His mouth pulled into a tight knot as he stared at me with narrowed eyes.
'Elena used to be a detective with the Sheriff's Office,' Molly said, moving out of my shadow. 'She knows all about those people Erin worked with, and-'
'Molly, go to bed,' Seabright ordered curtly. 'I'll deal with you tomorrow, young lady. Eavesdropping on conversations, coming into my office without permission, bringing this person into my home. You've got a lot to answer for.'
Molly kept her chin up and gave her stepfather a long look. 'So do you,' she said. Then she turned and left the room with the dignity of a queen.
Seabright went to the door and closed it. 'How did she know to call you?'
'Believe it or not, the people living in your house do have lives and minds of their own, and allow themselves to think without asking your permission. I'm sure you'll put a stop to that, now that you know.'
'How dare you criticize the way I run my house? You don't know anything about my family.'
'Oh, I know all about your family. Believe me,' I said, hearing an old bitterness in my tone. 'You're the demigod and the mortals revolve around you like planets around the sun.'
'Where do you get off speaking to me this way?' he asked, advancing toward me, trying to get me to back away literally and figuratively. I didn't move.
'I'm not the one who has explaining to do, Mr. Seabright. Your stepdaughter has been kidnapped and Molly is the only person who seems to care whether she's ever seen alive again. What do you have to say about that?'
'I don't have anything to say to you. None of this is any of your business.'
'I've made it my business. When, where, and how did this tape arrive?'
'I don't have to answer your questions.' He walked past me as if to dismiss me, going back to the bookcases to close the doors on his television.
'Would you rather answer the questions of a sheriff's detective?' I asked.
'They said no police,' he reminded me as he moved a bookend two inches to the left. 'Do you want to be responsible for the girl's death?'
'No. Do you?'
'Of course not.' He straightened a stack of books, his eyes already moving in search of the next piece of his kingdom out of place. Nervous, I thought.
'But if she simply never came back, you wouldn't exactly mourn her loss, would you?' I said.
'That's an obnoxious thing to say.'
'Yes, well…'
He stopped rearranging and put on a face of high affront. 'What kind of a man do you think I am?'
'I don't think you'd really like me to answer that right now. When did this tape arrive, Mr. Seabright? Erin hasn't been seen or heard from in nearly a week. Kidnappers usually want their money ASAP. It's rather the point of the thing, you see. The longer they hang on to a victim, the shorter the odds of something going wrong.'
'The tape just came,' he said, but he didn't look at me when he said it. I was willing to bet he'd had it for a couple of days.
'And the kidnappers haven't called.'
'No.'
'How did the tape arrive?'
'In the mail.'
'To the house or to your office?'
'The house.'
'Addressed to you or to your wife?'
'I-I don't recall.'
To Krystal. And he'd kept it from her. He probably screened all her mail, the controlling prick. And when she'd finally seen it, he'd sent her to bed and gone out for a drive.
'I'd like to see the envelope,' I said.
'I threw it out.'
'Then it's in your trash. Let's go get it. There could be fingerprints on it, and the postmark could provide valuable information.'
'It's gone.'
'Gone where? Your trash was at the curb yesterday. If the tape arrived today…'
He had no answer for that, the son of a bitch. I heaved a sigh of disgust and tried again.
'Have they called?'
'No.'
'God help you if you're lying, Seabright.'
His face flushed purple. 'How dare you call me a liar.'
'You are.'
We both turned toward the door to find Krystal standing there looking like an aging crack whore. Her face was drawn and pale. Mascara ringed her eyes. Her bleached hair stood up like a fright wig. She wore a short pink robe trimmed with feathery flounces around the neck and cuffs, and matching high-heeled mules.
'You are a liar,' she said, glassy eyes fixed on her husband.
'You're drunk,' Bruce accused.
'I must be. I know better than to speak to you out of turn.'
I watched Seabright. He was furious, trembling with anger. If I had not been there, I don't know what he might have done. But then, if I hadn't been there, Krystal would never have had the nerve to say anything. I turned to her, taking in the dilated pupils and the smudged lipstick.
'Mrs. Seabright, when did you first see the tape of your daughter's kidnapping?'
'I had seen the box. It had my name on it. I didn't know why Bruce hadn't given it to me. I thought it was something I had ordered through the mail.'
'Krystal…' Bruce growled.
'What day was that?'
Her mouth trembled. 'Wednesday.'
Two days.
'I didn't see any point in upsetting you with it,' Seabright said. 'Look at you. Look what it's done to you.'
'I found it today,' she said to me. 'My daughter's been kidnapped. Bruce didn't think I should know about that.'
'I told you, I will handle it, Krystal,' he said through his teeth.
Krystal looked at me, tragic, pathetic, terrified. 'In our family, we leave the decisions to the person best equipped to make them.'
I looked hard at Bruce Seabright. He was perspiring. He knew he could intimidate a woman like Krystal, but he could not intimidate me.
'I'm going to ask you one last time, Mr. Seabright. And before you answer, know that the Sheriff's Office can pull your local usage details from the phone company and verify the information. Have the kidnappers called?'
He put his hands on his hips and looked up at the ceiling, weighing the pros and cons of denial. He wasn't the type to openly defy the cops. If he took my word on the phone records, and thought about what would happen if the Sheriff's Office became involved… his public image could be damaged… I held my breath.
'Last night.'
A strange sound of anguish wrenched out of Krystal Seabright and she doubled over the back of a fat leather chair as if she'd been shot.
Seabright puffed himself up like a furious pigeon as he tried to justify his behavior. 'First of all, I think the whole thing is a hoax. This is just Erin trying to humiliate me-'
'I'm up to my back teeth with men and their persecution theories today,' I said. 'I don't want to hear yours. I saw the tape. I know the kind of people Erin has been mixed up with. I wouldn't be willing to bet her life against your fear of embarrassment. Who called? A man? A woman?'
'It sounded like the voice on the tape,' he said impatiently. 'Distorted.'
'What did it say?'
