“I said I’d have to ask you.”
“You know,” she lowered her voice to a whisper, “you didn’t see what I put on underneath this costume.”
She wasn’t making this easy, even with the preoccupation that was permeating my brain. I had briefly considered telling her the whole story but then decided against it. There was no reason for both of us to worry over this. Not at this particular moment anyway. People were depending on her and I needed to let that come first, for now.
I just kept telling myself that Ben was correct. As long as she was with her group and out in the public eye, she was safe.
“As much as I would like to unwrap that package-and believe me, I really, really do,” I told her, “I think we should probably go to the dinner.”
“Are you sure?” I could hear an audible pout in her voice. “Wouldn’t we be intruding on their family time, then?”
“Ben says no,” I replied then added a generic weightiness to the invitation. “It seems pretty important to him that we be there.”
“Why is that, do you think?”
“Dunno,” I said. “But I think it’s important enough to him that we should oblige.”
“What I’m wearing underneath came from a catalog, then,” she offered in a sexy murmur.
“Felicity…”
She gave it one more try. “I could just wait for you under the Yule tree.”
“Uh huh,” I fended her off. “Tomorrow. I promise.”
“Okay, then,” she pouted into the phone again before moving on. “So are you going to make something to take over there? I’ll be late and won’t have…”
“Already taken care of,” I cut her off. “He said don’t bring anything, so I figure I’ll just grab a bottle of wine out of the rack.”
“Sounds good,” she acknowledged. “How about that eighty-six Zinfandel?”
“The Caswell we bought a case of?”
“Aye, that one.”
“Okay. I can do that.”
She paused at the other end, and I could literally feel her checking me out on an otherworldly level. “Are you okay, Rowan?”
“I’m fine,” I lied. “Why?”
“You sound distant. Like something is bothering you.”
“I’m okay.”
“You don’t feel okay to me, then.”
“I’m just disappointed that I’m going to miss out on your offer.” At least that was only half a lie.
“Hmmmm,” she purred again, apparently accepting the explanation. “Not missing out, just postponing.”
“I like the sound of that better,” I said.
“Oh, it will be worth the wait,” she murmured. “Trust me.”
“Did ya’ tell ‘er?” Ben asked as I walked out of the conference room.
“No,” I shook my head, “I’ll tell her later.”
“Row…”
“Hey,” I held up my hands to stop his objection, “I convinced her that we should go to your house for dinner tonight. I can pack a few things for her before she gets home, and we can both tell her when we get there.”
“Isn’t she gonna be pissed when she finds out that ya’ ran a game on ‘er?”
“And what I’m doing is different from what you planned to do, how?”
“Touche.”
“In answer to your question, however, yes, she’s going to be pissed,” I told him. “You know that. But look at the bright side. Your way she would have just been mad at you. My way she’ll be mad at both of us.”
“Somehow I don’t find that particularly comfortin’,” he answered.
“You shouldn’t.”
“I got a brand new bottle of sixteen-year-old Bushmills at the house. Think we should get her drunk first, then tell ‘er?”
“Neither of us can drink that much,” I mused. “She’d win and then we’d really be in trouble.”
“There are thirty-eight Ash’s listed in the metro phone book,” Detective McLaughlin told us. “Spelled A-S-H, right, Rowan?”
“That’s what I saw, but it might not have been the whole name.” I nodded with my answer.
“Exactly.” She returned the nod. “Which is why we went right down the line on everything beginning with A- S-H. Still, it was a big help to cut out the A-S-C-H’s. All totaled there are three-hundred forty-nine Ash’s or Ash- whatever’s in the white pages.”
“That’s better than I was expectin’,” Ben offered.
“Don’t get excited just yet.” Charlee shook her head. “That’s only the metro phone book. We’re getting a printout from DMV right now, as well as a computer search on phone books from the surrounding counties. The number is gonna get bigger.”
“Yeah, well happy holidays ta’ you too,” Ben told her with a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
“Then you’re gonna love this. I was talking to Ackman and he asked if we were certain that Ash is the surname.” At the end of her sentence she turned a questioning gaze in my direction.
“Honestly, I can’t be sure.” I shook my head and returned a frown. “So I’d have to say that it could be a first name.”
“Well, that’s going to add some more to the pile.”
“What about the street number?” I asked.
“No hit so far,” she returned. “Not against the names anyway. There’s a handful of seventy-five thirty-fours in the metro area alone. Some businesses, some residential.”
I seized on the information and posed a different question. “Are any of the commercial addresses photographic studios by any chance?”
“No such luck. It would really help if we had a street name, or even a zip code.”
Ben poured more water on the fire. “Assumin’ the number ain’t part of a zip code ta’ begin with.”
“Any way you look at that it puts him too far out of state,” she replied. “If you plug numbers in before or after the seventy-five thirty-four, you end up with zip codes in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, and Oregon.”
“Yeah, but he coulda moved here from one of those places,” Ben remarked. “We should prob’ly make some contacts just in case there’s somethin’ open that didn’t make it inta’ NCIC.”
“Shouldn’t you be trying to narrow the scope instead of expanding it?” I asked.
“We’ll start pickin’ the dolphins out as soon as we’re sure the net’s full,” he told me.
“Okay, so what do we do now?”
“We start looking at printouts and making phone calls,” Charlee answered.
“That could take forever,” I exclaimed.
She shrugged and shook her head. “Welcome to the fast-paced and exciting world of police work.”
Ben clapped me on the shoulder. “Yeah, what she said. Who wants coffee?”
CHAPTER 25
