He shoved the man into a chair next to a large mahogany cabinet.
"Shut up." Jack leaned forward, withdrew his weapon, and dangled it carelessly in front of him, piercing his captive with a hard look. "Where is she?" he asked on a hunch.
"Where is who?"
"The redhead."
"Burrows frowned and began shaking his head. "I don't know what you – "
"Shh." Jack softened his voice. "Here's how this is going to go, Teddy-boy. You're going to tell me where the other girl is." He smiled grimly. "And then I won't bust both your knee caps."
"Hold on, Jack," Slater said. "There's something over there." He walked closer and peered around the back of the cabinet. "It's a red… what the hell?" He examined the unit and retrieved the camera hidden behind the console. "It's still operating." He pointed toward the bed where the unconscious girl lay. "Take a look at where the lens is aimed."
Slater pulled the camera out of the cabinet. "Well, what have we here? Looks like Mr. Burrows is into the whole art photography scene."
"You've been videoing her?" Jack clamped down on the instinct to rip the man's throat out with teeth and claws.
Burrows darted his tongue out to moisten his dry lips. "I haven't done anything illegal."
"Maybe, maybe not." Jack heard the sirens wailing in the distance. Then the subsequent slamming of feet through the downstairs.
"Upstairs," Slater yelled to the paramedics.
Jack turned back to Burrows. "You'd better hope nothing shows up in the girl's bloodstream, Teddy. GHB, Rohypnol, whatever you used to subdue her hasn't passed through her system yet, and toxicology will find it."
"I want a lawyer," Ted demanded, narrowing his eyes.
"Good move," Jack snarled, dragging him from the chair and shoving him towards the bedroom door. "You sure as hell are gonna need one."
Within a short time, the ambulance had stabilized the drugged woman and transported her to Sutter General Hospital in downtown Sacramento. Slater dispatched a squad car to transport Burrows to the county jail.
"I thought he had Olivia," Jack confessed as they watched the ambulance pull away. He slid a glance sideways at Slater who stood on the front steps of Burrows' house.
"She's probably safe at home in bed."
Jack stared at the cloudy sky. "Yeah, she wasn't ever here. I've been running down the wrong lead. Burrows isn't the UNSUB, but it doesn't mean he's innocent."
"Hell, no," Slater rejoined. "I figure we've got any number of charges to bring him up on." He slanted a knowing look at Jack. "And you're not going to tell me about some redhead, are you?"
"Nothing to tell," Jack said.
The raid had been an absolute fiasco as far as the DLK case was concerned. But if not Burrows, then who the hell was the Dead Language Killer? Were Jack's visions failing him?
He thought back to the interview Isabella Torres and Olivia had with Diego Vargas. Torres was convinced Vargas was capable of that kind of violence, but that didn't make him Jack's suspect. No physical or circumstantial evidence tied the Councilman to the DLK, and Jack couldn't rely on an ADA's instincts.
The two-way radio jangled as Slater pushed Burrows into the waiting patrol car. He jabbed the mike key.
"Chief?" Waylon Harris' voice over the radio sounded rattled. "Dr. Gant's not here, sir. The house is empty."
He knew before Slater spoke that something had happened to Olivia.
God, he should've paid attention to the fleeting warning he'd had about her, Jack thought. Panic rippled through him. Where was she?
"We're on our way," Slater said, turning to Jack. "Check the university. She might've left without Waylon seeing her."
But Jack was sure the sharp-eyed Harris wouldn't have made that kind of mistake.
Chapter Twenty-two
Slater and Jack jumped in the truck and drove the scant seven miles to Olivia's house while Jack tried calling her cell and the university office phone. No one had seen her since she left school last night. She'd missed her morning classes. Minutes later they stood on the neatly clipped lawn at the front of her house and stared at the brick façade of the outside walls. The ivy curled charmingly over the red and gray stones toward the second floor.
During the perimeter walk Harris showed them the unlocked back door, but when they searched the house from top to bottom, they found nothing to indicate foul play. Although the bed was unkempt, nothing seemed out of place.
Only the unsecured back door.
"She would've locked up," Jack said. He turned to Harris. "You're sure the door was like this?"
"Yes sir, I knocked at the front and when I got no answer, I went around to the back, tried the knob first… uh, you know… I didn't want to damage Dr. Gant's… "
"Thanks, Harris, we'll take it from here," Jack said, effectively dismissing the deputy.
Inside the house, Slater stood in the kitchen looking around thoughtfully. "We'll do another sweep. See if we missed anything the first time through."
"Yeah." Jack leaned against the kitchen counter, his gun dangling by his side. What next? He holstered his weapon and noted the slight tremble of his hand. He glanced quickly at Slater. He'd noticed too.
"Don't worry. We'll find her."
"Yeah," Jack repeated. They'd find her, but would they find her in time? Someone had taken Livvie, but if not Ted Burrows, then who? Diego Vargas? A suspect he hadn't even thought of?
In the second sweep through the library, Jack found the evidence. The stain from the spilled wine spread across the carpet behind the desk. The long-stemmed crystal glass lay on its side, the splotch of wine a blood-red cry of warning.
Something or someone had interrupted Olivia. A phone call? She would've cleaned up the spill. A knock at the door? It had to have been the back door. Whatever it was, she'd knocked over the glass. Or dropped it. Didn't matter which, but he thought it showed that she'd been startled, not overpowered. No sign of a struggle. He'd have Slater's people print the back door, see what they found.
Jack walked to the foot of the stairs. "Slater, down here." The tone of his voice – loud, but calm – sounded normal. He returned to the library and stared at the ugly stain. It reminded him of the blood of the killer's victims, shocking stigmata clamoring for justice.
Slater stepped into the library at the moment the cell phone rang. He grabbed it from his waistband. "Sheriff Slater," he barked into the receiver. "When? Where?" He snapped the phone shut and turned to Jack, his face solemn. "A patrolman just found Olivia."
Jack felt himself stagger. Not a physical movement that Slater would notice, but an internal collapse of his heart, his bones, muscles, and flesh melting with the hot pain of grief.
Slater must've read the emotion in his stance. "No, man, she's okay. They found Livvie, not her body."
Jack couldn't process the information. For that split second, he'd felt his world tilt and spin around, upheaved by some cosmic earthquake, and it couldn't right itself again for several long moments. He dragged in an agonizing breath, as though his ribs had been crushed and his lungs couldn't pull in the requisite air.
"I – I thought… " Jack recovered and slowly pushed away from the desk. "Where is she?"
"Under the Falcon Street Overpass off I-80."
Jack worked his jaw. "Some bastard left her there?"
Slater nodded. "She's dressed in her underwear, cold and a little scraped up, but she's okay."
"He took her when it was still dark."
"Here's the thing, though. Where was Burrows? With the blonde?"
Jack nodded, thinking of the redhead in his vision.
"He didn't use all that elaborate filming equipment and his perverted video games with Olivia," Slater pressed.
Jack echoed that line of reasoning. "Right."
"Who then?"