“About what?”
“That you guys would come rescue us,” she said quietly. “It happened before the yacht was even taken over.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Well, there was a conversation about, if anything happened to us out there, not to worry, that you guys would come rescue us.”
“Did he make it sound like there was a plan for something like that?”
She looked up at him, and her eyes widened. “What do you mean?” she asked, but Dane just stared at her steadily. She enunciated very carefully to ensure there was no misunderstanding of the implication. “Are you asking if I think he planned this?”
“I’m not asking that,” he said quietly. “I’m asking if you felt, at any point in time, that he might have been part of this.”
“I don’t think so,” she said, as she stared off in the distance. “But, even if he was, why? That would make no sense at all. It was his wife and daughter.”
“And his wife was dying,” he said. “Correct?”
She nodded.
“Any idea how the life insurance stands?”
Her eyes widened at that. “Oh, that’s an ugly thought,” she said.
“Ugly thoughts come with ugly actions,” he said. “So, forget about the thought, let’s deal with what else might be happening.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know anything about that.”
“Do you know anything about the will?”
“No, not at all,” she said. “It never occurred to me. I’m an only child. So my assumption, though it could be wrong, is that everything comes to me.”
“How much of it is actually left? They went through a divorce, right?”
“I don’t know if they ever finalized it. I thought they were in the process, when my mother was diagnosed with cancer, and, besides, if she had cancer,” she said, “the life insurance wouldn’t matter.” He just looked at her steadily, and she winced. “Okay, that’s an even uglier thought.”
“You want to tell me what it is you’re thinking?”
“Well, I hope I’m not thinking anything,” she said, “but the fact of the matter is, there’s probably no life insurance on Mom because she had cancer, and that would be a disqualifying preexisting condition, in my opinion.”
“Unless your father stopped paying on any existing insurance policy for your mom because they were separating.”
“My mother was paying,” she said, “though she might have stopped it because, after the separation, there was no money.”
“Interesting,” he said. Then he made a few notes on the side.
“So maybe there’s no life insurance. I don’t know.”
“Unless there’s one that your father is holding on her.”
“But again, it wouldn’t make any difference. Because of the cancer, it might not even exist. Although the cancer wasn’t preexisting for long, as she was only diagnosed four to five years ago.” He just nodded and didn’t say anything. “But there’s no reason for my father to have set up insurance on my mom in recent years,” she said forcibly.
Again he just nodded. “Is there?”
“I don’t know.” She hated that her voice sounded thin and tinny.
He looked at her with those deep dark eyes and asked, “Is there?”
“No,” she said adamantly. “He was an asshole, but he wasn’t that kind of an asshole.”
He chuckled at that. “I guess there are different kinds of assholes, aren’t there?”
“Absolutely,” she said, feeling a little more secure. “Besides,” she added, “there’s nothing in it for him. This kidnapping was purely politically motivated.”
“What makes you think so?” he asked.
She frowned. “Because that’s the most likely explanation.”
“Maybe not. Is that what your parents told you?”
She frowned, and she thought about it. “Somebody did, but I don’t know if it was my father.”
“Did you find anything on his person or in any of his personal effects?” he asked.
“I don’t know if anybody’s checked.” She frowned, then reached for her phone and called the hospital. When they answered, she asked about the personal effects of her father. After a brief delay, she slowly nodded and hung up. “There weren’t any. It makes sense because we were searched pretty fast when we were kidnapped,” she said. “I woke up with none of my belongings, and I would assume it was the same for him and my mother.”
“Interesting,” he said.
“Yeah.” She thought about it. “The bullet wasn’t fatal, was it?”
“No,” he said, readily enough.
“And that just makes me—I hate that you even put that suspicion in my head,” she cried out.
“I didn’t put any suspicion in your head,” he said calmly. Just then, an incoming call came on his phone. He answered it.
“We’re on the way home.”
Gizella heard Baylor’s voice through the phone.
“No sign of anyone.”
“What about the apartment of this guy Horton?” Dane asked.
“It belongs to somebody else,” Baylor said, “unless you have a different address.”
“Give me five and let me see if I can roust up a new address.” He hung up the phone and turned to his computer.
Gizella was left sitting here, stunned at the treacherous pitfalls of this kind of thinking. She didn’t want to think that her father had anything to do with it all, as it made no logical sense.
Soon Dane looked up and then responded to Baylor by texting an address.
“Did you find a place?”
“Yes. His family home is around the same corner.”
“Does everybody own two homes here?” she cried out.
“It’s not all that unusual,” he said, “particularly if there’s a death in the family. Speaking of that, you probably haven’t had a chance to deal with anything from home regarding your family and all,” Dane said.
“I guess not,” she said. After a few minutes went by, she said, “I don’t suppose I could use a laptop, could I?”
“Sure, grab that one over there,” he said. He got up and walked over and closed the browser and showed her the one that Baylor had been using earlier.
“Do you think he’ll
