arms.
“It isn’t.”
Several minutes went by. I stood, Cade sat. I passed the time by trying to decide how I could get Mr. Tate to let me into his house so I could somehow convince him to turn over the letter without involving any more people than I had to.
“It’s been ten minutes,” Cade said. “You got a plan?”
I shook my head.
“Yeah, you do,” he said. “I can tell.”
“You stay here. Let me try and talk to him.”
Cade scooted off the tailgate.
I warned. “Take one more step and I’m leaving, and you can handle Mr. Tate on your own. You’ve been doing a great job so far.”
“Relax,” Cade said, spreading his hands out to the side. “Geez. I’m going to get in my truck. I’ll even close the door if it makes you feel better. Maybe that’ll help things. You can even tell him I’m leavin’ if you like.”
We both knew it wasn’t true.
I approached the front door and knocked. Nothing happened. I tried again. Still nothing, and there was no sound coming from inside, even though I knew at least one person was there. On the third try, the door cracked open. A small child around three years old peeked out.
“Hi,” she said softly.
“How are you?” I said.
“My daddy’s mad.”
“What’s your name?” I said.
She looked down at her hands and whispered, “Lily.”
I knelt down until we were eye level. I’d heard once that little kids were more receptive and comfortable when adults didn’t tower over them like giants. Kids felt better when an adult lowered themselves to their level. “It’s nice to meet you, Lily. My name is Sloane. I’m a friend of your dad’s. Do you think you could get him for me?”
She glanced to the side, opening the door. “Come on.”
“Oh, sweetie, I don’t know if I should—”
“Come on, come on!” she insisted.
Lily turned and skipped down the hall yelling, “Daddy… daddy…daddy.”
But daddy didn’t come. So I went to him. I found Mr. Tate in his office, his eyes glued to a magazine, even though he wasn’t reading, not really. I made a fist and tapped gently on the open door.
“You’re fired, Miss Monroe. You have no right being in my house. Please go.”
I sat in a chair across from him. “Hand over the coloring page and I will.”
“It’s no longer in my possession.”
“Of course it is,” I said. “You wouldn’t let a precious item like that out of your sight. Give it to me and spare your family the embarrassment of having your house searched. Once the police know what you have and how it links up with the other kidnapping, they’ll get a warrant, and you’ll have cops all over this place. Is that what you want?”
He sighed.
“It doesn’t concern you anymore.”
“Of course it does,” I said. “I keep my word, Mr. Tate. And we had a deal. Firing me doesn’t change anything.”
He hurled the magazine to the side of his desk, but his aim was weak. It slid off the side, falling to the floor. I picked it up and set it down in front of him.
“I thought I was hiring a private investigator,” he said. “Obviously, I was mistaken. You said you wouldn’t involve the police.”
“I haven’t.”
Not yet.
He pointed toward the window. “That McCoy kid is the police, is he not?”
I nodded.
“He’s the one who’s been trying to talk to you. And just so we’re clear, I was as surprised as you when he showed up here today. If you spent two seconds listening to our conversation, you would have understood I was only trying to convince him to leave.”
Mr. Tate raised a brow. “What’s he doing here?” he said.
“Cade followed you the other day. He saw us meet at the restaurant and watched you hand me the money.”
“He followed me?”
“He’s trying to take over things for his dad.”
Mr. Tate’s shoulders relaxed and he leaned forward in his chair. In a lowered voice he said, “Why?”
“Detective McCoy Senior is retiring. Cade will be assuming his position, and he had some crazy idea that if he showed up here with me, you’d give him a chance. After today, they’ll be involved whether you like it or not, but how you choose to go about it is up to you.”
I heard a swishing sound like sandpaper being scraped across a wood floor. Mr. Tate shifted his gaze from me to a woman standing in the doorway. She was pale and thin, and her hair was matted, as if it hadn’t been brushed in days.
“Noah, what’s going