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children cases, the first job was to rule out
the parents and other close family members. “Grant, honey? You said you just
got Annie? How long has she lived with you? Could her mother have taken her?”
    Grant hiccoughed and scooted closer to RJ. “N-n-no.
She…uh…Annie came to live with me after her mother died. Do we need to go into
this? Shouldn’t we be doing something to find her?”
    “We are doing something. Enwright Security is
sending over one of their partners to help us, Grant, but we need information.”
    RJ’s head whipped to her for a second, then he
turned back to face their distraught friend. “Come on, Grant, Patti’s right. We
need to know,” RJ said.
    Nodding slowly, Grant reached for Patti’s hand. “Sorry,
I know we have to do this. I-I just hate that Annie’s out there somewhere all
alone. She’s just now getting used to our routine. The nightmares are going
away, too. Now this.” Grant dropped his head in his hands and the tears fell
again.
     

Chapter Three
    Grant heard a quiet knock at the back door and his
heart raced with a forlorn hope that Annie must have wandered off but now was
home. Patti jumped up, phone still to her ear as she headed to the kitchen. She
returned a moment later with a tall, lanky cowboy-looking sort, who leaned lightly
on a silver-handled cane. Despite a slight limp, the man moved swiftly through
each room of Grant’s small house, closing the curtains and turning off all the
lights except for one dim lamp in the living room.
    Before he spoke, he pressed the nearly invisible
earpiece, waited a bit, then began. “Michael, I’m here. I assume you will
monitor the situation and that we are recording. Just speak up if there’s
something I miss.” There was a long pause, then the man turned his attention to
those in the room. “I scouted the area for any obvious signs of someone watching
the house. It’s unlikely, unless they have a neighboring property. No sense in
letting anyone see us in here talking though. I’m Graeme Kennedy. You must be
Grant Anderson?” Graeme stuck out his big paw and waited.
    The stranger oozed confidence, and with a sense of
desperation, Grant clutched at the offered hand. “Can you get my daughter back?”
    “Yep. That’s what I’m here for. Let’s get the
details nailed down—where’s the note?”
    After studying the ransom demand, Graeme said for
the benefit of the man on the phone, “We have a handwritten note, block
letters.” He read aloud, pausing after each sentence. “The last two sentences
appear to have been written by a different hand. The press of the pen is less
defined, the shape of the block letters slightly different, and the tone of the
language is distinctive—less refined. Given the plural in the text of the
demand, we will work with the assumption that more than one person is involved.
Hold on, I’m sending a digital image now.” It only took a few seconds for
Graeme to snap a photo with his iPhone and send the picture.
    “Where was Annie when you last saw her, Grant?
Come show me.”
    They moved to the kitchen and he pointed out the
playhouse. “She usually plays there while I fix dinner. I don’t have much room,
so I do the food prep at the table. She was only out of my sight—” He clamped
down hard on the guilt. There would be plenty of time for that later. Right
now, they needed facts. He swallowed hard. “I was making a salad, so several
trips back and forth the fridge. I want to say only a few seconds but, Jesus—it
was probably more like minutes. I just thought she was playing.”
    “Easy, Grant.” RJ’s tone was calming, as was the
heavy hand he pressed against Grant’s shoulder. “This is her house, her
backyard. It’s supposed to be safe for her to play without you watching her
every second.”
    Graeme nodded. “Agreed. Where did you find the
note?”
    “It was on the front door. When I couldn’t find
Annie, I went a little crazy. Of course I thought the pool first, but