“I have. In fact, I know your partner, Detective Faircloth, has been trying to set up a meeting with us, but we’re really crazed with this LaGuardia situation. It may involve national security.”

“If these people are being held against their will—”

“Which you have no proof of. In fact, hasn’t each of your supposed victims been in touch with family or friends?”

“None is currently answering their phones. I suspect that the e-mails and calls are being coerced.”

“Based on?”

“Look at the whole picture,” Kat said.

“Make it fast, Detective.”

“Start with the two women. They both have an online relationship with the same guy—”

“Who isn’t really the guy.”

“Right.”

“Someone else was just using his pictures.”

“Right.”

“Which I gather is not uncommon.”

“It’s not. But the rest is. Both of these women go away with this same guy about a week apart.”

“You don’t know it’s the same guy.”

“Pardon?”

“Several guys could be using the same fake profile.”

Kat hadn’t thought of that. “Even if that were the case, neither woman is back from her trip.”

“Which also isn’t surprising. One had extended her trip. The other just left, what, yesterday?”

“Sir, one of the women transferred a ton of cash and is supposedly moving to Costa Rica or something, I don’t know.”

“But she called her son?”

“Yes, but—”

“You think the call was coerced.”

“I do. We also have to look at the case of Gerard Remington. He started an online relationship and now he’s gone too. He also transferred money to that Swiss account.”

“So what exactly do you think is going on here, Detective?”

“I think someone is preying on people, maybe a lot of people. We’ve stumbled across three possible victims. I think there are more. I think someone lures them away with promises of a vacation with a potential life partner. He grabs them and gets them somehow to cooperate. So far, none of them have come back. Gerard Remington has been off the grid for weeks.”

“And you think—”

“I hope he’s alive, but I’m not optimistic.”

“You really believe that these people have all been, what, kidnapped?”

“I do. Whoever is behind this has been smart and careful. He’s stolen license plates. With one exception, none of these three has used their credit cards or ATM charges or anything else we can trace. They just vanish.”

She waited.

“Look, I have to go into a meeting on this LaGuardia mess, but okay, yeah, this doesn’t pass the smell test. Right now, I don’t have a ton of manpower, but we’ll get on it. You gave us the three names. We will put a watch on their accounts, run their credit cards, check phone records. I’ll get a subpoena for this singles website and see what they can tell us about who put up the profile pages. I don’t know if that will give us anything or not. Criminals use anonymous VPNs all the time. I’ll also see if we can get that singles site to put up some kind of warning on their home page, but since it will hurt their bottom line, I doubt they will want to cooperate. We can also see if Treasury can go after the money trail. Two SARs were issued, right? That should be enough to get the ball rolling on that end too.”

Kat listened to ADIC Keiser continue to go down his checklist and came to a horrible, awful conclusion:

It wouldn’t do any good.

Whoever was behind this had been efficient. He had even gone so far as to steal a license plate from another Lincoln Town Car. So yes, the feds would work the case, even though it couldn’t yet be a priority. Maybe, if they got lucky, they’d find something.

Eventually.

But what else could she do?

When ADIC Keiser finished, he said, “Detective? I need to go now.”

“I appreciate your believing me,” Kat said.

“Sadly, I think I do believe you,” he said, “but I hope to hell you’re wrong about all this.”

“Me too.”

They hung up. Kat had one more card to play. She called Brandon.

“Where are you?” she asked him.

“I’m still in Manhattan.”

“I found the guy your mother supposedly went away with.”

“What?”

“I think you were right from the start. I think something bad has happened to your mother.”

“But I spoke to her,” Brandon said. “She would have told me if something was wrong.”

“Not if she felt it would put her—or you—in danger.”

“You think that’s what happened?”

There was no reason to sugarcoat it anymore. “Yeah, Brandon, I do.”

“Oh God.”

“The FBI is looking into it now. They will go through every legal channel they can to find out what happened.” She repeated the word that she had emphasized. “Legal.”

“Kat?”

“Yes?”

“Is that your way of asking me to break in to the website again?”

Screw the fancy talk. “Yes.”

“Okay, I’m at a coffee shop not far from your house. I’m going to need more privacy and a stronger Wi-Fi.”

“Do you want to use my apartment?”

“Yeah, that’ll work.”

“I’ll call and tell the doorman to let you in. I’m on my way too. Call me if you find anything—who put up the profiles, if they put up any other profiles, who else they’ve contacted, anything. Get your friends to help, whatever. We need to know everything.”

“On it.”

She hung up, called her doorman, hit the accelerator, though she felt as if she were rushing to nowhere. Panic was beginning to creep in and take hold. The more she learned, the more helpless she felt. Professionally and personally.

When the phone sounded again, the caller ID read BLOCKED.

Kat picked it up. “Hello?”

“This is Leslie.”

Cozone’s thin man. Even his phone voice had a creepy smile. “What is it?” she asked.

“I found Sugar.”

Chapter 38

Juicehead was getting closer.

From her spot behind the boulder, Dana Phelps searched for some kind of weapon. A rock maybe. A fallen branch. Something. She started digging her hands around the dirt near her, finding nothing more lethal than pebbles, and twigs too flimsy for a bird’s nest.

“Dana?”

The timbre of his shout told her that he was closing the gap in a hurry. Weapon, weapon. Still nothing. She wondered about the pebbles. Maybe she could mix them with the dirt and then fling it in his face, hitting his eyes, blinding him for a second or two and then . . .

Then what?

The whole plan was moronic. Dana may have been able to temporarily escape using the element of surprise. She may have been able to put some distance between them because of some fortuitous blend of lifelong training and adrenaline. But when she stopped and looked at it now, he had a gun and size and strength. He was well fed and healthy while she had been locked underground for she had no idea how long.

She had no chance.

What did Dana have on her side in this David and Goliath battle? Not even a slingshot. The only thing she maybe had was, again, the element of surprise. She was ducking behind this boulder. He would be passing by it any minute now. She could leap out, catching him off guard. She would go for the eyes and the balls and attack with the ferocity only someone fighting for her life could muster.

But did that even sound feasible anymore?

No, not really.

She could hear that he had slowed his pace. His steps were more deliberate now. Terrific. Even the element of surprise was gone.

So what did she have left?

Nothing.

Exhaustion emanated from every part of her body. Part of her wanted to just stay here, on the ground, and get it over with. Let him do what he wanted. He could kill her right away. Probably would. Or he could bring her back to that barn and do whatever monstrous thing he had been planning in hopes of extracting information relating to that police detective Titus had asked about.