In Broad Daylight

“Only by sight.”

She’d been to the house once, to talk to Annie’s parents about Annie. Martha Danridge had let her in and brought her to Annie’s mother. Annie’s father was away, which seemed par for the course, and her mother, completely forgetting about the appointment that had been made to discuss Annie’s painful shyness, had been on her way out. Perforce, the conversation had been brief. Rebecca Allen-Tyler had thanked her for her concern and dismissed her the way she might a waiter who’d brought the wrong order to her table.

Brenda’s heart had gone out to the little girl, knowing her mother undoubtedly treated her with the same regard: as something to be suffered, but not necessarily with patience. People like that, she thought, didn’t deserve having a bright, sensitive little girl like Annie.

Dax made a judgment call. “Close enough,” he told her.

She didn’t understand. “For what?”

He had a feeling she could smooth the way for them with the housekeeper faster than they could manage themselves. Badges tended to rattle people and the situation was already stressful enough. He’d seen her in action with both jittery teachers and anxious children. Her calming effect would be welcomed.

“I’d like you to come with us,” he explained. He could feel Nathan staring at him. “You can finish the second sketch on the way there.”

Brenda nodded. Her mouth curved. She was eager to do what she could. Being suddenly cast adrift while the detectives went on with the investigation would have made her insane.

“All right. I just need to stop by my room to get my things. I’ll meet you outside.”

Dax nodded his agreement and she hurried back to her classroom.

The stillness met her at the door the moment she opened it. It seemed to accuse her of negligence.

I’ll find you, Annie, I promise I will, she vowed silently.

Taking her purse from the bottom drawer in her desk, she turned around only to swallow a gasp. Harwood was standing almost directly behind her.

“Sorry,” he apologized. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“I guess we’re all a little jumpy right now.” As she started for the door, he took her arm, detaining her for a moment. She looked at him quizzically.

“I just want you to know that I don’t for a moment think you have anything to do with this.” He paused, searching for words. She noticed that there was a thin line of perspiration on his upper lip. This had to be very difficult for him, she thought. The academy was his whole life. To have its reputation jeopardized this way had to have him cringing inwardly. “And I don’t hold you responsible.”

In a day and age when people were quick to shed blame and point fingers in an attempt to get attention refocused somewhere else, she was grateful for his taking the time to reassure her. He had no way of knowing about the precarious state she felt herself in.

“Thank you.”

Harwood took her hand in both of his and nodded in the general direction of the front of the school. She knew he meant to indicate the two detectives who were out there, waiting for her.

“Are you up to this? Going to Annie’s house, I mean. I can take you home if you’re not. No one’ll think the less of you.”

As if she could go home. As if she could find a shred of peace until the little girl was recovered, safe and sound.

Very delicately, Brenda pulled her hand away from his. “I’m fine, Matthew,” she assured him. “I just want to do anything I can to help.”

He sighed and nodded. “Of course you do. We all do.” He walked with her to the hall. “Call me and let me know if I can do anything for the Tylers.”

“I will,” she promised, then hurried down the long corridor to the massive double doors at the front of the building.

Outside, Dax and Nathan waited by the car. Unlike when they’d first arrived, there were few cars left. One by one, the teachers had all been dismissed, the children, as soon as they were quizzed, had been sent home. The only sign that something was amiss were the two patrol cars parked on the far side of the lot. But even that was being wrapped up.

Nathan waited in vain for an explanation. Finally, he asked, “Do you know what you’re doing? Isn’t taking the kid’s teacher along a little unorthodox? Even if she is a knockout.”

“Her being a knockout has nothing to do with it and no, it’s not a little unorthodox, it’s a lot unorthodox,” Dax corrected him. “But I’ve got a feeling she might be useful. She seems to know the kid pretty well and she’s got this calming effect on people.”

Other than himself, he added silently. One of the teachers had been close to hysteria once she discovered the reason for their presence on the premises. Brenda had calmed the woman down sufficiently so that she could give them a statement. The teacher hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary, but if she had, Brenda would have been responsible for getting it out of her.

Besides, something told him to keep the woman close. He wasn’t sure just which instincts he was going on, but by and large, he’d learned to trust them and he wasn’t about to dismiss them now.

He straightened as he saw Brenda hurry through the double doors. The slight sultry breeze was playing with the ends of her hair that had come undone from the knot she’d arranged her hair into.

Damn but she was one hell of a good-looking woman, he thought again.

Martha Danridge was visibly trembling as she admitted them into what could only be termed a mansion some twenty-five minutes later. The three-storied building, complete with stables, a tennis court and two pools, sat atop a hill that was at the end of a long, winding road. The first time Brenda had seen it, she’d thought of a castle nestled in the center of a fairy tale. And Annie was the lonely princess.

Rebecca Allen-Tyler had spared the time to tell her that it was an actual castle, transplanted from Ireland and rebuilt stone by stone because she’d fallen in love with it on their honeymoon.

The king and queen, it seemed, spent hardly any time at all in their castle with their princess.

The housekeeper seemed barely capable of processing their names as Dax introduced himself and Nathan, then indicated Brenda. “And you already know Annie’s teacher, Brenda York.”

“Yes, I already know Mrs. York.” The crisp English accent seemed at odds with the nervous expression on the older woman’s face. One hand was working the edge of her apron as she closed the front door. “Mrs. Tyler isn’t here.”

“But she did call you,” Annie said.

“Yes.” Tears welled up in the woman’s brown eyes and she looked close to breaking down right before them. She covered her mouth with her hands, holding back a sob until she could regain some measure of control over her voice. “How could such a terrible thing happen? That poor little bit of a thing, she must be so frightened.”

Brenda slipped her arm around the woman’s shoulders in mute comfort. It was the same thought that kept crossing and recrossing her own mind ever since she realized Annie wasn’t out on the lawn with the rest of the class. Chillingly, she’d known that something was very, very wrong right from the first.

“The important thing is that we’re going to get her back,” Brenda assured the woman who sobbed into her handkerchief. The doorbell rang and Brenda’s head bobbed up, alert.

“That’s going to be the tech team,” Dax told the housekeeper. He’d placed a call, giving them the Tylers’ address, while he and Nathan had waited for Brenda.

Motioning to the housekeeper not to trouble herself, Nathan fell back and opened the front door. Two men and one woman, all carrying large black bags that looked like suitcases, walked in.

Dax approached the housekeeper. “We’re going to need to place bugs on all your phone lines.”

“Yes, of course,” Martha whispered, her voice cracking.

She was still shaking, Brenda noted. Again she slipped her arm around the woman’s thin shoulders and gave her a little squeeze.

“Why don’t you show them where all the phones are?” she suggested gently.

Like a marionette whose string had been pulled, Martha nodded, her head bobbing up and down.

But before she could leave the foyer, Dax moved in front of her. “There hasn’t been a ransom call yet, has there?”

“No.” She swallowed hard, renewed panic entering her eyes as she looked from one detective to the other, and then at Brenda. “At least, I don’t think so. I was out at the store until just a little while ago, when Mrs. Tyler called me. There are no message on the answering machine,” she tagged on as if to cover her absence.

Dax didn’t know if the woman was simpleminded or just addled by the situation. “Kidnappers don’t generally leave messages on answering machines.”