“Hmm. I do believe you’ve started profiling, Dr. Bowers.”
“No, no, no. It’s called induction. Very different. Completely different.”
“Uh-huh,” she said as we went to find the aquarium director.
An hour ago Creighton had pulled some of Randi’s personal information off her cell phone and then ground the phone to pieces beneath his heel.
Since then he’d been in the manager’s office considering his options.
It was possible that Randi would come back looking for her phone. He doubted she’d be able to find the warehouse, but it was possible. So maybe he should just wait and take care of her then.
But then again, since it was the middle of the day, she might not come alone or she might tell a friend where she was going. In either case, it was likely she’d be missed and then others would come looking for her. Not good. Too many bad scenarios.
Before he destroyed her phone, he’d gotten enough information from it to find her, so he could go after her. Maybe he should pay her a little visit.
That’s what his gut told him to do.
Find her.
Get the phone back.
Teach her a lesson or two.
Yes, that’s what his gut told him, but his mind told him not to rock the boat any more than necessary. He really shouldn’t leave Cassandra alone, and besides, he knew that if Shade tried calling the phone Randi had grabbed, Shade would immediately discover the mix-up and find another way to contact him, but only if Creighton stayed put.
So. Stay or go looking?
Really, the best choice was to stay. Trust that Shade would be in touch, but still keep an eye out for Randi and only deal with her if she somehow did find her way back to the warehouse.
Creighton watched Cassandra for a moment through the video monitor. Then he had a thought. Now that he’d completed the video for Hunter, he only needed one camera trained on her.
Which meant he could use the other camera for something else.
Yes. If he moved one camera outside, he could keep one eye on Cassandra and the other on the road to see if Randi came back.
As he began to unhook the output cords of the camera on the left, Creighton admitted to himself that he hoped Randi would come back looking for her phone. Then he could kill two birds with one stone. So to speak.
A lanky man in his midforties led Lien-hua and me through a door marked “Restricted Area! Aquarium Staff Only!”
“This is where our aquarists work,” he informed us proudly.
Like the rest of the staff, he wore shorts, a Sherrod Aquarium polo shirt, and sport sandals. Stenciled on the pocket of his shirt was the name Warren Leant and his title: Managing Director Animal Husbandry. He had a weary face and made me think of someone who takes the elevator up to his condo in order to work out on his stair-stepper. “Please.” He motioned for us to follow him. “The animal husbandry wing is right through here.”
“So, Pat,” Lien-hua said as we followed Warren Leant past the backstage entrance to the Poseidon’s Odyssey 4-D attraction. “Back at the elevators earlier this morning, what were you and Ralph talking about?”
“Mostly Margaret. She’s on the West Coast.”
“But didn’t I overhear Ralph say he wanted to check on you and me? What was that all about?”
“Maybe he thinks there’s something going on.” I said the words before I realized I’d done more than just think them.
Oops.
“Well?” she said softly. “Is there?”
Thankfully, Mr. Leant interrupted our conversation. “Animal necropsy rooms.” He gestured toward a hallway that led to a row of six rooms. “You know what necropsies are?”
Lien-hua and I answered almost in unison: “Autopsies on animals.”
“Oh.” He looked deflated. “Yes. That’s right. All right then. It’s just a bit farther.”
He led us down the hallway, and I felt the pressure of Lien-hua’s question leaning against me.
“Well?” she repeated. “Is there?”
Once on a stakeout we’d almost kissed, but at the last moment we both hesitated and retreated back into ourselves. Since then we’d never spoken to each other of that night, but it brought both an understated intimacy and a careful distance to our friendship.
But now, with the question laid so prominently on the table, I said,
“I’d like it if there was.”
Lien-hua was quiet, and I wasn’t sure how to take her silence, but then we arrived at the animal husbandry facility and I knew we’d have to finish this conversation another time.
The stark scent of antiseptics mixed with the wet smell of dead fish greeted us as we entered a brightly lit anteroom to the main work area. Leant gestured toward the far end. “Ms. Lillo’s office is just past the shark acclimation pool. You don’t think anything might have happened to her? I mean, it would be bad for the aquarium if it did-not that I’m unconcerned about her or anything, it’s just that I want to be prepared for the worst. For the media. You understand.
So, if there’s anything I should tell our board of directors…”
“Right now,” I said, “our main concern is just finding and speaking with Ms. Lillo, wherever she is. I need access to your security camera footage for last night and early this morning. Let’s start with 9:00 p.m. through 7:00 a.m.” I figured I could convince Ralph to assign a team of agents from the San Diego FBI field office to review the videos, to see if we could catch a glimpse of either Cassandra or the offender. “And I’d like you to clear your staff out of this wing but keep them here at the aquarium. I don’t want them to leave, but I want them out of the way.”
“Well, you see, that might be difficult. We’re already behind schedule with our shark feeding, and eight of our sharks haven’t been fed since last night.”
“Mr. Leant, with all due respect, I’m more concerned about finding Cassandra than about when your fish have lunch,” I said.
“Yes, well, I really don’t see the need for-”
“I’m not asking.”
“This is highly unusual.”
I glanced at Lien-hua. “If we can’t process this area properly, we might need to shut down the aquarium for how long? Two, three days? Does that sound right to you?”
“At least three days.”
Warren opened his mouth as if he were going to respond, then closed it soundlessly, stepped to the side, and dug out his walkie-talkie.
I knew that the animal husbandry area for an aquarium this size would need to be large, but I didn’t expect it to be fifteen meters wide by forty meters long. The wall on our left held four offices and then opened on the second story to include access to the water filtration towers that rose from a lower level, passed up the offices, and nearly touched the ceiling. They looked like giant cones with horizontal ribs.
The wall on our right held a series of inset view ports to the neighboring Seven Deadly Seas exhibit. A glass door led to a pathway that I could see allowed surface access. The shark acclimation pool Warren had mentioned lay beside one of the view ports halfway to the far wall.
The ceiling of the husbandry area climbed nearly four stories above our heads to accommodate a suspended track that ran through the center of the room. One end of the track terminated above the shark acclimation pool’s sliding metal door that separated it from the Seven Deadly Seas attraction. The other end of the track stopped abruptly beside a double-sized garage door that I assumed led to the outside of the aquarium.
“Must be for transferring sharks into and out of the exhibit,” said Lien-hua.
I set down my computer bag, approached the acclimation pool, and peered inside. Dimensions: four meters deep, five meters wide, five long. Sides made of thick, reinforced glass that appeared strong enough to stop even a frenzied, half-ton shark. I guessed that the sturdy steel drain located on the pool’s bottom allowed the aquarists to empty and then replace the water, maybe after transferring a shark into or out of the exhibit, or quarantining a sick shark. Since the pool was empty, I assumed they were currently in the process of doing that.