Stolen(68)
“Too bad no one did,” Hatcher said. “Because while I don’t buy Laura having anything to do with her nanny’s death—Angelina was an accomplice who paid the price for associating with assholes. I do think maybe, now, Laura really has gone off the reservation.
“She’s not eight years old anymore. Truella Underland told the two of you she got a text from her roommate saying that she was with Laura. And Laura called Webber to tell him Harriet had been murdered, and that she had a lock of Harriet’s hair to prove it. After all Laura Chaucer has been through, and as wacked-out as everyone claims she is, I have to say I think she might well have killed her friend, Harriet Beckerman. I don’t think either Angelina or Harriet were victims of a sexual opportunist. I’m sorry, but that theory is all wet.”
“Jordo.” Cliff entered the room. “Sorry to interrupt, Roland Pritchard from SLY entertainment news just called. He wants to speak to either Agent Spenser or Dr. Cassidy.”
“Oh, dear,” Caity said. “Please tell me Kourtney Kennedy’s not snooping around another one of our cases.”
Hatcher blew a raspberry with his lips. “SLY. Isn’t that the gossip show that pays out small fortunes for dirt on celebs? And isn’t Kourtney Kennedy the hot chick who broke the news about the Fallen Angel Killer a few weeks ago?”
“One and the same. What line is Pritchard on?” Spense asked.
“He didn’t want to hold. He said you should turn to channel eight and watch Kourtney Kennedy’s report, then give him a ring and he’ll arrange to hand over the evidence.”
“What evidence?” Hatcher powered on the TV. “Get him back on the damn line now!”
Chapter 35
Saturday, October 26
8:30 A.M.
Hostel Digs
Denver, Colorado
“This is Kourtney Kennedy bringing you breaking news from SLY entertainment.”
Laura choked on the bite of cheese blintz she’d just taken and jerked her gaze to an image of long legs and red stilettos currently beaming from a television mounted in the corner of the breakfast lounge. The camera swept from the shapely legs up to some dramatic cleavage before zooming in on the face of a beautiful anchorwoman with a thousand-watt smile.
Kourtney Kennedy.
Though Laura wasn’t in the habit of watching the sleazy SLY celebrity news program, she knew exactly who this woman was. Last night Laura had fallen asleep—to terrible dreams—in front of her tablet, but this morning, before venturing cautiously into the communal area for a free continental breakfast, she’d done an internet search on Cassidy and Spenser. Online, she’d learned their backgrounds and about all their recent cases. Either her father, or the police, had brought in two top mind hunters. Agent Spenser, she now knew to be a profiler for the BAU, Dr. Cassidy a consulting psychiatrist—and Kourtney Kennedy? She was the Hollywood reporter who’d scooped one of their most recent adventures: the case of the Fallen Angel Killer.
Laura gulped a sip of OJ to soothe her burning throat.
“Yesterday, via a Denver press conference, the world learned the daughter of Colorado senator Whitmore Chaucer is missing.” Kourtney paused for effect. “Again.”
Laura coughed violently. Droplets of juice spewed onto the napkin in her hand. She gasped, relieved to catch her breath. Her gaze darted around the room for the nearest exit.
It was blocked by a couple of granola types, making kissy faces near the croissants. But at least the PDA was distracting the server replenishing the buffet table.
Her breath loosened in her chest.
Be cool, Laura.
“It was thirteen years ago, almost to the day, that Ms. Chaucer was kidnapped from her home in Piney Trails, Colorado. A ransom was paid, and Laura, just eight years old at the time, was recovered alive.”
A picture of Angelina popped onto the screen.
“This young woman, Angelina Antonelli, was not so lucky. Police theorized the nanny was an accomplice to Laura Chaucer’s kidnapping, and was subsequently murdered by her cohort in crime. But was she really? The case remains famously unsolved. And as everybody knows, we here at SLY never met an unsolved case we didn’t like.”
There was a smattering of canned applause.
The more Laura’s heart raced, the more her thoughts did, too. The press conference had been held yesterday, and Angelina was definitely not breaking news.
Something else must be up.
“Like this reporter, I know you, my friends, are deeply curious, given the mysterious past of one of our nation’s most notable families. SLY has managed to obtain, from an anonymous source, a logbook containing an entry signed Laura Chaucer, as well as a shocking note, purportedly written by Laura herself.”