Page 42 of Save Her Life (Sandra Vos #1)
FORTY-ONE
Sandra didn’t even remember shutting her eyes when a ringing sound woke her. What time is it? How long have I been asleep? Where am I?
It felt like she was being ripped from another dimension. But as the ringing continued, it eventually penetrated her brain fog. It was her cell phone. Olivia! Had she overslept and it was noon? Was Jennings calling to tell her that Olivia was dead? She reached out to the nightstand, but her phone wasn’t there.
“Shit!” She threw the covers back and flicked on the tableside light. It blinded her for a second, but she bounded from bed, searching for her phone through squinted eyes. She found it across the floor. It must have fallen there during the night.
Caller ID told her it was Elwood. Her eyes couldn’t focus on the time on the top bar though. The font was too small. She sought out the alarm clock in the room. 5:03 AM. “Vos,” she answered.
“Special Agent Little just called from the road. He got Natalie Roth out of bed, and she wasn’t in a cooperative mood. Sum it up to say that she’s not supportive of us deceiving her father.”
“Did Little tell her that a teenage girl will die if Patton doesn’t talk? And that the only way he’s going to do that is if she agrees to this?”
“I’m sorry, Sandra. It didn’t seem to make a difference.”
“It didn’t make a…” She swallowed roughly and rubbed her throat. “She’s a mother herself.”
“I’m sorry. We’ll have to get Patton to talk another way.”
Strangling it out of Patton wouldn’t be effective. Dead men couldn’t talk. But there might be another way. Her conversation with Eric last night felt like it had taken place years ago, but she remembered one finding he’d passed on that might help. “Wood tar was found on Dennis Eaton’s shoes. Jennings needs to be holding Olivia somewhere isolated or remote, possibly an unused or abandoned warehouse.”
“Already on it. Detective Birch contacted me at an ungodly hour, and I got an agent running a search in Washington and the outskirts. We figured that Jennings likely isn’t holding Olivia too far away from the park considering where he dumped Eaton’s body.”
The van he took her in did go across Key Bridge, but it didn’t mean he had gone far on the other side. “I’d do the same. By the way, thank you for being up so early and on this.”
“No need to thank me, Sandra. I want Olivia back safely too and this scumbag behind bars. Or in a body bag.”
She couldn’t fault Elwood for that admission. It was impossible to feel empathy for the man who took her child. “I’m just going to freshen up and hit the road.” As she said that she became aware she hadn’t even changed before passing out. Then it filled in that she didn’t have any toiletries or a change of clothes with her anyhow.
“See you soon. And drive safe.” Elwood hung up.
While Elwood might be expecting her at the field office, she’d be making another stop first. Two, if she counted hitting a drive-thru for a coffee and a bagel to consume on the way.
Sandra raised her hand to knock a second time, not even concerned by her lack of makeup and rumpled clothing. It was nine thirty in the morning by the time she reached Natalie’s door. She had two and a half hours left to get her approval, have Simon cut the deepfake, and convince Patton to talk.
The door eventually cracked open, and when Natalie saw Sandra standing there, she shook her head immediately.
“I told that agent I don’t want to deceive my dad. I don’t want anything to do with him. At all.”
Her denial wasn’t connected to any sense of loyalty toward her father. Sandra could work with that. “Can I talk to you mother to mother?”
“Ah, sure.”
“And that agent told you that your father’s friend is threatening to kill a teenage girl?” Not a question. Elwood told Sandra the agent had. She wanted to stress for Natalie what was at stake.
“Yeah. They want to know where he put the gold bars. But I don’t know anything about it.”
“It sounds like you don’t want anything to do with this, but your help?—”
“By which you mean deceiving my father and making him believe that I’m in danger? I do that and he talks, he’s admitting to the robbery. He’ll get more time. I don’t have a relationship with him, but he is still my father.”
“A father is someone who is by your side, Natalie.”
She crossed her arms and shook her head. “No, I’m not doing it.”
“If you don’t do this, that girl might die.” The words slipped out. A huge mistake, and Sandra rushed to backpedal. “None of this is on you. I’m sorry as I shouldn’t have insinuated that.”
“Please leave.”
Sandra’s heart was pounding. “That girl that he has… She’s my daughter.”
A dense energy swirled between them.
“Her name is Olivia, and she’s sixteen,” Sandra pressed on. “She’s an A student, loves to play the violin, and volunteers at a nursing home two Saturdays every month.”
Natalie’s shoulders lowered slightly. Her facial expression softened. “I didn’t know, and I’m sorry, but…”
“I get it. Darrell’s your father. Family can be complicated, but you don’t need to worry about implicating your father in the robbery. We do this video, even if he gives up the location of the gold, it would be fruit of the poisonous tree. Any DA would dismiss charges against him. It won’t even get that far anyhow. The FBI is willing to cut your father a deal. He’ll get full immunity.”
Natalie worried her bottom lip. “You’re telling me his sentence won’t be increased?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” she repeated. “Will you authorize us to do this deepfake?”
Seconds ticked off, and Sandra felt like her heart was going to stop beating. Each inhale and exhale was painful as she waited for Natalie to respond.
“Fine, I’ll help. Mother to mother.” She met Sandra’s eye, and Sandra could have cried, but she tamped down her emotions like she was programmed to do.
“Thank you.” Sandra had her sign off her approval and left about an hour after she showed up. One point five hours remaining on the clock. Not enough time to return to the prison and show Patton the video in person. Besides, it still needed to be made. She might be cutting things too close in that regard alone.
She’d called Elwood with the news, and he was going to get the deepfake underway. She got on the road to the WFO, and her phone rang.
“Sandra, where are you? What’s going on?”
It was Nolan, and she took a few breaths to steady her anger. Her ex could drain her at the best of times.
“You’re back already?”
“At your desk as we speak, but you’re not here.”
“If you spoke to Assistant Director Elwood, you’d know I’m on my way.” So what that she’d just hung up from him.
“Good. Because I have been speaking with Special Agent Sutton. I hope you have better news than Brice. You do, right? Where are you anyway? Our daughter is missing and you’re not even?—”
“Enough. Don’t recap the situation like I’m some idiot, Nolan. I’ve been working on this since Friday and have hardly slept trying to get my girl back.”
“ Our girl.”
She groaned and hung up. She had a low tolerance threshold for Nolan most of the time, but she did nothing to deserve being bullied this way. As if she didn’t care about Olivia and was sitting on her hands. How dare he.