License to Shop (24 page)

“
According to her
testimony, several other administrative assistants knew what she’d
done and threatened to tell her boss unless she convinced
Quartermaine to destroy his copy of the sensitive data.”

“
The network,” I
said.

Both men looked at me
blankly. I shook my head at their ignorance. “No one knows more
about what goes on at a university than the admins. Good, bad, and
— apparently — naughty.”

“
Too bad no one knew what
Kecia was up to,” Connery remarked.

“
She was a temp,” I said,
realizing exactly what that meant. “She collected all the
information, but she didn’t give out any about herself. You should
check to see if she’s changed her own identity to cover her
tracks.” As the realization struck me, I whispered, “She could be
anyone. Student, parent, university employee. The list of
identities she has to play with is…” I trailed off. Infinite was
too vast, but only just barely.

“
Enormous,” Connery
finished for me. “The president of the university has given us
access, and we are cross-checking the entire database to see if we
can find her new identity.”

“
That will take forever,”
Seth said numbly. “Anna must be so scared.”

Deb came into the room,
with two cups of coffee in her hands. “Here,” she handed them to
us. “It isn’t going to take forever, Seth. But it may take days. We
have to cross-check identities used to book plane tickets, bus
tickets, those recently issued passports or visas.”

Connery nodded. “She was
brilliant. I still can’t believe a student ran this ring with so
little trace of herself. If it weren’t for the hard drive, we’d
never have known all that she did, never mind who she was. She
wasn’t even on our radar.”

She hadn’t been on my
radar either. I looked at Connery. “Are you willing to take a
shortcut?”

He looked at me warily.
“What kind of shortcut?”

“
Ask the network for
information about Kecia.”

“
What does that mean?
Exactly?”

I took it as a good sign
that he hadn’t said no immediately. So I told him about Gracie, and
how she knew everything there was to know about everyone on campus,
thanks to ‘the network.’

“
So you want me to tell
this Gracie — the queen of the gossips, if you’re to be believed —
about Kecia and her crime? And ask for her help?”

I looked at him, “Don’t be
silly. Of course you can’t tell Gracie. But the FBI can send out an
email using Gracie’s account, to the other admins, asking for
information on Kecia.”

He looked at Deb. “Do you
think your chief will lend you to me for this detail? My partner is
still on vacation.”

“
He better, or I know a
second-grade teacher who’ll change his mind for him.” She jumped up
and left the room, and I imagined the chief wasn’t going to need a
teacher to set him straight on this one.

“
Good idea, Molly.”
Connery turned to Seth. “I keep telling your wife she should apply
to the Bureau. She’d be a real asset.”

“
She’s going to work at
the university,” Seth said. “She all but has the job.”

“
Do you think the dean
will hold it against me that I went undercover on his
campus?”

Seth blinked. Clearly he
had not yet looked forward, to the consequences of this information
getting out. When I’d helped catch the serial killer, my role had
been kept quiet. The police knew, the FBI knew, the serial killer
knew. But that was it.

This time, the university
administration would know. And that meant the dean, Seth’s boss,
would know.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE

The Corner
of Universe and Home

Seth didn’t have any time to reply, because just
then Deb came back in with a laptop that looked heavy duty. “Chief
said yes, and your tech guy spoofed the email address for me, and
set it up to send to all the admins on campus.”

“
The frightening wonders
of technology,” Seth muttered.

“
Exactly,” Deb agreed
grimly. “What should this email say?”

Everyone looked at
me.

I tried to think what
Gracie had told me through the years. “Maybe Kecia talked to
someone about a place she wanted to visit? What she was going to do
after graduation. Anything.”

Deb started typing. After
two minutes, she stopped. “How does this sound: Just heard that
temp in the Admissions department has moved on without leaving a
forwarding address. She took my favorite jacket with her. Anyone
have a clue where she may have gone? I want the jacket back.
Skank.”

I shook my head. “Gracie
wouldn’t say skank. She thinks it sounds crass. She’d say
Scrounge.”

Deb typed in my change and
reread it. “Okay?”

“
Fingers crossed.” I
replied, actually crossing my fingers.

“
Sending.” Deb hit
enter.

I sipped at the hot
coffee, suddenly feeling that I had missed something. Something
big. My heart lurched, as I remembered. “Ryan.”

Deb nodded, efficiently.
“Already handled. Norma will check in on him and see that he gets
dinner and does his homework.”

Conflicted that she had
thought of it before me, I comforted myself with the reminder that
I had remembered before the end of the school day. Ryan was still
safely in class, thinking today was just another day in a long
string of painfully routine school days. Though I wanted to go get
him and keep him close, I knew that he was better off being
none-the-wiser of Anna’s kidnapping for as long as he could
be.

Seth asked in a hoarse
voice. “What if we don’t get her back by then?”

“
We will,” Connery
said.

Deb gave the FBI agent a
look that indicated she didn’t think he should make promises he
couldn’t keep. Then she looked at Seth and said bracingly, “Ryan
will be fine. I’ll make sure of it. No matter what.”

Connery stood up, “Molly,
I’d like to debrief you, if you’re up to it.”

“
Of course.”

Seth objected, “Our
daughter has been kidnapped. Can’t the spy stuff wait?”

I knew his feelings were
hurt, but I also knew that, if the email to ‘the network’ didn’t
help locate Kecia, our best shot at getting Anna back might lie
with me telling the FBI every single thing I had learned about
Kecia. “Seth, I worked with her. I talked to her. I may know
something that will lead to finding her, and Anna.”

He sat down, looking
unhappy, but resigned.

James Connery hesitated at
the door, and then turned to Seth. “You can come, too. I’m sure you
understand the need for discretion.”

Seth didn’t need a second
invitation, he was right behind us James Connery led us, not to an
interrogation room, but out to the local coffee shop.

I looked around. “Is this
really a good idea?”

His short nod was no doubt
meant to be reassuring as he asked, “What can I get you? The memory
works better on real coffee than on that police station
facsimile.”

“
Latte,” I said
automatically. And then, “No. Make it a mochachino.”

He pointed a finger at me.
“You got it.” He looked at Seth. “And you?”

“
Coffee.
Large.”

As James Connery went off
to get us our coffee, Seth said, “What were you thinking,
Molly?”

I looked at him, numbly.
Suddenly, as his question took root in my mind, I felt anger begin
to build. “What was I thinking? I was thinking that you wanted me
to get this job. That my daughter was sick. That I wanted to make
it all work.”

He sat back, blinking in
surprise at my sudden anger. “I don’t mean what were you thinking
about bringing Anna to work. I bring Jasmine to work, so I get
it.”

I realized, guiltily, that
I had completely forgotten Jasmine. What would Sofia think of me,
forgetting her puppy. “Where is Jasmine?”

“
Gracie has her.” He said
it without thinking, but then he drew in a sharp breath. “She
doesn’t know. She’s expecting me back.”

All the implications
flashed through my mind, ending in one firm statement. “You can’t
tell her.” Gracie’s network could not get this information. Not
yet. Not until Anna was safe.

“
I need to let her know I
won’t be able to get Jasmine. Not for a while.”

She couldn’t know. I
said…no, I commanded, “Go. Get her.”

Seth protested, “Molly,
there are more important things to worry about.”

“
But nothing to do except
worry. And get Jasmine. She’ll be a comfort to Ryan if we…if
there’s no news by the time we need to go home.”

He didn’t want to agree
with me. But he did. I watched him struggle silently, trying to
find reasons why I was wrong. At last he said, “Okay. I’ll go get
her. But you need to promise me you will never spy
again.”

I might have made that
promise, looking into his hurt and betrayal-filled eyes, at that
moment, but James Connery stepped between us with our coffees, and
Seth took his coffee, stared into my eyes for a wordless moment,
and left to pick up Jasmine without another word.

I looked at James Connery,
all that I wanted to say log-jammed in my throat. At last I
managed, “Kecia said she wanted to go someplace warm.”

I didn’t think my vague knowledge of what Kecia had told me,
refiltered by my knowledge of what she had done, would be of much
help.

But by the time Seth got
back to the coffee shop with Jasmine, we had had word that Kecia’s
roommate had been found at a local running track.

The roommate had been
immediately forthcoming, and apparently unaware of Kecia’s
undercover mastermind work. She reported that she had brought
Kecia’s daughter to the airport and watched them leave on a plane
to New York. Anna had not been with them.

That had been four hours
ago. Where was Anna? Suddenly, I remembered I had left my phone in
the car, still attached to the charging cord. I stood up, intending
to go to the car.

And then I collapsed back
into the comfy coffee shop chair. Seth had taken the car — and my
phone — to pick up Jasmine.

I turned to James Connery.
“I need you to call my husband and tell him to check my phone. Anna
may have called.”

He put his coffee down and
dialed Seth’s number. It did not escape my notice that he did not
ask me what Seth’s number was. Big Brother spookiness, I guess. But
I couldn’t make myself care. I just wanted to know if my phone held
the answers I needed.

The phone had not logged
any calls from Anna. I could tell by the guarded way James Connery
spoke to Seth.

And then his eyes lit with
interest. “What does it say?”

I sat forward, listening
intently, as Connery repeated what Seth was saying on the other
side of the phone. “I didn’t want her to miss her watercolor
lessons. Don’t worry — from one mother to another.”

He looked at me. “What
does that mean?”

“
Anna’s class had a
watercolor artist coming to do a workshop with them this
afternoon.”

“
At school?”

I nodded.

“
Let’s go.” He checked
himself in mid turn, and said, “Seth. We’re headed to the school
grounds. I think your daughter may be there.”

James Connery and I got to
the playground before Seth. It was after school hours, and twilight
made it gloomy to my eyes.

The playground was
deserted and quiet. All the children and parents were safe and
sound at home, having dinner, doing homework. No Anna.

I stood there, unable to
bear it. Where was she? Why hadn’t Kecia just texted me where she
was. Why had she been cryptic? “Why didn’t she just tell me where
she was?” I asked James Connery.

He said, “We’re tracing
her phone. She must know that. Maybe she considers Anna an
ace-in-the-hole to play if she gets caught.”

I looked at him, knowing
he was right, but angry all the same. “I could never do your job. I
couldn’t live life being that cynical every day.”

He didn’t say anything in
reply. I had a feeling he didn’t usually babysit frantic parents.
Especially not frantic parents he’d put in the position of
vulnerability himself.

I felt my desire to run
away and leave it all behind rise up in me, strong and fierce. If I
ran away, I’d never have to know. Good news, bad news, it would all
be faded history to me.

It seemed like the best
move to spare my heart complete annihilation as I stood there, my
gaze frantically searching the empty swings, and slides, and monkey
bars. Leave the schoolyard where my children risk broken limbs and
broken hearts on a daily basis. Go away. Tahiti, I think. To drink
Mai-Tais and take a series of meaningless jobs I could walk away
from if I didn’t like them. Or just wanted to be on the
beach.