Abby’s finger hovered over the send button. She wanted the world to know what Miguel had done and the sooner the better.
“Why don’t we call Rizzo and Lucas?” Abby thought maybe this was the time to pull in the detectives.
“Because they won’t try to negotiate with him. They’ll just arrest him and we might not find Layla in time. If he’s got her tied up somewhere without her insulin and the cops lock him up, she could die before anyone found her. If we can’t find her on our own, we have to contact Miguel and offer to trade the flash drive for Layla and we have to mean it. He’d know the cops wouldn’t make a trade like that and let him go.”
Abby nodded. She didn’t like it, but maybe it made sense.
Victor glanced at the wall clock. “He’ll be teaching his American Jurisprudence class in just a few minutes. So he’s at FSU now and he’ll be there at least an hour, probably more. We need to check his house while he’s at the law school.”
Abby didn’t know where the professor lived, but she knew how to find out. She pulled up the Leon County Property Appraiser’s official website and typed in Miguel’s name.
“Here’s his address,” she said. “One of those new townhouses at the edge of downtown Tallahassee, near the law school. But he couldn’t have taken Layla there—somebody would have seen them.” Abby frowned, thinking hard. “He said something to Phillip about a place by the lake, but there’s nothing listed here about another property.”
“There’s that big lake in Grady County, lots of cabins and get-away places. Maybe it’s there?” Victor suggested.
Abby pulled up the Grady County property appraiser’s office and typed Miguel’s name. “Yes. Grady County, right across the state line, only thirty miles from here.” Abby kept reading. “A lakeside cabin, small from the description. Sounds isolated.”
“That’s where he’d take her,” Victor pounded on the back on the couch. Trouble meowed as if agreeing.
Abby scribbled something down on a piece of paper, forgetting for the briefest moment that Miguel was a dangerous man who had already killed. “I’ve got the address. We can sneak in and find Layla and get her out of there while he’s still teaching.” Abby spoke without hesitancy, but her heart raced. “And if he’s there, we negotiate with the flash drive.”
“Let’s go.” Victor paced, jangling his pickup keys.
“Wait a minute, let me Google-map the address.”
Maybe I have more faith in Lucas than they do. Maybe I’m not currently love-addled. But it seems to me that the email to Lucas needs to be sent. Now. While Miguel is teaching and Abby and Victor are spinning around the living room getting ready to rescue Layla.
I prance over to the opened laptop and I hit send.