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“I was,” I replied. “I was dealing with some personal stuff.”
“Oh, okay. Does this mean you’re back now? Because I want to discuss changing the security detail for my daughter.”
I shook my head. “I’m not back yet.” And then I hesitated before I asked, “How is your daughter?”
He sighed deeply, and I saw the worry in his gaze when he said, “She’s okay, I suppose. She’s gone back to school and is doing everything as ‘normal.’ But she’s still not talking about what happened. She refuses to even refer to it, and everyone is following her lead.”
“Have you taken her to see someone?”
“She refuses to even consider it,” the mayor said, and he looked even more worried. “Why? Did one of the criminals confess that they did something to her?”
“No,” I said. “But I would like to talk to her about that.”
“Are you investigating further?”
“We have,” I said. “And we discovered that one of the kidnappers helped us track them down. He left the clues that my men found and, according to reports, he protected her in there. I want to confirm the information with her and find out what she thinks about us possibly going for a reduced sentence.”
All softness disappeared from the man’s features, leaving a hard shell behind.
“No,” he said firmly. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. Those criminals held my daughter for over a month.”
“Yes, but this boy is also the only reason we managed to find her. We wouldn’t have had many clues otherwise. His skills with technology are unparalleled, and my agency would like to hire him as part of our cybersecurity team.”
“Are you kidding me?” the mayor exploded, getting to his feet. “You mean to tell me that you want to hire the criminal who kidnapped my daughter?”
“You should,” came a soft voice behind us. A teenage girl in a uniform walked into the room, holding a stack of books in front of her.
“Sophia,” her father muttered. “I didn’t know you were home.”
“You should hire Randy,” she said, keeping her eyes on me. “He’s stupid smart. Always has been.”
“Sophia, you can’t mean to tell me—”
“The man is right, Dad.” She turned to her father. “Randy protected me in there. I haven’t said anything because…well…because I was so pissed. I hated the fact that he’d tricked me, but I understood why he did it. I was a bitch to him for no reason, and he could have gotten back at me while he had me. But instead, he didn’t let any of the other guys touch me.” She sighed. “It would have been a lot worse if he wasn’t there.”
“But…but…he’s a criminal.”
“Yeah, and I’m not saying he should go free. I’m just saying he doesn’t deserve to spend the rest of his life in jail, that’s all.”
The mayor’s face showed his struggle as he clearly didn’t want to accept it. His daughter walked closer to him and laid a hand on his arm. “You said you would do anything to help me heal from that experience. Well, this is it. I don’t want to live with the guilt of that on my conscience, so don’t make me.”
The mayor finally released a resigned sigh.
When I got back to the car, it was to find Kuzo and Tillie engaged in what seemed to be a humorous conversation. Kuzo was actually smiling, which was odd because the man didn’t like anyone.
Tillie turned to look at me when I entered the car, and her smile fell as she looked cautious. “What happened?”
“Surprisingly, they went for it,” I told them.
“They did?” she gasped happily.
“Yeah.” I smiled. “I’ll explain everything on the way.”
She whooped and clapped her hands.
“Now comes the hard part.”
Once I met Randy, it was hard to see how we’d missed the connection in the first place. The boy bore a striking resemblance to Lance, down to his blue eyes and devil-may-care snarl.
