Chapter 16
Sophia looked at her daughter and nodded.
Kayla sat up straight on the stool. She took in a breath, and Sophia could see her organizing her thoughts, just the way that Mason did. God, she was her father’s daughter.
She looked straight at Lydia and Rylie who were standing on the other side of the island, their faces intent. Then she told them everything.
How Mandy hadn’t been at practice, which went long. Walking off the field with Cat. Being invited to a show, and then there was the text.
Kayla had her phone on the counter in front of her.
She read it verbatim. Calm. Cool. Collected.
Her father’s daughter.
“Can I see?” Lydia asked.
Kayla handed her the phone. Sophia watched Lydia's eyes move through the messages twice, the second time slower. She watched Rylie read it once and go very still in the particular way when she was already working on something inside her head.
Neither of them said anything for a moment.
“She got to her own phone,” Rylie said finally.
“I must have been the last one she texted. It’s the only reason I can think of that she texted me and not her mom.” Saying the word Mom made Kayla’s voice wobble.
“Your friend is amazing, Kayla. I don’t know how she managed to get her hands on her phone, but she did it. She did it, and she got us information we can use,” Rylie said.
“But she gave us that information because you asked the right questions. You did good, sweetheart.” Lydia’s voice was fierce.
Kayla flushed.
Sophia stopped herself from hugging her daughter, but it was a near thing. She could see that Kayla was still working to keep herself together, and she didn’t want to do anything to stop that process, but damn, she was proud of her.
“A train,” Lydia said, half to herself. She was pulling something up on her screen. “And sea lions.”
“Sea lions are resident throughout the bay,” Rylie said. “But the heaviest concentrations in the south end are around the National City and Chula Vista waterfront. The marina areas.”
“That's what I'm looking at.” Lydia turned her laptop so they could see the map.
The South Bay waterfront ran in a long strip—National City, then Chula Vista, the marina, the industrial corridor that ran parallel to the water.
“The Five runs right through this stretch.
You'd hear highway noise constantly.” She traced a line with her finger.
“And the freight rail line runs right along the bay through National City. There are multiple trains daily.”
“That’s not close to Eastlake Vistas.” Sophia protested.
“I’m not surprised,” Lydia said. “Eastlake Vistas is just where some of the operators are staying. It’s not the right place to be holding Bree. They needed somewhere more isolated. They would have it near the waterfront.”
“The Warehouse district,” Rylie said, looking at the same section of map. “Industrial and commercial properties along the waterfront. Low foot traffic. Box trucks coming and going with nobody looking at them twice.”
“How many properties are we looking at?” Sophia asked.
“I can start narrowing it.” Lydia was already typing. “Commercial rentals in that corridor, cross-referenced with anything that came available in the last six months. If they've been running this since September they needed to be set up before that.”
Kayla wasn’t saying anything, she was just looking at the map. But she was keeping up with everything being said. She knew exactly when to stay out of the way and when to step in.
Sophia thought about Mason. She thought about where that quality came from.
Rylie's phone buzzed. She glanced at it and stood. “I need to step outside for two minutes.” She was already moving toward the back door. “My babysitter.”
Sophia nodded. She got up and filled the kettle and put it on. Her hands needed something to do.
“Angie's at Beth's,” she said to Lydia. “Dropping off Declan and Nora.”
Lydia looked up from her screen. “Beth has Lisa too?”
“Beth insisted. She's setting up a slumber party.” Sophia managed a small smile at that. Lydia’s sister ran a house that was basically organized chaos and unconditional love, and the moment Sophia had called her she'd heard the particular quality of her silence that meant she already understood and wasn't going to ask a single question. She'd just open the door.
“My baby sister is a smart woman,” Lydia said. Then she looked back at the screen.
Kayla was still studying the map.
“Mom,” she said.
“Yeah, baby?”
“Should we tell Lettie?”
The question landed in the kitchen and stayed there. Sophia looked at her daughter. Then she looked at Lydia.
Lydia set down her coffee. She was quiet for a moment, her eyes on the middle distance, and Sophia knew she was running it the way Lydia ran everything methodically, all the way to the end.
“Lettie doesn't know Bree found a way to reach out,” Sophia said slowly. “She's been sitting in that house for days believing her daughter is gone and she has no information.”
“She hasn't,” Lydia said. “That's true.”
“So we tell her.” Kayla looked between them. “She deserves to know Bree is okay.”
“She deserves to know,” Lydia agreed. “The question is what happens when she does.” She folded her hands on the island. “Lettie has been holding herself together under enormous pressure for days. If—”
Rylie returned. “What are you talking about?”
“Kayla brought up a good point,” Lydia said. “She wants to know if we should tell Lettie that Bree texted.”
“No. We can’t do that.”
Sophia winced and Kayla looked shocked at Rylie’s strong words.
When Rylie looked at Kayla, she went on to explain.
“She has to continue to play the same part in front of Mary. She has to look just as devastated and scared. If she finds out that Bree contacted you, Kayla, she’d have hope. She needs to look hopeless.”
“You don’t trust her?”
“I’m not saying that.” Rylie shook her head. “We just need her to act natural. I know this is a tough call. But it’s necessary. Please know that I appreciate your big heart for wanting to tell Bree’s mom. But we can’t do it.”
There was a knock at the front door, and Sophia went to get it. She was cautious, all things considered.
“Open up, it’s me,” Angie called out.
Sophia let her in.
Angie gave her a brief hug, then hurried past her. She dumped her jacket on the bench in the hallway and pushed her way between Lydia and Rylie.
“Kids are settled,” she said. “Beth is feeding them pizza and threatening a midnight movie if they're good.” She set her keys on the counter and looked around the room.
“Okay. Twenty-six hours.” She said it the way she said everything operational, fast and factual with no time to spend on pleasantries.
“Mary's timeline hits twenty-six hours at six tomorrow morning.
Which means if Lettie and Peggy haven't delivered schematics by then—”
She stopped.
She had been looking at Sophia, then at Lydia, then at Rylie. Now she looked at the devastated face of Kayla.
“Fuck. I’m so sorry, honey.”
“It’s okay, Aunt Angie. It’s the truth.”
“Well I have an idea. I already started on it. Let’s deliver fake schematics.”
Sophia stared at her.
“I’m serious. Lydia, I dare you to tell me that you can’t put your hands on some version of this helicopter. They’ve been building this for what? Ten years? There have to be seventeen thousand iterations.”
Sophia watched as Lydia sat up straighter.
“And Rylie, don’t you tell me that with all the people you know on the dark web, that there isn’t some secret black hat or white hat you know that can’t doctor up those fuckers. Everybody owes your alias a favor. It’s time to drag out Sylvia Hess.”
“We think we might have narrowed down where Bree might be being held.” Lydia said.
“What?” Angie turned to her partner, shocked.
“It was Kayla. She got us the information we needed,” Rylie said.
Angie looked down at the map open on Lydia's tablet. At the section of waterfront with Lydia's cursor sitting on it.
“What's that?” she asked.
“National City waterfront,” Lydia said. “We think we have a corridor.”
Angie went still. “You have a location?”
“We have a corridor,” Sophia repeated carefully. “We're narrowing it.”
“How?”
“Bree reached out,” Sophia said. “She got to her phone. She texted Kayla.”
“Damn. You go, girl.”
“What are you going to do?” Kayla asked.
“We’re going to do everything,” Angie said grimly.
“And then we’re bringing Bree home.” Rylie said with a fierce grin.