Chapter 13: The Locked Door

Conroy had the van at the Drummond gate in thirty minutes.

I had dressed in the dark in under two minutes, and my hair was still tangled from his hands.

Neither of us had said anything about it yet.

He had made three phone calls on the way, and each one had ended with the word now.

Behind us a second car carried two Weatherford drivers, big quiet men who had been told nothing and had asked nothing.

The guard at the gate looked at the van, then at me, and opened it.

The house sat at the top of the drive with every curtain drawn.

Conroy stopped the chair at the foot of the front steps, where he could see the door.

"Go," he said. "I'm right here."

I climbed the steps alone and tried the handle.

It was locked.

I rang the bell, and nobody came.

Above the door was the small black eye of the security camera.

I looked straight into it.

"Adele," I said. "I know you're watching."

The curtain beside the door moved an inch.

"Poppy Lacey is in your house, and she asked me to come and get her. I'm going to count to twenty."

I kept my voice even and loud enough to carry down the drive.

"At twenty, the man at the bottom of these steps calls the sheriff and tells him a woman is being held inside this house."

"I have the number," Conroy said.

"Then he calls the board chairman's wife, who has a phone and a niece."

"I have that number too."

The drivers had come up behind him, and one of them took out his phone and held it up.

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