As though asking after an old friend, Rye said, “How is Nate?”

“That’s the point, wiseass. He pulled a disappearing act similar to Dr. O’Neal’s. Not at his office. Not at the hospital. Hadn’t even checked in. Last place Wilson and I saw him was at the Hunts’ estate. Called it. Housekeeper told us they’d been trying to reach Lambert, too.”

“Are you getting to the good part? Soon, I hope?”

“Lambert owns a condo in a ritzy high-rise. We checked with building staff. The doctor had a visitor late last night. Identified himself as Goliad.”

“My, my. He gets around.”

“Yes, he does. We learned through APD about the fracas at the hotel early this morning.”

“Damn security cameras are taking the fun out of everything.”

“We retrieved your flight bag.”

“Thanks. Bring it to the meeting tomorrow morning.”

“Wilson’s motioning me to hurry this along.”

“I owe him a drink.”

“Dr. Lambert’s guest last night wasn’t Goliad.”

Rye sensed from Rawlins’s shift to a no-nonsense tone that a clever comeback would be inappropriate, that the deputy had finally gotten to the good part. “Who was it?”

“We’ve got him on video, but it’s jerky. So I’m sending you a text of the description the concierge gave us.”

Within seconds, the text came through. He went back to Rawlins. “Timmy.”

“Timmy. He escorted the doctor out of his condo. They left together in the doc’s car. Watching the security video, you don’t get a warm fuzzy.”

Rye rubbed his forehead. “I’m no cheerleader for Nate Lambert, but this doesn’t sound good.”

“That’s what Wilson and I thought, too. Now—and here’s why we’re calling you. Local TV station here aired a news story this morning about the little girl who was shuttled off last evening to—”

“I know about it.”

“Figured you did. Look at your text again. This is a freeze frame taken off the telecast. The reporter is doing a stand-up outside the little girl’s house up there in Tennessee. Got it?”

The picture appeared on his phone. “Yeah.”

“Look behind the reporter.”

There stood Nathan Lambert. Unmistakably. Beside him and slightly behind him was Timmy.

Rye’s heart stopped, then began thudding. “I gotta go.”

“Is Dr. O’Neal there, Mallett?”

Rye hesitated.

“Mallett? Is she there?”

“On her way to the house.” Where Timmy was.

“Where are you?”

“An airport. Just flew her in. Have y’all got people…? A…the sheriff’s department here you can notify?”

“And tell them what?”

“Jesus, I don’t know, tell them—”

“About a box, empty except for blood samples? About your run-ins with Goliad, your unexplained abductions of Dr. O’Neal, a senator’s somewhat strange but so far legal behavior? What do we tell them? Huh? It all feels criminal, but what’s the crime? Time you shared with us, don’t you think?”

“I will. But not now. Get people moving toward the Griffins’ house.”

“Based on what?”

“No time, Rawlins. Just move on it!”

“Beyond Brady White’s heart giving out during surgery—”

“Wait! What?”

“You didn’t know? He arrested on the table. They worked on him for ten, twelve minutes—”

Rye clicked off and slid down the wall onto his haunches. This blow hurt worse than when Goliad had slugged him. Anguish squeezed his chest so tight, he thought his breastbone would crack.

He could see the photo on Brady’s desk of him and his family. Brady smiling up at him from his hospital bed. Marlene saying, He couldn’t wait to meet you.

He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes to block the images.

No time to think about it now. He had to get to Brynn.

Brynn, whom he’d pushed away.

Straight toward Timmy.

He tapped in the number of her new phone. No answer. No voice mail. “Shit!”

He surged to his feet and bolted from the lounge, running like a madman from room to room, looking for the pilot he’d swapped expletives with. He found him studying a radar monitor.

Breathless, Rye said, “Dude, sorry about what I said earlier. Do you have a car here I can borrow?”

Chapter 34

10:39 a.m.

During the twenty-minute drive from the airfield to the Griffins’ neighborhood, Brynn’s cell phone rang almost continually. There was never a name identifying the caller, so it could only be Rye. She didn’t answer. Why rehash the quarrel, when the outcome would be the same? As he’d said, why drag it out?

But not even her personal heartache could suppress her happy anticipation of delivering the good news to Violet and her parents. She felt a flutter of excitement as she neared their home.

The hours she’d spent researching, studying, struggling with doubt, commiserating with Violet’s parents, arguing with Nate were about to culminate in the best way possible: Violet would be reprieved, possibly saved.

The driver stopped at the corner at the end of the Griffins’ street. “Mind if I let you out here? There’s a lot going on up there. It’ll be hard for me to turn around.”

“This is fine.”

She was carrying nothing except what was in her coat pockets as she started up the incline toward the house. A minivan, presumably belonging to the family, occupied the driveway. TV vans were parked end to end along the curbs on both sides of the street.

Also parked in front of the house were two limousines.

And, last in line, Nate Lambert’s Jaguar.

Upon seeing it, Brynn stopped. There was no mistaking that it was his car. She parked hers next to it every day in the garage of their office building.

There could be only one reason he was here, and that was to get the drug away from her before she administered it to Violet. Why hadn’t she foreseen this? He would have predicted that, once she learned Violet had been sent home, she would follow. He had beat her here.

But she had a strong advantage over him. Dr. Brynn O’Neal was Violet’s overseeing physician. Both the child and her parents had utmost faith in her. When they learned that she was here, and why she had come, they would be overjoyed.

Nate couldn’t very well tell them that he was denying the drug to Violet so he could give it to his patient. He wouldn’t arm-wrestle Brynn for ownership of it. He was hamstrung. There was nothing he could say or do without exposing his perfidy.

As long as you’re in possession of the game ball, you’re winning.

Bolstered by Rye’s words, she continued walking toward the house at the end of the cul-de-sac. Blocking the sidewalk, hunkered beneath umbrellas, was a congregation of neighbors, whose curiosity hadn’t been dampened by the weather.

She was still some distance from them when, out of their midst, Nate appeared. As he made his way toward her, he didn’t look like his cocksure and overconfident self, however. Without an umbrella, hood, hat, or raincoat, he looked bedraggled and panicked.

“Nate?” She said his name aloud, but she was actually talking to herself, puzzled by his uncharacteristic demeanor.

“He’s a little wound up.”

The statement came from so close behind her, she felt the speaker’s breath in her hair. She turned quickly to find herself face-to-face with Timmy. He was wearing a rain jacket, the hood up.

He said, “Unless you want to get cut, don’t do anything stupid.”

She looked down. The tip of a slender silver blade was pressed against her coat at waist level. “I won’t do anything stupid.”

“More’s the pity.” His evil grin made her shiver.

Nate reached them, near hyperventilating, wringing his hands, almost in tears. “Brynn. Give me the drug.”

“It should go to Violet, Nate, and you know it. Your name is on that exemption application for her as well as mine. You know she’s—”

“For godsake, it’s too late to argue about it,” he said, his voice cracking. “Give it to me or—”

“Or he offs the kid.”

She looked at Timmy with misapprehension. “What?”

“Since Lambert here seems to have lost the power of speech, I’ll explain,” Timmy said. “The situation is this. If you don’t give the potion to Dr. Lambert, he’s going to push air into the kid’s IV. If she’s dead, she no longer needs the drug, right? Right. Freeing it up for you-know-who.”

Flabbergasted, she turned to Nate. “He’s not serious.”

“Deadly serious. Give me the drug.”

Brynn’s mind was reeling. “Have you seen the family? Violet?”

His head wobbled a yes. “She’s all right. Rather tired. Listless. But happy to be at home. I…I…” He cast a nervous glance toward Timmy. “I asked to examine her more thoroughly after…after…”

“Elsa,” Timmy said. “She’s in there now putting on a show. Off and on, you can hear her singing. She and the mayor got here at the same time. Separate limos.”

Nate was breathing as though he’d climbed Everest without oxygen. “When the special guests arrived, everyone else was invited to wait outside. Me included.”

“You’re waiting for the program to conclude so you can go back in and do what this psychopath said? You’re going to murder that child?”