After an hour, he pushed the papers aside and got up and wiped the whiteboard hung on the opposite wall. His instinct was to go back to what really happened on Thursday night. Figure out why and how Callie disappeared. With a black marker, he drew a line down the center of the board and then wrote OUTSIDE on one half of the board and INSIDE on the other half.
Those were the two possibilities. Someone from outside the house came and stole Callie, or someone inside the house took her away. Underneath the OUTSIDE header, he scribbled several bullet points:
Stranger or local?
Had to be Callie or could have been any baby?
Ransom or other motive?
Needed to get to house, get in, get away
Alive or dead?
Where is she now?
Underneath the INSIDE header, he wrote different comments:
Alive or dead?
Accident or murder?
Marcus or Micki? (Both?)
Where is she now?
Stride stared at what he had written. In the past two days, his team had reconstructed the movements of Marcus and Valerie Glenn — and their baby — over the five days leading up to the disappearance. Members of the Grand Rapids Police and the Itasca County Sheriff's Department had checked every building, house, store, and street in Grand Rapids and Duluth visited by the Glenns during that time, hoping to find a witness who remembered something or someone unusual. The follow-up was continuing, but so far they had no credible evidence of an intruder watching the Glenns or their home.
He wasn't surprised. Grand Rapids was a small town. Even Duluth was small compared to a large urban center like Minneapolis. He doubted that a stranger could identify a target and plan a kidnapping in such a tightly knit region without leaving some kind of trail for them to follow.
So maybe it wasn't a stranger. Maybe it was someone who already knew the Glenns, their baby, and their home. But if that were true, he didn't know how someone local could hope to hide a stolen baby for any length of time without being discovered. How long could you really do that? A week? A month? Sooner or later, someone would expose the secret.
Assuming that Callie was still alive. If not, it was easy to hide a body in the northern woods.
The other question was why. Why would an outsider go through such risk and trouble to abduct Callie Glenn? There had been no ransom demands, and Grand Rapids was an unlikely locale in which to scout designer babies or white slaves. Not that Stride could entirely rule it out. Evil had a way of reaching its fingers even into the remote corners of the world.
He turned his attention to the INSIDE half of the board, which in his mind offered a simpler and more plausible explanation of the crime. Either Marcus Glenn or Migdalia Vega had used the time between ten thirty and one o'clock to make Callie disappear. He had a much easier time ascribing possible motives to either of them, and he had evidence in hand that both had been lying, or at the very least hiding important aspects of their relationship.
Stride knew he needed to talk to them again, and he chose to start with Micki. She was the weak link.
He grabbed his leather jacket and took the stairs to the ground floor. His car was parked on the street outside. He headed southeast on Highway 2, where there was no traffic to slow him down. It was Sunday; everyone was in church. As he drove, he finally thought about the one subject he kept trying to push from his mind.
Serena.
Last night he had slept alone. Actually, he had tossed and turned in the empty bed. He had thought of Serena at home in their cottage in Duluth, and the distance between them made him feel as if she were another of the pieces of his life stranded on the far side of the canyon. He could imagine her face, hear her voice, and feel the softness of her skin, and yet for all that, she had become flat. Two-dimensional. Like everything else in his world. He told himself that he was in love with her, but he didn't feel it, because he didn't feel anything.
When his phone rang, he thought it might be Serena, and he wondered what he would say to her. Instead it was Maggie.
'Hey, boss,' she said brightly. 'I miss your face.'
Stride relaxed and smiled. 'Back at you, Mags. What's going on?'
'I have a quick update on the farmlands case. I offered kinky favors to one of the techs down at BCA to bump our blood sample to the top of the list.'
'Good.'
'He's gay, by the way, so I told him you'd pay up, not me. Hope that's OK.'
'Anything for the team,' he told her.
'I thought you'd feel that way. Anyway, I got the results back, and it's bad news. No hits. He's not in the system.'
'Damn.'
'Yeah, nothing ever comes easy.'
'How's Troy Grange doing?' Stride asked. 'You saw him yesterday, right?'
'He's hurting. His oldest girl is a wreck, and he had to leave the baby with his in-laws. I told him not to give up hope, but he knows the score. Trisha's not coming back.'
'Yeah.'
'Speaking of tough guys,' Maggie said, 'how are you?'
'Me? I'm fine.' The same old lie.
'A little bird told me you weren't so good.'
Stride tensed. 'You talked to Serena?'
'Uh huh.'
'It's no big deal,' he said.
'It sounded like a big deal to me. And to her.'
'I don't really want to talk about it, Mags.' 'Yeah, well, that's just too damn bad,' she snapped. 'You think you can blow me off like that? I'm your best friend.'
'I know that, but this isn't easy for me—'
'I don't care if it's easy or hard. What the hell is going on with you?'
Stride closed his eyes and opened them again. The empty highway spilled off the edge of the horizon. 'It's not Serena. It's me. I'm struggling.'
'Give me details.'
He didn't know what to say. 'I wish I could, Mags. I may as well be dead. I don't care about anything. Not a damn thing.'
'I don't like to hear you talking like that,' she said.
'Neither do I.'
Maggie was silent. Stride slowed and turned off the highway as he reached the intersection that led toward the rural town of Sago. A cloud of dirt rose behind his tires and trailed him down the deserted road.
'When are you coming back to Duluth?' she asked.
'I've got a couple meetings at City Hall the day after tomorrow.'
'I want to see you.'
'I appreciate the thought, but there's nothing you can do. This is my problem.'
'Don't be such a hero. Get an early start. I'll make you breakfast.'
'You?' Stride asked.
'Damn right. A couple sausage McMuffins and some of that twisty cinnamon roll kind of stuff.'
Stride laughed. 'OK.'
'I'll see you Tuesday morning.' She added, 'And hey, can I tell you something?'
'Sure.'
'I'm sorry I wasn't with you.'
'What are you talking about?'
He heard her voice catch with emotion, which was unusual for Maggie. 'On the bridge. I'm sorry I wasn't there when you fell. That was the hardest thing for me, not being there when you needed me.'
'There's nothing you could have done,' Stride said.
'Maybe, but I'm still sorry.'
Stride thumped his fist on the aluminum door of Micki Vega's trailer. Curtains were drawn across the windows, but he saw her pickup truck parked in the dirt nearby, and he smelled bacon frying. When no one answered, he pounded again.
'Micki, it's Lieutenant Stride. Open up!'
He heard the rattle of a chain as Micki unlatched the door and peered out. Her dark hair was loose and frizzy. She had bloodshot eyes. She wore flannel pajama bottoms and a pink halter top. Her feet were bare.