Meg Gardiner - The Nightmare Thief

Jo’s expression became studiously neutral.

“That’s confidential?” Evan said.

“Absolutely. However, Wylie’s client list isn’t. Nothing stops you from interviewing them.”

“Got a copy?”

Jo handed her a file folder.

Evan smiled. “Okay, I’ll trade.”

From her backpack she took maps and photos of the rugged country near the abandoned gold mine. She handed Jo an eight-by-ten.

Jo looked surprised. “Satellite photos?”

“Orbital image taken two days before Wylie’s disappearance.”

“The resolution’s amazing.”

Evan handed her another. “Same patch of terrain, snapped from the same satellite, but this month.”

Jo stilled. “How did you get these?”

“Relatives with the right passwords. See what I see?”

Jo pored over the photos. “The flood channel. It’s much deeper on the recent image.”

Evan unrolled a U.S. Geological Survey map. “Have you been up there?”

Jo’s dispassion turned to disquiet. “I’ve carved out some time to drive up next week.” She examined the map. “I know that part of the Sierras. The terrain’s brutal. Look at the topo lines.” She traced a series of closely convergent changes in elevation. “Forest, granite crags, sheer drop-offs, and when heavy rain falls, flash flooding is a real problem. If Wylie was hiking, he could plausibly have gotten caught in a washout. I mean, I know native Californians who think they’re safe camping by the Russian River after a downpour.”

“I’m from the Mojave Desert. I know people who thought they were safe driving across eighteen inches of rushing water on a highway,” Evan said. “What are you thinking?”

“The sheriffs’ photos didn’t fully depict the severity of the terrain. Or . . .”

Evan raised an eyebrow. “The timing?”

Jo straightened. “I need to get up there ASAP. Because your satellite photos suggest that the flash flood occurred after Wylie disappeared.”

“Precisely.”

Noise swirled around them, the clatter of coffee cups and silverware. The intensity on Jo’s face mirrored Evan’s own feelings. She felt a weight, heard a deep-background snarl. It was menace, looming.

Jo said, “The question is, what drove Wylie to that mine? Or who ?”

The scratchy feeling, Evan’s sense that she’d missed something, intensified. “You said that the day before Wylie disappeared, his last phone call was from the office.”

“Right.”

“What about the dog walker?”

The evening before he disappeared, while checking his mail, Wylie had run into his next-door neighbor. The two spoke briefly.

Jo said, “I talked to him. He didn’t mention a phone call with Wylie.”

“No. He overheard Wylie take a call. When did you speak to him?”

“Two weeks ago.”

Evan felt a frisson. “I spoke to him yesterday. He said they chatted for a minute before Wylie’s phone rang. Wylie excused himself and answered it.”

Jo looked consternated. “What time was that?”

“Eight p.m.”

“Wylie got an incoming call on his cell phone.”

“Yes,” Evan said.

Jo’s gaze sharpened. “Wylie’s cell phone records show no calls after five thirty.”

They both tensed.

“He had a second cell phone,” Jo said.

“He damned well did.”

“Whoa.” Jo looked both irked and excited. “Did the neighbor overhear Wylie’s conversation?”

“A few words. He said Wylie mentioned something about running, and a concert. A rock concert, he thought.”

Jo sat straighter. Her eyes were alight. “Second cell phone. Was Wylie using it for sex or for bad business?”

“I’ll check. But if this mystery phone didn’t show up in Wylie’s records, it’s either pay-as-you-go or registered under somebody else’s name. Unless we can unearth the number or the phone itself, we won’t find out who called him.”

Jo looked again at the photos. “What did the neighbor hear Wylie say? Exactly . ”

Evan checked her notes. “Wylie mentioned something about how they 'ran.’ And 'rock.’ ”

Jo tapped one of the photos. It showed massive wedges of granite. “Maybe it’s nothing. But maybe he was talking about the mountains.” She stood. “I need to clear my schedule. I have to get up to the Sierras.” She extended her hand. “Thanks for the information.”

“We should compare notes again. Forty-eight hours from now?”

“You bet.” Jo’s smile was hardly neutral. It was hungry.

“Excellent. And who gave you my name?”

That smile became enigmatic. “I’ll call you in forty-eight hours.”

Jo headed for the door, blowing a kiss to her sister as she left. Evan took a breath, excited, and her stomach pinched.

Who had put Jo in contact with her?

The door opened and the wind whispered in, teasing her, hinting at his name.

But she hadn’t told him about the feature story. She hadn’t told him because she hadn’t spoken to him—though he was the man who knew her better than anyone. He was the man she loved, and who had left her inconsolable, struggling through emotional wreckage after her father went missing. The man she didn’t know how to face, the man she had promised to marry.

She slung her pack over her shoulder and walked out.

Jo jumped off the cable car near the top of Russian Hill. The tracks rang with the sound of gears and cables beneath the road, a bright noise that echoed the humming of her nerves. In the park across the street from her house, a basketball hit the backboard and sluiced through the net. Sophie Quintana grabbed the rebound, and saw her.

She hopped and waved. “Jo, you be on Dad’s team.”

Gabe stood beneath the basket, hands on his hips, catching his breath. “That was a quick meeting.”

Jo jogged to the court. “Hurried back to be your point guard, Sergeant.”

He looked good in the October sunlight. Ripped and smiling and welling with energy.

“What’s that gleam in your eye?” he said.

Sophie turned and charged the lane, ten years old and confident that her agility would outgun the grown-ups. Her brown ponytail flicked in the breeze. Her cheeks were bright. Her smile, Jo was happy to see, looked unburdened.

She dodged around Jo and took the layup. The shot hit the rim.

Jo caught the rebound. “The campout with your cousins is this weekend, right?”

The little girl nodded. “Friday.”

Gabe said, “What kind of plan are you hatching?”

Jo passed him the ball. “I’m going to the Sierras.”

“And you want a pararescueman to ride shotgun?”

A whistle from the backcourt caught her attention. The man on the far side of the court raised his hands and called time-out.

“You no longer look like you want to take this day out back and shoot it,” he called to her. “So I’m guessing your meeting went well.”

She excused herself from the game and walked toward him. “You were right. Evan was the one I needed to talk to.”

Jesse Blackburn smiled, short and sharp—a slice. “Glad to hear it.”

His jeans had a hole in the knee. His T-shirt said FIND YOURSELF IN PARADISE and hung loose from his swimmer’s shoulders. His eyes were blue and keen with questions.

Jo gave him the answers. “Yes, she wanted to know who gave me her name. And, no, I didn’t tell her it was you.”

He spun the wheelchair and coasted toward her. “Thank you.”

“But, Jesse, she knows you crossed swords with Phelps Wylie in court. Of course she suspects. She can easily find out I was at UCLA with you. And that you’re in San Francisco to argue a case before the Ninth Circuit.”

An undertow seemed to pull at him. He and Evan had promised their futures to each other—and then they were assaulted by a cascade of Bad. He thought he had brought it down on them and couldn’t see how to swim out from under. Now Jo had spent time with Evan, while he had not. The hurt showed on his face.