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Yeah, she’d done some research on him. It wasn’t hard—he’d been convicted of stabbing his pretty socialite wife to death, and his trial had been reported and analyzed ad nauseam in dozens of newspapers across the state. It had even been on TruTV. He had indeed been pardoned and then his conviction overturned when the real killer had tried to kidnap Eric’s future sister-in-law.
Bree hadn’t known anything about the original crime, because she’d been in her medical residency then, oblivious to anything but her patients and the few hours of sleep she could grab. Plus, crime news had never been something that interested her. She’d had her fill of it during Kelly’s arrest and trial.
It was a wonder she’d survived that period of her life, fighting for Kelly’s freedom and getting through med school.
“Bree?”
She whirled around, nearly tripping and falling down the stairs. Eric grabbed her elbow to steady her, then quickly released it, as if touching her had burned him.
“How did you get past me?” She tamped down the ridiculous pleasure she felt at seeing him again. Something about him was so reassuring. Maybe that was a glamour he’d developed to deal with skittish clients. “I’ve been watching that door for the past twenty minutes.”
“I came out a side door. I just happened to glance this way on the way to my car.... Bree, what are you doing here?”
“I needed to talk to you.”
“A phone call wouldn’t have worked? Not that I’m not happy to see you,” he quickly added. “A man would have to be crazy to... Never mind.”
He was flirting with her, though she was pretty sure he hadn’t meant to. And why did she care? She’d come here for a reason, and it wasn’t to set her hormones all aflutter. “I tried calling, but your overzealous watchdog refused to put me through.”
“Overzealous... Celeste?”
“She said once an application had been rejected, there was nothing I could do to change Daniel’s mind, and policy was to not put calls through from people like me.”
“That’s Celeste. She doesn’t bend the rules for anyone. How did you know to find me here?”
“I saw that woman, Jillian, coming out the front door and she steered me here. I’m sorry, I know I’m acting like a stalker, but I really needed to talk to you.”
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“It’s Philomene. She really is missing. When I didn’t hear from her by the next day, I called her at work. Her boss said she hadn’t shown up for work in two days.”
Eric’s brow furrowed. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“No, it really doesn’t.”
“Did you call the police?”
“For all the good it did me.” Bree’s legs were suddenly tired. She sank back down to sit on one of the steps. “They said I had to wait seventy-two hours. And even then, unless there’s some evidence of foul play, they won’t look for her.”
“As I said before—”
“I know. It’s a common-sense policy employed by most law enforcement agencies—I get that. But they were so... They just dismissed me! They already think I’m a kook, I’m afraid. I didn’t exactly make a lot of friends at the sheriff’s office when Kelly was arrested. Now they think I’m overreacting. But I’m not. Something doesn’t feel right. I think Philomene’s in trouble. We have to find her before it’s too late!”
“We?”
“I don’t know who else to turn to.”
“I’m not a cop. I’m not an investigator of any kind. I’m just a lawyer—a real-estate lawyer, if truth be told. This job with Project Justice is a temporary deal, filling in for an attorney on maternity leave.”
She slumped and rested her elbows on her knees. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.” Oh, God. She hoped she wouldn’t humiliate herself further by crying.
Bree fully expected Eric to walk away. But instead he sat down beside her, heedless of getting his expensive suit dirty. “Bree. What is it you think I can do? I’d like to find your friend. How is it you think I can help?”
“I figured you knew people. Given your job....”
“This is my first week. I’ve met some of the people who work at Project Justice, but truthfully, I don’t know any of them very well. But I could try to help. Maybe if I talked to the sheriff.”
“You’d do that?”
“I have tomorrow off. They’re fumigating the building. Sometimes just seeing a new face could shake someone out of complacence. And the fact that I’m a lawyer won’t hurt. People are afraid of lawsuits.”
“I’d be really appreciative. I’ll pay you—”
“That’s not necessary. But have you considered hiring a private detective?”
“I thought I would talk to you first. Do you know any good private detectives?”
“No. But I could find you one. Project Justice uses them from time to time for surveillance and such. But let me check a few things first.” He took his phone out of his jacket pocket and opened the notepad. “Do you know Philomene’s full name?”
“Philomene Switzer, that’s all I know.”
“What’s her approximate age?”
“Late twenties, I’d say.”
“With that and her address, our data analyst can probably find out a lot. But it’s not exactly kosher to ask him to work on something that’s not foundation business.”
“It would be foundation business if you’d taken on Kelly’s case.” Her muscles tensed as she remembered the casual way Eric had dismissed her. The way he was so sure Kelly was guilty, when he couldn’t be.
“But we didn’t. And the foundation isn’t in the business of randomly looking for people.”
“Philomene’s disappearance is connected, though. Think about it. On the very day she’s about to unburden herself to someone who might be able to get Kelly out of jail and prove the real criminal is still at large, she inexplicably goes missing. I feel the wrongness of that in my bones, Eric.”
“Then why don’t you come with me to talk to Mitch. Maybe he’ll work on the problem on his own time.”
“Of course I’ll come. Can we do it now?”
Eric stood and offered his hand. “Let’s go.”
His hand felt incredibly warm and reassuring. Bree had been alone for so long, the solitary crusader on Kelly’s behalf. No one had stood by her—not Kelly’s family, certainly not her family. They’d hated Kelly since he and Bree were teenagers, and his arrest and conviction had delighted them because they could say “I told you so.”
And now, after all these years, Bree had Eric.
Granted, his support was grudging. And could be withdrawn at any point. But even though he had his own reasons for disliking Kelly, Eric saw something in what Bree had told him. She’d gotten through his bias, or she’d at least opened a small crack. Now she was going to stick her foot in that crack and make sure he couldn’t close it back up. For Kelly, she told herself. All this is for Kelly.
She waited until they were in Eric’s car and on the road before she made a confession. “You should probably know—I sort of gave Jillian the idea that I’m your, um, girlfriend.”
Eric slammed on the brakes. “What?”
“Sorry, it was just the most expedient way to... You’re getting honked at.” He’d stopped in the middle of a busy road.
Eric pulled over to the curb. “I can’t believe you did that. Do you know how long and hard I worked to convince Jillian that you and I weren’t...” He seesawed his hands back and forth. “The whole office thought we were having sex in the break room. On my second day of employment.”
“Well, I’m not the one who ripped my shirt off.” She wasn’t going to take all the blame.
“Now everyone is going to think I’m a liar as well as a sexual deviant. Why did you do that?”
“She assumed, and I thought it would take too long to explain, and I needed to find you.” He seemed far more distressed at the thought of her being his girlfriend than he ought to be. “I’ll explain it to her. I didn’t mean to cause you so much grief, really.”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” he muttered, putting the car in gear and slowly easing into traffic.
“If it makes you feel any better, Jillian didn’t seem at all judgmental. She thinks you’re really nice and that you deserve to be with someone. Nice.” Not that she qualified. Other than buying Eric a meat loaf dinner, she’d done nothing but cause a giant pain in his butt since the moment they met.
“Whatever.”
Now Bree felt bad. She really hadn’t meant to diminish Eric in his coworkers’ eyes. But she wouldn’t like it if her coworkers thought she was boffing her boyfriend in an empty exam room. Her professional reputation mattered to her, and it appeared Eric’s did to him. She’d do what she could to fix things.
By the time they’d parked Eric’s car in the Project Justice garage, Eric seemed to have shaken off his pique. She caught him smiling when she stopped to pet a small dog on a leash held by someone exiting the building.
“They let people bring their pets to work here?” Bree asked as Eric used his security card and a PIN number to gain entrance to the building. She was glad they were coming through the back rather than having to face the grim Celeste.
“You can pretty much do anything you want here so long as you get your work done and you don’t impede anybody else’s ability to work. I actually never met that woman with the dog, so I’m not sure she works here. She might be a client or someone’s personal trainer. You just never know.”
“Wow. I can’t imagine working under such...friendly conditions. I’m used to being abused at my job—long hours, dinner breaks too short to do anything but grab a candy bar from the vending machine, not even a comfortable chair to be found.”
“Yeah, but you get compensated well, I’m sure.”
“At County? Not as well as you might think. And I have student loans to pay off.”
“What would you do if you were out of debt?” he asked.
She thought about it for a moment. “Probably keep doing what I’m doing,” she confessed. “I hate the bureaucracy of the place, hate my boss, but I love my work. I can’t think of any other job where you can have such an immediate and dramatic impact on someone’s life. They come in dying or thinking they’re dying or wishing they would die, and by the time I’m done with them, they’re better. I ease the pain, I sew up the cuts, set the bones, reassure them. It’s...gratifying.”
“What about when they die?”
“Well, there is that. I try not to dwell on those losses. They’re inevitable in most branches of medicine. Except maybe dermatology.”
He smiled again, though he tried not to let her see it.
The first place they went was a large room at the end of a hallway that housed a number of desks and file cabinets arranged in a rather haphazard fashion. The place was buzzing with activity. Men and women, mostly in their twenties and thirties, talked on the phone, tapped away on computers or spoke with each other in voices that were subdued but full of energy. Their clothing ranged from formal business attire to jeans and T-shirts.
“This is the bull pen,” Eric explained.
“Like at a police department?”
“A lot of the people who work here are former police officers. This arrangement seems to make them feel comfortable. Though the dress code here is pretty lax.”
“Apparently so.”
Eric led her to a far corner, where a man with longish curly blond hair and big black-framed glasses sat at an impressive array of computers. Three monitors, two laptops, a tower and a couple of cell phones sat on his desk. Around it were various peripheral gadgets she couldn’t come close to recognizing.
“Mitch,” Eric said. “Do you have a minute?”
The man named Mitch quickly blanked his screen and swiveled his chair, simultaneously whipping off his glasses, revealing a pair of hazel eyes. He was quite good-looking in a wild and lawless way. She wasn’t too surprised to see a crash helmet tucked under his desk.
“Sure,” he said. “What’s up?” He eyed Bree up and down, not in a sexual way but with idle curiosity, before inviting them to pull up chairs.
“This is Bree,” Eric said.
“I’m not his girlfriend,” Bree blurted out. “I told Jillian I was, but it’s not true. We barely know each other.”
As Eric stared at her as if willing her to shut her mouth, Mitch quirked one eyebrow at her. “Ooookay.”
“I don’t know what you’ve heard,” Bree went on, wanting Mitch to understand, “but he only took off his shirt to show me a...”
Eric was shaking his head, looking alarmed.
“Well, never mind,” Bree finished lamely.
“Hey, makes me no never mind whatchall been up to,” Mitch said in a lazy drawl that could only have come from Cajun country. “What can I do you for?”
“A friend of Bree’s is missing,” Eric said. “The police won’t look into it because... Well, you know how the police are about missing persons.”
“I take it you think something bad happened to your friend?”
Bree explained as briefly as she could, without mentioning specifics, that Philomene was connected to a crime, and that she was in a position to identify a possible serial murderer, and that they’d come across some kind of intruder in her apartment. She gave Mitch everything she knew about Philomene, which admittedly wasn’t much.
“Her name can’t be that common,” Mitch said. “I’ll find her. Give me a few minutes, okay?”
“Yeah, sure.” Eric looked at Bree. “You want lunch?”
“I’m not hungry,” she said automatically. She ought to pay more attention to her diet and stop living on coffee and jelly beans, but she couldn’t imagine putting food into her knotted stomach right now. “I’ll just sit here and wait.”
“Oh, Bree, I see you found him!” Jillian entered the bull pen with a flourish. Bree suspected it was hard for the woman to appear inconspicuous.
“Yeah, about that...” Bree began guiltily, but Eric jumped in.
“Jillian, do you have a few minutes? We just want to pick your brain. It’s not official foundation business,” he added.
“Of course.” She perched on the edge of an empty desk and crossed her legs, revealing an impressive length of thigh and mile-high shiny black platform boots.
“I’m not really his girlfriend,” Bree blurted out. “I lied. But I was in a hurry and I just wanted to find him. So I let you believe what you wanted.”
“Oh.” Jillian seemed disappointed.
“I’m sorry. I’m usually a very honest person. I shouldn’t have lied. I put Eric in an awkward position, and I didn’t mean to.”
“So if you’re not his girlfriend, why was he stripping off his clothes?”
“It wasn’t sexual,” Eric said. “I don’t want people thinking I had a liaison at the office my second day of work.”
Jillian shrugged. “Okay. But honestly, no one cares. If you had any idea the amount of sex that’s gone on in this office between people who should know better, you’d understand. So what do you guys want with me?”
Eric held a chair out for Bree, then rolled another over for himself. “Bree needs some help finding someone.”
“I just want to know that she’s okay,” Bree added. “But I’m worried something happened to her.”
“Oh, that’s easy. Talk to Mitch.”
“We did that,” Eric said.
“Then he’ll find out soon enough whether she’s used her phone, bought gas, bought an airline ticket, left the country...”
“Really?” Bree was astonished. “He can do all that? Is that legal?”
Jillian and Eric shared deer-in-headlights looks.
“Ah,” Jillian said. “Since you’re not a client, you haven’t signed a nondisclosure agreement. So we can’t say any more about how we do things.”
“She’s right,” Eric said.
“I’m not going to tattle,” Bree said. “If you want me to sign something, I will. But you don’t have to tell me any more. All I want to do is find Philomene.”
“Okay.” Jillian got down to business. “In all likelihood, Mitch will tell you where and when she’s used her phone and credit cards and provide a list of people she knows—family, friends, coworkers, neighbors. Your job will be to chase down those people and see if any of them can tell you where she is or if they’ve seen or heard from her. I assume you’ve tried calling her?”
“She doesn’t answer,” Bree said. “She doesn’t call back. It’s possible she just doesn’t want to hear from me.”
“Call her from a number she won’t recognize. Have someone whose voice she doesn’t know leave a message like they want to send her a check, a gas company deposit from years ago, something like that. People always respond if they think you are going to pay them.”
Jillian outlined some other offbeat ways she’d heard of for finding missing persons. She seemed to enjoy sharing her expertise.
“People can try to hide,” she said, “but their personalities are the same. So your friend might seek out the same kind of job. If you can pinpoint a city, you can check businesses similar to where she worked. If she gets her hair done professionally, she’ll seek that out. If she wears acrylic nails, same thing. Sometimes Mitch can get hold of gas station security video near where you think she lives. That’s tedious, going over days and days of video. But people have to buy gas.”
Bree was truly impressed. No wonder Project Justice was so good at solving crimes the police had bungled.
“Well, I didn’t think up any of this stuff,” Jillian said modestly. “I’ve been taught by some of the best investigators on the planet. So let’s see, what else? You can—”
“Hey, got something,” Mitch said. “Philomene bought gas in San Antonio. She also used her cell phone there. She called another mobile number in the same area, but that one is a throwaway. We’ll never find who it belongs to.”
“Someone could have stolen her phone along with her credit card,” Bree pointed out.
“Okay, here’s one more call,” Mitch said. “Ah, we’re in luck. To a landline this time. Registered to a Mildred W. Hayes. Also in San Antonio.”
“Do you think Philomene might have had friends or family in San Antone?” Eric asked Bree.
Bree shrugged. “I didn’t really know her all that well. But we can call this Mildred Hayes, right? Ask her if she knows Philomene?”
“It would be better to go there in person,” Mitch said. “If Philomene is hiding, her friends might lie for her. It’s harder to lie face-to-face. You could also see if Philomene’s car is parked near Mildred’s place.”
“Can you get any info on this Mildred Hayes?”
“Workin’ on it.” Mitch tapped for what seemed like an eternity, but probably it was less than a minute. “Okay, here we go. Mildred is sixty-two years old. African-American.” He tapped some more. “On SNAP and disability. Doesn’t own a car. And...doesn’t live in the greatest neighborhood.”
“Can you give me her address and phone?” Bree asked. “I’ll go talk to her.”
“Not alone, you won’t.” Eric peered at the Google Earth image on Mitch’s monitor. “That does not look like the kind of place a woman should wander by herself.”
“Yeah, well, it’s unlikely I’ll get a police escort.”
“I’ll go with you. I told you I’d help you out tomorrow. Now how about lunch? You might not be hungry, but I am.”
“I’ll keep working on this while you eat.” Mitch pulled a sandwich and an apple out of his desk. “I usually work through lunch any— Okay, that’s weird.”
“What?” Bree stepped closer to peer over Mitch’s shoulder. But the lines and lines of type on the monitor swam before her eyes.
“Another purchase on the credit card just popped up. From the Gap. She just bought...a leather jacket.”
“That does not sound like Philomene,” Bree said. “Eric, you saw her place. She lives modestly. She drives a ten-year-old Toyota.”
“Maybe she forgot to bring a coat. A front is supposed to be moving through tonight.”
“That doesn’t make sense. There’s something wrong here. Because if Philomene met with foul play, it means I was right. Someone wanted to keep her quiet. Someone doesn’t want the truth to come out. Which means someone besides Kelly raped Philomene and killed all those girls. You just don’t want to admit it.”
Eric was about to retort when his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and walked a few steps away, but spoke only briefly before returning.
“Sorry, Bree, but I have to get back to work.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll meet you tomorrow morning at the Home Cookin’ Café. Nine o’clock. We’ll find Philomene. Ernie?” He addressed a young man at a nearby desk. “Please show Dr. Johnson out. She’s parked in the garage.” Eric did an abrupt about-face and left the room—as if he couldn’t wait to get away from her.
CHAPTER FIVE
AS HE STIRRED half-and-half into his coffee, Eric could have slapped his own face for putting himself in this position. Having Philomene disappear was a stroke of good luck. Without Philomene, Bree had no case. No case, no chance Kelly Ralston would ever see daylight.
Finding Philomene was the last thing he wanted. Yet he was helpless to walk away. What if she really had met with foul play? He couldn’t just ignore the fact that a woman was missing, and no one gave a damn. No one but one passionate, determined doctor who made his knees go wobbly.
He didn’t think Philomene was in any real trouble. She probably just had cold feet about recanting her story, as he’d thought all along. Perjury was a serious crime. She’d unburdened herself to Bree on impulse, and Bree had grabbed on to the possibility of helping Kelly and refused to let go. Now Philomene had second thoughts. She probably had friends or relatives in San Antonio, where she could hang for a while and hope that Bree would forget about her.
Bree wouldn’t forget. Unfortunately. And Eric was caught in the middle.
If he didn’t help Bree, he reasoned, she would find someone else to help. She would find Philomene on her own. At least if he remained involved, he could keep a close eye on things and try to turn the circumstances his way. Because if Kelly Ralston got out of prison, Eric would be the one disappearing. He would take MacKenzie and go to Canada. Or maybe South America, where people could get good and truly lost.
Vengeance will come when you least expect it.
“Sorry I’m late.” Bree slid into the booth across from Eric. He’d been so engrossed in his dismal thoughts he hadn’t seen her arrive. “I worked the graveyard last night so I could have today off, and I had to shower and change before I came here. A patient threw up on me last night.”
“Oh, God.”
“I should know by now to jump out of the way faster. People are always barfing in the E.R. Whether they’re drunk or have a head injury or severe stomach virus, or they’re just terrified.”
Was it him, or did she seem entirely too cheerful given the subject matter?
“You really love your job,” he observed.
“Yeah, I do. I think most young girls want to grow up and get a job that ‘helps people,’ but few are lucky enough to find a vocation where you can provide such immediate aid. I go home at the end of a shift knowing I’ve made a difference. Maybe a small difference—stitching up a cut or just telling someone their injury isn’t serious and they aren’t going to die still has an impact. Have you had breakfast? I thought maybe we could get coffee and something to go—in the interest of time.”
“Sure, sounds good.” They flagged down a waitress and ordered a couple of breakfast burritos. The paper cups of coffee arrived first, and Bree gulped down half the cup without taking a breath.
“Need caffeine much?” Not that Eric didn’t drink an impressive amount of coffee himself, but she’d drunk it scalding hot.
“I was too busy to drink any at home. I need the caffeine, trust me.”
“Doesn’t it bother you, being a doctor and all, having an addiction, even if it’s only coffee?”
“It was a necessity in med school and during residency. Now that my schedule is a little less hectic, I could wean myself off. But then I have a day like today. I haven’t slept in twenty-four hours and it’s not likely I will for another twelve.”
“I guess there are worse vices.”
“Sorry if I’m a little hyper,” she said in a voice that sounded deliberately slower and softer. “I delivered a baby this morning.”
“Really? In the E.R.?”