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“No. I’m meeting my pop at the coffee shop.”
“No,” Connor said sharply. “You come back here now, or I’ll send someone to get you. I’ll send a car to get your father and get CSU out there. They’ll check out the security footage from the shop. You can’t touch this case anymore, Kit. You know I’m right.”
She did know. But... “She’s just a kid, Connor. She’s only thirteen.”
“I know,” he said quietly. “We’ll get everyone out there searching for her. You get back here, okay?”
“Okay,” she whispered. She ended the call and called Harlan. “My partner’s sending a car for you, Pop. They’re going to bring you to meet me at the station.”
“Kit,” he barked. “What is happening?”
“I think Rita’s been abducted.”
“Oh my God,” he whispered. “Not this. Not again.”
“We’ll find her, Pop. I have to go. I’ll see you at the station.”
She ended the call and put the car into drive.
If that bastard hurt Rita... I will kill you myself.
Carmel Valley, California
Wednesday, April 20, 7:30 p.m.
It was a nightmare. Again.
Kit sat in Harlan and Betsy’s living room, feeling fifteen all over again. Except it was worse this time. This time she knew exactly what was happening to Rita.
She’d seen it herself.
“Here.” Sam sat beside her on the sofa, holding out a cup of fragrant tea. “Akiko says it will calm you down.” Because Kit’s sister had raced home as soon as Kit had called her. Akiko had put out the word, and now the kitchen was filled with fosters, here to support Mom and Pop. “She tried to give some to your mom, but Betsy’s pounding on bread dough like a prizefighter.”
Betsy always baked bread when she was stressed. She found punching the dough cathartic.
Kit couldn’t stand the look on her mother’s face. Or her father’s. Betsy was attacking bread dough, but Harlan looked shattered. He’d held Kit too tightly when she arrived, but Kit let him without a single protest. He’d looked a breath away from a breakdown.
Because of me. Because I told that bastard about Rita.
Harlan was sitting in the kitchen right now, surrounded by foster kids, looking as brokenhearted as he had the night of Wren’s funeral. Kit hadn’t been able to stand it, so she’d come out to the living room to blame herself in private.
Except she wasn’t in private anymore. Sam was sitting beside her, and she didn’t want him to go. He was generosity and forgiveness and kindness, and she needed those things.
Kit wrapped her cold hands around the warm mug. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He’d brought her here after Navarro had sent her home. She hadn’t wanted to go to the boat. She’d needed to be with Harlan and Betsy, but Sam had taken her car keys, unwilling to let her drive while she was so shaken.
Navarro had already sent Harlan home with a uniformed officer who sat outside in his cruiser. Just in case.
Kit wasn’t even sure what that meant. In case of what? In case John Scott came for them? He wouldn’t. He only attacked little girls. He’d taken Rita, a thirteen-year-old girl. Yes, he’d killed Driscoll, but only after he’d drugged him.
He’d probably killed Daryl Chesney, too. The boy who’d “found” Skyler Carville’s body with his metal detector. No one had seen him since Sunday afternoon.
“I’m sorry,” Sam murmured.
She turned to stare at him. At his eyes, warm, sad, and so damn sincere. “Why are you sorry? You’re the one who’s been wronged in all of this. You and Rita and all the others. You have nothing to be sorry for.”
