It took the rest of the week to get Bloomers back up to speed. We had to scrub and polish the wood floors, restock flowers, repair cabinets, and replace vases, candlesticks, bric-a-brac, and all the other gift items that had been broken, plus keep the coffee-and-tea parlor open to generate some income. And although our insurance policy covered most of the damage, I could still feel the swoosh of air through my wallet as money drained out.
Adding to my anxiety, I hadn’t made a decision about my position on the dairy farm, and the opening date was less than a month away. Before Peter Chinn’s visit, I’d managed to send e-mail alerts to people who’d volunteered to help, encouraging them to collect signatures for the petition and get them back to me, but none had come in yet. Frankly, I was almost relieved. Repairing my flower shop had to come first. At least Uniworld seemed to have halted its attacks, perhaps waiting to see what I would do.
My parents were appalled by the break-in, but Mom wasn’t all that upset about her art deco brooch having gone missing. She assumed it had been trashed along with everything else, and we didn’t see the need to tell her otherwise. I also didn’t voice my suspicions about who was behind it, and as it turned out, I didn’t need to. They’d already concluded it was Uniworld and were adamant that I not do anything to put myself in further danger. Luckily, I could tell them with a clear conscience that I hadn’t scheduled any more protests. Yet.
By the end of the week, Dad had seen to the installation of a stronger dead bolt and a better alarm system, and had sat down with Marco for a face-to-face on how Marco was going to keep me safe, as if a former Army Ranger wouldn’t know. Marco was a good sport about it, though, which went straight into his plus column.
Mom did her part by delivering a new brooch, a copy so good I had no problem putting it out on the middle shelf of the armoire. Unfortunately, with the brooch came the name of another wedding caterer Mom felt sure I’d want to interview, just so I’d be ahead of the game when the time came to get married. I tucked it in a file marked Someday.
Finally, we were ready to announce our grand reopening to take place the following week on Valentine’s Day. So, on Friday morning, we strung a banner across the bay windows outside, and crossed our fingers. Fortunately, it worked. From the moment we opened our doors on Valentine’s Day, customers flocked in, and the ring of the cash register had Grace, Lottie, and me smiling for the first time in a long while. At that moment I truly believed I’d faced down the worst that could happen.
Tara phoned in the middle of the Valentine’s Day rush to complain that her parents were rethinking the idea of letting her attend the concert. Apparently, my cousin Jillian’s attempted kidnapping, along with the break-in and threatening letters, had rattled Tara’s parents enough that they didn’t want their only child exposed to potential harm.
“Please, Aunt Abby!” she cried. “You have to talk to them. I’ll die if I miss the BBs.”
“I’ll figure out something,” I assured her, then placed a call to my brother. After I’d spent fifteen minutes arguing Tara’s case, it came down to Tara staying home or my brother and Kathy attending the concert with us, only sitting discreetly in the back.
“You won’t get tickets at this late date,” I argued.
“You’re forgetting the scalpers,” Jordan said. “I know a guy who can get two tickets for me, no problem.”
“Bragger! It’ll cost you plenty, and you’ll probably have to stand.”
“I don’t think so. But hey, my daughter is worth it.” Knowing Tara would paint herself chartreuse before being seen with her mom and dad, I made Jordan promise to let Tara ride with us. Then I called Tara with the good news.
“Awesome! Thank you sooooo much for everything, Aunt Abby,” she cried. “Don’t forget I want to get there early to buy a Barrow Boys T-shirt. So I’ll see you and Uncle Marco at six, okay? Bye.”
“Hey, what did I tell you about calling him-” Too late. She’d hung up.
It wasn’t until five o’clock, when we turned our sign to CLOSED, that we were able to sit down and take stock. Grace, efficient as always, had tea and scones waiting, so the three of us took a welcome break at a table in the parlor.
“How much do you think we made today?” I asked Lottie.
“Enough to keep us afloat for a few more months,” she said.
“And it won’t be long until Easter,” Grace reminded us. “Another big cash holiday.”
My cell phone rang, Marco checking in. “We had our busiest day of the year,” I told him.
“Good for you, Sunshine. Hey, do you need to go home to change for the concert?”
The concert! I glanced down at my outfit-turtleneck sweater, brown pants, brown boots-then hopped up and started for the back. “Nope. I just need to clean up here first.”
“Don’t worry about that, sweetie,” Lottie called. “We’ll cover. Just go have fun.”
Marco took Tara and me in the Prius, with Tara’s parents following at a safe distance in their car. Although we arrived early, the Expo Center parking lot was nearly full, so we had to park in an out-lot bordering the two-lane state highway and hike a half mile over frozen ground. When at last the glass double doors of the Expo Center were within sight, so was a long line of fans waiting to get into the main lobby.
Once we finally made it inside, Tara shuffled Marco and me past the food stands lining the inside wall of the lobby, straight over to the souvenir booth, where she selected a lime green hoodie for herself, then decided I should have one, too. On the front was the Barrow Boys’ logo in shiny black surrounded by hot pink and lemon yellow hearts, a perfect match for her glossy pink clutch purse and the skinny, colored plastic headbands in her hair.
Since it was her birthday, I obliged her by tugging the hoodie over my turtleneck sweater-not a look I particularly liked. Tara, beside me, said, “Aren’t we awesome?”
“Practically twins,” Marco said, with a wink to me.
“Wait!” Tara said, and removed two of her headbands to put in my hair.
I hated headbands. They made my ears stick out. But it was Tara’s birthday… and how long was that excuse going to hold up?
“I want to get a photo of the two of you,” Kathy whispered in my ear, then tiptoed off before Tara could see her.
I put an arm around Tara so Kathy could snap a picture. Then Marco, Tara, and I presented our tickets and headed into the main hall, while my brother and sister-in-law squeezed into the back to stand and watch the show. So much for Jordan’s scalper friend.
The Expo Center had been transformed from exhibit hall to concert hall, with a stage lit by enormous spotlights, a backdrop of flashing colored lights, gleaming instruments on black metal stands, and giant speakers blasting Barrow Boys songs.
“I’m so excited,” Tara said, bouncing on the wooden folding chair. “I can’t believe I’m going to see the BBs in person! Thank you so, so, so much, Aunt Abby and Uncle Marco.”
She shifted away before I could elbow her.
“Thanks for inviting me,” Marco said.
Like he had a choice. A week into being my escort, he had yet to complain about being there early to take me to Bloomers, or leaving the bar at a busy time to bring me home, or running my Vette through the car wash because he always chose routes with slushy puddles even though I suggested better ways to get there. What a sport!
At seven thirty, the show kicked off with a warm-up band; then, at eight thirty, amidst earsplitting screams, the Barrow Boys swaggered onstage, took up their instruments, and began to play their new hit song, something about never-ending love, although I barely heard any of it. Marco seemed to be enjoying the music, yet I could see he was also keeping an eye out for trouble. Ever the vigilant guardian.
At the intermission, with Tara declaring the need for a bathroom break, Marco surveyed the huge number of teens flocking out the exit and decided it would be best to meet Kathy in front of the ladies’ room and have Kathy accompany Tara inside, while Jordan stayed with me.
“I have to go with my mom?” Tara cried as Marco used his cell phone to call Jordan.
He held his hand over the phone to whisper, “You can pretend you don’t know her.”
At Tara’s pleading look, I waited until Marco had finished his call, then said, “I can take her to the ladies’ room.”
“You’ll be more secure staying here in plain view of the off-duty cops posted around the room,” Marco replied, donning his Army Ranger persona. “We could be separated in the lobby. My cell phone is on vibrate and ring so you can reach me no matter what, but if anyone seems the least bit suspicious, yell for help first. The security cops will be here in seconds. Let’s go, Tara, or you’ll miss the BB’s first number.”
With one backward scowl at me, Tara hurried after him. As soon as she had cleared the aisle, my brother scooted in from the other side and sat down.
“Feet hurt?” I asked with a snicker.
“My daughter is worth every penny.”
“How many pennies would that be?”
“Shut up.”
For the next ten minutes, my brother and I chatted-actually, he bragged about how many operations he had performed in the past week and I scanned for Uniworld terrorists. When people began to stream back to their seats, Jordan left, and I turned to watch for Marco and Tara until I got a crick in my neck. After another ten minutes, my cell phone vibrated. I saw Jordan’s name on the screen. “Where are they?” I whispered into the phone. “The show’s about to start.”
“Don’t know. I’m going to the lobby to see what the holdup is.”
I slumped down in my seat, feeling suddenly vulnerable, as the BBs resumed their places onstage. They began to play, and still there was no sign of Marco and Tara. And now my brother was gone, as well.
When the band went into their second song, I started to panic. Surely the line for the ladies’ room wasn’t that long. I tried to call Marco, but it went to voice mail, so I texted: WHERE R U? I texted Tara next, then tried to phone my brother, and when I couldn’t reach him, either, I grabbed our coats and began to make my way up the row past dozens of knees.
My cell phone vibrated just as I reached the heavy exit doors. Marco’s name was on the screen but I couldn’t hear what he was saying because of the loud music. “Hold on,” I called.
I pushed open the door, hurried up the hallway into the lobby, and saw cops everywhere-not the familiar New Chapel blue-shirted variety, but the brown-and-tan-uniformed sheriff’s police. They were corralling employees and the few concert attendees who’d stayed in the lobby, and as soon as they spotted me, one of them commanded, “Hold it right there.”
I came to a stop. “Marco?” I called into my phone. “Are you there?”
“I’m here, Abby. Where are you?”
“In the lobby. What’s going on?”
“Wait. I’ll hold up my hand.”
In the midst of all the confusion, I finally saw Marco gesturing for me to come toward him as he talked with one of the cops. I caught sight of my brother’s red hair and saw him beside Marco, speaking to another cop. Then my gaze was drawn down to the floor, where Kathy was kneeling, clutching Tara’s shiny pink purse and crying.
Something happened to Tara.
My heart began to hammer so hard I couldn’t breathe. I was so paralyzed, Marco came to get me. I clutched his arms for support. “What happened?”
“Tara is missing.”
I heard the words but couldn’t wrap my mind around them. “Missing?”
“She was kidnapped from the ladies’ room.”
Oh, God!My head swam. “Wasn’t Kathy with her?”
“The ladies’ room was jammed,” Marco explained, “so Kathy told Tara she’d meet her outside when she was finished. I was waiting for them a few feet from the door. When intermission was over and Tara still hadn’t joined us, Kathy went back inside to see what was taking so long, but Tara wasn’t there. An attendant was cleaning, so Kathy showed her the photo she took of the two of you. The attendant hadn’t seen her but recognized Tara’s purse. Apparently, she found it on the floor behind the trash can and was going to turn it over to the lost-and-found department.”
“Someone kidnapped Tara from the washroom right under your noses?”
Marco pointed to people standing near the souvenir booth. “See those girls talking with the cops? They’re Tara’s school friends. They reported seeing a blond woman with a spider tattoo on her neck in the washroom, smoking a cigarette. Before the girls went back to their seats, they noticed the same blonde assisting an old lady in a long, baggy coat and knit hat toward the door, where a man was waiting. They said they noticed her because it was weird for someone to bring an old woman to a Barrow Boys concert.
“They didn’t get a look at the man’s face because he had a hood pulled up over his head, but they were able to give a good description of the woman-long, white blond hair with black tips, tattoo, heavy black eye shadow, black clothing. The cops are guessing the old lady was Tara in a disguise. She must have been Tasered or given an injection of some kind, because she was leaning heavily on the blonde, as though she didn’t have the strength to walk. The police are corroborating the girls’ story now with other witnesses.”
I didn’t know what to say. I felt sick inside. I couldn’t begin to imagine the terror my brother and sister-in-law were feeling. I had chided Jordan for coming along to protect Tara, and none of us had been able to do it.
“The police have issued an Amber Alert and sealed the exits,” Marco continued, “in case the girls are wrong and Tara’s still in the building. They’ve brought in a search dog, and a helicopter will be here soon for an aerial search, in case she’s on foot. They’ll find her, Abby.”
I could hear Kathy keening in grief, and my eyes welled with tears. I pushed through the people around her and knelt at her side, wrapping my arms around her shoulders. “Kathy, I’m so sorry,” I said, the words catching in my throat.
She lifted her head, her eyes sad and frightened. “We have to find her, Abby,” she whispered, clutching one of my hands. “We have to find my baby.”
“We will, I promise.”
One of the cops came to talk to her, so I stepped away. “Marco, I have this horrible feeling that the kidnappers were after me and got Tara by mistake.”
Marco wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close. “I didn’t want to frighten you, Sunshine, but I was thinking the same thing. Still, we can’t rule out that someone had a grudge against your brother. He’s a doctor, and rightly or wrongly, people sometimes take revenge against a doctor when something goes wrong.”
“They sue, Marco. They don’t kidnap the doctor’s kid. Jordan didn’t even decide to come with us until today, so how could a kidnapper have planned it? I must have been their target. Nothing else makes sense except that Tara has the misfortune of looking like me.”
“Okay, if that’s true, think about what happened when they realized their mistake with Jillian. They dropped her off. So they’ll probably do the same with Tara.”
“What if they gave Tara some kind of drug that paralyzed her? She could by lying along the side of the road somewhere, freezing to death.” I handed him his coat and Tara’s jacket so I could put my coat on. “I’m going outside to look for her.”
“Abby, it’s twenty degrees out there. Stay in here where it’s warm. I’ll look.”
“No, Marco. I’m going. If I have to wait around in here, I’ll lose my mind.”
“You won’t get out the door without an okay from the sergeant.”
Crap. Marco was right. I didn’t know the sheriff’s chief officer at all. Why couldn’t the Expo Center be in city jurisdiction instead of county? Reilly hated it when I got involved in police business, but he usually capitulated.
I glanced at the stern face of the sergeant, who had set up a command station on one side of the doors. There was no way he was going to give me the okay to help. But damn it, there was no way he was going to stop me, either. “Create a diversion, Marco. I’m going out.”
“Past that big cop at the door? I don’t think so.” Marco took Tara’s coat from me. “I’ll be back in a moment. The canine handler will need this to establish a scent pad for his dog.”
As Marco strode off with the coat, I wound my scarf around my neck and headed for the exit. Permission or not, I was going to look for my niece.
“Excuse me, I need to leave,” I said to the tall cop guarding the glass doors.
He gazed down at me over the bridge of his nose. “No one leaves.”
“I know those are your orders, but I’m the victim’s aunt and I really need to help search for her. Here. Do you want to see my ID?”
“No one leaves.”
“Look, it’s my fault she was kidnapped, okay? I have to get out there and find her. Wouldn’t you do the same for your niece? Don’t look away. You know you would. Tell you what, just keep looking the other way and I’ll dart out.”
“One more time. No. One. Leaves.”
I huffed in frustration. “Ever?”
“No one leaves.”
“Is that all you’re programmed to say?”
He scowled at me.
I saw Marco heading toward me, so I said to the cop, “See that former New Chapel police officer coming over here? He just got the okay to leave. If you don’t believe me, ask him.”
As Marco strode up, I used the distraction to slip past the cop and out the door, where the flashing red and blue lights of a half dozen cop cars illuminated the light snow covering that had fallen earlier, giving the scene a surreal, almost festive appearance. I pulled the scarf tighter around my neck and charged across the icy parking lot, afraid to look back for fear the cop was on my heels.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Marco called. “I got the okay.”
I glanced back at him in surprise. “It’s okay for me to help search?”
“No, it’s okay for me to take you home. The sergeant wants you out of his hair. Seems he’s heard about some of your exploits.”
Whatever. We headed for Marco’s Prius so he could retrieve his flashlight, gloves, and a wool hat, and then, as we walked away from his car, I heard something snap beneath my boot. I glanced down and saw a thin, glossy, curved object sticking out of the snow. “Marco, shine the flashlight down here.”
He illuminated the ground while I plucked half of a skinny pink headband out of the snow. “This is Tara’s. She was here, Marco! Look. Here’s the other half.”
“Don’t touch it. Leave it there for evidence.”
I quickly backed away, still holding the other piece.
“Abby, are you positive Tara was wearing that headband during the concert?”
“Yes. She gave me the yellow and orange ones and kept the pink, green, and black.”
Marco pointed to the ground. “These shoe prints are recent. We need to move away.”
“Do you see Tara’s? Small, with a pointed toe and narrow heel?”
He stepped back a few feet, then crouched down and shined his light on the area. “There’s a set with a pointed toe. And there’s a set with a one-piece sole and a deep tread pattern. I’d guess a fairly new woman’s running shoe.”
I showed him the bottom of my boot. “They’re not mine, and Kathy had on boots, too.”
“Here’s a larger print with deep, wide treads, a man’s hiking boot possibly. But if they belong to the kidnappers, why would they have brought Tara here?”
I bent to take a closer look. “Do you think Tara got away from them and came here-maybe hoping to hide in one of our cars?”
Marco rose and began to search beyond the car. “If they used a Taser on her instead of a drug, she could have recovered quickly enough to escape. Maybe they caught up with her here. I see more of the same three sets of prints heading off toward the highway.”
“You’d think if they realized they nabbed the wrong person, they’d have let her go.”
“Either they haven’t discovered their mistake or it wasn’t a mistake.”
“Or maybe Tara saw their faces…”
I stopped. Marco didn’t say anything, but I knew he was thinking the same thing: If the kidnappers were afraid of being identified, they’d probably kill her.
A helicopter flew overhead, its powerful searchlight aimed at the ground, allowing us to see three police officers, one with a dog on a leash, heading in our direction. Marco walked out to talk to them while the big German shepherd led his handler straight to the half headband in my hand, and then barked to alert the officer.
I turned over the piece of headband as Marco explained why we were there. The K-9 handler introduced himself as Officer Ray Aaron of the Sheriff’s Police, then asked us to step away so the other cops could take photos and collect evidence. With the wind blowing the snow around, I feared Tara’s trail would be lost, but Officer Aaron assured me that the cold air would actually help preserve her essence.
“A search dog’s goal is to locate the source of the scent,” Aaron explained. “His ability to track isn’t affected by cold weather, only by heat, which can dissipate DNA.”
When Eros, the German shepherd, was given the command to search, he put his nose down and headed toward the highway. But at the edge of the road, he began circling.
“He’s lost the scent,” Aaron explained. “We’ll continue across the road to see if he can pick it up, but my guess is that the kidnappers had a vehicle waiting here.”
My heart sank as I stared up the dark, windswept road. A half mile ahead was a junction, with on-ramps that led to an interstate highway. Tara could be headed anywhere in the country.
I turned to study Uniworld’s Distribution Center on the other side of the road, where at least two dozen semitrailers were parked in rows between the road and the loading docks, and even at night, trucks were loading and unloading. I watched as a semi backed up to one of the bays, where an overhead door was raised to move the cargo inside.
“Can you search for my niece over there?” I asked Officer Aaron, pointing toward the warehouse.
“If Eros picks up the scent,” he said, “you bet we will.”
We crossed the highway and Eros was again given the command to search. The dog sniffed the air for a moment, put his nose to the ground, and headed into the parking lot, weaving in and out of the big rigs. Alongside one trailer, he stopped and barked.
Officer Aaron crouched down to shine his flashlight underneath, then called back to us, “Looks like the same kind of headband, but in green.”
It had to be Tara’s. I clasped my gloved hands together and whispered a quick prayer. It seemed as though Tara had ducked under the truck to hide and lost her headband there. But where was she now? Surely if she could see us or the cops, she’d come out of hiding.
And how had she managed to lose two headbands? Mine were on so tight they pinched my scalp. She would have had to take them off. But why now?
“Marco,” I cried, “I think Tara’s leaving a trail.”
“That’s why it’s so vital to have a search dog,” he replied.
The wind had grown fierce, blowing the snow into spirals. I pulled my scarf up to cover my nose and mouth and watched anxiously as Eros worked his way down the trucks parked at the loading docks. All at once he began to strain at his leash, leading his handler into an empty bay, where they disappeared from sight. Moments later, I heard a bark.
“Eros found something!” I called to Marco. “Maybe it’s the third headband. Come on!”
As we approached the empty bay, I heard the squawk of the police radio, followed by Aaron’s response: “County eight-one. I have a ten-zero and need a supervisor.”
A ten-zero? I glanced at Marco for an explanation.
He sighed heavily. “A dead body.”