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guests, the staff, as well as the band members, florists, and wait staff. Who were the delivery men? With what agency did Katherine book the entertainment? What about the baker and the ice sculptor? Were there any reporters or photographers present?
Who was Ginny Slade? Where did she come from? Did she have any family? What were her references?
What was her relationship with Zach?
“She has none!” Katherine said emphatically, her cool confidence shattered. Eyes rimmed with streaking mascara, she glared at the detective sergeant. “Zach isn’t involved in—”
“He’s missing, isn’t he?” Logan countered, his lips thinning thoughtfully. “You call that a coincidence?”
“For Christ’s sake, he’s only seventeen. How could he be behind something like this? He was probably kidnapped as well,” Witt interjected, and Logan sent him a harsh look that silently called him a fool.
“That boy’s been in and out of trouble since he was twelve, Witt. Face it. I’ve had to cover his ass more times than I can count.”
“Nothing like this,” Witt said quietly, though deep inside he felt a gut-wrenching fear that Logan was right. Zach had a chip on his shoulder the size of Nevada and he’d never gotten along with anyone in the family—even London, though the precocious child had hung on his every word. “You know who you’ve got to arrest, Logan. Polidori is behind this one.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Like hell!” Witt growled, suddenly snapping. The tension in the room was getting to him and he felt as if his nerves were strung as tight as winch cables.
Logan, still staring at Witt as if he were a buffoon, ran a gnarled hand through his snow-white hair. Logan’s face was lined and ruddy, weather-beaten by the winds that had blown incessantly down the Columbia River Gorge while he pounded a beat on the east side for ten years. Tiny lines webbed beneath the skin of his nose, adding a reddish tone created by a lifelong love affair with Irish whiskey. A no-nonsense man, Logan seldom threw any punches. It had taken years for Witt to get the goods on the man, make him bend the rules a bit, and take a simple bribe. Logan had fought him, but when push came to shove and Logan had needed help with his drug-dependent daughter, Risa, Witt had gotten the girl quietly into a private clinic and made sure that the story hadn’t found its way to the news stations or been printed in any of the local papers.
Logan had been a trusted friend and ally ever since. But he still spoke his mind. “If you ask me, Zach knows what happened to your little girl, Witt.” The detective glanced at Kat, who had turned a paler shade of white and looked as if she might faint. “Any reason why he’d want to harm her—?”
Katherine let out a whimper. “He’s just a boy…”
“—or at least scare the bejesus out of the both of you?”
“No!” An uneasy feeling tightened in Witt’s guts. He and Zach had never gotten along. They’d been oil and water for years, and the fact that Zach didn’t seem to have one Danvers characteristic made Witt suspicious of the boy. There had always been rumors…ugly rumors suggesting that Zach wasn’t his son. Then there was the problem with Kat…Witt had seen her dancing with her stepson, leading him on, whispering in his ear only to shut him down. Maybe out of vengeance…Hell, no! Zach was the only one of his older children who seemed to like London. And he was seventeen, for crying out loud. Seventeen!
“It’s been known to happen,” Logan was insisting. “One kid gets jealous of another—”
“No way. Zach’s probably up to his butt in trouble, but he didn’t take London.”
“Think about it,” Logan suggested, then started ordering some of his men to talk to everyone remotely associated with the Danvers family. Other officers were told to interrogate everyone staying at the hotel, then asked to check the records and contact guests who had stayed in the hotel for the last three months.
While each family member was interrogated a second and third time, the detective sergeant kept track of the investigation via walkie-talkie. His men were situated throughout the building and checking every available space in the hotel as well as working the grounds and spreading through the city, reporting anything remotely suspicious on the streets.
Informants were contacted, and anyone with an arrest record for kidnapping was in for a shock, though Logan suspected that this case was different. This wasn’t the work of penny-ante crooks—this was different and deadly.
Logan was a practical man, a cop who had fought his way through the ranks to make detective sergeant. He hadn’t earned his position because of his education or his sophistication; he’d built his reputation by the simple fact that he always got the job done. Over the course of his twenty-odd years with the force, he’d been called a mule, a terrier, and a self-centered bastard, but the bottom line was that he got results. Crusty and cantankerous, with four-letter words being the essence of his vocabulary, he’d devoted his life to cleaning up the filthy streets of Portland.
He called ’em as he saw ’em and in his book, Zachary Danvers was a bad seed. Maybe not even Witt’s son. Rumor had it that Zach was sired by Anthony Polidori, and though Logan didn’t give much credit to most of the gossip he heard, he did believe that where there was smoke there was fire. He’d caught more than one slippery criminal on the anonymous tip, the “gossip” of the streets. So maybe the grudge between Zach and Witt was stronger than the old man wanted to admit. Maybe Zach hated the man who had raised him. Considering the feud between the Polidori and Danvers families, anything was possible.
The sooner Zach was located, Logan was convinced, the sooner he’d find London, and when he did, his score with Witt Danvers would be even. Members of the family, swathed in hotel robes, hair mussed, smoking cigarettes, sat in the chairs and whispered quietly, hoping not to set off Katherine, who, arms wrapped around her middle, stared sightlessly out the window, a neglected Virginia Slim dangling from her fingers.
Trisha chewed at the corner of one fingernail. Jason paced from the window to a small table and back again. Nelson was wide-eyed and nervous, as if he was on speed, Witt thought with distaste. Everyone was there except London, her nanny Ginny, and Zach.
Witt stared at the bleary-eyed faces of his children and prayed to God that little London was safe, just misplaced. He hoped that the child, upon being hauled away from the party, had protested by “running away” to some hidden corner of the hotel and that Ginny, the idiot of a nanny, rather than lose face and admit that she’d lost his most precious possession, was tearing the hotel apart, searching for her missing charge. But he knew in his heart that he was wasting his time on empty hope. London was gone. Abducted and kidnapped and probably worse. His back teeth ground together in frustration as he wondered where she was—if she was still alive. He couldn’t let his mind wander too far along that dark path, or he’d lose every bit of his sanity.
The police, except for Jack Logan, left the room.
Kat ran the fingers of one hand through her rumpled hair and glanced sightlessly at her husband. With effort she stubbed out her cigarette. “I think we should do something.”
“Logan’s got his men searching the building. He’s going over the guest list. He’ll question anyone who was in the hotel.”
“That’s not good enough!” she said with a deadly calm that belied her ravaged emotions. “My baby’s gone, Witt. Our baby. Gone! Disappeared!” Blinking back tears, she walked to her purse, pulled out her gold cigarette case, and fumbled with the catch. She lit up again and wrapped one arm around herself, as if warding off a chill.
“What do you want me to do?” He felt so damned helpless and he hated the feeling. He was always in command, the man in charge…
