The 6th Target

We got into a good-natured competition to name Claire's unborn baby, Cindy calling out, "Margarita, if she's a girl," and wi

Way too soon, di

We tossed money at the check on the table and dared one another to rush into the rain. I was last out the door.

I drove toward Potrero Hill, absorbed by the rhythm of the wiper blades and the halos around oncoming headlights, finding that the vacuum of silence in the wake of the tumultuous day and the camaraderie with my friends was bringing me back down.

Joe wouldn't be sitting on my front steps when I got home.

Even Martha was still on vacation.

Thunder rumbled as I ran up the steps to my apartment. It was still raining when I went to bed alone.

Chapter 108

RICH AND I FRETTED AT OUR DESKS the next morning, waiting for Mary Jordan to come through the gate. She arrived ten minutes late, looking rattled.

I invited the Westwood Registry's office manager to join us in the windowless cell we call the lunchroom. Rich pulled out a chair, and I made coffee – black, two sugars, the way she'd taken it when we'd seen her last.

"I've been praying for Madison," Jordan said, twisting her hands in her lap. There were prune-colored smudges under her eyes. "I feel in my heart that I've done what God would want me to do."

Her words stirred up a little eddy of apprehension in the pit of my stomach. "What did you do, Mary?"

"When Mr. Renfrew went out this morning, I opened the door to his office again. I did some more digging in there."

She hefted a large leatherlike handbag onto the table and removed a slate-blue, clothbound, old-fashioned accountant's ledger. It was labeled QUEENSBURY REGISTER.

"This is in Mr. Renfrew's handwriting," Jordan said, pointing out the neat block letters and numerals. "It's a record of a business the Renfrews had in Montreal two years ago."

She opened the ledger to where a stiff rectangle of paper was wedged between two pages. Jordan took it out and flipped it over.

It was a photograph of a blond-haired boy of about four, with incredible blue-green eyes.

"Got a few minutes?" I asked Jordan.

She nodded her head.

I'd ridden up in the elevator with ADA Kathy Valoy, so I knew she was at her desk. I called her and explained about the Queensbury Register and the photo of the boy.

I said, "The Renfrews are hopscotching around the continent, opening and closing these registries. Kathy, I'm guessing we're looking at a picture of another victim."

Kathy must have taken the stairs two at a time, because she appeared in the lunchroom doorway almost before I'd hung up the phone.

She asked Mary Jordan again if she'd dug up this information on her own, and again Jordan swore that she was not acting as our agent.

"I'll put in a call to Judge Murphy," Valoy said, staring at the photo, ru

Minutes after we'd escorted Jordan out to the elevator, Kathy Valoy was back on the line. "I'm faxing you the search warrant right now."

Chapter 109

PAUL RENFREW ANSWERED OUR KNOCK and swung open the door to the Westwood Registry. He was looking smart in a gray herringbone suit, crisp shirt, bow tie, and well-cut wheat-colored hair. His flyaway eyebrows lifted over his frameless lenses, and his smile broadened.

He seemed completely delighted to see us.

"Is it good news? Have you found Madison?" he asked.

Then the four uniformed officers climbing out of the property van caught his eye.

"We have a search warrant, Mr. Renfrew," I said.

Conklin signaled to the uniforms, and they clomped up the stairs with empty cartons in hand. They followed us down the long hallway to the Renfrews' office.

The workplace was orderly – a mug of tea was on the desk, a plate of half-eaten muffins resting beside a sheaf of open files.

"Why don't you tell us all about the Queensbury Register?" I asked Renfrew.

"Sit down, sit down," he said, indicating one of the two small sofas at right angles in the corner of the room. I took a seat, and Renfrew wheeled over his desk chair, all the while shooting concerned looks as Conklin directed the cops. They dropped file folders into boxes.

"Queensbury isn't a secret," Renfrew said. "I surely would have told you, but we closed that business because it failed."

He showed me his palms as if to say there was nothing up his sleeves.

"I'm just a terrible businessman in a lot of ways," Renfrew said.

"We need to talk to your wife," I said.

"Of course, of course, and she wants to talk to you. She's flying out from Zurich this evening."

Renfrew's open ma

Renfrew took the photo of the blond-haired, blue-green-eyed boy and scrutinized it.

"I don't recognize him. Should I?"

Conklin came over with a cop in tow and several blue-covered ledgers under his arm.

"Mr. Renfrew, you're prohibited from doing business for seventy-two hours, and that includes using your business phone. This is Officer Pat Noonan. His job is to make sure your business is closed until the warrant expires."

"He's staying here?"

"Until his relief comes in about eight hours. You know anything about football? Pat is a big fan of the Fighting Irish. Can talk your ear off if you let him."

Noonan smiled, but Renfrew's face went blank.

"And, Mr. Renfrew, don't try to leave town. That would look really bad."

Chapter 110

THE TENSION IN TRACCHIO'S OFFICE was almost unbearable. The insatiable media beast had been roaring at us nonstop for more than a week – on air, in the legit papers, and in supermarket tabloids. And we had no rebuttal.

A nineteen-year-old girl had been murdered. The child of a prominent family was missing and presumed dead.

It was a horrible feeling, and everyone in Tracchio's office took it personally.

"Boxer, lay it out for the chief," Jacobi instructed.

I gave Jacobi a look that said, I know what to do, Lieutenant.

I described what I had as I slapped each of our exhibits down on the desk. First, the copies of the kidnappers' notes. Next, the photos of three children – Erica Whitten, Madison Tyler, and the unknown boy with the blue-green eyes.

I said, "We don't know the identity of this little boy. Renfrew says he doesn't know him, but the child's picture was inside this ledger of his."

Rich placed the Queensbury Register on the desk next to two of the Westwood Registers.

I said, "We know the Renfrews ran three consecutive na

"The Montreal police have a cold case," I continued. "A little boy named André Devereaux was taken from a playground near his home two years ago. He had a na