I don’t have a clue how Jake plans to accomplish that, but he sounds determined and confident that he’ll succeed.
“Someone will go through mug shots with you,” Jake continues. “If Joe doesn’t show up in the pictures, expect a visit from an FBI artist, who will do a composite sketch.” A little smile turns up the corners of his lips. “Good call on using the back door. You even killed the motion lights, huh?”
I nod.
“Good thinking. I’ll tell anyone else coming over to give you a heads-up and to use the alley. Make sure you power up the motion detectors between visitors.”
“Will do.”
“One final thing,” he says.” If that prick shows up here again, don’t touch anything he may have touched and let us get a crime scene crew here immediately to look for prints or DNA.”
With that, Jake shoves the door open and strides purposefully to the alley. A little kernel of hope stirs in the depths of the blind fear that has consumed me over the past few days.
I close the door and go straight to my daughter’s bedroom to feed her goldfish, which I’ve brought home from Pat’s. Brittany will have my ass if she comes home to find Puckerface floating belly up because I forgot to feed him. Of course, I’ll happily take that outcome in a heartbeat if she comes home. There are more Puckerfaces in the ocean… or at the pet store. After sprinkling flakes of fish food on top of the water, I walk back into the living room, where I see an apparition of Joe sitting in Papa’s La-Z-Boy. At least I think it’s a mirage. Could this be some sort of psychic message that he already knows what I’ve just done? I close my eyes and shake my head to clear it, but the specter of Joe remains in the chair, once again warning me, “No cops, Mr. Valenti. We will know if you talk to them.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
It’s late Friday morning, and Penelope is at the wheel of her silver Audi A4 sedan as we inch toward downtown on the Eisenhower “Expressway,” where it’s rush hour all day, every day. Brittany has now been missing for almost a week, and it’s been two days since Bobby Harland’s body was found. I know the statistics and understand that the odds of Brittany being found alive at this point are slender indeed. Yet there is a chance. We won’t give up hope, and Jake and the FBI won’t quit looking while there’s even the slightest prospect of bringing her home safely. Miracles do happen… just not very often. One might say we’ve already experienced a little one in that I haven’t yet collapsed from exhaustion. Or despair. I’ve dipped into Papa’s medicine cabinet the past couple of nights and swallowed a few of the sleeping pills that were prescribed for him last year. They still work.
Now that word is out that a pretty white girl is missing, the media have pounced on the story, the city’s good Samaritans have sprung into action, and prayers are flowing. I’ll take whatever help is on offer, however nonsensical and self-serving some of it seems to be. As for Michelle, I’ve simply refused to pick up any of her calls. The couple of screeching voicemails she’s left attest to the wisdom of that decision. I don’t have the time, energy, or emotional reserves to deal with her outrage and maneuvering. Isn’t it interesting that she’s expressing her outrage and railing about what a shitty father I am while she’s still in Brussels? Wouldn’t most mothers have hopped on the first plane to Chicago and thrown themselves into the effort to bring their daughter home safely? Perhaps it’s a busy week in Human Resources at Coca-Cola Europe.
Penelope is pensive after we exit the parking garage and walk three blocks along Wacker Drive to the modern skyscraper that is our destination. She shoots me a sideways glance. “I wish we knew what this girl has to share with us.”
She’s referring to an enigmatic phone call to our offices two hours ago from a woman who claims that her daughter has information about Megan Walton’s pilot training that “you’ll definitely be interested in.” We’ve arranged for a deposition tomorrow. If the girl really does have damaging information about Megan, it would have been nice to have it prior to the confrontation we’re heading into.
“So do I,” I reply as we arrive and push through a set of revolving doors that spill us into an expansive granite-floored lobby. We don’t need to consult the building directory to locate the offices of Butterworth Cole, where Penelope worked as an associate until quitting a year ago. I had briefly been a client before her boss, Herbert C. Cumming, dumped me. We’ve been summoned here this morning by none other than Cumming himself, who is the lead lawyer representing Senator Evan Milton in his lawsuit against Windy City Sky Tours et al.—with one of the et als. being our client, R & B Ramp Services. Why we’re here is a mystery, but we’ll know what it’s all about soon enough.
Penelope meets my eye when a trio of young business types exits the elevator and we find ourselves alone as we’re whisked to an upper floor. “Seems odd to be here in an adversarial role.”
I wonder if she’s feeling intimidated about facing off against her old boss, who I suspect isn’t outwardly supportive nor overly appreciative of the work of his underlings.
Her eyes glitter mischievously. “I’ve often fantasized about beating up on Herbert C. Cumming.”
“Figuratively or literally?” I ask with a weak grin.
She bounces her eyebrows and drolly replies, “Both.”
I smile absently as my daughter’s predicament forces its way back to the forefront of my thoughts. I push the thoughts aside, or at least try to. The distraction of work hasn’t been a panacea, but it has
