Page 107 of Fatal Betrayal

Cooper stalked around the house,fear racing through him. He needed to find Andi, to put it all together and figure out where she was. But a wave of hopeless despair ran through him. Andi could be anywhere. And he was one person. He needed to get help. He ended up back in the office, looking for her phone.

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?"

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