Larson and Alice climbed into his parked Explorer. This was their first moment alone together after an hour of negotiations that had included Scott Rotem in Washington, D.C., the Missouri-based U.S. Attorney, SLPD, and the regional office of WITSEC. Justice, represented here by FATF, had won custody. She was Larson’s.
She displayed a reticence in closing the car door, and he wondered if he should read anything into that.
After an awkward few seconds of silence, they turned to face each other. He saw a mother’s anguish on her face and realized this was neither the place nor the time to express what he was feeling-joy, exhilaration, a sense of completion-but as usual, his mouth betrayed him.
“It’s incredibly good to see you again.”
The shock that registered on her face told him he’d gone too far. But then her expression warmed, however briefly.
“We’ll find her,” he said.
“You don’t know that.”
“I don’t mean this,” he said, sweeping his hand to include everything outside the windshield-the lights, the uniforms, the huddled discussions. “I mean you and I. We’ll find her.”
She fought back tears and won. “I appreciate the sentiment, Lars, I really do. But we both know that when Debbie dropped him off-” She might have managed to get the sentence out, but she couldn’t complete the thought, couldn’t allow herself the image of Penny at the door unable to get inside.
She’d held up unbelievably well over the past hour-perhaps her months with WITSEC had conditioned her. At some point she would need to release what she now bravely contained. But not now. She was either numb, or far stronger than he’d imagined.
She said, “I’d hoped for a happier reunion.” That would be all she would offer him for now, and they both knew it. It was enough.
“Yeah.”
The Explorer had a view across a corner of the park to the entrance to her apartment building. A dozen uniformed police and two detectives continued to comb the neighborhood, conducting interviews in an attempt to locate Penny. The one report they had, confusing as it was to some, put a young girl matching Penny’s description with a policeman boarding a city bus. The eyewitness put the policeman’s uniform as blue, but Larson was betting black. He and the others knew who was wearing this uniform, since the same disguise had been used at the hospital. Rodriguez.
Nonetheless, the local police were conducting a full canvass of the area, both because it was dictated by procedure and because when it came to a child’s abduction, all bets were hedged.
In profile, her nose turned slightly upward, her lips looked a little less full than the lips he remembered kissing. Larson adored the perfect pear shape of her ears and was reminded of the dead woman in Minneapolis. There was so much more to tell her, both personally and professionally, but first was the question of Penny’s whereabouts.
Larson believed Penny’s abductor might call Hope’s cell phone, as Penny was believed to have the number memorized. The call wouldn’t be for ransom, though. All the Romeros wanted was this woman dead.
For the moment Larson was authorized to oversee Hope’s protection (he couldn’t think of her as Alice) while his FATF team continued to pursue Markowitz and Laena. When and if WITSEC stabilized, Hope would be turned over to Justice for more permanent protection.
He said, “We can’t take you to our offices because they’re too public and could be being watched.”
“All I care about is getting Penny,” she said, looking out the windshield now. Searching.
“That’s all I want, too,” he said. He decided to trust her with the truth. “We think we may have a mole, either in WITSEC or FATF. We’ve lost something valuable to us. That’s why the alert went out. While we figure out how to get Penny back, I’m taking you into a safe house to ride this out.”
“Ride what out? Finding Penny, or the return of whatever was taken from you?”
“Both,” he said, speaking only for himself. Rotem and others would see Penny as an unfortunate; her life would not measure well against the lives of thousands of other witnesses and dependents. While trying to ensure her safety, ultimately they would use her, lose her, if necessary. Larson could not go along with that, but neither could he tell Hope this now.
After a few painful moments of silence, during which the only sounds were her occasional sniffing back a runny nose, Larson said, “We should go.”
“We can’t leave. She’ll come back home.”
“Your apartment building will be watched twenty-four/seven. I’m in constant contact.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“They want you, Hope.” He didn’t bother to correct himself-he wasn’t going to get used to her as Alice. “We are leaving. We’re going to get you to safety. Every effort is being made to locate Penny. There’s nothing to be gained by staying here and putting you so out in the open.”
“And if I get out of this car?” she asked, her hand on the car door. “I’m allowed to do that, right? WITSEC, any kind of government protection, is voluntary, right?”
She remembered her orientation materials well. “Technically, but we can hold you as a material witness to a crime.”
“Those crimes happened over six years ago!”
“There’s no statute of limitations on federal capital murder cases. You’re in this now.”
“I’ll get an attorney,” she said, still resisting.
“And it’ll get ugly,” he shot back. “And all that energy, time, will be diverted away from where we need it most: finding Penny.”
Again, she looked at Larson directly. “Do something.”
Larson turned the ignition.