Page 110 of Almost Dead (The Cahills 2)

“Where would she take him?” Cissy asked. “Oh God…She can’t hurt him.”

Jack said, “We don’t know it was Marla. Maybe Tanya was into something we don’t know about.”

“We’re checking into her history. How did you come to hire her?”

“Jack’s father, Jonathan Holt, recommended her.” Cissy’s tone was sharp.

“Do you know how he knew her?” Paterno asked.

Jack’s face was a mask. “I believe he learned of her through a woman he was dating. He meets a lot of people that way.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Paterno promised.

The area had all but cleared out by the time the streetlights fully came on. The rain was a sputtering mist, as if being turned on and off by a spigot.

Cissy felt like her body wasn’t her own. She wanted to pinch herself, make herself wake up from this nightmare. Reluctantly, she allowed Jack to take her home. Both of them looked through the pantry and refrigerator, but neither had an appetite.

“We have to eat something,” Jack said, and he split a sandwich with her that he made from the leftover tuna salad used for B.J.’s lunch. Cissy took two bites and couldn’t go on. She laid her head on the table and sobbed.

Jack wanted to die. If he hadn’t trusted Tanya with B.J. she might still be alive and his son would be with them right now. Safe and sound. Cissy had given up blaming him, but he sure as hell was still blaming himself.

“Come on,” he said, pulling her to him and guiding her upstairs. “We’ll go to bed. Maybe by morning, Paterno will have found him.”

“You think so?”

“We’ll know more,” he evaded.

“Jack, if anything’s happened to B.J….”

“Shhh.”

“I just can’t bear it!”

“I know.” He squeezed her hand, kissed the top of her

head, prayed that his son was all right.

And inside, a deep, boiling rage took root. Whoever had taken his son would pay a price. Jack would make sure of it.

Paterno drove to the station before dawn broke. He hadn’t slept. He’d tried to, but he’d watched the clock, his thoughts traveling various routes, all of them leading to Marla and her accomplice.

He’d left a message for Quinn. She was in charge of getting the background information on Tanya Watson. Meanwhile Paterno was chafing for the hours to pass. He wanted the ME to get the bullet from Tanya’s skull and give it to ballistics. And he wanted ballistics to compare it to the bullet that ended Cherise Favier’s life.

He’d bet dollars to doughnuts they came from the same gun.

Now, he rubbed his face as he got himself a tall cup of black coffee, the terrible sludge offered at the station, the perfect stuff to keep him awake.

He would check with the feds later. It was really their case now, but Paterno wasn’t about to back off one bit.

He sighed. He hadn’t told Jack and Cissy Holt that he was worried for their son’s life. He hadn’t wanted to scare them. But Marla Amhurst Cahill had never shown the smallest bit of humanity, and if she’d taken the boy—or had hired someone to take him—it wasn’t out of love and/or a crazy, obsessive need. Nope. The boy’s abduction would be for other reasons. Monetary, most likely. Something to feed Marla’s need for freedom and greed.

And he would be expendable.

Paterno popped a few antacids. Coffee and bicarbonates. Breakfast didn’t get any better than this.

He wondered about Tanya. Why had she taken the kid? Was it simply that she went back to her apartment for some reason, and B.J. was with her? Or was she somehow involved in Marla’s plot to systematically kill the members of her family? If that’s what Marla was doing.

And if so, why hadn’t she killed the boy and left his body with Tanya’s? Maybe Tanya had her own agenda, something unrelated to Marla herself. Maybe she had wanted something from the Cahills and ended up working at cross-purposes to Marla. Maybe that put her in Marla’s sights, and blam! She was permanently removed.

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