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.”The intercom on Billy’s desk crackled.Mavis’s voice was excited.“Billy, Line 2.This may be the break.”“Roger.” Billy clicked on the speaker phone, punched Line 2.“Chief Cameron.”“Yeah.Hey, Chief, what’s the deal on the reward?” The whispery voice was hopeful, smarmy, and wary.Billy glanced at the orange flyer.“The reward is being offered by the family.If you have information that finds him, you qualify.Where is he?”“I don’t have an address.” The tone was sarcastic.“I can tell you where he was last night and who he was with.If that information gets you to him, I should get the reward, right? But the thing is, I don’t want to get crossways with a tough hombre.Here’s the deal, I’ll give you my name on the condition you keep quiet about me.Just say you had a tip when you go to out to Doo—uh, go where I tell you.But if this leads you to him, I expect you to put in a good word for me with the family, okay?”“Sure.Where did you see him?” Billy hunched forward.“Let’s get it in writing.” The caller was determined.“I called you at three forty-five.You got that written down?”Billy marked the time on his tablet.“Yeah.So who are you?”“Harry Stafford.One-six-five Pigeon Roost Lane.Got that?” He was insistent.“Yeah.Where did you see him?” Billy listened, face creased in a frown, big hand flying over the tablet.At the bottom of the page, he scrawled DOOLEY’S MINE in capital letters.3Emma rattled the knob to make sure the door was locked.She flicked the blinds down, turned off the lights, making the den dusky as a cave.“Now we can have some peace and quiet.All right, take a deep breath.Close your eyes.” Emma’s usually brusque tone was muted.Annie blinked at her.It was on the order of a rhinoceros attempting a lullaby.The author frowned, her square face impatient.“Close your eyes.” This was a bark, gentleness forgotten.She loomed over Annie, iron gray hair spiky as a porcupine, blue eyes compelling.Emma was as commanding as a field-grade officer despite the candy stripes of her summery caftan.Only the smudges beneath her eyes hinted at fatigue, though Annie knew she’d snatched only a few hours sleep on the sofa in the terrace room.Annie squeezed her eyes shut, but tangles of thought burgeoned in her mind, undisciplined as weeds in an overgrown lawn.“Relax.Pretend you are standing in the doorway to Confidential Commissions.” Emma’s gravelly voice was encouraging.“You are there.It is dark.You hear a sound.Relaaaax…” No stage hypnotist could have been more soporific.“What do you see?”The image was there.A quick—oh so quick—light.A tiny narrow beam that flashed illumination thin as a laser, there for an instant, then gone.Annie held to that glimpse, tried to recall.She’d seen a portion of the floor.The beam must have been turned down.Then nothing.Whoever held the flashlight turned past Barb’s desk and the light clicked off.She had no picture of the fleeing figure.It might have been a man.It could have been a woman.“I didn’t see him.Or her.God, I don’t know.It could have been anyone.” Hot tears seeped beneath her closed lids.Kleenex was thrust into her hand.“You were there.That’s what matters.If you hadn’t gone to the office, we wouldn’t know someone had been there.”Annie opened her eyes, swiped at her face.“What difference does it make if I can’t give a description?”“It’s proof someone knows where Max is.” Emma’s voice was bleak.“Proof…” She broke off, her face heavy, her gaze somber.Annie’s head throbbed.Emma always made sense, but not this time.“Proof of what?”Emma walked to the mantel, picked up a framed snapshot of Annie and Max deep-sea fishing.Her back was to Annie.She didn’t answer directly.“You didn’t get a look at the person.But you know it wasn’t Max.”“Of course.” Annie sat up straight, eyes flashing.“There was something dreadful there in the dark.”“I believe you.You sensed danger, evil.Someone was there and it wasn’t Max.” Emma replaced the picture, put it precisely between two other snapshots.“There had to be a purpose in that visit.When we know the reason, we may know everything.For now we can be sure of this: Someone used a key to get into Confidential Commissions.It is clear to me”—she slowly turned, faced Annie, her face sad—“that someone has Max’s keys.”Annie looked deep into Emma’s primrose blue eyes and wished she hadn’t.Unwillingly, she understood.Emma believed someone had Max’s keys.There was no good way those keys could have been taken.Billy heard quiet ease over the long room like fog rolling to shore.He stood in the foyer of Dooley’s Mine, his face at its most stolid.He smelled beer on tap, old sweat, must and mold as he surveyed the booths turned into caves by the papier-mâché boulders and the red lanterns that cast a sickly glow.He liked a beer as well as any man, but he wanted a beer and a hot dog at a ball game or a cold can of Bud while he watched his lure bob in the water or a frosted glass at Parotti’s while Kevin played the jukebox and Mavis offered bits of apple to Lily as they waited for their burgers and fries.Out of cop’s habit, he scanned the faces, knew them without having ever seen them before.He knew the stories of the lost and lonely or the stridently convivial who drink beer or whisky in a dimly lit bar on an August afternoon [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]