Brenda exiled the thought. Even Scott wouldn’t do that to his own daughter.
On the other hand, he had pretended to be dead and allowed his child to grieve him. What kind of father did that? She had to stop giving him any sort of credit. The man had obviously put money above all else and now this was the result.
Even if she found Janey, the two of them might never be safe again.
Her cell vibrated against her thigh. If it was Detective Shelton…
Mallory.
The bottom dropped out of Brenda’s stomach. “It’s Mallory.” She accepted the call. “Mallory, where are you? Where is Janey? I need to speak to her!”
Ben leaned closer to hear the other side of the conversation. Brenda should have set the call to speaker, but she’d been too startled to think and now she was afraid to do anything that might cause the call to drop.
“You’ve made this far more complicated than it needed to be, Brenda, with all your running to the cops and prompting an Amber Alert.”
The anger in the other woman’s voice startled Brenda all over again. Her first instinct was to demand how she thought she had the right to say such a thing. But that would be a mistake. She had to be careful, keep her talking. Stay on her good side—assuming she had one. Brenda had once believed her to be a good person…a good friend.
“I’m sorry, Mallory,” she offered in hopes of assuaging her anger. “I didn’t know what else to do. Please,” she pleaded, “just tell me if my baby is okay.”
“Janey is fine.”
Brenda’s eyes closed in gratitude.Thank God. Thank God.
“But you have something I need. I know you have it because someone attempted to access the accounts.”
Brenda looked to Ben. It must have been his colleague Max. “I don’t understand. What do you mean?”
“If you want to see your child again, you’d better not play that game with me. I want those account numbers and the names. I know you have them.”
The only way Mallory could know about what Brenda had found was if Cummings had told her. Just because someone had attempted to access the accounts didn’t mean it was Brenda. It could have been Scott or Lena. Did that mean Mallory had killed the fake special agent? Brenda’s heart twisted with fear. She didn’t want to believe the woman she had trusted with the care of her child was a murderer. But denying the possibility was growing harder and harder.
She looked to Ben in question. What should she do?
He nodded for her to go ahead.
“I found the list today,” she admitted. “Scott must have hidden it in my house. I had no idea, but all those messages telling me I’d better hurry up and find what they wanted had me tearing the house apart.”
“I sent you those messages,” she snarled. “Took you long enough to get the job done.”
“I’m sorry,” Brenda implored. “I did the best I could.”
“I searched your house a dozen times,” Mallory countered, her voice dripping with suspicion now, “and I never found it. You’d better not be lying to me.”
“The first name on the list is Albert Winthrop,” Brenda told her. “Does that sound familiar?”
The silence that followed had new fear trickling through her.
“Oh yeah.” Mallory laughed. “That’s the one Scott screwed up—the stupid mistake that got him caught. Winthrop is the reason we’re in this mess. It’s him you have to thank for all this.”
Brenda wondered if she meant Mr. Winthrop or Scott. Maybe both. “He’s dead.”
More silence.
Then, “Who’s dead?”
“Mr. Winthrop. He was in a car accident.”
“This is what we’re going to do,” Mallory went on without acknowledging the statement. “I will call you with a location. You will bring the list to me. I don’t want anything sent via email or text. I don’t even want you to say anything else over the phone. I need you to hand deliver it.”
