“I have to figure that out.”
She gulps.“I’ve already figured it out.”
I widen my eyes and grab her arm more harshly than I intend.“What are you talking about?”
She bites her lip.“I know—at least IthinkI know—who’s behind the freaky gifts to me, and who probably took Belinda.”
Anger curls at the back of my neck—the kind that feels like a snake slithering under my skin.I inhale slowly, hold it, let it out.“Tell me,” I say as calmly as I can.
“A man who worked for my father.”She swallows.“He was his chef.”
I swallow down my reaction, steady my nerves.“Then we start there.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean we find out if he’s even in the country.”I pull out my phone.“What’s his name?”
“He goes by Gordon Brown.”
Shit.Gordon Brown.That name popped up when Vinnie was looking into people with consistent connections to Daniela’s father.I figured it was one of his disgusting friends.It never occurred to me that it could be one of his employees.
I was too busy chasing dead ends that I never gave the guy a second thought.His name is so generic, anyway.Finding him would have been a needle in a haystack.
I tap on the phone screen.“Then we track his name, his passport, any aliases.I’ll do whatever it takes to track him down.”
“And if you do?”
“Then he won’t be cooking anymore.”
She gives a broken laugh that isn’t really a laugh.“You think violence fixes everything.”
“No,” I say.“But it stops it sometimes.”
Daniela wipes her face with the back of her hand.“This is all so unreal.”
I nod.“Did the police pull Belinda’s printer log?”
She swallows.“Yeah.At least, I think they said they would.It’s all a blur.”
“I know they don’t want us touching anything, but I’ll have my own techs pull the printer log.Or Vinnie can have his people do it.I trust them more than the cops.”
She swallows hard.“You really think she’s alive?”
“Yes,” I say, and I mean it.“Because if she weren’t, he wouldn’t need to leave you a note.”
Her gaze softens for the first time, just barely.“You sound sure.”
“I have to be,” I tell her.“It’s the only way any of us makes it out of this.”
Daniela exhales shakily.“What do you need from me?”
“Details,” I say.“Anything that might connect Gordon Brown to this house or anyone near it.Faces, names, deliveries.Anything that felt off.”
She nods again, starts pacing, muttering pieces of memory—florist, nanny, spa setup, delivery van at six, black SUV on the frontage road.I jot them all down on my phone, line by line.
The pattern’s there.It has to be.I just can’t see it yet.
I start calling in every favor I’ve got left.
Because she’s right.
This isn’t about me.
But I’m the only one who knows how to fight monsters like this.
After all, I’ve been fighting my own father since I was twelve.
