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“Ryan didn’t mention them. They were going out to lunch, weren’t they?”
Relief lit Carly’s face. “That’s right. At eleven. I’ll text them and tell them what’s happening.”
Elizabeth wrung her hands. “This is awful. Who could have done such a terrible thing?”
No one answered, and Lainey steered her grandmother toward the door. “Let’s get out of here.”
Elizabeth allowed her granddaughter to lead her out to their car while Lucas and Carly headed to his truck. Holt lingered to lock up behind them. Lucas put the chest in the back while Carly secured Noah in his car seat.
“I need to find Isabelle and Caroline. I’m scared, Lucas.” Her voice wobbled, and her eyes filled with tears.
Though it was stupid and playing with his own emotions, he pulled her against his chest. “We’ll find them. Ryan’s already called the police by now, and they’ll be all over this. Have faith.”
He liked the feel of her in his arms. She fit perfectly. But he didn’t want her to pick up the wrong vibe, so he released her. “Let’s get going.”
He waited until Holt was safely behind the wheel and pulling out with the women, then he flipped on his lights and siren to go around him and speed toward Beaufort. Carly looked straight ahead with her hands clasped in her lap. Her lips moved, and he thought she was probably praying like he was inside.
This wasn’t good. In fact, it was terrifying. There was no reason for Isabelle to have taken all of Caroline’s things. She wouldn’t be trying to run off with the baby. He wished Kelly had a family member close by he could call. That was a black hole in the investigation. She had a few friends but her only family were her parents in Florida, and they were too ill to travel. If another family member wanted Caroline, they would have let Isabelle go.
Carly’s phone dinged in her lap, and she lifted it to read. She gasped.
Lucas slowed his speed for safety. “What’s happened?”
“I-it’s from someone demanding the egg in return forIsabelle and Caroline.” Carly held up the phone. “He says no police or we’ll never see them again.”
His thoughts raced on proper protocol in a kidnapping. “What are the details of their demands?”
“I’m to retrieve the egg and wait for further instructions for delivering it. Once they get it, they’ll let me know the exchange site in an hour. We can barely make it to the bank by then.”
“Most of the time, giving kidnappers what they want doesn’t work. They aren’t even doing an exchange at the same time. You hand over the egg, and they’ll vanish. You’ll never know what happened to Caroline and Isabelle. I need to call in the FBI so we can find them before this goes down. We’ll see how they say to handle this.”
He didn’t wait for her to agree but called Bernard directly. His boss promised to get the FBI there right away. They had a field office in Columbia.
“That’s over two hours away!” he told his boss. “I’ll try to stall them.” He ended the call and increased his speed. “Text the guy back and tell him we’re out of town and can’t do the drop that quickly. Tell them you need overnight.”
“Overnight! We can’t leave my sister and Caroline in their hands that long.”
“The FBI can be here in a couple of hours. Maybe sooner if they happen to have someone on a case nearby. Hold on, Carly. We’ll find them.”
His words sounded hollow, even to him.
***
Carly’s hands trembled as she texted back the phone number and told him she was out of town and would need more time. She was a ball of nerves and struggled to keep from sobbing. Even trying to marshal her thoughts enough to make a coherent sentence was hard, and she fell silent as she waited for the kidnapper to return her text.
Lucas was on the phone to Bernard again, asking him to track her phone and see if they could discover the location of the man on the other end. What if her sister and little Caroline were in the hands of the Russian mafia? Would they really turn them back over?
Lucas ended his call. “We’re in luck. There’s an expert on child abduction in Savannah on vacation. They’ve called her in, and she’ll be here within the hour. The FBI has more resources than local departments.”
She wanted to feel relieved and optimistic, but her heart was a stone in her chest. Why had she ever found the egg? The hole they were in got deeper and deeper. No material item was worth what her family had endured. She wished she’d never opened that chest in the attic. Well, except for finding Gram’s sister. That had been wonderful and necessary, even with the trauma of the burglary at their house.
Her phone dinged with a message, and her gut clenched.You have until nine tonight.
She moistened her lips. “They want it by nine.”
Lucas nodded. He shot a glance at her, then reached over and took her hand. “Hang in there, Carly. At least now we know it’s all about the egg. Caroline’s family didn’t take her or anything like that. Narrowing down our possible suspects helps immensely.”
“How can that help? We have several possible groups after the egg—we have no idea who is running things in the shadows or how to find him.”
