She hung up without waiting forhis response either. The less she had to talk to anyone right now, the better.And she could use the walk—even if it wasn’t a terribly long distance, it wouldbe a good way to burn off some steam.
If she was going to be able toassess this new lead, whatever it was, with the clarity required, she needed toget her mind a little clearer. Zoe reached into her pocket and pulled outanother of the pills, throwing it back quickly. One hadn’t seemed to haveworked; perhaps two would do the trick.
Something had to—or she didn’tmuch rate her chances of solving the case anytime soon, and if she couldn’t dothat, what was the point of it all?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Here, see?” Flynn said, shovingthe papers across to Zoe and pointing at them, taking his eyes off the road fora moment to tap on the highlighted lines. Zoe wished he wouldn’t do that. Itwas alarming, how quickly he drove combined with how lax he was about watchingout for hazards. “He works at the planetarium.”
Zoe followed his finger, readingthe highlighted text: an engineer who was on the planetarium’s payroll by thename of Ed Baker, his home address listed next to his starting date—three yearsago—and his salary, which wasn’t to be sniffed at.
“Fine,” Zoe said, shifting toanother page of the loose file he had pushed at her. “So, what is theconnection?”
The next page was a printout of amap, two locations circled. “See their homes? They’re within walking distanceof each other, same neighborhood,” Flynn asserted. “It would have been easyenough for Baker to follow Hanson when she set off from home and went out tothe trail. Actually, she would have gone right by his house when she did.”
“That does not prove a lot,” Zoesaid, making perhaps the grandest understatement of her month. In fact, it wasnothing at all—circumstantial only. It ignored the fact that Hanson also had topass by many other homes on her journey, and the non-coincidental fact that twopeople living and working in the same area had a route match.
“Aha,” Flynn said, gesturing forher to turn the page. “But the only reason I latched onto Baker in the firstplace is because I found him when I was cross-checking. They follow each otheron Twitter.”
“Hanson and Baker?” Zoe said,screwing up her face. “What does that prove?”
“Not much,” Flynn admitted. “Butshe did post regularly about her hiking routes, along with images. She nevershared exactly when or where she was going, but if you were a local, you’d beable to recognize things. Landmarks. He would have known she was likely headedout. In fact, he might have come up with the idea of murdering her on the trailafter seeing her posts.”
Zoe thought that it seemed alittle far-fetched. Connecting the dots because you wanted to force them to beconnected. “Does Baker have any record?” she asked. “Threatening behavior,stalking, domestic abuse?”
“Nothing comes up in his file.”Flynn shrugged. “No record at all. He looks clean. But that probably just meanshe’s good at getting away with it.”
Zoe would have rolled her eyes ifshe’d been able to find the level of care required. This was pointless. A wildgoose chase. But at least she could take more time to think about the clues shehad seen at the Hanson attack scene. There was something there, she knew—and itwas all recorded in her brain now, ready to be used. She wouldn’t have to workhard to recall it. The numbers tended to stick with her like that.
It was getting later in theevening; they were driving toward Ed Baker’s home, not back to his workplace.Even if the planetarium hadn’t been closed to facilitate their investigationand preserve the evidence, he would have been home by now, settling in for thenight. There was no other information about him in the paperwork that Flynn hadput together. No word on whether he had a family living with him or was single,his age, or anything else. Zoe sighed to herself. Flynn was going offhalf-cocked, unprepared. If she hadn’t believed this was a dead end, she wouldhave tried to caution him toward safety and thorough research before bargingin.
They pulled up outside under adark sky, on a quiet street where the majority of the homes had lights blazingcheerily in downstairs rooms. The Baker house was no exception: a neatlytrimmed front yard with two cars parked out front, lights on across all of theground floor rooms behind thick curtains, and an overall impression of warmthand coziness even from the outside.
Zoe got out of the car slowly, foronce deliberately following the rookie’s lead. It wasn’t that she was trying togive him the impression that he was in charge, but she wanted little part ofthis. She couldn’t feel any confidence that they were going to discoveranything in this pointless interview. At the same time, she couldn’t exactlytell him not to bother. It was perfectly normal procedure to interview anyonewho might have known both victims. SAIC Maitland wouldn’t have been impressedif Flynn went to him and said that Zoe was ignoring potential leads.
Zoe trailed behind Flynn up thewalk to the door. She was starting to feel strangely disconnected. She was ableto somewhat focus on what was happening around her rather than getting swept upin the numbers, but the pills made something inside her brain fill up withliquid and float.
She watched, more like an outsiderthan ever, as Flynn knocked on the door and it opened a short time later.
“Ed Baker?” Flynn asked.
“Yes.” The man, a forty-somethingwho stood at five foot nine, nodded. “Can I help you?”
“I’m Agent Aiden Flynn with theFBI,” Flynn said, holding up his badge. Zoe moved to do the same. “This is mypartner, Agent Zoe Prime. Do you mind if we come inside for a chat?”
Zoe wanted to object. He wasn’ther partner. She’d been very clear about that. She’d already had a partner, andthe position wasn’t open for a replacement.
But Ed Baker was already noddingand standing back to let them inside, which meant there wasn’t enough time forher to drag Flynn aside and
