“I told you to get somewhere you could talk.” Noah’s stomach, already in knots, somersaulted. If the police were with Hayes, the man would be careful about what he said. He wouldn’t reveal anything useful. “Whatever you want,” Noah blurted. “I don’t care. I’ll drop the merger, sign over my company. You can have the house. I just want Charlotte back.”
There was a pause, and the background noise abated. Finally, Hayes said, “This was never my plan.”
“I don’t care what your plan was! Where is she?”
“The police are here. I’ve told them everything I know.”
Noah’s fingers tightened around the phone. Was this some kind of trick? “Fine.” Not that he believed it. If the police had learned Charlotte’s whereabouts, surely they’d have told him. “Now tell me. Where is she? Where’s my niece?”
“I don’t know. I swear.” Hayes took an audible breath. “I hired an investigator a few months back, as soon as Lowell told me about the merger. Before I ever made a bid, I figured out who Charlotte’s mother was, and I convinced her that if you were surrounded by enough scandal—if you and your nanny were caught in a compromising situation, or if she could prove that you were neglecting your niece—she’d be able to sue for custody. The courts would let her have Charlotte back.”
Noah struggled to process what he was hearing. “Did you really think that would work?”
“No, not…really,” Hayes admitted. “But she believed it.”
“You were using her.”
“I needed Tidewater to lose faith in you. I thought for sure Violet would learn something that I could use. And I figured, even if she did sue for custody, she’d lose. No harm done.”
“To you,” Noah spat. “But lots of harm to her. And now Charlotte has been?—”
“You think I don’t know?” Hayes sounded angry and defensive, but beneath that, Noah heard a hint of panic. Maybe even genuine concern, though he suspected the man was more worried about being an accessory to kidnapping than about Violet’s feelings or Charlotte’s safety. “She’s sober now, but?—“
“Is she in her right mind?”
He sighed. “I thought…I thought so. She seemed fine. You met her. You know how she was. Articulate, well-spoken. She seemed perfectly reasonable to me.”
“Except that she believed she could get custody.”
“Yeah.” The word was drawn out, hesitant. “I think she was deceived by her own certainty that she deserves custody of Charlotte. When we first started working together?—”
“Sleeping together, you mean.”
A pause, then a sigh. “I’ve done a lot of things I regret.”
“Amazing what getting caught will do to your conscience.”
“I’m doing my best here, Aylett.”
“You got my niece kidnapped, Hayes. Surely you don’t expect sympathy.”
Another sigh. “The point is, she seemed fine at first. Full of hope and totally rational. But in the last few weeks, she was getting frustrated. She hardly ever saw your nanny, and when she did, the woman didn’t share any dirt. We argued last night. I knew she was losing it, but I never dreamed she would do something like this. I thought she’d just relapse or something.”
“You’re a real piece of work.”
“I didn’t mean…” The man’s pitch rose. “I never meant for any of this to happen.”
Noah had no time for Hayes’s regrets. “What about the apartment Violet told Delaney about? Where is it?”
“I’ve never been there. I just gave her money to rent a place. I know it’s in Norfolk, but that’s all. I used to meet her at a hotel outside of town.”
“Which one? Maybe she’s there.”
“I told the police. They checked it already.”
Noah closed his eyes, his free hand clenching into a fist. The lead he’d hoped for crumbled to nothing. “That’s it?” The words scraped his throat. “That’s all you know?”
“I’m sorry.” Hayes sounded like he meant it. “I really am. But the police are working on it. They’ll find her. If there was anything I could do?—”
