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He squeezed her other hand, then clapped Jered on the shoulder.
“You’ll let us know the minute you catch him?” the younger man asked, an anxious look on his face.
“Count on it.”
Beyond that, he felt he accomplished little. He talked to the SAC in San Antonio and reported on their abysmal progress. There were no further leads on the human trafficking gang either, Lorimer told him.
Still, he had a feeling that somehow he’d forgotten something important.
****
Dana turned on the television to catch the news at five o’clock. Mostly for background noise as she worked at her laptop. But one fragment of a sentence caught her ear.
“…putting on their production of Three Little Girls. The senior class president said…”
And like that, the light went on in her head.
Sweat broke out on her brow, and her hands began to shake. Good god, how had she ever forgotten that horrible song? She’d heard the sing-song phrases over and over in her head for so long she’d finally, consciously blocked it out. But it had hung there, waiting for something to trigger it.
Her hand shook as she picked up the phone and punched in Cole’s number, but it went directly to voice mail. Next, she tried the direct line to dispatch.
“I’m sorry, Miss Moretti,” the deputy handling the calls told her. “He’s gone to see Grace and then he’s stopping at the hospital. If he’s there now, he’ll have to have his cell phone off. Can I help you with something?”
“You can give him a message for me. It’s really important, so please don’t forget.”
“I’ll write it down, ma’am. And get him on the radio as soon as I figure he’s back in his vehicle.”
“Tell him the song I told him about is ‘There was a little girl’. He’ll know what I mean. Got that?”
“Yes. ‘There was a little girl.’ I’ll see that he gets the message.”
“Thank you.”
But after pacing the dining room for twenty minutes, she decided to try his cell again. Again, it went to voice mail, so he was probably still with Stacy.
“Call me. I left a message at your office, too.”
Then she sat back down at her laptop and tried to focus on the outline. Anything to keep her mind occupied.
Chapter Thirty-Six
He had driven by Cole’s place twice, trying to figure out how he was going to get inside. And how would he get her outside without being seen? Driving past the hospital, he saw Cole just leaving the building, no doubt checking on Stacy. An idea popped into his head, and he turned into the parking lot.
“You look like you’ve been run over twice,” he told the younger man when he pulled up next to him.
Cole rubbed his face. “I feel it.”
“How’s Stacy?”
Cole shook his head. “I don’t know how she’s ever going to handle this.”
“I know you’ve got the feds in to help, but is there anything I can do? At the moment, I’m feeling sort of useless.”
“Me, too, if you want to know the truth.” There was anger in every line of his body.
“Damn shame,” he said. “Just a damn shame. Well, if you think of something…”
Cole started to shake his head, then snapped his fingers. “Actually, there is something you can do if you wouldn’t mind.”
