"Nah," Nate said. "I was angry because the whole time I was with Reagan, I knew she still had a thing for Brady. I never could make her forget him."

Marisa couldn't imagine any woman choosing another man over Nate.

What was wrong with her? What kind of mother thinks of men when her daughter is missing? Missing, maybe dead. The kidnappers hadn't called back. She hadn't heard her daughter's voice in nearly twenty-four hours. Had Ana eaten? Had she slept? Were they being kind to her? Had they hurt her?

"Hey." Nate reached over the seat to grab her hand. "You okay? Where'd you go there?"

She just shook her head.

He pulled off his seatbelt and climbed into the back.

"What are you doing?" she said.

Brady angled away but didn't say a word as Nate settled in the seat beside her. "She's okay," he said.

"You don't know that."

"Until we know she's not, we're going to assume she is."

Tears filled her eyes. She'd cried more in the last day than she had since Vinnie died. "I don't know how to do that."

"They get nothing from you if she's not okay."

"You mean if they kill her, but they could hurt her. They could..." All the thoughts of what they could be doing to her daughter, to her sister, hit her.

Nate wrapped his arms around her and held her. "They have no reason to hurt her."

"They have no reason not to."

Brady cleared his throat. "From the little Nate told me on the phone, it sounds like these guys are after money. In my experience... Did he tell you I'm a cop?"

Nate had said that, though she'd forgotten. She nodded.

"Anyway," Brady continued, "in my experience, most people, even bad guys, don't hurt kids. Most people value children and care for them, even hardened criminals. So unless these guys are kidnappers and...something worse, your Ana is probably okay."

But maybe they were the something worse.

Brady stopped in traffic and turned back to her. "You know, they say fewer than five percent of men are..." He faltered, looked at Nate, and turned back at her. "Like little kids in an inappropriate way."

Perverts. Pedophiles. That's what he was trying to say.

"Less than five percent," Brady repeated. "Not bad odds."

Those weren't bad odds. Brady was right. But she wasn't in the habit of gambling with her daughter's life. Odds seemed irrelevant.

"And Leslie's with her." Nate squeezed her shoulder. "Leslie's taking care of her."

"What about Leslie, though?"

"Your sister's tough," Nate said. "She can handle it. And don't you remember the way she took to Ana, held her hand, took her shopping? Leslie won't let your daughter get hurt."

The traffic moved, so Brady turned to the front again. "We're going to find her, Marisa. We won't stop until we do."