Page 86 of Save Her Life

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” she repeated. “Will you authorize us to do this deepfake?”

Seconds ticked off, and Sandra felt like her heart was going to stop beating. Each inhale and exhale was painful as she waited for Natalie to respond.

“Fine, I’ll help. Mother to mother.” She met Sandra’s eye, and Sandra could have cried, but she tamped down her emotions like she was programmed to do.

“Thank you.” Sandra had her sign off her approval and left about an hour after she showed up. One point five hours remaining on the clock. Not enough time to return to the prison and show Patton the video in person. Besides, it still needed tobe made. She might be cutting things too close in that regard alone.

She’d called Elwood with the news, and he was going to get the deepfake underway. She got on the road to the WFO, and her phone rang.

“Sandra, where are you? What’s going on?”

It was Nolan, and she took a few breaths to steady her anger. Her ex could drain her at the best of times.

“You’re back already?”

“At your desk as we speak, but you’re not here.”

“If you spoke to Assistant Director Elwood, you’d know I’m on my way.” So what that she’d just hung up from him.

“Good. Because I have been speaking with Special Agent Sutton. I hope you have better news than Brice. You do, right? Where are you anyway? Our daughter is missing and you’re not even?—”

“Enough. Don’t recap the situation like I’m some idiot, Nolan. I’ve been working on this since Friday and have hardly slept trying to get my girl back.”

“Ourgirl.”

She groaned and hung up. She had a low tolerance threshold for Nolan most of the time, but she did nothing to deserve being bullied this way. As if she didn’t care about Olivia and was sitting on her hands. How dare he.

FORTY-TWO

Sandra was walking into the field office when a call came through from the lab. “Special Agent Vos,” she answered.

“It’s Renee from the lab. We finished processing that storage locker in Woodbridge, and you’ll be interested to know that we found blueprints for Liberty Bank among Patton’s things. They were marked up in his handwriting.”

“Showing he planned the robbery.”

“It sure looks that way.”

“Thanks,” Sandra told her. They had the proof they needed, and until they presented the deepfake to Patton, this discovery could still add years to his time in prison. Sandra hung up and placed another call as she entered the WFO. She passed Brice, and Nolan, who was sitting at her desk. She still hadn’t taken time to change or put makeup on, and they did a double take at her disheveled appearance, but she kept moving with her phone to an ear. She was on hold while the prison administration put her through to the warden’s cell phone.

“What are you doing? Where are you going?” Nolan asked, trailing after her. “Just stop and talk to me.”

She kept moving, just as time kept chugging along.

“Sandra,” he said, using a firm tone she was well familiar with and never cared for.

She looked over her shoulder but kept on her way to the conference room. “I’m not your dog. You have something to say, say it. I need to get on a video conference.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry.”

His apology only slowed her steps.

“Who’s the conference with?” Nolan asked.

“Darrell Patton. My deadline is noon. That’s less than an hour from now, and if I don’t have something to give Lonnie Jennings, he’s going to kill our daughter. I’m not so sure he won’t anyway, just for the fun of it. I’m quite sure the guy’s a psychopath.” She breezed into the conference room, when the other end started ringing.

“Warden Synder,” he said drily. He didn’t sound too pleased that she had his cell number and was cutting into his Sunday, but too bad.

“Special Agent Vos. I need to speak with Darrell Patton immediately, preferably over video.”

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