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They probably wouldn’t be moving anytime soon.

“This is our chance,” he told Olin, and explained what was happening. “If we go back down the stairs and out the way we came in, they won’t see us.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m open to better ideas,” Connor said.

Olin looked to the side, bit his lower lip, then nodded.

They crept out of the laundry room to the staircase and then started down, one stair at a time. Slowly. Carefully. Making sure every footfall was nearly silent.

Connor kept his ears open. More rat-a-tat-tat. The sound of the chair squeaking. Caster wheels rolling.

They moved carefully across the living room, back to the hall that would take them to the kitchen. Then Connor heard glass break behind him and whipped his head around. Olin was standing next to a half-moon table, his mouth and eyes wide with alarm. (They would have been comically wide if the situation wasn’t so serious.) By his feet lay shattered glass that had formerly been a vase.

Olin immediately began apologizing in a strangled whisper.

At the same time, Connor heard the rat-a-tat-tat stop, the caster wheels roll, the squeak of the seat as whoever had been sitting in it got to their feet. He didn’t bother to whisper. “Run!”

Olin did as instructed. They reached the back door, fled into the yard. They just had to get over that wall and they would be all right. Just like last time, Connor hoisted Olin up onto it.

“Oh, shit,” Olin said, looking toward the house.

“Give me your hand!”

Then there was the sound of a gunshot. The bullet drilled into the brick wall not a foot away. “You think you can steal from me?” A man’s voice. Had to be Dylan’s father.

Connor instinctively turned.

The man was holding a shotgun and had it aimed in Connor’s direction. “Stay right there! I’m calling the police!”

Connor reached up, and Olin grabbed his hand. He scrambled up the wall as Dylan’s father fired another shot. Then he and Olin fell over the top and crashed onto the ground behind the property.

They scurried back to the street as fast as they could and ran to the car. Connor hoped Dylan’s dad wouldn’t come out his front door shooting. Later, he would realize how crazy that idea was. The man was most likely on the phone with the police or checking his wife’s jewelry box to see if anything had been taken.

Once they were a safe distance away, Olin turned in his seat. “Why is it every time we follow your advice, we end up nearly getting arrested or shot?” He sounded winded.

“That’s only happened twice,” Connor said, and realized the absurdity of his response.

“I’m just saying—maybe we should start doing things my way.”

Connor got the message. He pulled his cellphone out of his pocket at a red light and scrolled through his call log until he found Olivia’s number.

CHAPTER 29

Olivia was pulling out of the pickup line at Lancelot Academy with her daughter in the back seat when her phone rang. Erin, who was only five years old, didn’t seem to notice. She was telling Olivia about the turtle her teacher had brought in today, and could barely stop long enough to take a breath, let alone for her mother to take a phone call.

“Honey. Honey, please. It will only be a minute.”

“But—”

“Please. Just a minute. I promise.” Then she answered before her daughter could say anything else.

“Detective Forbes. Hi. Listen, there’s something you need to know.” She recognized Connor’s voice. Another voice she didn’t know said something in the background. “All right, there are a couple of things you need to know. They’re about my parents’ abduction.”

She noticed he wasn’t using the word “murder” yet. She wasn’t surprised. It took some people a long time to come to terms with that. “What is it?”

“First. It’s about, um . . . It’s about my dad. There’s a guy named Roland Cooper. I don’t know what their connection is, but I found his name in my dad’s email and I tried to talk to him. You know, just to see if he knew anything that might help.”

Olivia wished he hadn’t done that. Connor should have come to her with the name and let her handle it. But she wasn’t going to interrupt, either. She wanted to hear what he had to say.

And, she realized, she had better take some notes. Just to be safe.

There was a Dunkin’ Donuts immediately in front of her. She pulled into the parking lot. Erin threw her hands up and cheered.

“Not yet, honey. You be good and we’ll get you a treat when Mommy’s done, okay?” Back to the phone. “Go on,” she said as she fished a notepad and pen out of her glovebox.

“Well, I don’t know. There might be nothing to it. But it seemed strange. He was being all covert-like. Didn’t want to talk to me. I thought, you know, maybe you would have more luck.”

“Is that it?”

“No. There’s something else, too. And this one seems pretty important. The guy who kidnapped my parents. He took someone else’s parents also. His name is Olin. . . . What’s your last name?” More mumbling in the background. “Wilson. His parents are Mark and Hillary.”

Olivia could hardly believe what she was hearing. “Slow down. There was another abduction? How do you know?”

“Same M.O. Van. Ski mask. Taser.”

“And he’s there with you now?”

“Yes.”

“Can I speak to him?”

There was a moment of silence, then another voice. “Ma’am?”

“Are you Mr. Wilson?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Your parents were taken, too?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Olivia was furious. She couldn’t believe she was just hearing about this now. “Who’s the detective working your case?”

There was a pause, and then Olin gave her a name. She wrote it down underneath Roland’s.

“NYPD?”

“Yorktown.”

“But there’s more.” Connor again. “These abductions—they’re not random. My parents. His parents. They knew each other.”

“So you two—”

“No, we had never met.” Connor seemed to have correctly guessed where she was going with her question.

“How did you find out about