I said, “I’ll call you back as soon as I get the Foster report-maybe in the next fifteen minutes.” I hung up and glanced at my phone. The current wallpaper on my display was a picture of my sister sitting on my couch holding Diva. “Where are you? Did you somehow find out the truth and are licking your wounds somewhere?”

I closed the phone and concentrated on my driving. The sick feeling in my gut that had begun last night when I found out my sister had been used and lied to was growing larger with each passing minute. But if she did know about Foster, maybe she was at my house hiding out, embarrassed and angry, not wanting to talk to anyone.

She wasn’t at home. With Diva and Webster following on my heels, I’d checked every room before I went to the computer. I accessed my e-mail, and the message from Aunt Caroline’s PI was waiting in my in-box. I saw there was more than a report. JPEG files were attached. Pictures. I saved the attachments to my desktop and printed them out. The report came first, and I was already reading how they had learned Foster’s true identity as the pictures slowly filled the printer tray.

Their investigation had been as easy as shooting cans off a fence, and I wondered how much Aunt Caroline had paid them to follow Foster for a day and then probably run the same computer search I had.

The last picture was still printing, but I picked up the others. One was a grainy shot of Foster entering an apartment, the next a better picture of the entrance to the complex with the name prominent-Garden Grove. Then a photo of a brick home with well-tended landscaping and a Lexus in the driveway. This one was obviously taken with a telephoto lens, and so was the next-Foster leaving the car. Next came a shot of the front door and a woman standing there. Foster was leaving, a teenage girl by his side. The daughter. He’d even lied about her-told Kate he had a son. Her head was turned as she waved good-bye to her mother, and I couldn’t see her face. But the last picture, the ink still wet, had a full shot of Foster’s face as well as his daughter’s.

I blinked… blinked again, and then I almost strangled on my own heart.

That girl could have been Shannon O’Meara’s twin.

26

My hands were shaking when I called Jeff this time. “I’m e-mailing you a picture of a woman standing in the front entrance to her house. Please show it to Loreen and tell me if she recognizes her. I’ll be waiting.”

“Abby, what’s happened?”

“I’ll explain after she looks at the picture and you call me back, okay?”

“I’ll be online in a sec. Take it easy. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

He hung up, and all I could do was walk in circles, matching the swirl in my brain with my feet. Harrison Foster didn’t scam my sister to get her money. He scammed her to get close to an investigation that threatened to open up his ugly box of secrets. Took advantage of her so he could hang around and put tracking devices on my car, show up anywhere I went as I followed the clues. Hell, I’ll bet he even pumped Kate for information, and did it all with his dimpled, guileless smile.

He probably couldn’t get to Emma’s house fast enough once the TV stations and radio news programs had broadcast their breaking story about city workers finding baby bones under a demolished house. The photo of Emma and me had appeared in the Chronicle the next day, and Harrison Foster was in business. When he searched the Internet and learned I had a sister, he must have felt like he hit the jackpot.

But the only real proof was a photo of a girl who looked like Shannon. What if Loreen didn’t recognize Beth Foster as the pregnant woman she and Christine had cleaned for? What did I have then? Jeff, come on. Call me back.

And then I remembered the notebook. Had White found it, or had Emma tossed it? I grabbed my purse and fumbled through all the useless things I insist on carrying around until I found Don White’s crumpled card, the one he’d given me the night Jerry Joe Billings had been murdered.

I called his cell, and he answered right away with a brusque, “White here.”

“It’s Abby,” I said. “Did Emma let you look in the storage unit for the notebook?”

“What’s going on, Abby? You sound in a panic.”

“I am. The notebook?”

“I’m looking at it, so you can cool your jets. Checking out all these names might take us-”

“There are names?”

“Oh, yeah. But like I said-”

“Can you look for one name in particular?”

“Sure. But what have you got?”

“I think a man named Harrison Foster might be who we’re looking for. Can you check and see if he or his wife, Beth Foster, was a client of Christine’s?”

“Sure, but how’d you find this out, Abby?” he asked.

I wanted to scream at him to shut up and just do what I asked, but I managed to say calmly, “Please, Don. Look for the name first. It’s important.”

What seemed a decade later he said, “It’s here. She cleaned for a Mr. and Mrs. Harrison Foster on Wednesdays.”

There it was. Proof. And I suddenly wanted to throw up.

“Tell me what’s going on, Abby.”

“This man almost killed my aunt this morning. He’s been dating my sister to get close to us. You need to find him. Now.” I gave White the addresses from the PI report, and he said he was on it.

I hung up and the other phone rang. The landline. The caller ID read HEWITT BANK AND TRUST, where we have our CompuCan accounts-the computer business that Daddy left us. What the hell did they want? I couldn’t deal with company business right now. But when the answering machine offered the caller a chance to leave a message, I heard a voice I recognized. “This is Jane Edgar from Hewitt Bank and Trust. It is urgent that I speak with Abigail Rose immediately concerning-”

I snatched up the phone, knowing that Jane Edgar wouldn’t use the word urgent if she didn’t mean it. “This is Abby. What is it, Jane?”

“This concerns a transfer of funds, Abby. Can you please verify your address?”

“Transfer of funds? Verify my address?” I said, confused.

“I must verify-”

“You know me. You know where I live. What’s this about?”

“I have to go through standard procedure on this, check your passwords, everything. You’ll understand soon enough. Please, let’s go through the steps so I can document that I followed bank protocol.”

I gave her what she wanted, even had to bring up my accounts online and look for a specific account number.

When I was finished with her “standard procedure,” Jane said, “We have a request to transfer five hundred thousand dollars from the joint account you share with your sister, Katherine Rose. It’s to go to a numbered account in the Cayman Islands. As per this account agreement, we must have your authorization to do this for any amount over ten thousand dollars.”

I couldn’t speak. I felt like I was listening to a radio not tuned in to any station, one just giving off static.

“Abby? Are you there?”

“Um… can I check into this and get back to you? Meanwhile, don’t move any money, okay?”

“I think that’s wise,” she said solemnly. “Please ask for me when you call back.” She disconnected.

I slowly replaced the handset in its cradle. I felt like I was drowning, struggling in a current that threatened to suck me under. There was only one reason Kate would need that kind of money.

Foster. He had her.

And she’d done the one thing she could to send me a message. Rather than transfer money from any of her private accounts, she chose the business account, knowing the bank would call me.

Yes. He had her. But where? How could I find her? What would happen if I didn’t okay the money transfer? What would happen if I did?

A cold sweat dampened my forehead, and I tasted blood. I’d bitten my bottom lip without even feeling any pain.