Page 57 of The White Picket Fence

“She called me,”Nick said over Vito’s speaker phone.

Tino and Vito had retrieved their cell phones along with Vito’s service revolver and they were racing back to the city.

The warden had relayed the basics. Charlotte had gotten an ultimatum from Kevin Hale—come to him willingly or he’d kill Kayla Lewis. She’d reached out to Nick Lawrence after calling Tino and getting his voicemail. She’d known that Tino and Vito were interviewing Hale’s cellmate and wouldn’t be checking their phones for a while.

Tino had one new voicemail from Charlotte and one from Gino, but he hadn’t listened to either yet. He didn’t think he had the strength to hear Charlotte’s voice right now, and Gino would be telling him what he already knew.

“She said that she didn’t want to call 911 because she didn’t have time to explain the situation,” Nick went on, “but she didn’t want to be stupid.”

“So she just went with him?” Vito demanded. “How is that not stupid?”

“He has the girl,” Nick said quietly.

“She already feels guilty that Kayla’s father was shot because of Hale’s obsession with her,” Tino said, understanding Charlotte’s intent even though he vehemently disagreed with her choice. “She won’t let Hale hurt Kayla if she can stop it.”

“Exactly,” Nick said. “I tried to get her to wait, to let me find a female detective who could pretend to be her, or at least put a tracker in her pocket, but she refused. She said that Hale had put a timer on her arrival at their meeting place. If she deviated from his instructions, he’d kill Kayla. Like Tino said, she’s not going to give him any reason to hurt the girl on her account.”

“How did Hale get to Kayla?” Vito demanded. “I put two uniforms in front of the Lewis house.”

Nick sighed. “They’re both dead, Vito. Shot in the head. Their bodies were discovered about forty minutes ago, when they didn’t check in.”

Vito sucked in a harsh breath. “Fucking hell. What are you doing about Charlotte? Did she just meet him with no backup plan?”

“Of course not,” Nick snapped, sounding irritated. “I put three unmarked cars in the parking lot where she was to meet Hale. One of my detectives saw her get out of a cab at the Verizon store in Roxborough and walk across the parking lot. A black Chrysler Pacifica picked her up and headed back to Ridge.”

He stopped and Tino’s gut turned over. “And then?” he rasped.

“And then the minivan pulled into an alley and never came out. My detectives found the minivan parked in the alley with no sign of either Charlotte or Hale. They must have gotten into another vehicle.”

“You lost them,” Tino said, the words strangled.

“Not entirely. I checked the street cams myself, Tino, and I’ve narrowed down the possibilities of the vehicle he changed to. It’s either a black Ford Taurus, a white Toyota Tundra pickup, or a Chevy Leaf. I’ve got BOLOs out on all three vehicles.”

“Okay,” Vito said. “Keep me up to date.”

“Of course,” Nick said. “What did you learn from the cellmate?”

Vito made a sound of irritation. “That Hale has many contacts in the outside world. One of them helped him buy a house.”

Tino tuned Vito out as his brother summarized their interview with Gus Greene, focusing instead on the sketch he’d made of Hale’s house. Using the app on his phone, he rendered it from the sketch to a photo and did a reverse image search.

“Vito,” he snapped when he got an immediate match. “I found it. His house.”

Vito looked over at him, eyes wide. “How? My people just started looking.”

Your people aren’t as good as I am, he wanted to snarl, but he bit it back. “It’s what I do. It’s in Chestnut Hill.”

He held up the Zillow listing so that Vito could see. The neighborhood was one of Philly’s fanciest. Not what Tino had been expecting when he’d started the search.

Vito whistled. “Damn, that’s really close to your sketch.”

“Give me the address,” Nick said. “I’ll get personnel on the way.”

Tino gave him the home’s location, a fraction of his dread giving way to hope.

Don’t hurt her. Please, don’t hurt her.

“No one engages until we get there,” Vito ordered. “Not unless they have eyes on both Charlotte and Kayla.” He abruptly pulled to the shoulder, using the emergency access road to cross to the other side of the interstate and merging into traffic going the opposite direction. “Do me a favor, Nick. Check the owner of this house.”

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