“That’s the hope,” he said. He had his phone out and was busy sending messages.
“Who are you contacting now?” she asked.
“Badger and the detective here.”
“Does the detective even care?” she asked with a note of bitterness in her tone, as she sat gingerly on the bed again, trying not to wake Danny. “It’s not like we even had cops doing a drive by or anything here, even after all that’s happened in the last forty-eight hours.”
“Wouldn’t have helped if they had,” he said. “Think about it. This guy would have just timed it so he came when the cops left. Then he’d know he’d have at least an hour before they came back again.”
She nodded slowly. “I guess the only way to really stop him is to have somebody inside the house waiting for him, isn’t it?”
He looked up briefly, then smiled and said, “That’s exactly what I’m doing.”
“I was hoping to keep it away from Danny,” she said, looking back at the sleeping boy on her bed.
“The other option,” he said, “is to remove you from this place without this guy knowing, and then have a setup inside to trap him.”
“I like that idea,” she said, “but I don’t know where I’d go. And, if it didn’t work, he’d already know that we were waiting for him.”
“He knows that already,” he said. “He didn’t try to hide his tracks outside either,” he said, “so I was thinking originally he didn’t have much in the way of skills,” he said, “but now I think that was wrong. I think he didn’t care. I think he knew that we were here, and, if we knew he was there, he just upped the ante of the game.”
“What game?” she said, bewildered. “How can anybody play games with my life like that, or the life of my son?”
“So that brings us back to who’s doing this,” he said. “Was there anybody else in your life in the last couple years, since you separated from George?”
She stared at him in surprise. “You mean, relationship-wise?”
“Yes. Or even somebody who was a close friend but might have wanted to be more.”
“Oh,” she said, deep in thought.
“What is it?”
Hesitating, she finally spoke. “My brother-in-law,” she said slowly. “He was a big help in getting me away from my ex-husband.”
At that, Greyson looked at her slowly. “And why would he do that?”
“Because he knew that the marriage was over,” she said. “My ex-husband wanted me out of the house too.”
“So this brother-in-law, he helped you move here?”
She nodded slowly. “Yes, I said a good friend helped me. That was him.”
“He’s been in the house?”
She nodded again.
“When did you last see him?”
“It’s been a long time,” she said. “We had a bit of an argument, and, when he left, I didn’t see him again after that.”
“And the argument? What was it about?”
She looked at him, the color rising in her cheeks. “He—he wanted more than I could give,” she said slowly.
“Okay,” he said, “so potentially he helped move you out here, thinking that he could move into his brother’s position. You had a fight, and he left. What would have triggered his return to your world?”
“You’re grasping at straws here,” she said hopefully. “It was long ago, at the very beginning of our separation. I can’t imagine that he would do anything like this.”
“Maybe not,” he said, “but you don’t know that.”
She shrugged, and said, “No, I don’t. I don’t know anything about this. None of it makes any sense to me. And it still doesn’t. Not at all.”
“What’s the brother’s name?”
“Jensen,” she said, “Jensen Barrack.”
“So it’s George and Jensen?”
She nodded. “Just the two of them in their family.”
“What did he do for a living?” he asked.
“He was in the military,” she said. “He came home on leave, then saw how things were in my marriage and offered to help me move out, so I accepted. I’d seen him many times during the couple years I was married, and we were good friends. He was closer to my age than my ex-husband anyway,” she said. “Besides, we’d always been friendly.”
“What did your ex-husband think about the relationship?”
“I think he always looked on his kid brother as a bit of a screwup.”
“Interesting,” he said. “So how does this Frank guy fit in to the brother?”
“I don’t know that he fits at all,” she said. “Why would he?”
“Well, he has a military background too,” he said, pondering it. He pulled out his phone and started sending messages again.
“You’re always on that thing,” she said. “I just can’t imagine what you have to talk about.”
“Looking for connections between Frank, the guy who kidnapped Danny, and your brother-in-law,” he said. “And by the way, are you actually divorced?”
She nodded mutely.
“Was the baby ever brought up at all?”
She shook her head. “George didn’t mention him to the lawyers when we filed for divorce. A lawyer friend of mine handled it all for me, drew up the paperwork just like I wanted. I get Danny. George gets everything else. Even after George contacted the attorneys about three months ago, stating he now wanted Danny, the paperwork didn’t change. And I was totally happy about that.”
“Smart to deal with the attorneys instead of your ex,” he said. “Saves on the acrimony, I’ll bet.”
“I just wanted to be free,” she said. “The paperwork all got finalized not that long ago. I just got my copy.”
Maybe it was something in her voice, or maybe it was her words, but he stopped, looked at her, and said, “How long ago did you get the paperwork?”
She frowned and looked at the calendar on her phone, trying to remember. “Maybe a month ago?”
Greyson rubbed his face, thinking of the possibilities. “And just over three weeks ago you have a fender bender with somebody who says it’s a threat from your ex-husband?”
“Yes,” she said, “but surely that’s a coincidence.”
“No, not that close together,” he said. “I don’t have a lot of faith in those. Not the good kind of coincidences anyway.”
“So
