Lynch, you said to go after that investigation.”
“And I still feel that way. I’m just saying these fears about Laura Coleman being abducted is…” there was a pause that felt like someone deciding when to rip off a Band-Aid. “Brigid, Laura Coleman isn’t Jessica Robertson,” he said gently.
My cheeks burned and I said, “You think I’m delusional.”
“I wouldn’t put it that way at all. You’ve been beating yourself up for years over Jessica’s death. Now you have another agent, the same gender and approximately the same age that Jessica would be today. Only this one is, shall we say, a little unreliable. Or maybe she just doesn’t need you anymore. Because she doesn’t return your calls, you break into her house and decide she’s been abducted. Stinger, you’re playing back Jessica.”
“You mean there’s no telling what I might have imagined, right down to the attempt on my life.”
“I’m just saying you seem to be the only person who’s concerned,” he said.
“You think I’m paranoid,” I said.
“Stop it, Stinger. I’m not saying anything. I’m just saying you need to pause and think a moment. I’m not worried about Laura Coleman. I’m worried about you. I was worried about you the last time you called. I should have stayed out there so we could talk more about you.”
“Son of a bitch,” I said, and hung up.
Statistics show that, in an abduction, the trail goes cold after forty-eight hours and the chances of finding the victim alive are greatly diminished. I looked at my watch and remembered the last sure contact I’d had with Coleman: BTW, you were right! That was around 8:00 A.M., a little over seventy-two hours ago.
Forty-one
I felt like a blind mouse in a maze, making some small progress like finding out that Coleman hadn’t gone to visit her sick mother after all, and then hitting a wall, not knowing which direction to take next. The wall was where I was right now. Coleman was missing and all I had to prove it was her unlocked car, the fact that she didn’t call her mom for three days, and lying to Morrison. Apart from that, she was still sending e-mails to the office. All my instincts were screaming that she was in trouble, but if Sigmund thought I’d gone off my rocker, Morrison would laugh me out of the office.
Sometimes it helps if the mouse doesn’t aim directly for the cheese. Rather than jumping on my horse and riding off in all directions, I called Gordo to find out if Carlo was safe. He didn’t answer the phone and didn’t call me back in the next ten minutes, so I headed back to the house to check on Carlo myself, stopping on the way for a coffee and a roast beef sub with everything.
I took a roundabout way into the development, via Bowman, rather than turn down the street closest to the house. That way I could approach more slowly and stay at least three houses away, where I parked and waited, engine idling and AC on, so I wouldn’t pass out in the heat.
Munching on the sub, doing surveillance on my own house, I sat there with no better place to go, sensing Jane’s ghost beside me throughout the evening, yet feeling like I had a little purpose in guarding Carlo while I figured out what next in my search for Coleman. We sat there, Jane’s ghost and I, the two women in Carlo’s life come and gone.
The light next to Carlo’s reading chair went on inside the house as the sky finally darkened. My own novel would be sitting on the table next to my own chair. I struggled and failed to remember what I had been reading the day before; I was that overwhelmed and mind-sore.
Later Carlo emerged once more to take the Pugs out for their evening walk in the opposite direction from where I parked; it was too dark for him to see my car. Was he stooped more than usual? Were the dogs a little subdued? I was beginning to feel like a ghost myself and wondered if they were all missing me as brutally as I was missing them.
I had long before now turned off my engine as the clear sky allowed the heated earth to cool more rapidly. Drank the third of four bottles of water I’d brought along, and which now tasted like bathwater. I kept telling myself it was silly to sit there all night, but found myself unable to