Holding Out for a Fairy Tale (5 page)

“What national security yahoos?” Ray ignored the professor’s question. Elliot glared at him, but Ray ignored him too.

“She was hoping to get an internship with the National Security Agency, hoping to work for them full-time after graduation, but they turned her down after a preliminary background check. Some of her relatives aren’t US citizens.” He waved his hand dismissively. “How did you say you knew her?”

“We’re family.”

Dr. Holland kept smiling, but his flushed cheeks turned white. Elliot watched the way he shifted back in his seat. “Family?” The professor’s tone rose to a squeak as he repeated the word.

“That’s right.”

Elliot settled back in his chair and smiled brightly. “So did you and Miss Munoz work together outside of class?”

“No. I…. That is, I helped her with some of the object development, but the algorithm is entirely her work. She likes to work alone. She won’t even work with other students on group projects and only occasionally participates in class discussions. It’s a pity, she’s got something of an undeserved reputation for being… well, for being an airhead.” The professor glanced between Elliot and Ray, his gaze never lingering on either of them for more than a moment. “She was dating this boy in Advanced Network Security, though. Luca Garcia is his name. He was always trying to help her with her assignments, even though his scores are dismal compared to hers. She never pointed it out, trying to spare his feelings I’m sure, but when they first started dating, she spent more than a few evenings in the UNIX lab fixing the code sections he
helped
with.”

“Luca Garcia?” Elliot added the name to his notes.

“That’s right. She was running to meet him before class, the Friday before last. Neither of them was in class that day, but I didn’t think much of it. He was in class again Monday, but she hasn’t shown up to either class since.”

“Why did you wait until two days ago to call the police?” Elliot asked.

Dr. Holland glanced at Ray again. “I suppose I thought her friends and family would report it if something was wrong.”

“Did her boyfriend offer any kind of explanation about her absence? Maybe that she was out sick?”

The professor shook his head. “I asked, but he said they broke up and that he hadn’t seen her.” He spun in his chair, turned his head toward the computer monitor, and then looked back at them for a moment. “Although, I saw him using her laptop in class a few days ago. His own laptop is covered in stickers and decals, but hers is plain black.”

Elliot made a note of that and an abbreviated note of the way Dr. Holland kept turning away. Whether he was turning his entire body, his head, or just his eyes, the man was looking anywhere but at the two of them.

“Is your coffee okay? I swear I made it just twenty minutes ago.”

Dr. Holland nodded at the cup Elliot had set aside. Elliot tried not to grimace. “I’m sure it’s fine.” He wrapped his fingers around the cup and took several long sips. “It’s perfect. Thank you, again.” Elliot drank the rest quickly and felt like cursing. He was already dealing with an encroaching headache because his blood sugar was low, and the coffee was all it would take to throw him into a full-blown migraine.

“I think we got everything we need.” He stood and fished a business card out of his pocket. “I just need your full name, address, and a phone number where you can be reached this weekend in case I have to follow up on anything.” Elliot handed the man his own business card and took one of Dr. Holland’s in turn. “And if you think of anything else, anything that might help us track down Miss Munoz, please give me a call.”

He waited until they were well away from Dr. Holland’s office before he glanced at Ray. He could tell from the scowl on Ray’s face that he’d picked up on Dr. Holland’s body language, too. He waited for Ray to say something, since the shorter man looked like he was going to burst if he didn’t. Despite the nervous energy, Ray kept his mouth shut. As they headed back across campus, past the library, which looked more like homage to the Starship
Enterprise
than a library, Elliot finally gave in to the silence. “So was your cousin the type who would fool around with her professor, or do you think the professor just has a crush on her?”

Ray’s silent glare was the only answer Elliot got.

“Did she ever mention this Luca Garcia to you?”

“He was lying!”

“Yes.” Elliot just smiled. “But you said she had a boyfriend. Does Luca Garcia ring a bell?”

Ray slowed down and kicked at the ornate paving stones at their feet. “Luke. Carmen said Sophie’s boyfriend is named Luke. But she wouldn’t put up with some moron who couldn’t keep up with her intellectually. She wouldn’t.”

“And the reputation as an airhead?”

“It’s bullshit. Look, the professor having a crush on her I can understand. Maybe he was throwing her boyfriend’s name out as an easy way to get rid of the kid.”

“What?”

“I think he just mentioned her boyfriend because he’s hoping I’ll kill him.”

Elliot stopped and gaped down at Ray. “What kind of sense does that make? Delgado, her professor thinks she’s dead. He thinks her boyfriend killed her, and he didn’t want to come right out and say it. What the hell is going on in your head?”

“He became defensive when I told him I was a member of Sophie’s family, you saw it! He leaned back, he crossed his arms and legs, and he tried to put as many barriers as he could between him and me. And he looked at
me
when he talked about her boyfriend.”

“And no one can look at you without expecting someone to die?” Elliot laughed. “How is it that your department hasn’t pulled you off duty? You’re reading too much into this.”

“I am not!” Ray shouted. The volume of his own voice seemed to catch him off guard, and he glanced around as the ever-moving sea of students stopped to stare at them. “I am not. He knows Sophie. She must have told him about her father and brothers, and he thought I was one of them.”

“Delgado, listen to yourself. Even you have to admit that you sound insane. If you’re going to act all psycho on me, you need to go home.”

“I do not need to go home. Which professor’s next?”

“Holland was the last one. I interviewed the others yesterday. Two of them teach in big lecture halls, they don’t keep track of attendance and didn’t have a clue who she is. Her math professor was pissed because she missed two quizzes and a test, but he started ranting about it in what sounded like Farsi, and all I got after that was that she was going to have to retake the class at this point.”

Elliot rubbed his right temple, feeling the ache of the headache kicking into high gear. If he had eaten something to slow down how fast he digested the coffee, he might have been able to buy enough time to get home. The ache inside his head began to throb in time with his heartbeat. Within seconds, splotches of glowing light and darkness began to float across his field of vision.

He was fucked.

He knew that within two hours the icepick throb would set in, and then he’d be out of commission until morning at least.

Ray just wasn’t going to let this go, though. “Are you going to go talk to her boyfriend?”

“Duh….” Elliot cringed as his own voice pierced the throbbing rhythm. “You can’t even give me credit for being able to manage my own fucking investigation!”

“That’s not what I meant. I was trying to ask if I could come with you, Special Agent Oblivious.”

“Are you going to keep acting crazy?”

“I can be professional.”

“And if this guy killed your cousin?”

“It’s your case. You’d arrest him, wouldn’t you?”

“And if it’s gruesome? If it’s a bloody, horrible mess and we walk in to find him jacking off right in the middle of it?”

Elliot was impressed by the way Ray adopted a calm smirk rather than throwing a punch at him. Right now, a punch to the head would really hurt. “So you don’t intend to knock? Because most guys will tuck it back into their pants if they have to go answer the door….”

“Not the point.”

“I can count on you to flay the bastard alive in lockup, right?” Ray managed to turn his smirk into a pleading, puppy-dog grin.

“Hell no. Did that look work on Superman?”

“Superman?”

“Your old partner.”

“Always!” Ray cackled.

Elliot stalked away, but Ray caught up with him. “Who’s the one not giving credit for professionalism now, hmm? I am not going to interfere. I still have every confidence that she’s alive, and if something bad has happened to her, there are a lot scarier people in her life than this Luca Garcia. If I’m wrong, I know you’ll arrest him.”

“And if I don’t?” Elliot asked. He felt as if he was talking to a child, taking Ray by the hand and guiding him to the obvious conclusion that he was just too damn close to have any part in this investigation.

Ray shrugged again. “If there’s evidence, and you won’t or can’t arrest him, I will.”

“You swear? You can look at a suspect, knowing he’s hurt someone you love, and arrest him? If you had already drawn your weapon and were just one fraction of an inch away from making the world a better place? You’d arrest him?”

Ray’s grin softened for a moment, melting into an expression so severe Elliot wasn’t sure he’d believe the man before him and the grinning asshole were ever the same person. “Yes,” Ray said seriously. “I’ve done it before.”

Elliot wanted to call that one as bullshit, like almost everything else Ray Delgado said, but something in the man’s expression was too raw, too solid to question.

“Look, if you’re so convinced I’m going to murder your suspect, then go without me. But at least let me look at the case file after? I just—”

Elliot hissed as his vision darkened around the edges. Having someone to back him up when he was like this was a smart idea, he knew. Most of the Gang Task Force was mobilized already, trying to track down Sophie Munoz’s brother, so it would be hard to get somebody else. Elliot interrupted him. “You can tag along.”

“Huh?”

“If you leave your sidearm behind, if you don’t say a fucking word, you can come with me when I interview this Luca Garcia.”

Elliot was relieved when the stoic expression vanished from Ray’s face and his carefree, million-dollar smile returned. As the warmth of Ray’s eyes sank into him, Elliot turned away fast. There was no chance in hell he was going to start thinking about Ray as anything other than an annoyance this time around.

R
AY
KNEW
something was very wrong with Elliot as they walked across the campus parking lot. His long legs and tight muscles just weren’t moving with the same grace and fluid confidence Ray had come to expect. He was taking short, hurried steps. The way Elliot kept brushing his fingertips over his temple was starting to seem less like a nervous tic and more like pain. Every now and then, Elliot slowed down and swayed slightly, rubbed his eyes, and then continued.

If Ray hadn’t seen Elliot composed and put together just a few minutes ago, Ray would think he was drunk. It got so bad that by the time Elliot fished his keys out of his pocket, dropped them twice, and finally managed to get his silver Honda Civic unlocked, Ray had seen enough.

“I think I’ll take those.” Ray swiped the keys and looped his hand through Elliot’s elbow. He steered Elliot to the passenger door, getting more worried when the stubbornly independent FBI agent didn’t resist at all. “You’re in no shape to drive.”

“Hmm….”

“Yeah, eloquent. Get in the car.”

Ray thought about calling Elliot a cab but decided against it. He was confident Sophie was fine, and he was pretty sure he could find her on his own, but he was curious enough about Elliot’s involvement that he wasn’t willing to let the other man get away from him yet.

“Where am I going?” he asked, pulling out of the parking lot.

“Take the I-5 to Highway 52 East. Tierrasanta exit.”

Ray rolled his eyes. He knew how to get to the regional FBI headquarters, but whatever had hit Elliot on the walk across campus wasn’t something he was going to be able to work through. He was in no shape to head back to the office right now. “You sure going back to work right now is a smart idea?” he asked, in a tone that he hoped said
Going back to work right now is not a smart idea.

“Tierrasanta,” Elliot insisted. “This is a six-year assignment, so I bought a place close to work.”

“Oh. Tierrasanta it is.”

There was always traffic in San Diego, but outside of rush hour, the highways rarely ground to a halt, so they made good time getting across the northern half of the city. “Tierrasanta. Which way now?”

“Left.” The direction was uttered so quietly that Ray thought Elliot might be about to pass out.

They drove past an ornate sign proclaiming the quiet residential neighborhood’s name and then drove up one hill after another, with Elliot guiding him through a maze of nice stucco homes before finally telling him to pull in to a smaller, single-story house on the edge of a gigantic canyon.

Ray studied the neighborhood as he pulled in to the driveway. “I never realized there were this many houses up here. I always just thought it was the federal offices across the highway. Well, and the city and county offices, too. Looks like a nice place.”