LITMIR.BIZ

      Once they arrived, the police questioned her for hours.

      Was the alarm functioning properly? Who would know how to disable it? Was the front door securely locked? Had she heard a car? Did she have any enemies? Was this connected with Grant’s accident?

      “I don’t know.” She recited the words over and over again. “I don’t know. Please, just find my daughter. Don’t you understand—they’ve taken my daughter!”

      And she hadn’t been able to stop them. The guilt burned through her like acid.

      Within two hours the house was brimming with crime scene investigators, their gray-white powder covering every surface in sight. Esmeralda Peabody, who had been the housekeeper first for Shelby’s grandmother and then Shelby, would be furious at having to repolish the intricately carved antiques. But Aimee would have a field day mucking through all that powder. If she ever came home again.

      “Mrs. Kincaid? We really need you to concentrate. You’re sure you didn’t hear anything else but the footsteps?”

      Shelby closed her eyes, forced herself to replay the scene in her mind, to relive the moment when she saw the bed, knew her child was gone. The moment her stomach hit her toes and her world stopped.

      How could this have happened?

      “Nothing else.” Shelby gulped down the pain. She couldn’t break down now. She had to help them find answers. “Just the footsteps in the hall, the door creaking. A muffled sound. That’s all.”

      She looked up suddenly, her mind honing in on the last memory.

      “Do you think they hurt her?” she whispered. “Is that what I heard?”

      “No, we don’t think that. Not at all.”

      The rush to reassure did nothing to ease Shelby’s anxiety.

      “We found a bit of material stuck in the frame. We think it was torn off something—pants, perhaps. You probably heard the thief muttering when he caught them, Shelby. May I call you that?” The lead investigator, a woman, taller than Shelby and about seven years older, kindly wrapped a blanket around her shivering shoulders, then sank down beside her.

      “Call me anything.” Shelby huddled into the warmth, wishing it would penetrate to her heart. “Ask whatever you need to. I don’t care. I just want my daughter back. Please, can’t you find her?”

      Why didn’t they do something, call someone? Why did they keep asking the same thing over and over?

      Shelby felt her world spinning and knew she needed to reach for the focus that had kept her centered during key investigations she’d handled in the past. But she’d been out of the workplace too long, her training gone rusty with disuse these last ten months. Besides, those had been other people’s loved ones.

      This was Aimee, and Aimee was all she had left. All Shelby could do was silently implore God, the police, anyone who would listen—beg them to bring Aimee back where she belonged.

      “Please, Detective. We need to find my daughter. She’ll be afraid. She’s only five.”

      “We’ll find her. We’ve already started searching.” The smile was grim, but it promised results. “Please call me Natalie. Natalie Brazier,” she repeated, as if unsure whether Shelby had heard her say the same thing five minutes earlier. “I haven’t lived in Victoria very long, so I’m not familiar with your history. I’d like to learn a little more about you, Shelby.”

      Detective Brazier resembled a starlet more than a policewoman. She arranged her long, lean body on the sofa beside Shelby with a natural grace and elegance, her black silk suit molding itself to every curve. Shelby recognized the designer—and it wasn’t a knockoff. Whatever her job, this woman had expensive taste.

      Shelby found it odd how her brain had never stopped storing details, even though she hadn’t returned to work after Grant’s death. Height, weight, hair color, body language. Once that had been vitally important to her job. But that was before Grant—

      “I understand you lost your husband a short time ago.”

      The sting of reality dissolved her memory of those halcyon days in the past. Though the reminder hurt, it helped Shelby center herself, refocus. She nodded, pinched her lips together to stem the prick of nearby tears.

      “Grant died ten months ago. Ten months tod—yesterday.”

      “Ten months to the day?” Natalie lifted an eyebrow at her nod. “Well.” She made a notation. “Can you tell me what happened to him?”

      What would Grant say if he knew she’d lost their precious child? Or did he already know? Was Aimee with him?

      No! Please God, not Aimee, too.

      Come home, sweetheart. Please come home to me.

      Shelby closed her eyes, drew several deep breaths, then dashed away the storm of tears.

      The policewoman studied her as if she wasn’t sure what to do next, then she reached out for the tissue box and held it toward Shelby. Another detail to store—the woman was good at reading people. But then she would be, in her job.

      Shelby took one, wadded the softness into a ball and forced herself to go back in time.

      “I’m sure this is all in your files,” she muttered, unable to quench the bitterness that always boiled up at the unfairness of it. “You’d only have to read it.”

      “I’d rather you told me.”

      “Fine.” Shelby unclenched her fists and began. “We owned—I own a business called Finders, Inc. Someone asks us to recover something they’ve lost—stolen art, heirloom jewelry, that sort of thing. Or they ask us to find someone they need to get in touch with—a friend, a brother, heirs. We employ a team of specialized investigators who are trained to discreetly locate these things or people and, if possible, restore them to the client. At the time of his death, Grant was working on a project.”

      The utter silliness of those words struck Shelby as she said them. Grant was always working on a project. He loved nothing more than the thrill of the chase, the rush of tracking down a special order and presenting it to a buyer with that grand flourish only he could pull off. He would never do it again.

      Would it be the same with Aimee?

      No! She wouldn’t think that. Stabs of pain radiated from behind her eyes. She squeezed them closed, breathing deeply to regain control. Focus, she ordered her brain.

      “Can you go on?”

      “Yes.” Shelby forced herself to speak of a time when life had been simple, happy. “The thing you need to understand is that I didn’t work Grant’s case.” She struggled to pull up whatever scant details her brain possessed. “Anything I say is secondhand information. I don’t know many of the particulars, but that he’d been hired to find something a client had lost years ago—in Europe, I think. At one point Grant had information that the object was in Greece, but the lead never panned out. He’d returned and was following something new when the ex-explosion took place. He was killed in the fire.” She bit her lip, the loss bitter still.

      “I see.” Natalie wrote something on her little black pad in precise letters. She tapped a pencil against the paper. “Can you tell me what the object was?”

      Shelby and Grant had created two rules when they’d developed their plans for Finders, Inc. He’d insisted that in order to protect themselves, they must refuse to be involved in anything illegal. The second rule was Shelby’s idea—once accepted, Finders would always finish the case. Underlying both rules lay the implicit understanding that a client’s identity would never be revealed.

      Finders never broke a confidence. Never.

      “Why would you need to know that?” Shelby took a second assessing look at the detective who

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