Bare Witness by Katherine Garbera Page B

before you check it out, Nigel just mentioned that Piper’s stuffed animal has a GPS tracker in it.”
    “Nice. Let me get the computer, and let’s see if we can find her.”
    “Was Jesse shot from the backseat?” Nigel asked.
    “I can’t tell yet. There is a lot of blood and I’m just starting to look at the splatter. I’ll figure it out,” Anna said.
    Anna was good with crime scenes and could figure out whatever had happened. She’d let them know if Constance was who they should focus on. But right now, getting to Piper was the most important thing. They needed to move, if they could just find a signal to where she was.
    Nigel gave Anna the information on how to log in to the GPS tracking system he had set up for Piper. And they all held their breath as she entered the information on her computer.
    A map of the world came up, and they could see the maps processing as the satellite narrowed in on the GPS signal. They saw it start blinking and realized at once that it was moving.
    “It’s moving,” Justine said, stating the obvious.
    “Yes, heading toward…Cusco, I think. They just put in that new highway…let me see if we have a current map.”
    “Can we take your computer?”
    “Of course, but you know this just means the stuffed animal is moving,” Anna said.
    “Piper wouldn’t let that animal out of her hands,” Nigel said.
    Justine remembered how the little girl refused to be parted from either her nanny or her stuffed bunny. “Why not?”
    “I told her that the bunny was…” he leaned in and spoke even softer. “I told her he was sent by an angel from her mother, and that the bunny would always watch over her.”
    Justine felt her throat tighten. Nigel was a good daddy. The kind of father that every child deserved, and as much as she regretted how deeply she was starting to care for him, she made a vow to ensure that they found Piper.
     
    Nigel didn’t feel embarrassed by what he’d admitted. Piper had needed something after her mother had died, and he’d done everything he could to make sure his daughter was taken care of. That she felt safe and loved and that he had every resource available to take care of her. Anna moved away to leave them alone.
    “When her mom died, I had to do something.”
    “I understand. We have a choice, Nigel.”
    “We do?”
    “Yes. We can stay here with Anna, process the scene, and then wait for Charity before tracking this signal, or we can go now. You should know there is a chance we could be following a dead trail.”
    “What’s that mean?”
    “That the GPS signal could be compromised and we’d be following the wrong trail.”
    “I’m the only one who knows about the bunny,” he said.
    “How confident are you of that?”
    “99.9 percent sure. I ordered the GPS unit and put the tracking unit into the bunny myself. It’s not stock-ordered.”
    “Then what do you want to do?”
    “Go after Piper. I’m going to keep trying to reach Constance…can Anna find her signal from a cell phone number?”
    “Depends on the wireless device. Anna?” Justine raised her voice. The other woman signaled to give her a moment.
    “Before we leave…” he said.
    “Yes?”
    “We are going to be alone in the car for a long time…I want to know what happened back there at the airport. Why’d you knee me like that?”
    Justine looked unsure for a moment. Then she turned away from him. She actually turned her back on him, and he knew she had to have forgotten that she was working, guarding him, because it was the first time she’d done it.
    “You can trust me,” he said, reaching for her. He caught her small shoulder under his hand and drew her back against him. She turned and it seemed almost nonchalant the way she stepped away from him.
    “I don’t really trust anyone,” she said.
    He didn’t trust many people, but in business, he had to. He had to when he glanced at a signature on a contract, and knew that legally someone was bound to honor their