Free Heart of Lies by Jill Marie Landis

such heartfelt understanding in her whisper, that he couldn’t help but wonder if she was speaking from experience.
    “You almost sound as if you know—”
    Pushing out of her chair she picked up his plate and crossed the room.
    “Two thousand dollars is a king’s ransom,” she said.
    “The Perkinses are desperate.” He added, “It says here they lost a baby boy a month ago.”
    He watched her shoulders sag. Her hands stilled. She recovered quickly and slid his plate into a tub of soapy water before she dried her hands on a rag draped over the dry sink.
    “You sure you don’t know anything about this?” He tried to sound as if he didn’t care. As if this wasn’t the very heart of the reason he was here.
    She kept her back to him, stared down into the dishpan. “How could I?”
    But when she finally faced him again, her eyes were haunted. A frown marred her brow. “You’d best be going, Mr. Abbott. I’ve got to see to my traps today.” She sounded distracted as she headed for a rack of antlers with hats and an oilcloth slicker hanging on it.
    If the Perkins child was on the premises, he’d have seen or heard her by now. Last night it had struck him that the Grandes could have hidden her somewhere nearby. There were hundreds of waterways threading through the swamp. She could be hidden in a shed on a spit of land somewhere, in a hidey-hole where they stashed stolen goods.
    “Mind if I go along?” He figured he’d worn out his welcome, but why not press his luck?
    “Would it do any good to tell you no?”
    He shrugged. “I’m not the law, Maddie. You don’t have to have me along.”
    He could almost see her mind working.
    She wasn’t happy about his request but she said, “It’s up to you. Come along if you want.”
    She didn’t seem overly concerned. Perhaps because she wanted him to think she knew nothing of the kidnapping.
    Or maybe he was just hoping that she was innocent.
    T he longer Tom Abbott hung around, the more desperately Maddie wanted him gone. She had a feeling he was just waiting for her to accidentally reveal Penelope’s whereabouts. That he was just waiting to pounce. She’d seen him weigh every word, watch her every move, while they discussed the newspaper story.
    She reached for an oilskin coat on the antler rack and pulled it over her brown serge skirt and stained blouse. She’d trimmed the deep hem off the coat and cut the sleeves down but it was still four sizes too big across the shoulders. She sat on the edge of her bed to unfasten and slip off her shoes, then shrugged into a pair of tall leather boots. Once she had the shotgun in hand and her skinning knife sheathed and dangling from her waist, she was ready to leave. Because of the storm, her trap line had gone unchecked yesterday. With the swamp full of predators, if she didn’t get to them soon, there’d be nothing worth saving of the muskrat catch.
    Tom Abbott finished off his coffee. She watched with curiosity as he carried his mug and the rest of his dishes and cutlery to the dry sink before he followed her out onto the dock. As she went about preparing the pirogue, her thoughts were consumed with the Perkins girl.
    She could not shake the sound of Abbott’s voice as he read the story to her. The reward money offered was more than she could fathom.
    “No questions asked.”
    No questions. If she could just deliver the girl, collect the reward, and escape, she’d be free. But even if she
did
take the child home, there was no way to keep Penelope from telling her parents she had been in league with the twins all along.
    Maybe instead of handing Penelope over, she should have a lock of the child’s hair delivered as proof she had possession of her. Or better yet, the red cape. Maddie could then demand a meeting and exchange Penelope for the reward.
    If she could shake Abbott.
    “Trust no stranger.”
    It was a cardinal rule of Dexter’s.
    Maddie lowered the gun into the pirogue and climbed down from the dock,