Moody pauses again, and Simone hears paper crinkling. ‘Leave it with me,’ he tells her. Then adds: ‘Just – Yes. Leave it with me.’
Not even three hours later, a bored guard gets Simone. ‘Another call for you. Lawyer says it’s urgent, that we gotta comply, apparently,’ he tells her, and Simone trails him down corridors with doors that double-lock and bolt. Nobody else is out of their cells. It’s the early evening, the jail quiet, and something about it feels almost like Dishes after hours. Dim light, tidy surfaces, soft-close doors. The Communications Hub is empty, dark, the only illumination from an office room next door that shines a yellow rectangle on to the polished black floor. One phone has its receiver on the top, and Simone takes it, heart pounding, while a guard pretends not to listen.
‘Simone, how sure is Lucy that the kidnapper is male?’ Moody asks.
CHAPTER 72
Simone glances around her. ‘Go on.’
‘The reason Max had an alibi is that he doesn’t do the kidnappings, but he does feed them the victims,’ Moody explains. ‘You were half right with your theory about the camp. But you missed a piece.’
Simone closes her eyes. So the British manwasinvolved. Primed to send the names of kids whose parents were arriving to somebody even worse than him.
‘A Border Patrol officer named Michaela worked the Mexican border but lives in Fort Davis.’
At this, Simone takes a breath. Michaela. Michaela in the cowboy hat.
Michaela, who was female, but tall and broad … enough to kidnap?
The kidnapper, who always obscured their voice, their appearance …
Moody pauses. ‘That’s your woman.’
Michaela, who actuallyaskedif Simone was all right at the border. A cruel double bluff.
Moody continues, ‘Michaela is Max’s cousin. She recently bought a Porsche. Unusual for someone of her vocation. On the day you arrived, a police friend who got her phone records for me just now tells me Michaela received a call from a phone registered to somebody else in Border Patrol,who works in the airport you flew into,’ Moody says. ‘Named Danny. I’ve been pulling every lever to find stuff out.’
The man with the burrito in the airport.
‘Two hours later, Michaela buys a different phone. A contact I have at Buc-ee’s tells me she often does so. Jon-Paul Delves is seen there on CCTV, meeting her and then leaving. Then, according to number plate recognition, Michaela drives underneath two gantries that are on the way to the lodge. Photos so clear I could see her lemon air freshener dangling in her car.’
Simone closes her eyes. It makes sense. Max selected candidates from camp. Then, when Michaela knew a parent was arriving, she used a contact, Danny, in the airport to get information from their ESTA. Then she, ostensibly a nice officer on the coach, the one with the daughter – just like the kidnapper – training to be a space psychologist, let the parents through the border despite the sniffer dogs’ alerts. It’s so obvious.
The entire time, Max was on the coach and it was probably him who told the police that Lucy and Simone were seen together on it, to discredit them. But he wasn’t the kidnapper, so had an alibi.
It’s so, so obvious now.
It worked so seamlessly for them. A chain-link of crimes, undetected when viewed in isolation.
‘What’s her surname?’ she asks. ‘Michaela?’
‘Wyatt.’
‘Michaela Wyatt.’ And, just like that, a mystery is solved. The Border Patrol officer. All that anxiety of transporting the drugs was for nothing. She was being instructed to do it by the very person who would ensure that she could. She directed Simone so precisely, timed it so she would be checked by her on her shift. Of course she did.
Michaela had spoken to her at the height of her panic, and she had told her about her daughter while knowing Simone’s was held captive – and alone – back at her house. Then she handed Lucy over to Jon-Paul Delves. He was a criminal for hire, nothing more, nothing less. A nefarious, immoral person who would deliver Lucy once he had her.
Before that, Michaela had taken Lucy from her bed. Gloved hand and all. The lemon smell came from the air freshener in her car; even Simone’s nose had no chance of smelling that on her when she’d been at work all day. And if anyone else had searched Simone, Michaela had covered her tracks so well that she simply would’ve watched on as Simone was arrested.
There would never have been any point in telling the police, she supposes. The whole thing was too organized. She could do nothing except engage with it. A small shard of relief: she was right to answer the ransom.
She was right. She couldn’t have done anything differently.
She says to Moody: ‘Thank you.’ The handset is warm from her body heat and relief, humming, too, with a kind of optimism that Simone doesn’t trust.
‘You’re welcome,’ Moody replies. ‘It was you who figured it out, anyway.’ He pauses, and Simone waits. ‘I’ve got a tail on her, following her. But, and I hate to say this, she’s retired from Border Patrol. I suspect maybe she gave up because of what happened with you and Jon-Paul. Too high profile.’
Disappointment floods Simone’s body. ‘And the hearing is in two days.’
