for himself, Denby preferred short, simple cons.

  He crunched into a handful of barbecue chips, sulked a little because the guy on the crappy motel TV was getting a blow job and he wasn’t.

  He should never have let Sparks talk him into the game, but it had seemed so damn easy. And his share of the two million those rich assholes would pay?

  Jesus, he’d live like a king in Mexico with a million bucks. And all he’d had to do for it was help set up the cabin and watch the kid for a couple days.

  Who’d’ve figured the brat would climb out the damn window and go poof?

  But the brat hadn’t seen his face, or seen Sparks without a disguise, and the movie star couldn’t blab unless she wanted to trade in her Armani for prison blues.

  Besides, the bitch was hot for Sparks.

  Good old Sparks knew how to string the rich ones along.

  He took another toke on the joint, held that sweet, sweet smoke in his lungs, then expelled it, watched it drift away and take most of his worries with it.

  Sun, sand, and señoritas, he thought.

  Things could be worse.

  Then the cops broke down the door, and they were.

  * * *

  Grant Sparks was neither as sanguine nor as stupid as his sometime partner. He’d worked on the blackmail/kidnapping game for nearly a year. Getting Denby on board had been as simple as dangling a million-dollar payoff. Denby thought small, was small, so he’d swallowed that they’d split two mil without a doubt or question.

  Which would’ve—damn well should have—left the brains of the game with nine million.

  Then he’d take his payoff, spend a couple of years in Mozambique—no extradition—living off the fat.

  He knew Charlotte wasn’t quite as stupid as Denby—and was a better liar. He knew how to read women, how to play them. He made his living at it.

  Obviously, and it pissed him off, he hadn’t read the damn kid. Maybe a part of him admired how she’d conned him—she had to have flushed the fucking milk. Damn smart kid. And that meant she’d been awake when he’d been in her room, when Charlotte had called.

  He’d gone over the conversation—his side of it—a dozen times while he packed up. Nothing there, nothing to lead back to him, or to Denby, or to Charlotte.

  Except … he’d asked about the nanny’s phone. If the kid remembered that, repeated that, it might be trouble. Still, for all he knew, the kid wandered around in the dark, fell off a damn cliff.

  Maybe he hadn’t intended to hurt her—more than necessary—but he wouldn’t be sorry if she’d ended up dead on the rocks.

  But dead or alive, he couldn’t take chances. Because women, those he could read, and he knew Charlotte would screw this up. If anything went wrong, she’d flip to save her own ass.

  He’d have done the same.

  Better, he thought as he packed the TAG Heuer Charlotte had given him, to play it safe. Take a little trip, get out of L.A. before they found the kid—or the body—and she fumbled it all.

  He had money. The personal-trainer-to-the-stars gig paid well enough. And the tips paid even better.

  He had a Rolex as well as the TAG, Tiffany cuff links and more gifted to him over his eighteen months running this con. Charlotte had stood out, so he’d focused on her.

  She didn’t give a crap about the kid, so the kidnapping idea had blossomed. She despised the Sullivans, had a shitpile of envy going for their status—and their money.

  Soaking them for millions—she’d loved the idea. Thinking back, he probably hadn’t needed Denby and the blackmail scheme to get her on board.

  It should’ve worked.

  He packed up his laptop, tablet, prepaid phones, took a last look around the apartment he’d lived in for nearly three years. A long stretch for him, he thought, but the pickings had been good.

  Time to head out, head east, he decided, swing through the Midwest. Had to be plenty of rich, bored housewives, sex-starved widows, divorcées to pluck from.

  He shouldered the strap of his computer case, rolled the first of his two suitcases to the door. He’d come back for the other.

  When he opened the door, he recognized cop in the eyes of the men, one of them with a fist raised to knock.

  And he thought: That fucking kid.

  * * *

  Throughout the day, Red sent deputies out on calls, answered a couple himself. He tackled paperwork, had a burrito for lunch at his desk.

  Until the lawyers finished hammering out what they hammered, he didn’t want to stray far.

  He answered his phone, listened to a colleague with the state police. Nodding, he made notes. Then hung up and called Michaela into his office.

  “Staties just picked up Frank Denby at a motel outside Santa Maria. He was watching porn, getting high. Just another genius.”

  “Do we get him?”

  “I have to admire your straight-down-the-channel focus, Mic. Happened in our jurisdiction. It’s going to be federal, so we’ll pass him on, but the state boys will transport him up here so we can have our swing.”

  “Good.” She wanted the swing. “That’s fast work.”

  “Well, genius. He had a nine-mil S&W on him. What?” Red reared back, blinked. “Wait, hold on! I believe that’s a smile I see. I believe I see the beginnings of a smile.”

  “I can smile. I do smile.” Amused, she immediately sobered her face to rag on him. “See?”

  “You’re a smiling fool, Mic. As we learned after Dupont started naming names, our friend Denby has another few months of parole on his previous conviction as a half-assed shakedown artist. I use ‘artist’ liberally in his case. The firearm’s a parole violation, which just adds some cream to the coffee.”

  He held up a finger when his phone rang. “Hold on. Sheriff Buckman. Yes, sir, Detective.” A fresh grin spread over his face. “Well, isn’t that sweet news? We sure are grateful to you for your quick work on this. Is that so? Uh-huh. Well, hard to blame him. I’ll be here. And I’ll inform the family. This is going to be a big load off their minds. That’s good work.”

  “They got Sparks.”

  “Wrapped right up,” he agreed. “Just before he carted his belongings out of his apartment in L.A. He didn’t skedaddle fast enough.”

  “They didn’t know we had Dupont, didn’t know we had the BOLOs.”

  “The one good thing here, Mic, about the Sullivans not calling in law enforcement? No leaks. No media. You add the Coopers to that. They’re too decent to run out and call up reporters to brag out their story.”

  He swung his Chucks off the desk, got up. “Do you want to take a ride with me out to the Sullivan enclave?”

  “I absolutely do. First, I want to say it’s been an education watching how you pushed this through, every step of it.”

  “It’s the job, Mic. Just a few things in this life I take seriously, that I figure you have to focus in and do right. Sex, surfing, and the job. Let’s go give the Sullivans the good news.”

  * * *

  The sun painted sky and sea with a symphony of color as it slid toward the horizon. Gulls wheeled and cried as the tide rolled out from the quiet strip of beach on the Sullivan peninsula, leaving bits of glittering sea glass, hunks of shells strewn on the verge of sand and foam.

  On the rocks, sea lions lolled.

  Under Lily’s watchful eye, Cate collected what interested her, plunking little treasures in a pink plastic bucket. They studied the small universes in tide pools between the rocks, left footprints in damp sand, watched sandpipers scurry.

  All around them the land sprang abruptly, dramatically from the sea, creating the breathtaking cliffs. Waves rushed and slapped the rocky coastline, carved out whirling pools, small, stony arches, and made this small slice of beach a private haven.

  The kick of wind had Lily taking the scarf she’d tossed on and wrapping it around her neck for more warmth.

  She couldn’t claim a love of chilly beaches on a February evening, but anything that distracted the girl helped. For that matter, she wanted distraction herself.

  God knew sunset over the Pacific provided a spectacular distraction, but with the brisk air whipping, she’d have preferred it from a seat by the fire with a cold, dry martini in her hand.

  But her girl needed the air, the movement.

  Regardless, now that the sun dipped closer to the sea, the light changing with the journey, they needed to start back.

  As she started to call it, Cate looked up at her. Such big blue eyes, Lily thought.