“You’ve got a twenty-four-hour exclusive; then the FBI is going to move in and do it their way.”
Cindy said, “I’ll get this up on the site, front page, as soon as I clear it with Tyler. These photos will be on the Web today and in the paper tomorrow.”
“OK.”
“I’m going to say ‘Contact Cindy Thomas.’”
“You’ve got twenty-four hours.”
“Gotcha.”
My phone buzzed. Brady, of course.
“Boxer, got some people here from the FBI.”
“I’m downstairs. I’ll be up in a second.”
I hung up and turned back to Cindy.
“I don’t know how long your twenty-four-hour window is going to stay open. There’s a cab,” I said, pointing to one at the light. “See if you can grab it.”
She thanked me and told me I wouldn’t be sorry. We hugged, and I went upstairs.
Conklin, Brady, and I all got into the elevator and rode it up to Jacobi’s office. There we met three serious men in gray suits, and over the next two hours, we told them everything we knew. Everything but the one thing I wasn’t ready to give up, and I knew Richie had my back.
I didn’t say a word about Joe.
CHAPTER 18
WHEN CINDY CALLED me at 10:30 p.m., I was bordering on despair. I still hadn’t heard from Joe, the baby was crying, and although I had done everything I knew to calm her, nothing worked. She was frantic and I didn’t know why. I had thrown on a robe and was going across the hall to get Mrs. Rose when the phone rang.
Cindy didn’t wait for me to say hello.
“I got a hit,” she said.
“I have to call you back.”
“Really?”
Julie let out a freshly minted over-the-top howl. Why?
“Really,” I said, and then, “I’ll call you back.”
I felt the baby’s forehead and checked her diaper, and both were fine. I carried her to the kitchen, patting her back while I warmed up a bottle. Was she sick? Or was she simply channeling my anxiety?
I took her back to her room, sat down in the rocker, fed her, and tried to soothe myself. Julie took the bottle, and of course she couldn’t cry and suck at the same time. Mercifully.
When she fell asleep in my arms, I put her into her bed as gently as possible. She barely stirred, but I stood over her watching until her breathing deepened and I was sure she was in a nice solid sleep.
I nuked a cup of milk for myself, stirred in some Green & Black’s powdered chocolate, and set it on the end table next to the big sofa, giving myself permission to just sit quietly and calm the hell down.
I had dozed off when the phone rang.
Joe.
I found the phone where I’d dropped it on the floor near the sofa and caught it on the fifth ring.
“Christ, Lindsay,” Cindy said. “What the hell is wrong with you? I said I have a hit on one of your suspects.”
“The baby,” I said. “She was having a tantrum.”
“Everything OK?”
“I think so.”
“OK,” Cindy said, moving on. “The blond-haired woman from the hotel. Someone wrote in saying he knows her. Are you free now? Or should I just tell Richie?”
“Put me on speaker and tell us both,” I said into the phone.
Richie grunted, “I’m here.”
“Good. Cindy, who is the blonde? Who the hell is she?”
CHAPTER 19
CINDY’S ANONYMOUS TIP could blow open the whole case. If it was good. If it was true.
I took my laptop to the big sofa in the living room, and, leaving Julie’s door open, I got to work. I typed the name Alison Muller into one law enforcement database after another, and when she didn’t come up, I Googled her.
At 11 p.m., I called Brady.
He cleared the sleep from his throat, and after he said his name, I said, “Cindy got an anonymous tip on the mystery blonde from the hotel. We should keep it to ourselves until Conklin and I can chase it down.”
Every cop knows that the FBI doesn’t like to share. Once they’re involved, they take over the case and cut you out of it. You’re lucky to read about it in the papers.
I said so and Brady grunted without committing himself. Then he asked, “What did you find out?”
“According to Cindy’s source, her name is Alison Muller. She’s thirty-five, an executive at Aptec, a software company in Silicon Valley. The tipster told Cindy that he knows her, that his family and the Mullers live on the same street in Monterey.”
“You’ve got an address?”
“I do.”
I heard Yuki in the background saying, “Brady, who’s calling this late?”
Brady said to her, “It’s Lindsay. We’ll be off soon.”
I said, “I found info on Muller on Aptec’s website. She’s married to Khalid Khan, the composer. They have two children, five and thirteen years old. She’s a graduate of Stanford with a PhD in mathematics from MIT and she’s fluent in Spanish and Chinese. Speculating, but she and Chan may have met at Stanford.”
There was a pause as Brady thought things over.
He said, “OK. I’ll call Monterey PD and have them sit on Muller’s house until morning. You and Conklin bring her in first thing.”
I called my partner and filled him in. Then I tried Joe’s phone again.
As before, his mailbox was full. Good-bye.
I dragged my churning mind to bed with me and closed my eyes, but sleep stayed on the other side of the room. It was just as well. An hour after I’d spoken with Brady, he called me back.
“Here’s the thing, Boxer.”
“I’m listening.”
“This Alison Muller. She’s been reported missing. Monterey PD has a BOLO out for her. Her husband hasn’t seen her in a couple of days.”
“No. Really?”
“Khalid Khan spoke with her late Monday afternoon. She missed her daughter’s birthday party. Said she was working and would be home soon. She never showed.”
“Late Monday afternoon. That’s when the shootings went down,” I said.
Brady said, “Right.” He and I talked it over. Where was Alison Muller? Had she been abducted at gunpoint? Was she dead? What, if anything, did she have to do with the death of Michael Chan, and the other victims of that purge?
I asked him, “Anything else? Did Muller’s husband get a ransom call?”
“No. And Khan has been unable to reach his wife on the phone. Total blackout. Monterey PD pinged her phone. Last time it was used was Monday, six fifty-seven, from the Market Street area.”
The Four Seasons Hotel was on Market.
I no longer expected to find Muller and question her. She had disappeared, and I had no idea where to look for her, no idea at all. Another thought sprang at me with bared fangs. Joe Molinari, my husband, was also missing.
What was he doing? Was he involved in all of this? I felt cold, like I was out there on that deadly, frozen highway in Minnesota again. Only this time, I was naked, alone, and without a car.
Julie whimpered. I shot a look in the direction of her room as I said to Brady, “I take back what I said before.”
“Which is what?”
“We need the FBI. We need their resources.”
Brady said, “See you in the morning.”
We hung up, and the full weight of what I had done crashed in on me. I had withheld important, possibly critical information from Brady, and in doing so, I’d involved my partner.
I had to tell Brady about Joe.
He could fire me. And he’d be right to do it.