Free The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena Page B

quietly down the lane away from the Contis’ house at 12:35 a.m. The lightbulb in the motion detector had obviously been loosened.
    Which means either the kidnapper struck after twelve thirty – sometime between when Marco checked on the baby and when the couple returned home – and the car Paula Dempsey saw was irrelevant, or Marco was lying and had disabled the light himself and taken the baby out to thewaiting car. The baby didn’t fly to the garage. Someone carried her, and the only footprints in the yard belong to Marco and Anne. The driver, or accomplice, if there had been one, likely never got out of the car. Then Marco returned to the party and sat casually smoking cigarettes in the neighbors’ backyard and flirting with the neighbor’s wife.
    There’s one problem: the babysitter. Marco could not have known that the babysitter would cancel. The fact that there was supposed to be a babysitter in the home argues against this being a carefully planned kidnapping for ransom.
    But – he might be looking at something more spontaneous.
    Had the husband or wife killed the baby accidentally, in a fit of anger perhaps, either between six and seven – perhaps the baby was harmed during their argument – or at some time when they were checking on her through the night? If something like that had happened, had they then hurriedly arranged for someone to help them dispose of the baby in the early hours of the morning?
    It bothers him, the pink onesie. The mother says she tossed it in the laundry hamper beside the changing table. But it was found hidden underneath the pad of the changing table. Why? Perhaps she was sufficiently drunk that she hadn’t stuffed the soiled sleeper into the laundry hamper but instead shoved it underneath the pad. If she was drunk enough to think she’d put the onesie in the hamper when she hadn’t, was she drunk enough to drop the baby? Maybe she dropped her, and the baby struck her head and died. Maybe the mother smothered her. If that’s what happened, how had the parents arranged so quickly for someone to take the baby away? Who would they call?
    He has to find the possible accomplice. He will get the Contis’ home and cell-phone records and find out whethereither of them called anyone between six and twelve thirty on the night in question.
    If the baby hadn’t been killed, either accidentally or deliberately by either one of the parents, would they stage a kidnapping?
    Rasbach can guess why they might. There’s three million dollars to be had. Possibly more. Motivation enough for almost anybody. The ease with which the child’s grandparents offered the money to the distressed parents was telling.
    Rasbach will soon know as much as it is possible to know about Anne and Marco Conti.
    Now it’s time to interview the neighbors.

Chapter Ten
    RASBACH STOPS BY the Contis’ house and picks up Jennings. When the detectives arrive, watched by reporters, at the neighbors’ house, they find that the husband, Graham Stillwell, is not at home.
    Rasbach had already met the couple, briefly, in the middle of the previous night, when the child had first been reported missing. Cynthia and Graham Stillwell had been shocked into speechlessness by the abduction of the baby next door. At that time Rasbach had focused his attention on the backyard, the fence, and the passageway between the two houses. But now he wants to talk to Cynthia, the hostess of the dinner party, to see what light, if any, she can shed on the couple next door.
    She is a beautiful woman. Early thirties, long black hair, large blue eyes. She has the kind of figure that stops traffic. She is also fully aware of her own attractiveness, and she makes it difficult for anyone else not to be aware of it, too. She is wearing a blouse, deeply unbuttoned, flattering linen trousers, and high-heeled sandals. She is perfectly made up, even though someone stole her guests’ baby while they were at her house late the night before. But beneath