about ten seconds. Rain bounced off the front of his cap. “I think the best way for you to proceed is leave your contact information so I can pass it up the line.”
Ricci stared at him with cold intensity, ignoring the other three uniforms.
“The detective in charge,” he said. “Call him over.”
His expression no longer friendly, the cop looked about to react to the outright challenge.
Then a new voice: “You two Ricci and Thibodeau?”
Ricci turned and saw the man in the raincoat hurrying around from behind the crosswise-parked cars. His blond hair was wet.
“Erickson,” Ricci said.
The detective moved his head up and down, then flicked a glance at the uniforms. They backed off and returned to their black-and-whites.
“Megan Breen just called on my cell,” he said. “She told me you were coming, explained you’d like to view the scene.”
Ricci nodded.
“She’s been very cooperative,” Erickson said. “There are certain restrictions on where you can and can’t go. You guys agree to abide by them, I’ll try to return the favor.”
Thibodeau didn’t hesitate for an instant.
“Be appreciated,” he said.
Erickson nodded.
“Follow me,” he said, and then turned to walk back up the drive.
They followed.
An eight-month stint in Antarctica had raised Megan Breen’s command of her patience to a sublime level, and she had done everything she could to keep herself occupied while awaiting word from Africa and Ashley’s callback. Whatever else was happening, she had a company to manage, as she’d had an ice station to run amid a wide spectrum of crises brought on by both man and nature throughout the polar winter. Her waking nightmare had begun today with two small-city detectives arriving out of the blue to deliver the most unexpected and shocking of messages. The tense, rapidly called huddle with Ricci and Thibodeau had followed without segue in Megan’s numbed mind. But the constant reminders that it was still a day at the office were among the nightmare’s most surreal components. There were matters she needed to track in every area of operation. Routine decisions to make, clusters of problems to address, requests to grant, deny, or put on hold. Many of them were duties she would have normally considered headaches but counted as blessings right now in her attempts to stay busy. She did not expect to give better than partial attention to anything in front of her, nor stop her fears about Julia from obtruding on her thoughts. Still, Megan could only believe that being partially diverted, maintaining even the flimsiest semblance of normalcy, was preferable to giving in to the sense of helpless, useless, agonizing despair that would be the sure and terrible alternative.
When the e-mail arrived, she was at her office computer making an immense effort to focus on a contractor’s bid for the expansion of an UpLink optics and photonics R&D facility outside Seattle. On any other morning, she almost certainly would not have noticed the new inbox item for quite a while. Though she had never bothered to disable the sound notification option on her messaging program — default settings tended to remain in place on her machine out of casual apathy — Megan considered its bell tone an annoying nuisance given the large volume of electronic correspondence she received, and for the most part left her desktop’s speakers switched off. Typically, she would check for messages at semiregular intervals throughout the course of her workday — while having her morning coffee, before and after her lunch break, then again perhaps an hour or so before heading home.
Today, however, was not normal. Not typical, no. Not regular or routine by any stretch of the imagination. Today Megan had turned on the speaker volume control thinking she wanted to leave every line of communication open, and it was for this reason that she heard the chime that signaled a message had jumped into her queue. It was the tenth she’d opened in under an hour. Eight of the previous messages were work related. The last had been a nasty bit of junk mail that managed to squeeze through her software filters and, because she was distracted, trick her into opening it with a moderately devious subject line that would have been otherwise identified for what it was by her mental antispammers to prompt a quick delete. All nine were long-term or short-term ignorable.
Until this one.
This turned out to be the message Megan had sought and dreaded, and nothing could stop the cold slide of ice that began to work through her intestines the instant she read its subject, causing her to break into visible shudders as she opened it with a hurried click of the mouse.
Much as she’d tried prepare herself, nothing.
“Don’t think I have to reconstruct what happened back here,” Erickson was saying. “You can see for yourselves.”
Ricci and Thibodeau stood with him outside the rescue center’s back door, studying its demolished lock plate and frame.
“Somebody fired a lot of rounds,” Ricci said. “Wanted past the door in a rush, didn’t care about surprising anyone with the noise.”
“Right,” Erickson said. “We can thank this rain for making the ground damp enough to give us some decent shoe impressions to photo and cast. There were four attackers from the looks of things, came around from either side of the main building in pairs. Your boss’s daughter must have left those kennels out behind us, seen them closing in, and hurried through this entrance to try and get away from them.”
Ricci had closed his umbrella and crouched to examine the door frame.
“You must’ve pulled a lot of slugs out of this,” he said, running a latex-gloved finger over the pocked, splintered wood. “What caliber?”
“Nine mil Parabellum,” Erickson said. “The ammunition was fragged, but the spent cartridge casings we recovered told us right off.”
Ricci glanced over his shoulder at Erickson.
“Big, deep punch for nines, even fired up close,” he said. “There a brand name on those casings?”
Erickson gave a nod. “Federal Hydrashok.”
“Premium make.”
“That’s right.”
“Expensive.”
“Right.”
“You able to tell anything about the guns from the ejection pattern?”
“Not definitively.”
Ricci responded to the cop’s knee-jerk hedge with a look of overt impatience.
Erickson hesitated a moment, exhaled.
“Off the record,” he said, “I believe the weapons used outside this door were subs.”
Ricci considered that.
“Outside,” he repeated.
Erickson nodded.
“Were shots fired inside?” Ricci asked.
“The shop seems a different story.” A pause. “Put on those booties from my kit and I’ll show you.”
Erickson led the Sword ops through the entrance and back rooms to the area behind the sales counter.
“Be careful where you step.” He motioned to several dark brown splatters on the linoleum that had been bordered with tape. “The stains were partially dry when I arrived yesterday morning. Maybe a couple of hours old. It was clear on sight they were blood, but I swabbed and did a Hemodent test to confirm.”
Thibodeau studied them a moment, then raised his eyes to Erickson.
“You know whose blood?” he said.
The detective appraised his grave features, the cheeks pale above the dark beard.
“Julia Gordian’s purse was left on the countertop,” he said. “She carried one of those Red Cross donor cards, and her type matches.”
Perspiration glistened on Thibodeau’s forehead in the chill dampness of the room.
