“How are you with riddles?”
Jean Rizzo’s voice shattered her peace of mind in an instant, like a bullet through a windowpane.
“Terrible. I hate riddles.”
“You might want to improve your skills. Real quickly.”
“Yeah? Well, you might want to get lost. I’ve told you, Jean. Leave me alone.”
Tracy hung up.
Twenty seconds later the phone rang again. Tracy would have left it, but Nick was downstairs in the kitchen and might pick up if she didn’t.
“What?” she barked into the receiver.
“I need your help.”
“No. No more. You had my help and it didn’t help, remember? Please, Jean.”
“Daniel Cooper’s got Jeff Stevens.”
The silence on the other end of the line was deafening.
“Tracy? Are you still there?”
“What do you mean he’s ‘got’ Jeff?”
“Kidnapped. Abducted. Maybe worse, I don’t know. Cooper left a letter. It’s addressed to you.”
“It can’t be!” Tracy suppressed a sob. “Why?”
“I don’t know why. But I opened it and it’s a riddle, and I’m pretty sure that if you can’t help me solve it, Jeff Stevens is a dead man.”
More silence.
“I’m sorry, Tracy.”
After what felt like an age, Tracy’s voice crackled back onto the line.
“Read it to me.”
Jean exhaled. “Okay. This is it. ‘My dearest Tracy . . .’ ”
“He wrote ‘my dearest’?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Go on.”
“ ‘My dearest Tracy. I have taken Mr. Stevens hostage. I hope, for Mr. Stevens’s sake and for your own, that you will act on the instructions contained in this note. What I write below will make sense to you and you alone. Do what I ask and neither you nor Stevens will be hurt. And come alone. Yours ever, D.C.’
“Has he sent you messages like this before?” Jean asked.
“No. No messages. Never. I’d have told you if he had. What else did he write?”
“Nothing. Just the riddle. You ready?”
Tracy closed her eyes. “Go ahead.”