“You drowned me,” he repeats.

With Nat’s help, we get him to his feet, lead him into the dining room, and sit him down. My leg is bleeding and I try taking the weight off it as we walk. “You need to focus here,” I say on the way. “This isn’t about you. It’s about my daughter.”

“What?”

“You owe me, okay? You owe me your goddamn life. Tell me you understand that. Don’t make me throw you back in the water. You owe me because if you’d done your job and caught the people responsible none of this would have happened. If you’d put more than one goddamn man on duty my daughter would still be here.”

“Where is he? The man with the gun?”

“I took care of him.”

“Same way you’ve been taking care of everybody else?”

“Not quite,” I say. “The guy I ran over, that was an accident.”

“Jesus, Eddie, what’s going on?” Nat asks. “Do you know where Sam is?”

“And Kingsly?” Schroder asks. “Was he an accident too?”

“I was never there.”

“He said you had Kingsly’s cell phone. Plus you knew his name.”

“There was a cell phone in the stolen car,” I say, feeling nothing at how seamless the lies are coming now. “One of the paramedics must have thought it was mine and put it with my stuff. I didn’t even know it was there.”

He nods. “Okay, Edward, fine, we’ll go with that for now.”

“Maybe the man who tried killing us is the one who killed Kingsly.”

“I’m not following any of this,” Nat says. “Where’s Sam?”

“Yeah, maybe. But he’d have taken the money with him, right?” Schroder answers.

“I don’t have any money. If I did I’d have given it to him to get my daughter back.”

“Now that I really do believe.”

Nat helps me check through the rest of the house in case Sam’s hidden here somewhere, in a cupboard or under a bed. He takes one look at the dead guy on the floor and doesn’t say a word. I check the playhouse outside—it’s empty. It’s what the men have been telling me—they have her, and I have to pay to get her back.

In the living room Diana is taking care of Schroder. She’s brought him some dry clothes and probably offered to make him coffee in the way that anybody over sixty always has to offer something, no matter what the situation. Schroder’s taken the other cuff off his wrist.

“We have to go,” I say.

“We need to call for backup.”

“We have to get the hell out of here first.” I grab him by the collar and help him to his feet. “They have Sam. We have to do what it takes to get her back. Come on, you’ve got to help me.”

“You all need to get out of here,” Schroder says to my in-laws.

“To hell with what you want,” Nat says, “we’re helping you find Sam.”

“No, no you’re not,” I say. “You’ll only get in the way.”

“Settle down,” Schroder says. “Nobody is doing anything here except me. I’m calling for backup, and you’re going to let the police take care of it.”

“The same way you’ve taken care of finding the men who killed my daughter?” Diana asks.

“Look, we’re doing—”

“What you can,” Nat finishes. “To hell with that.”

“So what, you and your wife are going to come along, is that what you think?”

“I’d like to,” Nat says, “but I know my limitations. That’s important in a man; and one thing we’ve learned since Jodie got shot is your limitations, Detective. This is why you’re taking Eddie. He got us into this mess, and he knows what it takes to get us out of it. Like it or not, Detective, he’s certainly done more to find these men than you ever have, and if he’s responsible for what happened here, then I’ll deal with him when this is over. But right now I have more faith in him finding my granddaughter than you. Call for backup. We’ll deal with whoever you send here and help in any way we can, but right now you and Eddie need to get your asses out there and find Sam.”

“You know he’s right,” I say, looking away from Nat to Schroder.

“Okay, okay, fine. Where’s the man who did this?”

I lead him into the living room. A pool of blood has formed around the guy’s head. He’s ended up lying on top of the bag of pencils and crayons.

Nat and Diana stand in the doorway. “That’s one of them,” Nat says.

“And the other?” Schroder asks.

“The other one took Sam,” Nat says. “Not much more I can tell you. I mean, he looked kind of like this one. Shaved head, tattoos—we can try to describe him. I’m pretty sure, if things had gone differently, he was going to kill us. I don’t know why he hadn’t already.”

“We’ll get some mug shots for you to go through,” Schroder says. He steps closer to the body and I roll it so he can see it better. For a moment I wonder how many dead bodies this man has seen. Plenty, I guess. Certainly many more than my father ever saw.

“Oh my God,” Diana says, when she sees the stub of the pencil. “Eddie . . . I didn’t think you could, that you were . . . capable . . . ,” her voice tails off.

“These bastards took my daughter!” I say, glaring at her. “You’d rather I let him shoot me? You’d rather have let him drown Schroder, then come down and shoot you and Nat? Let Sam die too?”

Nobody answers. Nat nods once, understanding, maybe for the first time seeing I’m doing what I can to get us through this alive. All of us.

“You recognize him?” I ask Schroder.

“No, I . . . wait.” He crouches down over the body, then reaches for my hand when he wobbles. He coughs again, trace amounts of bathwater spattering on the dead guy. “He doesn’t look familiar,” he says when he’s composed himself.

“He has to.”

“He doesn’t. I’ll call it in. The fingerprints, we’ll have a hit on them by now.”

“Then what? You compile a list of names and spend a week making a case? We need to act tonight.”

“I know, I know,” he says. “Look, let me think, just give me a minute.”

“We don’t have time.”

“Who phoned you?” he asks, “when we were outside?”

“They did.”

“And they told you to take my phone off me.”

“They said they’d hurt Sam if I didn’t.”

He looks down at the dead man.

“Call them back. Tell them you’ll give it to them in exchange for Sam.”

“What?”

“He was asking you for money you don’t have. The rest of the crew are waiting for him to show up with it. But he’s not going to. What value does your daughter have then?”

“And tell them what?”

“Tell them you have it.”

It doesn’t seem the best of ideas, but it’s the only one. I go through the cell phone menu and find the recent calls. My fingers are shaking as I select the number then press CALL. It rings a couple of times, and then someone picks up.

chapter forty

“I have the money,” I say, my grip tight on the phone.

“Where’s my man?”

“He had an accident.”

“So you think now you can buy your daughter back by dealing directly with me?”

“Yes.”

“It’s too late,” he says. “Your daughter is about to have an accident too.”

He hangs up. Nat is standing with his arm around Diana. They’re both looking lost, like they don’t recognize me, don’t recognize the house. Schroder is changing his shirt. “What happened?” he asks.

I don’t answer him. I stare at the phone as the rage inside me builds. I don’t even know what I just heard.

“Eddie? What the hell did he say?” Nat asks.

“He . . . he said it was, was too late,” I say.

Diana gasps and Nat tightens his grip on her. Without even being aware I’m about to do it, I kick the dead guy on the floor, over and over.

“Edward, calm down, just calm down a moment,” Schroder says, putting his arms out in a consoling gesture, one arm threaded through a sleeve, the other one bare. “These men are professionals. They know what they’re doing. They know if they kill her there’s no money in it for them. Give them a minute. They’ll call back.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

“Give it a minute,” he says.