In Broad Daylight Read Online Free PDF Page A

an annoyed breath as she slammed the drawer shut harder than she'd
    intended. "Look, I can take a lie-detector test."

    Guilty people didn't usually volunteer to do that—unless they were very, very good, Dax
    thought. Lie detectors were not infallible and had been known to be fooled. Still, he
    decided to pass—for now. "That won't be necessary."

    She surprised him by not grasping at the truce he offered her. "I think it is just to get
    that look out of your eyes. I want you to understand that I love Annie Tyler, maybe
    because no one else seems to, but I think that she is a wonderful little girl who has been
    given a raw deal from the day she was born."

    He decided to play devil's advocate just to see her reaction. "Having parents who can buy
    you anything you want doesn't seem like such a raw deal to me."

    "Anything but their time," she pointed out evenly.

    He looked at her with renewed interest. Not all kidnappings were about ransoms.
    Sometimes children were taken because the kidnapper thought they were rescuing the
    child from an unhappy life. "Maybe you could give her a better life."

    "I know I could—" Brenda stopped abruptly. "I didn't take Annie. I wouldn't traumatize her like that. Besides, I was right out there in plain sight all the time," she pointed out.

    That didn't constitute an ironclad alibi. "Accomplices aren't unheard of."

    She'd had just about enough of this. "Detective Cavanaugh, I want a lie-detector test,"
    she repeated. "I insist."

    "We'll see what we can do to accommodate you later," Dax told her before turning toward Harwood. "Right now, I'd like to talk to some of the other teachers, see if they saw
    anything. And while you're at it, I'd like the address and phone number of those
    prospective parents Mrs. York was showing around."

    "Of course," Harwood agreed quickly. "It's in my office. I'll go back and get it. Mrs. York can help you with the other teachers."

    Right now, Dax thought, Mrs. York looked as if she'd rather hand his head to him on a
    platter.

Chapter 3
    «^»

    " Y ou really suspect her?"

    Nathan was leaning back against the desk at the front of the room, his attention diverted
    toward Brenda York. He glanced at his partner. To his left a stocky, pleasant-faced
    teacher was leading a gaggle of second-graders out of the art room, which had been set
    aside to conduct questioning.

    Dax was looking at Annie Tyler's teacher from across the room. She was saying something
    to one of the kids who looked concerned. The boy smiled at her and nodded. She had a way
    about her, he thought. Made people trust her. Put them at their ease.

    And at her mercy?

    He glanced at his partner. "We're supposed to suspect everyone, Nathan, you know that."

    Nathan gave a little shrug. His small pad inside his jacket pocket rustled against his shirt.
    The pages, thick with notes, were no longer smooth. "Yeah, but she seems so upset about
    it."

    Dax smiled. "You always did have a weakness for blondes." He turned toward his partner.
    "The woman had access. By her own admission, she knows the little girl inside and out, that
    means she'd know exactly how to handle her."

    Shaking his head, Nathan frowned. "What's her motive?"

    She moved like poetry, Dax thought. Flowing into every step. Confident, yet incredibly
    feminine.

    Abruptly, he wiped the thought from his mind, telling himself he had to get out more. Dax
    shoved his hands into his pockets. "Money's always a good motive. Most people can't have
    enough of it."

    "So youdosuspect her."

    Dax shrugged. He was thinking out loud, but he and Nathan had that kind of relationship.
    Half-formed thoughts could be voiced in safety.

    "My gut tells me no, my training tells me to hold off any final judgments."

    As he watched the woman stop to comfort one of the last children in the line, Nathan
    sighed. "If I were single, my gut would be telling me a whole lot of other things besides
    hold off."

    Dax laughed but made no comment. Precisely because