The 6th Target

was pregnant until I started having contractions.'

We were all yelling now. 'What did you say?' 'You're not putting us on?' 'How far along are you?'

'The sonogram shows that my little one is fine,' said Claire, serene as a Buddha. 'My wonder child!'

Chapter 56

I HAD TO PULL MYSELF AWAY from the celebration, overdue as I was for Tracchio's meeting back at the Hall. As I entered his office, the chief was offering leather-upholstered armchairs to the Tylers, while Jacobi, Conklin, and Macklin dragged up side chairs, circling the wagons around the chief's large desk.

The Tylers looked as if they'd been sleeping standing up for the last eighty-four hours. Their faces were gray, their shoulders slumped. I knew they were painfully suspended between hope and despair as they waited to hear the audiotape.

A tape recorder was set up on Tracchio's desk. I leaned over and pressed the play button, and a terrifying, evil voice alternating with mine filled the room.

A little girl's voice cried out, 'Mommy? Mommy?'

I pressed the recorder's stop key. Elizabeth Tyler reached out toward the tape recorder, then turned, grabbed her husband's arm, buried her face into his coat, and sobbed.

'Is that Madison's voice?' Tracchio asked.

Both parents nodded – yes.

Jacobi said, 'The rest of this tape is going to be even more difficult for you to hear. But we're feeling optimistic. When this call came in, your daughter was alive.'

I pressed the play button again, watched the Tylers' faces as they heard the kidnapper say that Madison was fine but that she would never be seen again.

'Mr. and Mrs. Tyler, do you have any idea why the kidnapper said you 'made a big mistake calling the police'?' I asked.

'No idea at all,' Henry Tyler snapped. 'Why would they feel threatened? You've turned up nothing. You don't even have a suspect. Where is the FBI? Why aren't they trying to find Madison?'

Macklin said, 'We are working with the FBI. We're using their sources and their databases, but the FBI won't actively work this case unless we have some reason to believe that Madison was taken out of state.'

'So tell them that she was!'

Jacobi said, 'Mr. Tyler, what we're asking is, did you receive a communication from the kidnapper telling you not to call the police? Anything like that happen?'

'Nothing,' said Elizabeth Tyler. 'Henry? Did you hear from them at the office?'

'Not a word. I swear.'

I was thinking about Paola Ricci as I looked at the Tylers. I said, 'You told us that Paola Ricci was highly recommended. Who recommended her?'

Elizabeth Tyler leaned forward. 'Paola came to us directly through her service.'

'What kind of service is that?' Macklin asked, stress showing in the grinding of his jaw.

'It's an employment agency,' said Elizabeth Tyler. 'They screen, sponsor, and train well-bred girls from overseas. They get their work papers and find them jobs. Paola had tremendous references from the agency and from back home in Italy. She was a very proper young woman. We loved her.'

'The service gets their fees from the employers?' Jacobi asked.

'Yes. I think we paid them eighteen thousand dollars.'

The mentioning of money sent a prickling sensation along the tops of my arms and a swooping feeling in my stomach.

'What's the name of this service?' I said.

'Westbury. No, the Westwood Registry,' said Henry Tyler. 'You'll speak to them?'

'Yes, and please don't say anything about this call to anyone,' Jacobi cautioned the Tylers. 'Just go home. Stay near your phone. And leave the Westwood Registry to us.'

'You'll be in touch with them?' asked Henry Tyler again.

'We'll be all over them.'

Chapter 57

CINDY WAS ON THE PHONE with Yuki, loading the dishwasher as she talked.

'He's just too funny,' Cindy said about Whit Ewing, the good-looking reporter from the Chicago Tribune she'd met about a month ago at the Municipal Hospital trial.

'The guy with the glasses, right? The one who tore out of the courtroom by way of the emergency exit? Set off the alarm?' Yuki chuckled, remembering.

'Yeah. See… and he can goof on himself. Whit says he's Clark Kent's nerdy younger brother.' Cindy laughed. 'He's been threatening to fly into town and take me out to dinner. He's even angling to be assigned to the Brinkley trial.'

'Oh, so wait a minute,' Yuki said. 'You're not thinking of doing what Lindsay did. I mean, Whit lives in Chicago. Why start up an LDR when they're so freaking doomed?'

'I'm thinking… it's been a while since I've had any, uh, fun.'

'Been a while for me, too.' Yuki sighed. 'I not only don't remember when, I don't remember with whom!'

Cindy cackled, then Yuki put her on hold so she could take an incoming call. When Yuki came back on the line, she said, 'Hey, girl reporter, Red Dog wants me. Gotta scoot.'

'Go, go,' Cindy said. 'See you in court.'

Cindy hung up and turned on the dishwasher, then emptied the trash can. She tied a knot in the bag, went out into the hallway, and hit the elevator call button, and when the car clanked to a stop, she checked to make sure it was empty before she got in.

She thought again about Whit Ewing, and about Lindsay and Joe, and about how long-distance relationships were, by definition, roller-coaster rides.

Fun for a while, until they made you sick.

And now here was another reason to have a boyfriend who stayed in town – the sheer creepiness of living in this building alone. She hit B for 'basement,' and the newly paneled old elevator rocked as it descended. A minute later, Cindy stepped out into the dank bowels of the building.

As she walked toward the trash area, she heard the sound of a woman crying, a sobbing that echoed and was joined by the screaming of a baby!

What now?

Cindy rounded a bend in the underground vault of the building and saw a blond-haired woman about her own age holding a baby over her shoulder.

There was a black trash bag lying open at the woman's feet.

'What's wrong?' Cindy asked.

'My dog,' the stricken woman cried. 'Look!'

She bent, spread open the mouth of the trash bag so that Cindy could see the small black-and-white dog that was covered with blood.

'I left him outside for only a few minutes,' she said, 'just to take the baby into my apartment. Oh, my God. I called the police to report that someone had stolen him, but look. Someone who lives here did this. Someone who lives here beat Barnaby to death!'