“I don’t care about that.” Noah stepped closer, looming over his former friend. “What else? What did he tell you?”
Lowell looked up at him, eyes wide. “I just know he’s a dog with a bone when he sees something he wants.” He blinked, looking so young, so like the college freshman he’d been when Noah had first met him. “I wanted you defeated, I admit that. I thought Hayes would stop at nothing to make the merger fail.”
“You got what you wanted, then. He didn’t even stop at kidnapping an innocent little girl. Now, you’re involved. You have to tell him I’ll back out of the deal if I get Charlotte back today. Unharmed.”
“I…I’ll think about?—”
“Now, Lowell, or I’m telling the police you’ve been conspiring with him. If he’s behind this, which I have no doubt he is, you’ll be an accessory to kidnapping. You’ll be a felon.”
Noah wouldn’t have thought it possible, but the remaining color drained from Lowell’s face, leaving him looking pasty and sickly.
Noah settled on the chair across from him. “Unlike you, that’s not what I want for you, though God knows you’d have destroyed me if you’d had the chance.”
“I believed my sister. I really thought?—”
“It doesn’t matter now,” Noah said. “All I care about is getting Charlotte back. If I have to destroy you to do it, believe me, I will.”
“Okay, I get… Okay.” Lowell pulled out his phone with trembling hands. “I only have his business number. He probably won’t?—“
“Make the call. And put it on speaker. I want to hear everything.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
With each mile marker, it felt like Charlotte slipped further away.
Delaney gripped the steering wheel of the rental car, her knuckles white as she cruised along the beachfront road in Norfolk. The November sun glinted off the water to her right, mockingly cheerful compared to the heaviness inside her. To her left, an upscale golf course stretched in manicured perfection.
This was all she knew. Violet’s apartment had a view of the water and was within walking distance of a golf course. But what constituted “walking distance”? A mile, two? There were countless homes, apartment buildings, and condo complexes on this stretch of coastline. Violet could be in any of them.
Delaney did have one other piece of information, shared by Michael an hour before—the make and model of Violet’s car, an older gray Honda Civic. Norton had told him the Driftwood PD had that information, but he hadn’t given Noah or Delaney the details.
She’d spotted at least ten cars already that could fit the bill, none with the right plate number. For all she knew, Violet had stolen another car’s plate. Or stolen a car.
“This is never going to work.” How did she think she was going to find Charlotte when the police hadn’t been able to?
But she couldn’t stop. She wouldn’t, not until Charlotte was found. Maybe Delaney would look ridiculous for thinking she could do something. That’d be a small price to pay for trying to find the child she loved.
Michael was helping. If anybody could locate Violet, he could. He’d rescued his wife—girlfriend at the time—from a heavily guarded compound in the middle of Iraq, then escaped with her and her twin through Turkey, bad guys on their tail the whole way.
She figured the story had been embellished, but even so, the man was tenacious. If he could find Leila in a desert half a world away, surely he could find Violet in Norfolk, Virginia.
That thought kept her driving, scanning every parking lot, every storefront, every flash of movement that might lead her to Charlotte.
The question wasn’t could Michael do it. The question was, how soon?
Please, Father. Please lead me to her. Or the police, or anyone. Please, save Charlotte.
Her phone rang, Michael’s name lighting up the screen. She searched the unfamiliar dash for the button to answer through Bluetooth, then jabbed it. “Please tell me you have something.”
“Maybe.” Michael’s voice came through clear and focused. “Alyssa got this for me. Don’t worry, I didn’t tell her it was for you.”
Delaney didn’t care who knew what she was doing, but it would be better if her family didn’t worry. “Tell me what she learned.”
“She was searching utility customers. No Violet Bosch or Heather Brown, but following that pattern?—”
“What pattern?”
“First name’s a flower, second name begins with B.”
