The Ransom (6 page)

Brittany compressed her lips, as if debating about whether to reply. At last, she spoke.

“We went to Myer. It was our first stop. Olivia wanted to get a bikini.”

“Did she find one?”

Brittany shook her head. “Her mom—I mean, her
step
mom
said she wasn’t buying her a bikini. She made her try on some full-pieces. Olivia argued with her, but Mrs Munro wouldn’t give in. Olivia snuck a bikini into the pile of swimsuits Mrs Munro gave her and we went to the change rooms.” Brittany fell silent and turned her face toward her sister, clutching at Zara’s hand.

“It’s okay, baby,” Zara reassured her. “It’s okay.”

“What happened then?” Lane asked, after the girl had calmed a little.

“We…we were in one of the cubicles. Olivia had just started to take off her T-shirt.” She stopped and bit her lip. Tears glinted in her eyes.

Zara sat beside her on the bed and put her arms around her. Brittany sniffled and leaned into her.

“Did the cubicle have a door, Brittany?” Lane asked.

The young girl shook her head. “No, just a curtain,” she whispered, her voice muffled against her sister’s dress.

“What happened?” Lane asked again, trying not to rush her, but aware that every moment Olivia remained missing dramatically decreased her odds of being found alive. It was common knowledge the first forty-eight hours after a kidnapping were crucial. As far as he’d been able to ascertain, she’d already been gone for nearly three.

“Th-there was a man. He…he ripped open the curtain.”

“What did he look like?” Lane urged.

Brittany shook her head back and forth in distress. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Lane bit down hard on his impatience. “Okay, Brittany. Let’s take it slowly. Was he tall?”

The girl nodded.

“As tall as me?”

She nodded again.

“What color hair did he have?”

“None.”

“What do you mean? Was he bald?”

“Yes. No. Kind of. I think his head was shaved.”

“Did you notice his eyes?”

“No.”

“Did he have a beard?”

“Yes.”

“A heavy beard? All over his face?”

“No, a beard like Dad gets when he hasn’t shaved for a while. But he looked scary. And mean.”

Lane jotted the information into his notebook. “What was he wearing?”

“I-I can’t remember.”

“You’re doing really well, Brittany. Take your time and think really hard.”

The young girl squeezed her eyes closed. A few moments later, she spoke again, her voice quiet and uncertain.

“He…he wore a leather jacket. A black one. It was open.”

“That’s great, Brittany. Anything else?”

“A black T-shirt with some kind of picture on the front—and jeans. I remember thinking he must be hot in all those clothes.”

Lane scribbled again. “What else can you remember, Brittany?”

She frowned. “He had weird skin. It looked really rough and had little holes in it. And a tattoo. A redback spider on his hand.”

“That’s great, Brittany. You’re doing great. Do you remember which hand?”

“His left hand, I think.”

Lane’s gut tightened. Although not uncommon, it was a symbol used by one of Sydney’s notorious outlaw motorcycle gangs.
Perhaps the Attorney General’s on the mark?

Pushing the speculation aside, he concentrated on the girl in the bed. “Okay, Brittany, you’re doing really well. Now, this may be a little bit scary, but I need you to try and think as hard as you can about what happened next.”

Brittany looked up at him, her eyes wide with fear. Lane kept his voice calm. “What did the man do when he came into the cubicle?”

“He…he pushed me hard out of the way and grabbed for Olivia. I stumbled against the wall and hit my head. That’s all I remember. I-I think that’s how I got this.”

She lifted up a fold of golden hair and Lane caught sight of a small white bandage taped across the side of her forehead.

“Did he say anything?”

“No, he just kind of grunted. I-I think I cried out when he pushed me aside, but I’m not sure what happened after that. The next thing I knew, someone was yelling for an ambulance.”

Lane digested the information. It was better than nothing. In fact, her description of the attacker was better than he’d hoped. He closed his notebook and returned it to his pocket.

“You’ve done really well, Brittany. Thank you.”

“Will you be able to find Olivia?” she asked quietly, hope igniting the depths of her eyes.

Lane shot her a confident smile he was far from feeling. “You betcha.” He stood, keenly aware of Zara watching him. He looked at her, and again felt the impact of her eyes. “If she remembers anything else—”

“We’ll call you,” Zara finished.

Pulling out a business card from his shirt pocket, Lane scribbled his home number on it and handed it to her. Their fingers touched. The spark traveled between them again. Lane knew she felt it, too. His gaze locked with hers.

“Call me if she remembers anything else. Anytime.” He dragged his gaze from hers and turned away. The Attorney General ushered him out of the room. Lane followed him down the stairs in silence.

At the foot of the stairs, Dowton turned to him and held out his hand. “Thank you for coming, Detective.”

Lane shook it. “You let me know if you remember anything else about that phone call. I’ll let you know when we find Olivia.”

When,
not if.
He’d issued the confident statement deliberately and he was sure that sooner or later, the child would surface. His only hope was that she was still alive when that happened.

CHAPTER FIVE

Saturday, January 27, 12:50 p.m.

Zara Dowton stared down from the window where she stood in her sister’s bedroom and watched the detective head toward his car. He opened the door and went to climb in when Emily McGregor appeared. The girl worked with Mrs Harrow and helped to keep the household running smoothly. She was also precocious and flirted outrageously with some of the male staff.

Zara was sure she didn’t mean anything by it and no one seemed to mind, least of all the staff. Emily was barely out of high school. With her svelte figure and fun, flirty ways, she seemed to draw men to her with very little effort and Zara couldn’t help but admire her for her confidence.

She saw the detective laugh at something Emily said and a pang of envy went through her. What she wouldn’t give to be carefree and confident like Emily. To be witty and make someone laugh. She had the best part of half a decade on the girl and yet Zara felt awkward and uncomfortable whenever she was left in the presence of an eligible male. A casual flirt she wasn’t, no matter how she wished she were different.

A few moments later, the detective offered Emily a cheery wave and climbed back into his car.

A minute later, his vehicle headed down the driveway and disappeared from sight. She glanced back at her sister, now asleep on the bed. She’d urged Brittany to rest after her ordeal and had promised to stay with her while she slept. Her heart ached for the trauma and shock the little girl had endured and Zara thanked God she’d been spared the worst of it.

She didn’t know the Munro family very well, but she felt their pain, deep in her chest. She couldn’t imagine the agony of not knowing where their daughter was, whether she was hurting, whether she’d ever come home…

She fingered the business card given to her by the good-looking detective.
Lane
. That’s what he’d told Britt. It was a nice name, a strong name, like him. With his long, muscular legs and broad shoulders, he’d towered over her. At her five-foot nothing, that wasn’t hard for most men, but Lane carried himself in such a way and with such an air of confidence and determination—as if nothing would ever get in his way—that he seemed even taller than what she guessed him to be.

And he’d been so good with Brittany.
The little girl had been scared to death, had sobbed without relief when she’d first arrived home. She had begged Zara to stay with her, but the detective had seemed to sense her fragile state and had gently coaxed her into giving him the information he needed.

At first, Zara thought he was going to change his mind about conducting the interview. The look of panic on his face when he’d entered Britt’s bedroom would have been almost comical under less serious circumstances. He’d looked too big and too dark and too male
amidst the fluff and flutter of her sister’s fairy-tale bedroom. But he’d kept his composure and managed to get what he came for, without unnecessary stress on Brittany—and for that, Zara was grateful.

The memory of his gaze as it captured hers sent a shiver of awareness down her spine. Hazel colored and flecked with brown, his eyes had looked right into her soul. For an instant, the world had narrowed to just the two of them. He radiated strength and honesty and sex appeal and she’d been drawn to him like an arsonist to kindling.

And then her father had spoken and the spell had broken, but as the officer went about carefully and kindly eliciting answers from her sister, her gaze had returned to him over and over again.

She’d never felt so drawn to a man before. Of course, he was probably too old for her. From the creases lining his forehead and the crow’s feet in the corners of his eyes, he’d either spent way too much time in the sun, or else had waved good-bye to thirty some time ago. Not that she had a thing about age. In fact, she didn’t have any set of criteria with which to judge a potential boyfriend.

Always a high achiever, in high school she’d been too caught up in Pythagoras’ theorem and solving quadratic equations to be bothered with boys. Attending a prestigious all-girls school hadn’t helped. Opportunities to socialize with the male species had been limited to a school dance twice a year and the right to be partnered by someone to her high school graduation. In the end, she’d chosen a male cousin for the role, a choice her ever protective father had quietly applauded.

Even her university days had been filled with more work than play. Following in the footsteps of her forebears, she’d enrolled in a degree that combined economics and law. Having been awarded a full scholarship, she’d felt the need to put even more effort into her studies in order to pay tribute to the honor she’d been bestowed. And that had paid off. She couldn’t deny her enviable university results had led to the numerous job offers from illustrious law firms right across the country in the weeks prior to her graduation.

Of course, she could have gone to work for the firm set up by her grandfather. Although her father no longer practised law, her choice to begin her career in the firm founded by her family would have been met with paternal pride and satisfaction. But, in the end, she’d chosen Breakers, a large law firm based in Sydney. It not only allowed her to put her exceptional legal skills to use, but also, the firm had an enviable reputation for philanthropy, an attitude and way of life she held in high esteem.

Zara had been raised with the knowledge her mother had been born in a tiny village in the Philippines where the majority of its residents were unemployed. Anna Mendoza’s family had depended upon the mercy of charities and philanthropic entrepreneurs in order to survive.

Zara had always loved hearing the story her father told about how he’d traveled to her mother’s village as part of a group of volunteers working for a charitable organization during his university days. Her father told her many times, that within moments of meeting Zara’s mother, he’d known she would one day become his wife.

Two years after their initial meeting, the recently graduated lawyer returned to the village and claimed her for his bride. After marrying Zara’s father, life became much different for Anna Mendoza, but Zara never forgot the stories her father told her about the poverty and desperation that had influenced her mother’s early life.

It was one of the reasons why Zara gladly worked eighty-hour weeks and was rarely home before Brittany’s bedtime. Part of every billable hour she recorded was donated by Breakers to charities around the world. It meant her social life was largely non-existent, but that was a sacrifice she was prepared to make. Over the years, she’d never had cause to lament her lack of boyfriends.
Until now…
until the arrival of Detective Black.

A wave of emotion surged through her, leaving her feeling fluttery and restless. With it came the wholly unfamiliar feeling of jealousy when she remembered the smile he’d given to the house maid.
So what if he’d flirted with Emily?
The girl might not have an original thought in her head, but she was pretty and fun and knew how to make a man smile. Zara had watched her in action with a few of the younger gardeners on more than one occasion. She could hardly blame the detective for being interested.

With a disgruntled sigh, she turned away from the window and paced the length of her sister’s bedroom. She was more than content with her life. She was happy with how things were turning out.

She worked hard at a job she enjoyed. She was surrounded by a family who loved her. Well, maybe not so much by her stepmother, but no one’s life was perfect. And yet, all of a sudden, she felt a yearning deep inside that things were different and it had everything to do with the very sexy detective.