She sipped from the glass of water beside her to relieve her parched throat.
“I don’t know, Rollie,” she said. “My mind is everywhere at once. I know I’ll pull it together, but for now I just can’t center.”
Thibodeau nodded grimly.
“Soup to soup,” he said. “Be a Creole saying I heard a lot growing up. Ain’t no food for the pot tonight, we find something to put in it tomorrow.”
She gave him a thin smile. “I’ll try to remember that one.”
“Oui.”
Megan was quiet a moment. With the detectives in her office, she had called Nimec to break the news about Julia, then phoned Ashley Gordian’s sister’s house in Los Angeles, gotten the answering machine and left an urgent message for Ashley to get in touch. After that she had summoned Ricci and Thibodeau down here into one of UpLink SanJo’s underground safe rooms — a spare rectangular enclosure that was little more than the conference table and four windowless, two-foot-thick concrete walls webbed with an array of interstitial countersurveillance systems.
It hadn’t taken her long to share what she knew, and none of it was encouraging. Julia Gordian was gone from the animal shelter where she did volunteer work a number of days a week. The woman whose husband operated the shelter had been shot dead along with her infant daughter, their home a crime scene Erickson had described as beyond horrible.
“This Rob Howell,” Ricci said now. His eyes went to Megan as he spoke. “Those cops figure he’s clean?”
“He’s under no suspicion of having been involved,” she said. “His co-workers saw him arrive at the hotel Sunday morning, then rush back home — he’d forgotten a bookkeeping file of some sort. His cell phone LUDs show the calls that were placed from his car to his house and the greyhound rescue center. He uses FastTrack for his bridge tolls, and account deductions were recorded both ways at the plaza lanes off Highway One into San Gregario. He also bought gas with a credit card on his return trip. In both cases the systems show when those expenses were paid and back up his story.”
“Don’t tell us nothing about what he did before he left his place,” Thibodeau said. “Or after he got back.”
Ricci looked at him, then shook his head.
“You consider travel distances, average road speeds, and the time Howell’s call to the police was logged, it narrows things far as opportunity,” he said. “My guess is the operation was planned for when he wouldn’t be around. Pro all the way. The phone lines disconnected at their feeder pole, more than a single type of weapon used. There were fresh tire tracks showing several vehicles at the center and at the utility station near the pole.” His eyes returned to Megan. “Is Howell available? In case we need some information from him.”
“I don’t know.” She took another drink of water. Her tongue and throat continued to feel as if they were lined with sandpaper. “I suppose I should have thought to ask—”
“You done your’n fine,” said Thibodeau. “Those detectives gave you enough to think about. Ain’t likely they would’ve been generous with that information anyway.”
Ricci kept looking neutrally at Megan.
“You told me the cops found blood at the animal shelter.”
“Yes, I did.”
“That it might be Julia’s.”
“Yes.”
“What makes them think she’s not a third murder victim?”
Megan stabbed a look at him, her shoulders rising a little.
“Let’s not try to be too delicate.”
“I was asking a question.”
“About the boss’s daughter. And my good friend.”
“I have to know what there is to know,” Ricci said. “You don’t like my way of phrasing things, I’m sorry.”
But he did not sound apologetic. Megan’s posture remained very straight, her eyes green fire in a face pale with strain.
“There was blood at the shelter,” she said. “And, yes… it’s believed to be Julia’s. But Erickson suggested that whatever took place in there seems of a different nature from the violence that occurred at the house.”
“Any concrete reasons?”
“He wasn’t about to submit an itemized evidence list to me, and I didn’t press my luck. We could profit from a good relationship with him if he doesn’t shy away.”
Ricci studied her a moment.
“You find out what line those cops are working, or decide that was out of bounds, too?” he said.
In her anger, Megan could have balled her hands into fists until the knuckles were white, dug her fingernails into her palms. She held her composure and folded them on the table instead.
“Nobody broke into Julia’s SUV. There was nothing stolen from the shelter, or the house where the mother and baby were killed. Nothing to indicate robbery was a motive,” she told him. “I heard a lot of words from Erickson about processing the crime scene, looking at the evidence, reconstructing what happened without assumptions. But you were a police detective. Do you actually believe they would come right out and tell me they think Julia Gordian was abducted? Right now Julia’s status is a question. She’s a phantom. A ‘whereabouts unknown.’ I don’t even know that we’ve reached the time period when she can be officially declared a missing person.”
“Doesn’t effect what we do, except maybe giving us the chance to get a jump on the feebs,” Ricci said. “Once this gets ticketed a kidnapping they’ll be all over it.”
“I can’t see how that’s bad,” Megan said. “It’s not us against them. They have resources. Expertise in the field—”
“And we know how their main office loves sharing intelligence,” Ricci said.
He was quiet and still. The silence was like a knot bunched in tightly around his thoughts.
“Won’t get us anywhere to sit here talking,” he said at length. “I’m heading out to the scene while it’s warm. Before it gets too worked over.”
Megan wanted to catch Thibodeau’s eye but knew Ricci would not miss the slightest glance. She chose to wait, and Rollie didn’t disappoint her.
“No sense you going alone,” he told Ricci. “Better you and me get a look at things together.”
“I can handle it myself.”
“That ain’t the matter. We got to figure the local police won’t be thrilled by our visit. Be tougher for ’em to shake off two of us than one.”
Megan was quick to move in.
“Rollie’s right,” she said. “He should go, too. I’ll make some calls and pull whatever strings I can from here.”
Ricci regarded her closely. “That a suggestion or an order?”
“It’s how I want it,” she said.
Ricci kept his eyes on her a moment longer and then shifted them to Thibodeau.
“She can give you directions to the shelter,” he said, and stood. “I’ll wait down the hall.”
Thibodeau caught up to him as he was holding his palm to the biometric scanner to bring an elevator for the garage level. He looked to be sure Megan was still back in the safe room before putting a hand on Ricci’s arm.
“Keep talkin’ to me like I’m some junior rover, it’ll get settled between us in good course,” he said in a low voice. “But what you said about the boss’s girl being killed… you don’t want to give touch to that around Megan. Don’t want to go near it.”
“You think it’s something we should rule out?”
“I think we all got experience enough to know the could-be’s, and Meg sees things clearer than anybody you ever gonna meet. But ain’t no cause for you adding to her pain.”
Ricci shrugged.
“Fine,” he said. “Next time we meet on the subject I’ll be sure to raise the possibility the boss’s daughter took off on a cruise to nowhere.”