"Somebody she knew," Wu added.
"Probably. Okay," Hunt said. "So that's where we are. And I still believe that's ahead of the police."
"Yeah, but Wyatt?" Brandt seemed to have taken some signal from the group, making him its spokesman. Now he cleared his throat. "However it happened, she's been gone two nights now. I'm trying to imagine some scenario where this went down, even exactly as we described it, where she isn't already dead. And I hate to say this, but I can't find one."
Hunt took in his assembled team, looked around the room from one set of eyes to the next. Wu had tears in hers. Tamara and Craig were holding hands. He saw no sign of any more hope and realized that all of these smart people had reached the same all but inescapable conclusion.
Hunt, Tamara, and Craig said their good-byes to Wu, Brandt, and Farrell at the Freeman Building. Mostly in silence, they walked the few blocks back to The Hunt Club offices and climbed the stairs. Once they were inside, Tamara went around to her desk and sat down, while Hunt crossed to the front window and stared down onto Grant Avenue, and Chiurco went over to start the coffee.
Putting the phone on speaker, Tamara pushed a button, and they heard that they had seven messages.
"Seven? A new record," Chiurco said. "Great timing, huh?"
Scowling, Wyatt turned away from the window and came to hover, arms crossed, over the phone.
Beep. Yesterday, 6:18 P.M. "Wyatt, Bill Frazier." This was the doctor who wanted background on his mother's new boyfriend. "Just calling to check on progress. You'd mentioned that you might have something by tomorrow, and things are heating up pretty quick with the two lovebirds. I don't want Mom to do something dumb, like elope before I get a chance to stop her. Sorry to push, but if you've got anything, I'd like to hear it sooner than later. Thanks."
Beep. Yesterday, 7:04 P.M. "Hey, Wyatt, you there? Pick up if you can. Where are you, man? You got your cell turned off? This is Peter Buckner." The lead attorney in the depositions Hunt had attended at the McClelland offices on Wednesday. "All right. We got a problem with Jeremy Harter. He didn't show for his depo this afternoon, and he's not answering…"
Hunt reached down and punched the button to kill the sound. He turned to Chiurco. "Did you get all your subpoenas served yesterday?"
"Four of 'em."
"Man." Hunt shook his head. "When's the court date?"
"Tuesday." Which meant Craig shouldn't really take any time for other business such as Andrea.
Swearing, Hunt pushed the button again, heard the end of Peter Buckner's message, then a chirpy voice of someone identifying herself as Melanie was telling him that he'd been preapproved for a platinum…
Tamara hit the skip button. "I've never been glad to get one of those before," she said.
Beep. 9:19 P.M. "Mr. Hunt. My name is Ephraim Goldman and I'm a senior associate at Mannheim Shelby, referred to you by Geoff Chilcott at…"
Hunt skipped over the rest of that one. "Later," he said.
They all listened to the next three, Tamara taking notes. Every message was new or continuing business, and none of them had anything to do with Andrea Parisi. Hunt sat himself down on the chair by the door and tried to get his mind to focus. He had a business to run here, he knew, but those demands suddenly didn't seem remotely compelling. He was starting to realize that the business was growing so fast that soon he'd have to bring on some more stringers, of which luckily there was a plethora-off-duty cops and even some of the other PIs were always ready to make some extra spending money. But he didn't have the time right now even to interview, much less hire.
"Do you know where Mickey is today?" he asked Tamara.
"I think he was cabbing. He's off his phone, though. I tried this morning."
"I know. I tried him last night. You think there's any way we could get him to leave it on so we can reach him?"
Tamara smiled. "I doubt it."
"Well, if he checks in, tell him to call me. You know what," Hunt said. "It's true. Good help is hard to find."
"Fortunately," Chiurco said, "you've got us."
Hunt nodded. "That is fortunate. There's just not enough of you two to go around."
"So what do you want us to do?" Tamara asked.
With a game plan that was anything but strategic, Hunt found himself approaching the Piersall building he'd left only about eight hours before. All he knew was that, business be damned, his personal priority was Andrea Parisi. He'd told Tamara and Craig that somehow they'd have to handle what they could among all these callers and somehow put off the others. Be self-starters. Manufacture brilliant excuses. Figure it out. That's why he paid them the big bucks. If they lost a client in the process, so be it. He'd take responsibility. And they should also be ready to drop everything in ten seconds if he needed them on Andrea.
His employees might truly believe she was already dead-and, in fact, he saw that they clearly felt sorry for his inability to accept that truth-but he was not going to presume that she was gone until he was forced to. It was going to take a lot more than everyone else believing it.
In contrast to last night, Montgomery this morning was clogged. The usual deliveries and normal heavy street traffic crept along around several police cars and the vans representing all of the local and a couple of the national television stations. A crowd of onlookers ebbed and flowed around the broadcasters and their crews.
Hunt was only somewhat surprised-it wasn't yet nine o'clock-to recognize Spencer Fairchild and Richard Tombo hovering by the Trial TV van, sipping from Styrofoam mugs, and he picked his way through the crowd over to where they stood. When Tombo saw him, he motioned him inside the perimeter of their cameras, lights, and wires.
"What's all this about?" Hunt asked. "Is there anything new on Andrea?"
"She hasn't turned up, if that's what you mean," Tombo said. "But suddenly she seems to be in the middle of everything. You heard they found her car in the garage here?"
"That wasn't any 'they,' Rich. That was me."
"No joke?"
"I've got no jokes left in me. I found the car last night."
Spencer Fairchild, next to them both, didn't miss a beat. "You want to be on television, Wyatt?"
Hunt might not have any jokes in him, but he still had half a laugh left, and he used it now. "Like I want a root canal. But what's so important about the car that it's drawn all you flies? Did the crime-scene people come up with something?"
"Not that we've heard," Fairchild said. "As to all the cameras, it's another development in Donolan. We get a different shot than down at the Hall of Justice. Breaks up the monotony."
Hunt swiveled his head, took in all the activity. "Help me out here, Spencer. What's Donolan got to do with Andrea at this point?"
Fairchild clearly wondered if Hunt was putting him on. "Andrea is Donolan. The beautiful commentator goes missing in the middle of the trial? You couldn't have scripted it any better. And now suddenly because she's gone, Judge Palmer is Donolan, too. As we speak, Wyatt, this is turning into the hottest story in the country. I've got to hand it to Andrea. Even if she didn't plan all of this…"
"What are you talking about?" Hunt was surprised to hear the anger in his voice. "She didn't…nobody planned anything here."
Fairchild's condescension fairly dripped. "I know that's your story. Farrell told me the same thing last night. But I find it interesting to learn that you were both the last person to see Andrea on Wednesday and then the very same person to find her car. What made you think, out of the whole city to choose from, to look here? I wonder if it could have been because you drove down behind her, then drove her away to wherever she's hiding out now."