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24
“This is a pleasant surprise,” Walt told Fiona as he entered his office to find her waiting for him.
“I told Nancy it had to do with photographs,” she said, hoisting her camera case. “I lied.”
“A social visit?” He kissed her on the cheek. The return kiss was tepid at best. He moved around to behind his desk, thinking of little else.
“I wish. No. It’s… I need a favor, and I’m not sure it’s fair to ask. I don’t want to take advantage of our… you know… the other night, but at the same time, I need something.”
He stood and eased his office door shut and returned to the chair next to her, forgoing the seat behind the desk.
“Talk to me,” he said.
“I… the thing is…” She met his eyes and then looked quickly away.
“We’re both adults here.”
“It isn’t that,” she said. “It’s… We don’t really know each other,” she said. “Not all that well.”
He felt it in the center of his chest, not like a knife but more like a medical procedure where all the blood, all the life, was being drawn out of him into a syringe, while he sat there watching it.
“That’s what we do. Right? From here on out. Get to know each other better. Share the stuff you never share. It’s what makes the bond unique. Worth so much. I want to know you. I want to know all about you.”
Her eyes welled. “You might be surprised.”
“Try me. I like surprise.”
For an instant he saw in her a hope or dream, but something passed like a shadow between them and then that look was gone, replaced by something more protective and even suspicious. He’d had similar moments in interrogations when the suspect seemed ready to download, only to clamp down and turn inward. He’d lost her. Rather than push, or fish, which was his nature, he sat back and tried to appear the model of patience.
“I called the company. The one that can trace the pickup. Michael and Leslie’s pickup.”
He kept his mouth shut, measuring her fragility in her sideways looks and the whispering quality of her voice.
“They said I have to file a police report. Report it as a stolen vehicle. Without that they won’t trace it.”
“Pretty common with these companies,” he said. “They want it to be for real. It’s not a service to track down your missing teenager.”
“But that’s just it: that’s what I need. To track down Kira.”
“Meaning?”
“I haven’t seen her in a couple of days, Walt. That happens sometimes. We can go most of a week without overlapping. But the pickup truck being gone. That’s not good. She knows the rules. The last thing I want is for her to get into trouble with Michael and Leslie and maybe lose the house-sitting thing. But if I want to track her down, I have to report it as stolen, and if I report it as stolen-”
“The Engletons find out about it.”
“Exactly.”
“But if I were to make the call…?”
“Something like that. Yes.”
“No problem.”
“What? Really?” He watched the load come off her: her head raised, her shoulders seemed higher, straighter.
“Not a big deal,” he said. “I can have Nancy make the call.”
“But does it… I don’t know. Could you get into trouble?”
“I can’t imagine how. We make these kinds of calls often enough. It’s really not a big deal.”
“It is to me.”
“Well then, consider it done.”
Her eyes softened.
“Have you tried something old-fashioned, like calling her?”
“Voice mail.”
“I don’t love the idea of her going missing at a time we’re searching the woods in your area.”
“I know.”
“Do you think there’s any chance… any possibility that her departure is related to-?”
“No!” she said sharply, cutting him off. “I think she just took off in the truck. She’s still just a kid. There was already stuff brewing between us. She was mad that I left the Advocates di
“That surprised me as well.”
“And she apparently had a flashback in the middle of her talk-”
“Yes, she told me.”
“And that freaked her out, and I think she was counting on me being there for her. And I wasn’t. And I feel bad about that, but it is what it is.”
He hoped she might explain her sudden departure that night, but she chose not to-and that was how he thought of it: that she made a decision not to share with him, and he took that as a bad omen. He nearly said so. Might have, had she not cut into his thoughts.
“I just want to find her and get that truck back before it blows up on her.”
“Did you try her parents?”
“That relationship… it’s complicated.”
He thought she sounded more like a psychologist than herself. “So I’ll make the call. We should hear something by the end of the day. It doesn’t take them long.”
“Should I wait?”
“No. It’ll be a few hours at the least. Maybe tomorrow. I’ll call you.”
“It’s really nice of you,” she said, her eyes softening.
“Happy to do it.”
“I could repay you with a di
“I’m with the girls the next few nights. With Boldt here, I’ve been distracted. First job, and all that.”
“Is he gone?”
“Leaving in the morning.”
“How’s that been?”
“Interesting. We’re kind of working together at the moment.”
“On the Gale thing?”
He eyed her. “Good memory.”
“Easy name to remember.”
“Tell me about it,” he said. Every time he spoke of the dead man he thought of his ex-wife. “Boldt was a big help to me. We’ve got some solid leads.”
“From canvassing my place, no doubt,” she said, forcing a smile behind it. A smile that didn’t come easily.
“Exactly. I’ve suspected you for some time.” He lowered his voice playfully. “I might need another one-on-one just to clear you.”
“Talk to my attorney,” she said, biting back a grin. She pulled herself out of the chair, leaned forward, and kissed him.
“Thank you,” she repeated. She pulled his head to her lips and whispered. “I like your interrogation techniques. Like them a lot.”
She left him there, firmly rooted in the chair, his neck still tingling from the sensation of her lips across his ear.
That afternoon the courts dealt Walt a crushing defeat by refusing him access to Dio
“I have a reporter from The Statesman, Pam from the Express, and a couple of the TV stations all on hold. Hit us all at once.”
“Concerning?”
“Martel Gale.”
Walt swallowed. Gale’s identity had not been released. He had expected the information might leak but not so quickly, and he had to wonder if this was somehow Harris Evers’s doing, Vince Wy
“Issue a no comment.”
“Got it.”
His mind reeled. A sports celebrity death would bring the national news next. That, in turn, would bring pressure from the Hailey mayor, state congressman Clint Ste