He held her gaze for a moment, then glanced up as the blond-haired man approached. To her surprise, Micah held a handgun toward Grady, butt first. “To replace the one you had to hand over to the cops.”
“Thanks.” Grady released her hands so he could accept the gun. He turned away and worked the chamber. Then he holstered it and turned back to Micah. “We need to start digging into Jerry Cromwell’s background. Maybe he has other properties that his kids are using.”
Micah nodded. “Rex brought a laptop along. That’s a good place to start.”
“What if Jerry Cromwell is out of prison?” She abruptly jumped to her feet. “When we talked about him before, I hadn’t paid much attention to him because he was so much older than the guy who took Ariel. But now that we know he has twin sons, it could be that Jerry is out there too.”
“I’m on it,” Rex said, his fingers flying across the laptop keyboard. “Looks like Jerry Cromwell was released two weeks ago.”
“How is that possible?” Her voice was barely a whisper.
“According to this, Jerry Cromwell was diagnosed with end-stage lung cancer.” Rex grimaced, glancing between Grady and Micah. “Looks like he was given a compassionate release because he only has six months to live.” When she frowned, Rex added, “This is a new thing the prison system is doing. They don’t want to provide the care and treatment of these prisoners, and there’s always the issue of overcrowding, so they release them so they can be cared for elsewhere.”
“We should have thought of digging into Jerry Cromwell earlier,” Grady said harshly. She could tell by the way he eyed Agent Braun that he was thinking the FBI should have been on that angle too. But all the self-incriminations in the world wasn’t going to change the facts.
They needed to find Lucy!
When a phone rang, there was an abrupt silence. Then it rang again.
“Lauren? It’s your phone, someone is calling from an unknown number.” Agent Braun’s voice was tense. “You need to answer it and keep the kidnapper talking for as long as possible.”
She jumped to her feet and crossed to the table. Leaning forward, she hit the button to answer the call. Then she quickly put the call on speaker. “Hello?”
“If you want to see your daughter again, do exactly as I say.” She hadn’t expected the mechanical voice.
“I will. But I want to hear from Lucy. I need to know she’s alive and unharmed.”
There was a brief pause, then her daughter’s voice said, “Mommy?”
She sagged into the closest empty chair. “I’m here, Lucy. Grady too. You’re going to be fine, okay? I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“Twenty-five million dollars. One million for every year.” The mechanical voice was back. “You’ll receive instructions within the hour.”
“Wait, that’s impossible. It’s a Friday night! The banks are closed...” She stopped, realizing the line was dead.
Simon Cromwell had disconnected after making his outrageous demand.
15
Grady had listened to Lucy’s shaky voice on the other end of the ransom call, his gut twisting with fear for the little girl. The anguish etched on Lauren’s features didn’t help. He hated knowing how much she was suffering. Lucy too.
He turned toward Agent Braun. “Did you get the trace?”
The fed grimaced and gestured to the tech who shrugged. “The call pinged off a tower here.” The tech guy tapped the computer screen. Grady leaned in to see better. The area in question was slightly south but mostly west of the Chicago Cultural Center. “There’s about a mile radius around the location of the call. Doesn’t narrow it down much, I’m afraid.”
Simon could have Lucy anywhere within a mile of the dot on the map. With so many people living in the city, Grady needed more, a way of narrowing down the most likely hiding spot. Yet he had no idea of knowing whether they were in a motel or a private residence.
Battling a wave of frustration, he pulled his phone and called Griff again. The FBI agent out of Wyoming answered on the first ring. “I was just going to call you. Dom found the car at two different locations. The first was at the intersection of Wacker and Monroe; the second sighting was at West Taylor and Morgan Street. Do you know where they are?”
As Griff spoke, he wrenched the computer from the tech guy and zeroed in on the map to identify the most recent sighting. It was only a mile from the pinpointed cell tower. “Yeah, I have the map up for that location now. Looks like there could be a lot of residential homes in that area.”
“That’s what Dom said,” Griff agreed. “I don’t know if this helps much, but we wanted you to know.”
Rex was working on his laptop, so Grady stepped back, allowing the tech guy access to the screen. “Every little bit helps. Can you ask Dom to search for any property associated with Jerry, Simon, or Shane Cromwell?”
Griff repeated the request for Dom. Then added, “We’re on it. What are the Chicago feds doing?”
