“They were all delivered after Justin Moore was taken,” Astra tells us.

“I think we can assume, then, that he is the last in the series,” I say.

“The last in the series?” Mo asks.

“The cards represent a new phase in this game. As methodical as he is, the kidnapper wouldn’t have risked tipping his hand before he was ready,” I say. “This whole thing has been painstakingly planned out and choreographed, and he wouldn’t have sent those cards until he was ready to move into his endgame.”

They all toss the black, red-lettered cards down on the table, then take their seats. After getting Violet’s call, I suspected all the families of the abducted kids got the same, so I sent everybody out to retrieve them. And as they filter back into the war room and drop the cards onto the table, confirming my thought, I feel that forward pull of momentum in my belly. We’re finally on the right path. Where it leads remains a mystery, but the picture is becoming a little less opaque.

“Okay, so fill us in,” Astra says. “What’s with the quote on the cards? Is he taunting them? Trying to scare them?”

“It’s a message. It’s the kidnapper telling the parents that they’re responsible for their children being taken—that he’s doing this because of them.”

“That’s… super creepy,” Paige says.

“You said it,” I say.

I pick up one of the cards and inspect it through the plastic evidence bag they had been collected in. They’re all made from a nice quality cardstock, glossy and laminated. Whoever made these spent a little time on them. The kidnapper is definitely taunting the parents with these cards and that quote, but he’s also sending them a message. He’s making a point. He wants them to feel some of the pain that they caused him.

“The sins of the father are to be laid upon the children,” I read the quote. “It’s from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. I think the meaning should be fairly obvious.”

“What did they do?” Paige wonders.

“Do these four families even know each other?” Mo asks.

“They’re all wealthy and influential,” Astra says. “It wouldn’t surprise me to find out they move in the same circles.”

I shake my head. “The level of care and planning in this whole operation tells me this is deeply personal to the man who abducted the kids, which also tells me there is a deep connection between the parents. It’s not the sort of thing you’ll get if they see each other a couple of times a year at a fundraising gala. These people know each other, and they somehow wronged this man. But there’s a silver lining. A couple, actually.”

Astra pulls a face. “Which is?”

“Well, the first thing is we now know for certain that this isn’t a trafficking situation and can finally put that theory to rest,” I say. “The second is that we can assume the kids are still alive. Our guy is going to want to play out the scenario he’s put in motion, and I don’t believe he’ll kill them until he’s gotten his full point across. That gives us time to find and save them. So, see? There are a couple silver linings.”

Astra nods, looking impressed. “Okay. I can buy that.”

“But how did the parents wrong him in the first place?” Paige asks.

“That’s not the right question,” I reply. “Not yet anyway.”

“So, what’s the right question?” Astra asks.

“The connection. Rick and Nina, I need you to do a deep dive on all the parents. I need you to find the connection between them,” I say. “We need to know where they know each other from. Once we do, I think we’ll be able to unravel the mystery.”

“Copy that, Boss,” they say in unison as they bow their heads and get to work.

“Not to be too obvious, but why don’t we go and ask them?” Mo asks.

“We’ve got a politician, a cutthroat corporate CEO, a federal judge, and a federal prosecutor,” Astra says, seeming to be getting on board with me. “They are masters at dissembling. Do you really trust them to give us straight answers?”

“And for my part, I’d rather have all the information we can find before we go to them. And we will be speaking with them, rest assured,” I say. “But I want to have the answers to the questions we’re going to ask them before we actually ask them. I want to be able to gauge how truthful they’re being with us.”

“That’s fair,” Paige says.

“I don’t see the obvious connections just yet. Denise Moore hasn’t argued a case before Judge Berenthal,” Rick says. “And Senator Barlow doesn’t have any obvious connections to the Olanges, the Moores, or the Berenthals.”

“The connections might not be obvious,” I say. “Dig deeper. Really drill down, guys. I know there’s a connection there.”

The click-click-click of their keyboards fills the room as Nina and Rick stare at their laptops, working furiously to find the needle in the haystack I tasked them with finding. Business and political connections can sometimes be convoluted. Oftentimes, purposely so. It might not be appropriate for a federal prosecutor or corporate CEO to be seen hobnobbing with a federal judge—especially if they have business before that federal judge. And Barlow might not want to be tied to any of them lest he be accused of conflicts of interest when he’s sponsoring or voting on specific pieces of legislation. DC can be a dark and tangled web.

The longer the silence in the room stretches on, the thicker the tension in the air grows. We’re all watching Rick and Nina intently, not moving, and barely even breathing. My belly churns, and my heartbeat thunders in my ears as a bead of sweat trickles down between my shoulder blades as we wait. My entire theory rests on the parents having some prior relationship. If there is no relationship, my theory is debunked, and we’re at square one all over again. And though I’m positive my theory is right, until we find that connection, we’re stuck in limbo.

“I think I found it,” Nina says.

The blood in my veins turns to ice, and my stomach somersaults. I swallow hard, trying to work some moisture into my mouth as a current of excitement flows through me.

“What is it?” I ask.

“All four of them were at Georgetown at the same time,” she says. “They were all there for a couple of years, but then they all left at the same time. They finished their degrees at other schools.”

“That seems like a pretty big coincidence,” Paige says.

“And we all know how Blake feels about coincidences,” Astra says with a grin.

I start pacing again, my mind whirling. “Is there any way we can prove they knew each other when they were at Georgetown?”

“We’re going to need a warrant to get into their records,” Nina says.

“But even if they were in the same classes, we’d have a hard time proving they actually knew each other,” Mo offers.

“True,” I mutter.

I fall silent and keep pacing, working at the knot in the middle of my brain, trying to figure out how to get what we need. The quickest way to the answer is a direct line. I could confront the parents and ask them what happened to make this man come after them in such a sideways and devious manner. I don’t like the chances of getting a straight answer out of them though. Like Astra said, to get where they are in life, they had to learn how to master the art of dissembling and parsing their words.

“Something happened while they were at Georgetown,” I say. “Something that was so bad, it made them all transfer out and pick up their academic careers elsewhere.”

“It’s a good theory, but we can’t prove it,” Astra says.

“I know. I know,” I reply, then stop pacing as a thought occurs to me. “Rick, Nina, can you access police reports from Georgetown in the time period before they withdrew from the school?”

“We can. But that’s going to take some time,” Rick says.

“And there’s no guarantee we’ll find anything,” Nina adds. “Especially if what happened didn’t make it into an official police record.”

“That’s true. But I’d rather know for sure whether there’s something there or not. We need all the information we can get, so please keep digging,” I tell them.

“On it,” they both chirp.

That sense of momentum grows, and I feel like we’re on the verge of understanding what is actually going on. Like we’re on the verge of finally getting the answers we need to find the man responsible for these abductions. And hopefully, if everything goes right, we’re on the verge of saving these kids.