Page 62 of Save Her Life

“Right, so their decision to take Olivia was impulsive.” It was something she’d considered in passing and feared. Impulsive people were unpredictable and steered by emotion. With that, logic and reason took a back seat.Not good.

“That might not be a bad thing. They could slip up.”

She appreciated Brice’s positive bent on the situation. “We could be looking at this wrong too. They could have prepared some, established a backup plan in case parole was denied. The judgment just came through Thursday morning and Olivia was snatched before five on Friday afternoon. They’d have to know about her, where and how to get to her… Even have a place in mind where they could take her.” Premeditation was somewhat more soothing than impulse driving the crime, but it still didn’t answer the primary question about what they wanted. Were they simply after revenge, or did they want her to do something? Her mind flipflopped the two options. Or was it a blend of both? Either way, the realist in her knew she had to consider that Olivia might even already be… No, she couldn’t accept that she was gone. And, surely, she’d feel it, as she had with her brother.

“Whatever the case, they’ve got some balls going after the daughter of a fed,” Brice said.

“That right there is the part that scares me the most.” If they were that daring, did they have limitations on what they were capable of?

“We’ll figure this out, but for them to take such a risk there must be the possibility of a high payoff.”

“As I said before. But what bearing could Patton’s release have on Jennings and Eaton?”

“Still a mystery.”

She was running this all through her mind and was chilled by a new thought. “We talked about them finding Olivia online, but that doesn’t explain how he knew where to find her in person.”

Brice’s face shadowed. “Well, if Jennings was preparing in advance and latched on to you at the hearing, he could have followed you home from the prison.”

She suddenly felt chilled right through. “But I didn’t go straight home. I had the hostage incident, but before that I— Shit. I visited my mother.” She pulled her phone and realized the time. It was nearing four in the morning.

Brice put a hand over hers. “You can call if it makes you feel better, but I think she’s safe.”

She met his eyes and considered his implication. They had taken Olivia. Her weakest point. And she was much easier to manage than an older woman. But could she be satisfied with assuming all was well? “I need to call.”

She did just that and woke the nurse, who confirmed her mother was safe and sound asleep in her room. She’d even had Dana duck down the hall and peek inside.

“I see her and hear her soft snores, Ms. Vos,” Dana told her.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. Good night now.”

She never got into it with the nurse as to why she was concerned about her mother, or brought up Olivia’s situation, so there was no reason to ask that she keep this call quiet.

“So?” Brice said when she tucked her phone away.

“She’s safe. Thing is though, if Lonnie was following me, he’d have hung around at the standoff too. That lasted for hours.” A determined person could never be underestimated, but it still seemed extreme when all that effort might not even be needed.

“Right, and that was a long one, wasn’t it?”

“Until the wee hours of Thursday morning.” She was grateful for sleeping in that day, as she didn’t count on getting much until Olivia was home. Then she’d sleep for a month, and maybe the two of them could take a vacation together. “There’s no way he hung around. An officer would have noticed that. Besides, as we touched on before, people can find things online these days.”

“We didn’t find a laptop,” Brice pointed out.

“Unless it’s with them, but even a phone accesses the internet these days.” She had made efforts to keep her private life just that, but there was only so much she could do being the daughter of a Davenport and the twin sister of a brother who was murdered in a tragic hostage situation. That was all public record. Again, she thought once this was all over, she’d hire someone to make them invisible online.

“True enough.”

The back of her mind waded through the vehicles in the area when she’d first arrived at the hostage incident. There was one thing coming through. “News vans were there when I got on scene at the grocery store. I even had one reporter knock on my window.”

“All right, so Jennings may or may not have planned to take Olivia, or even consider a backup in case Patton’s parole was denied. He might have hatched his plan when he saw you on TV. Maybe during a recap or replay the next day even.”

“Either way, he had from the hearing on Wednesday until Friday afternoon to find out about Olivia and devise a way to take her. But we’re back to why he’s even doing this.” She grimaced, hating unanswered questions.

“Well, we’ve speculated on this already. He must want you to get something out of Patton. Most likelytalksomething out of him. And now it would seem whatever it is involves Dennis Eaton. But how is he rolled up in all of this? What’s at stake for him? Is he just a friend who wants a cut of whatever it is? AndI saycut, but it’s not like we know if it has anything to do with money.”

“The problem is we can’t be absolutely sure what this is about,” she countered as her mind gnawed on Brice’s words.Anything to do with money…Was that what all this boiled down to? But how did that link to her negotiation skills? Or Patton for that matter? Her phone rang, and she fumbled to get a hold of it. Her heart raced at the sight of the text in place of the caller’s identity.Blocked Number.She answered.

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