Free Murder in the City: Blue Lights by Clare Tatum Page A

kidnapper’s demand.” Maybe that meant Julie was coming home with Tiana. Maybe this nightmare would be over very shortly.
    Brice’s face was taut, his jaw tense.
    “Let’s go back to the mayor’s.” He sawed the steering wheel to the right, circling back the way they’d come.
    With one hand, he pulled out his cell phone and punched in a number.
    “Hey, yeah, it’s Brice. Can you bring the mayor’s driver to her place? We’re going over there.” He hung up.
    “Can you believe this?” Lainey looked at Brice, but he his eyes straight forward, driving with intent and purpose.
    “Unbelievable,” he bit off in a tone as sharp and concise as his driving.
    The man could go from joking to deadly serious in a manner of seconds. She’d seen that manner in the courtroom and the day she’d been attacked.
    His serious expression gave a reassuring steel promise. Now that she was on this side of the victim line, she wanted deadly serious.
    As if he felt her studying him, he reached over and grabbed her hand for a brief second. Then, released it to grasp the steering wheel again.
    But that momentary contact shot strength into her soul.
    * * *
    Brice walked ahead of Lainey, clearing a path through the reporters and photographers outside the mayor’s house. He walked under the yellow tape, stepped through the front door and met the mayor’s intense gaze. Desperately, the mayor looked at him, a mother’s eyes, searching only for her daughter, praying that her daughter was coming home soon.
    Lainey crossed the threshold an instant after him and the mayor looked quickly away. Deviousness hid there in that glance. She looked away, almost as if she hadn’t seen Lainey.
    But she had. Brice watched the mayor for more clues that might slip out, clues to what exactly was going on.
    Lainey closed the distance between herself and the mayor quickly.
    “Julie called me,” Lainey blurted out. “Wanted you to call off the furloughs.”
    They had an odd relationship, Lainey and the mayor. He needed to know more about that.
    The mayor nodded, still not looking Lainey directly in the eye. “A benefactor came forward, said he’d heard about the demand.”
    “Heard?” Lainey asked. “How could anyone have heard so soon?”
    Brice placed a hand on Lainey’s shoulder and she swiveled her head to look at him, her eyes desperate, crazed almost, like a fox that would gnaw his hand off.
    The mayor shrugged. “It must have been on the news.”
    “Did you tell anyone?”
    The mayor’s gaze skated away.
    “Someone might have told someone in the media. You know how these things get out.” The mayor shrugged. “Someone says something to someone they know.”
    “That guy John Canton heard from a tipster , he said.” Lainey’s eyes held a need to believe. “Has anyone heard from Julie or Tiana again?”
    The mayor stood and walked away, to a table where a bottle of water sat. She took it, loosened the top and took a long drink.
    “You said there was a benefactor.” Brice watched her carefully, studied her eyes.
    She nodded, half turning away from him. “The banker whose daughter was kidnapped.”
    Lainey jumped as though she’d gotten an electrical jolt. She moved stiffly, awkwardly, her limbs disjointed as she approached the mayor.
    He let her take the lead right now in the questioning, sensing she might get more from the mayor due to the apparent personal nature of their relationship.
    But, despite the need to gain information to help the kidnapped girls, Lainey’s distress got under his skin, cutting at his nerves, interfering with his ability to do the job, to keep the distance necessary to operate on a mental level alone.
    He wanted to go and take Lainey in his arms. But he needed to concentrate on the information that he could get from the mayor.
    “Helen,” Lainey breathed out heavily. “What is happening?”
    The mayor’s face paled beneath her natural hickory skin tone. “The banker said he knew just what I was going