Thibodeau brushed his gaze over Ricci’s face.
“Take a look in the mirror some day,” he said. “You going to see one cruel son of a bitch.”
Ricci stood there a second or two without a word. Then the elevator dinged its arrival.
“Sure enough,” he said, and turned to enter the car, leaving Thibodeau to follow him through its open doors.
There were two Sonoma police cruisers parked across the foot of the drive as Ricci’s VW Jetta approached in the falling rain. Pulled abreast of each other, the black-and-whites faced in opposite directions and had sawhorses erected on either side of them.
About thirty feet west of the blockade, Thibodeau nodded toward the right shoulder of the road.
“We might want to stop here, stroll on over to them,” he said, ending a silence that had lasted for their entire ride to the rescue center. “Be less apt to get their backs up.”
Ricci said nothing in response, but whipped the car onto the puddled shoulder.
They got out and continued toward the drive on foot, raindrops rattling hard against their umbrellas.
The cops exited their cruisers in dark waterproof ponchos, walking around from either side as officers will do when strangers come toward them, cautiously, neither trying to hide nor be too conspicuous about the readiness of their draw hands, but keeping them just near enough to their holsters to exert a subtle, nonprovocational psychic weight.
Ricci took note of their guarded stances with an evaluative eye. He had met unknown persons the same way on hundreds of occasions in his decade with the Boston force.
The first cop came forward carefully.
“Gentlemen.” A little nod. Calm, polite tone. “What can we do for you?”
Ricci told him their names, flashing his Sword insignia card in its display case.
“We’re UpLink private security,” he said. “You might’ve heard of us.”
The uniform checked the identification. He nodded.
“Sure,” he said. “Good things. I once checked out job opportunities on your Web site. There are some tough prereqs just to snag an interview.”
Ricci did not comment.
“Our boss’s daughter,” he said. “She’s your missing person.”
The cop gave another nod. He had dropped his show-room face.
“Julia Gordian,” he said. “This is a damn bad one.”
“We need to take a look around the C.S.”
The cop paused a moment. He wore his cap under the hood of the poncho and its bill shed droplets of water as he shook his head.
“Not possible,” he said. “The area’s been secured.”
Ricci stared at him.
“We drove all the way from SanJo,” he said. “Make an exception.”
Thibodeau tried to moderate Ricci’s harshness.
“We understand you got physical evidence needs to be protected and want to feel comfortable,” Thibodeau said. “And we won’t give it no nevermind if somebody from your department sticks with us, make sure we don’t disturb nothing.”
The cop gave him a curious glance. “Louisiana?” he said.
“And proud of it,” Thibodeau said. “Didn’t think anybody could hear no accent.”
A grin.
“Went down for Mardi Gras once. Beats the hell out of me how you people can take eating that spicy food.”
“Secret’s to line the gut with moonshine.”
The cop’s grin enlarged a bit.
“Look, I really wish I could do something to help, but we have rules about restricting access to unauthorized parties.”
Thibodeau made his pitch. “No special considerations for fellas you hear such great things about?”
“None I have any pull to give. You’d need to arrange for special clearance.”
Ricci briefly let his glance range over the cop’s shoulder. A crime scene van and other police vehicles stood farther uphill. Small clusters of technical services and investigative personnel were everywhere. He noticed a plainclothesman in a raincoat moving between them on the drive. He was hatless, carried no umbrella, and had both hands in the pockets of his coat.
He turned his attention back to the uniform.
“Who’s the scene coordinator?”
“That would be Detective Erickson—”
Ricci cut him short. “Then stop wasting our time and call him over.”
The cop managed not to look flustered. But his partners were drifting slowly over from outside their patrol cars.
“Unless there’s some urgent reason, my orders are to see the investigation isn’t interrupted,” he said after about ten seconds. Rain bounced off the front of his cap. “I think the best way for you to proceed is leave your contact information so I can pass it up the line.”
Ricci stared at him with cold intensity, ignoring the other three uniforms.
“The detective in charge,” he said. “Call him over.”
His expression no longer friendly, the cop looked about to react to the outright challenge.
Then a new voice: “You two Ricci and Thibodeau?”
Ricci turned and saw the man in the raincoat hurrying around from behind the crosswise-parked cars. His blond hair was wet.
“Erickson,” Ricci said.
The detective moved his head up and down, then flicked a glance at the uniforms. They backed off and returned to their black-and-whites.
“Megan Breen just called on my cell,” he said. “She told me you were coming, explained you’d like to view the scene.”
Ricci nodded.
“She’s been very cooperative,” Erickson said. “There are certain restrictions on where you can and can’t go. You guys agree to abide by them, I’ll try to return the favor.”
Thibodeau didn’t hesitate for an instant.
“Be appreciated,” he said.
Erickson nodded.
“Follow me,” he said, and then turned to walk back up the drive.
They followed.
An eight-month stint in Antarctica had raised Megan Breen’s command of her patience to a sublime level, and she had done everything she could to keep herself occupied while awaiting word from Africa and Ashley’s callback. Whatever else was happening, she had a company to manage, as she’d had an ice station to run amid a wide spectrum of crises brought on by both man and nature throughout the polar winter. Her waking nightmare had begun today with two small-city detectives arriving out of the blue to deliver the most unexpected and shocking of messages. The tense, rapidly called huddle with Ricci and Thibodeau had followed without segue in Megan’s numbed mind. But the constant reminders that it was still a day at the office were among the nightmare’s most surreal components. There were matters she needed to track in every area of operation. Routine decisions to make, clusters of problems to address, requests to grant, deny, or put on hold. Many of them were duties she would have normally considered headaches but counted as blessings right now in her attempts to stay busy. She did not expect to give better than partial attention to anything in front of her, nor stop her fears about Julia from obtruding on her thoughts. Still, Megan could only believe that being partially diverted, maintaining even the flimsiest semblance of normalcy, was preferable to giving in to the sense of helpless, useless, agonizing despair that would be the sure and terrible alternative.
When the e-mail arrived, she was at her office computer making an immense effort to focus on a contractor’s bid for the expansion of an UpLink optics and photonics R&D facility outside Seattle. On any other morning, she almost certainly would not have noticed the new inbox item for quite a while. Though she had never bothered to disable the sound notification option on her messaging program — default settings tended to remain in place on her machine out of casual apathy — Megan considered its bell tone an annoying nuisance given the large volume of electronic correspondence she received, and for the most part left her desktop’s speakers switched off. Typically, she would check for messages at semiregular intervals throughout the course of her workday — while having her morning coffee, before and after her lunch break, then again perhaps an hour or so before heading home.