Chapter 13
Sophia had been to Peggy Kowalski's house exactly twice.
Once for a neighborhood gathering two years ago, and once to drop off a birthday cake for Dan that Peggy had special-ordered from the bakery.
She knew the street, knew the house. It was a comfortable ranch-style on a corner lot with a basketball hoop in the driveway and a ball sitting in the middle of the concrete like Brady had just stepped inside for a minute.
She looked at that basketball as she parked.
Then she got out of the car and went to the door.
Peggy answered before she knocked. She'd been watching from the window. She was holding it together like she’d decided falling apart was not an option. Sophia admired that.
“Sophia.” She stepped back. “Thanks for coming.”
“Of course.”
Lettie was at the kitchen table.
In front of her was a shot glass, full to the rim. Beside it, a bottle of Smirnoff, cap off. Her hands were wrapped around the shot glass without lifting it, her knuckles white.
She looked up when Sophia came in. Her eyes were so exhausted it almost hurt to look at them.
“I haven't had any vodka yet,” she said. Like that was the most important thing to establish. “I just needed it there.”
“Okay.” Sophia pulled out the chair across from her and sat.
Lettie looked at her for a long moment. Then she said, “You knew something was wrong that very first day at the coffee shop. How?”
“I've been where you are,” Sophia said simply. “A long time ago. So I knew.”
Lettie looked up at Peggy, who gave her a nod of encouragement.
“Peggy said you know Bree’s been kidnapped. That they have my baby.” Her voice broke.
“I do.” Sophia kept her voice calm. That’s what they both needed from her now. Someone calm. Someone they could rely on, while they lived in this hell.
“It’s because I wasn’t getting them what they wanted. Not fast enough. But it was impossible.”
“What did they want?” But Sophia was pretty sure she knew, she just needed it confirmed.
“Schematics to the new helicopter, or better yet, a user’s manual.”
“Me too,” Peggy chimed in.
Lettie choked out a laugh. “Yeah, like that was going to happen. Our men are too careful with those types of things. If they bring them home to study, when they’re done, they put them in their safes.”
Peggy nodded. “Same.”
“I told Mary that. Countless times.”
“She wanted me to put this in his coffee.” She pulled her purse off the back of the chair she was sitting on, then rifled through it.
There was a small, clear vial with clear liquid in it.
She set it on the table. “They assured me it would just make him really sleepy, and he would fall asleep at the table, and that would be my chance to take pictures of the documents.”
“They said it's just a sedative. That it won't hurt him.” Her hands tightened around the shot glass.
“But Tom has a heart condition. Nobody knows except me and his cardiologist. If something in that bottle reacts badly, if his heart—” She stopped.
“I cannot drug my husband. I cannot do it.
But if I don't—” Her voice finally cracked, just barely. “They have my daughter.”
Peggy sat down beside her and put her arm around her shoulders.
Sophia looked at both of them.
“How long has Mary been working you?” she asked.
“Almost three months.” Lettie's jaw tightened. “I didn't understand what she was doing at first. She was just warm. Friendly. She remembered everything I said. I thought she was just—” She shook her head. “Good at her job.”
“She is good at her job.”
“Six weeks ago it changed. The questions got specific.
I got scared and I told her I didn't know anything about Tom's work.” She paused.
“That's when she told me what would happen if I didn't help her.
She already knew Bree's schedule. Her practice times. Her route home from school.” Her voice dropped.
“She already knew everything before she ever asked me anything.”
Sophia nodded. “Peggy?”
Peggy got up and went to her purse. She pulled out a ragged envelope and pulled out five pictures. She slowly placed them on the table. The way Lettie whimpered, it was clear she had not seen them before. Sophia had been ready, because Kayla had already told her what to expect.
“How old is Brady?” she asked.
“Seven.” Peggy's voice was steady. “He turned seven in February.”
Seven years old. And someone had stood in a park with a rifle and made certain there was absolutely no ambiguity about what they were willing to do.
Sophia sat with that for three seconds. That was all she could afford.
Then she picked up her phone.
She pulled up her group text to Angie, Lydia, and Rylie and sent them Peggy’s address with the message, come now.
Then she put her phone down and looked at the two women across the table.
“I need to ask you both something,” she said. “And I need the truth.”
They nodded.
“Do you think either of your husbands suspect anything? Anything at all?”
“No,” Lettie said immediately in a flat voice.
“Dan?”
Peggy shook her head. “I told him there were PTA politics. He bought it.”
“Okay.” Sophia folded her hands on the table.
“Because the moment Tom and Dan know, they have to report it up the chain, and the moment they do that, we lose control of how this gets handled.” She looked at them both.
“Right now, the only people who know what's actually happening are in this kitchen, and soon three more women I trust with not just my life, but my children’s lives.
That's an advantage. I need you to help me keep it.”
Lettie looked at the shot glass. Then she picked it up and held it out across the table.
“Get rid of it,” she said. “The bottle too.”
Sophia took both and set them on the counter behind her.
Then they waited.
Angie came in first, reading the house in one long sweep the way she always did. Rylie followed behind her, quiet and contained, already watching. Lydia came last, tablet under her arm, her face giving nothing away.
Sophia introduced the women, and Peggy poured coffee for everyone and sat down at the table with everyone else. It was Rylie who got down to things, in her easy, friendly manner.
“Peggy, why don’t you go first? Start from the beginning,” she said. Her voice was easy. Conversational. Like they had all the time in the world. “Don't leave anything out because you think it's too small. The small things are usually the ones that matter most.”
Lettie looked at Sophia.
Sophia nodded.
And Lettie started talking.
When it was Lettie’s turn, she was more comfortable, until she started talking about the day Bree went missing.
“Bree goes to Mathnasium on Tuesdays and Thursdays. You know the one, it’s on Laurel Avenue near Anna’s Nails. I was waiting for her to come out. I was early. I watched as everyone in her group came out, but not her, which was weird, because she was usually first to leave.”
“This past Tuesday, right?” Rylie clarified.
Lettie nodded. Her hands were trembling, so she laid them flat on the table.
“The class ends at seven-thirty. When she wasn’t out by seven-forty, I went in.
I asked the receptionist, I don’t know her name, if Bree was in the back.
I thought she could be talking to her teacher or in the bathroom or something.
She looked confused. She said Bree had left at seven after a woman called into the front desk saying she was outside waiting for her. ”
Lettie looked around at all of them. “The receptionist looked scared. She started apologizing, she said she had assumed it had been me on the phone.”
The hair on Sophia’s neck rose.
“I called Bree’s cell phone. It rang and rang. I called it again. It finally just went straight to voicemail, like it had been turned off. I was about to call the police when a text came in. All it said was, If you want to see Bree again, wait for instructions. Tell no one.”
She gulped and looked over at Peggy. She grasped Lettie’s hand. Lettie looked back up at Rylie.
“I don’t remember getting into my car. I tried texting back but it said undeliverable.”
“It would,” Lydia said.
“I went to the coffee shop, but Mary wasn’t there. I asked for her phone number, but it was against store policy to give it out. I got another text telling me to go home.”
“They had you under surveillance,” Angie said. “Or maybe the coffee shop.”
“Then what happened?” Rylie asked.
“I was at the coffee shop before it opened. Mary must have come in the back, because when they opened it, she was behind the counter. I went straight to her. She told me to stop. She said she would talk to me at her break.”
Lettie started to cry. When she got herself under control, she continued.
“Two hours later, Mary and I sat at the table in a far corner. That’s when she gave me that bottle and told me I had taken too long to get them the information.
She told me I had forty-eight hours to get them the pictures they needed. ”
“I told her that was impossible. I had no way of knowing when Tom would bring home work. Sometimes he would go a week without bringing anything home, he’d just stay at the base until after midnight.”
Lettie stopped.
“Then what?” Ryle prompted.
“She said I had five days.”
“I begged her not to kill my daughter.” She looked up at them with wet eyes. “She said she would never kill such a beautiful young girl when she could make so much money selling her instead.”
Lettie couldn’t say another word. She was sobbing.
She handed over the vial of medication and Lydia asked to take her phone for a couple of hours.
Lettie agreed. The women of Midnight Delta left at separate times within an hour.
Angie, Lydia and Rylie had all parked blocks away from Peggy’s house.
They agreed to meet up at Lydia’s house that evening, after Rylie, Angie and Sophia had arranged for childcare.
Sophia was the last to leave. Peggy walked her to the door.
“Can your friends really help?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“You’ll call us?”
Sophia squeezed the woman’s arm. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Peggy wiped away a tear. “You’re kind of badasses, aren’t you? I guess that makes sense.”
Sophia frowned.
“I mean you’re married to SEALs. It kind of makes sense that you would be badasses.”
“We just take care of our own. And you two are ours.” Sophia leaned in and hugged Peggie. “Tomorrow. I’ll call you tomorrow.”