A Father's Desperate Rescue (Man on a Mission 5)

Mei-li waited until they were alone before she pulled a file folder from her purse and handed it to Dirk. “What’s this?” he asked.

“The kidnappers.”

He froze for a second. Then he flipped the folder open, and a stranger’s face confronted him. He stared at it for several seconds, mesmerized by the eyes. Hard eyes. Cold eyes. The eyes of a killer.

At the bottom of the sketch were several words in Chinese. His eyes met Mei-li’s, silently asking for elucidation, and she explained softly, “That’s the one giving the orders, according to Mr. Lin.”

Dirk glanced at the sketch once more, and suddenly he remembered Vanessa saying, I didn’t recognize them. But I’d know them if I saw them again, especially the second man, the one who wasn’t Chinese. The one with a gun. His eyes. They were so cold.

Doubt regarding Vanessa’s guilt crept into his mind. If she’s working with the kidnappers, why would she describe him like that? he wondered. Why would she—

“There’s more,” Mei-li said abruptly, cutting off his thoughts. “Look at the next sketch.”

Dirk fanned to the next page and was hit with the same thing Mei-li had obviously already noticed. He cursed under his breath, and the face he raised to Mei-li’s was troubled. Guilty. “It’s the same guy,” he rasped. In this sketch drawn from Vanessa’s description, the kidnapper was masked, but his eyes...his eyes were the same as in the first sketch, the one prepared with Mr. Lin’s assistance. A killer’s eyes. And Dirk knew that whatever else Vanessa had lied about, she hadn’t been lying about this.

He quickly flipped to the other two sketches in the folder—Mr. Lin’s and Vanessa’s descriptions of the other kidnapper as depicted by the sketch artist. Vanessa’s was too vague to be of any use. But Mr. Lin had noticed details. And the sketch artist appeared to have done a good job getting those details down on paper.

“The cabdriver is at my friend’s apartment right now,” Mei-li told him. “I gave him the address and five hundred Hong Kong dollars to go there after he dropped you and Rafe off. I promised him another five hundred if he showed up, and five hundred over and above that if he worked with my friend to come up with sketches of the two men he drove to the airport yesterday.” She paused for a moment. “If the sketches based on his descriptions match the sketches based on Mr. Lin’s descriptions...”

“We’ve got them.”

“Yes. But we can’t use the sketches. We can’t go public.”

Dirk nodded slowly, understanding what she was saying. They couldn’t release the sketches to the media...unless his daughters were dead. If that happened he’d move heaven and earth to find these two men, including plastering these sketches across television sets and the internet—they could run, but they couldn’t hide. But if his daughters weren’t dead—and he desperately wanted to believe they were alive—releasing the sketches would cause the kidnappers to panic. Which would be the worst thing he could do.

There was one thing he could do, however, and that was apologize to Vanessa and Chet for suspecting they were involved. But when he voiced that thought to Mei-li, she shook her head in denial.

“Not yet.”

“Why not?”

“How did the kidnappers get your cell phone number?”

Chapter 11

That stopped Dirk cold. It hadn’t occurred to him before, but it should have. His cell phone number was unlisted, and only a very few people had it. His close friends. The producer and director of whatever movie he was working on—who were one and the same person in this case, Mei-li’s father, Sir Joshua Moore. And his employees. Hannah. Vanessa. Chet, Mike and Rafe.

“Someone gave them your phone number,” Mei-li said softly. “I didn’t mention it before because all signs were pointing to Vanessa’s involvement, so of course she could have done it. It could still be her—the sketches seem to clear her, but we can’t be sure. And if we can’t clear Vanessa, we can’t clear Chet, either.” She paused, but she wasn’t finished. “On the other hand, if they are innocent...that narrows the field.”

“Mike or Rafe.”

In the silence that followed, her words dropped like a bombshell. “Or Hannah.”

“Or—no! I won’t believe it.” His tone was harsh. “Not Hannah. No.”