“Not much,” Abbott said grimly. “We’re hoping you can
be creative. One photo of a shoe next to Eve’s keys. It’s Pierce’s shoe.” He
slid the picture across the table to Ramsey. “Someone broke into her house with
her keys that night, then returned later.”
Ramsey shook his head. “It could be anybody’s shoe.
What else?”
“Two,” Abbott said, “we have a photo from the parking
garage security camera.”
“Can’t see his face,” Ramsey remarked blandly. “Or his
shoes. Or his height. Next?”
Abbott looked frustrated. Noah hadn’t said a word, his
gaze fixed to the small TV. Olivia wanted to gently pull him away, to take the
remote from his hand, but she understood the value of
doing
something.
“Three,” Abbott said, “we have pages from Donner’s
datebook. His wife found it with his things. She scanned it into her computer
and sent it as an email attachment. Shows six meetings with a C.P. One was for
last night, but Donner was already dead by then. Mrs. Donner said her husband
was seeing a counselor as part of his cancer treatment. She said she knew he
knew Pierce, but thought it was only socially.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Ramsey said. “Where is
this date-book now?”
“Locals got it from Mrs. Donner,” Abbott replied.
“She’s grieving, but cooperative.”
“So we’re good on chain of evidence. What else?”
“The black BMW,” Abbott continued. “One’s registered
to Mrs. Pierce. The plates the garage camera caught were Donner’s, but Donner’s
plates are on his car, in his mother’s driveway.”
“The BMW plates are duplicates,” Ramsey said. “Okay,
keep going.”
“I don’t have any more,” Abbott gritted out. “Isn’t
that enough?”
“I have more,” Olivia said. “A black BMW was used to
abduct Liza Barkley this morning.” She explained her phone call with Tom.
“Liza’s sister, Lindsay, was last seen getting into a black SUV, registered to
Irene Black.”
Ramsey lifted his brows. “So you said before. Who is
Irene Black?”
Olivia looked at Abbott, who shrugged. “Tell him,” he
said.
Glancing at Noah from the corner of her eye, Olivia
did. “Eve found the account the killer used in the game, by following messages
sent by Virginia. The name on the account is Irene Black. She couldn’t get an
address or financials because she didn’t have the access and the program booted
her out.”
Ramsey closed his eyes. “Eve hacked in, didn’t she?”
Noah’s shoulders stiffened, the only indication he was
still listening. He’d rewound the video to the beginning and was watching it
again.
Torturing himself
, Olivia thought.
“Yes,” Olivia said to Ramsey, flatly. “When we find
her alive you can arrest her.”
“But you got an address,” Abbott said.
“A PO box in Wisconsin, from the license plate of an
SUV that abducted a missing hooker,” Olivia said tautly. “That should expand
the good doctor’s psych profile.”
Ramsey looked pained. “It’s not enough. Basically you
have Donner’s datebook and Pierce’s wife’s black Beemer. Everything else is
fruit of a poisoned search.”
“The plate from Damon isn’t,” Olivia insisted.
“But it only connects to Pierce because of what Eve
found in the game,” Ramsey said, frustrated himself. “I wish I could help you,
but I can’t. Even if I wrote a warrant based on that information, no judge
would sign it.” He rose, sliding the photos back across the table. “Call me
when you have more.”
Olivia watched him go, her heart in her throat.
“Dammit.”
“Get him back.” The growl came from Noah, whose face
was an inch from the TV screen, his body vibrating like a plucked string. “Now.
Get Ramsey back
now
.”
Ramsey waited for the elevator, looking miserable.
“Brian,” Olivia called. “Come quick.”
They ran back to find Abbott squinting at the TV
screen. Noah had frozen the video to a single frame. Eve was being dragged by a
bent-over figure in a tan overcoat. The coat’s lapels were turned up and his
fedora was pulled low, hiding his face. The frame was frozen with the man’s
gloved hand on the handle of the back door of a black BMW.
“Look at the window,” Noah said urgently, enlarging
the picture.
“Stop. Freeze it,” Ramsey commanded. Because there,
reflected in the window glass for one frame only, was the face of Carleton
Pierce.
Noah looked over his shoulders, his eyes blank. “Is
this enough?”
“More than enough,” Ramsey said. “Get moving. I’ll
call you when the warrant is signed.”
Abbott was already putting on his coat. “Liv, you’re
with me. Noah, you stay here.”
Noah rose. “No. I’m coming. I’ll follow orders once
there, but I’m not staying here.”
Abbott took a second to assess, then nodded. “All
right. One false move and I’ll have you removed. Clear? Olivia, have Kane track
the Wisconsin PO box for Irene Black, then you and Micki meet us at Pierce’s.
Thanks, Brian.”
“I’ll follow you in a few,” Olivia said. “I’m
expecting Tom Hunter any minute. I need to get Liza Barkley’s description out
on the wire.”
Thursday, February 25, 1:50 p.m.
“We have a warrant,” Abbott said as he and Noah got
out of the car in front of Pierce’s very expensive home. Micki was already
waiting with the CSU team.
“He’s not here,” Micki said, and although Noah had
expected it, his heart sank. “A neighbor saw Pierce leave this morning driving
his wife’s car, a black BMW. It’s not here, either, just Pierce’s Mercedes.”
“Noah, you take the upstairs,” Abbott said, “I’ll take
the main floor and Micki, you have the basement. Let’s go in.”
Pierce’s house was as quiet as a tomb. Abbott
announced them loudly, while Noah ran upstairs, heart in his throat, despite
the certainty that Eve wasn’t here.
She was still alive
. He had to
believe that, or he’d lose his mind.
He searched two empty bedrooms before he found the
master. The bed was tidily made and nothing seemed out of place. But he could
smell bleach. He moved to the master bath and gasped a breath. The odor was so
strong here, his eyes watered.
Not Eve
. He
would not let it be Eve. He stepped back, touching nothing, and went downstairs
to find Micki. She was in the kitchen, opening cabinets.
“Basement was clear. Nothing but spider webs. These
cabinets are arranged by type, each box and can alphabetized. Textbook
obsessive personality our good doctor has,” she said, then held up a can of cat
food. “I haven’t seen a cat. Have you?”
To
hell
with the
cat
. His heart
clambered up into his throat. “No, but somebody used extra-concentrated bleach
in the master bathroom.”
She grimaced. “Oh, hell. I’ll get up there in a
second.” She opened the trash can and dug a minute, coming up with an opened
cat food can in one hand and something shiny in another. “Look.”
Noah was losing patience. “I don’t care about the damn
cat,” he ground out.
“Look,” she repeated, more forcefully. “This collar
has Martha’s cat’s name on it.”
He took the collar and held it up to the light.
“Ringo.”
“I saw some old vet records in the trash Olivia and
Kane cleared out of the empty apartment next to Martha’s. Pierce took her cat.”
“So he’s an animal lover,” he snarled. “Damn it,
Micki, it doesn’t help us find Eve.”
“You’re thinking like a man, Noah. Think like a cop or
get out. It’s all important. Like the cat hair Pierce tried to dismiss this
morning. Think.”
“You’re right.” He tried to think. “He dismissed
Christy’s missing shoes, too.”
“Called them souvenirs,” she said. “Said shoes weren’t
special enough. I’d say a cat would make one hell of a special souvenir.
Sonofabitch was mocking us. We’ll treat the master bath with Luminol, see what
he was trying to hide with the bleach. We’ll also see if we can link it to the
bleach he used at Rachel’s.”
“Because it’s all important,” Noah murmured. “You’re
right. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Go find Abbott. He’ll keep you focused.”
Abbott sat in Pierce’s study, behind his desk. Noah
steeled himself to say the words that were choking him. “I think he killed
someone in the master bath. It reeks of bleach.”
Abbott considered. “I don’t think he brought Eve here,
Web. Neighbors said he left with the Beemer, and it’s not here. I don’t think
he’s been back.”
Noah let the breath he held slide out. “Thank you. I
needed to hear that.”
“It’s okay. I don’t think I’d be holding up so well in
your shoes. I’m not finding anything incriminating here in his desk, just a lot
of old tax files.”
Noah pushed at the stack of papers. “He’s got copies
of his wife’s W-2s, so we know where she works. She’s not here and he took her
car this morning.”
“And the bathroom reeks of bleach,” Abbott said
grimly. “I’ll call her employer. You keep looking for something we can use.”
Noah took a walk around the office, looking for
anything out of place, finding it in a door wallpapered so skillfully that its
outline nearly disappeared into the wall. For a moment hope soared.
A secret
room. Eve
. But the door opened easily and the disappointment tasted bitter
on his tongue.
Behind the door there was a walk-in closet.
Think
like a cop
. He dropped his eyes to the carpet. There was a deep groove in
the carpet a fraction of an inch from the edge of a filing cabinet, as if it
had recently been moved.
Noah hefted it to one side, surprised when it moved
easily. Behind it in the wall was a small safe. “Now we’re in business,” he
murmured. He re-entered the office just as Abbott was hanging up.
“Pierce’s wife didn’t show up for work this morning,”
Abbott said.
“If he did kill her,” Noah said, “why now? According
to those tax returns they’ve been married for twenty years.”
“I don’t know, but this is interesting. She’s a
biologist at an animal research lab. And guess what species they keep there? Timber
rattlers.”
Christy Lewis.
“Pierce’s wife helped him get the snake, or he got in with her key.”
“Her boss doesn’t think she’d remove an animal from
the lab. He says she’s very dedicated. He’s checking key card access. The lab
is checking their snake ‘inventory’ now.” Abbott shuddered involuntarily.
“God.”
Noah thought of Jack and how terrified he’d been.
“Pierce must have laughed at Jack for being so afraid,” he said bitterly. “I
found a safe back here. Let’s get it blown.”
Thursday, February 25, 1:50 p.m.
“Where is she? Goddammit, Olivia, where is Eve?”
Olivia looked up to see three men rushing toward her
desk. Two were tall, dark, one with a cane and one with his arm in a sling. The
other was lanky, blond, and old beyond his twenty years. The Hunter men had
arrived. David, his older brother Max, and Tom, who looked as if he’d been
crying. David had let the question fly across the bullpen and two detectives
had already grabbed him and were trying to hold him back.
“It’s okay,” she called to the detectives. “Let him
go.” Olivia hung her head for a minute, digging deep for the energy to do her
job and be the friend they’d need. She rose and met each man’s eyes in turn.
“We don’t know where she is, but we know who took her. Come on, I’ll tell you what
I can.”
She led them to the same small room she and Eve had
used when talking to the real Kurt Buckland’s boss at the
Mirror
only
the day before. “Sit, please. I don’t have the energy to keep looking up at the
three of you.” It wasn’t a quip, wasn’t a joke. It was the weary truth, and the
men sat, Max between them.
“We want to know what’s going on,” Max said with quiet
authority. The older brother and Tom’s stepfather, he’d clearly taken charge.
“Now.”
“Of course. How’s your arm and head?” she asked David,
taking charge back.
“Fractured and pounding,” he said between his teeth.
“You know my brother Max.”
She met Max’s steel-gray eyes, identical to David’s.
“I met you at Mia’s wedding. All right, here’s what I know. First, we took Dell
Farmer into custody last night after he tried to kill Eve and one of our
detectives.”
“Farmer ran David off the road,” Max said, but Olivia
shook her head.
“No, he did lots of other really bad stuff, but that
wasn’t Farmer.”
David had gone white beneath his winter tan. “If
Farmer’s in jail, then it’s this… Shadowland guy.”
Olivia nodded. “Yes. We had Eve en route to a safe
house when she was taken.”
David surged to his feet. “How did this happen?
Webster promised he’d watch her.”
“Sit down, David,” Olivia commanded, and vibrating
with fear and rage, he obeyed. “Noah was at the scene of another homicide.”
David looked ill. “Six. That was number six.”