'You going to call Starkey?'
'What would I tell her and what could she do? Myers isn't going to admit it unless we have proof.'
We went back to the bedroom and looked through Schilling's phone bills again to see if Schilling had phoned Louisiana, but his bills showed no calls outside the Los Angeles area except for the calls to El Salvador. We went through the entire apartment again. We searched every place we could think of to find something that would connect Schilling to Myers or Myers to Schilling until we ran out of places to search, and still we had nothing. Then I thought of another place we could look.
I said, 'We have to get inside Myers's office. Come on.'
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I ran to the door, but Pike did not follow. He stared at me as if I had lost my mind.
'What's wrong with you? Myers's office is in New Orleans.'
'Lucy can do it. Lucy can search his office from here.' I explained as we ran to our cars.
CHAPTER 22
time missing: S hours, 36 minutes
Lucy stared at me past the edge of the door as if she were hiding. Her face was masked in a darkness that went beyond the absence of light; as soon as I saw her I knew they had told her about DeNice.
She said, 'One of Richard's detectives--'
'I know. Joe's downstairs. Let me come in, Luce, I need to talk to you.'
I eased the door open and stepped in without waiting for her to ask. She was holding her phone. I doubt that she had put it down since last night.
She seemed dazed, like the weight of the nightmare had drained all her strength. She sleepwalked to the couch as if she were numb.
'They decapitated him. A detective from downtown, he said they left Ben's shoe in the blood.'
'We're going to get him, Luce. We're going to find him. Did you speak with Lucas or Starkey?'
'They were here a little while ago. The two of them
and a detective from downtown.'
'Tims.'
'They told me about the van. They said it was going to be on the news, and they didn't want me to see it like that. They asked me about Fallon again, and two other men, an African man and someone named Schilling. They had pictures.'
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'How about Richard? Did they mention Richard?' 'Why would they mention Richard?' 'Did you speak with him this evening?'
'I've called him, but he hasn't returned my calls.' She frowned at me, and looked even more concerned.
'Why would they mention Richard? Did something happen to Richard, too?'
'We think that Fallon might have contacted Richard to ask for ransom money. That's probably why Fallon did what he did to DeNice, to scare Richard into paying.'
'They didn't say that.'
She frowned deeper and shook her head.
'Richard didn't say anything about that.'
'If Fallon scared him badly enough, he wouldn't, and I think that Fallon scared him plenty. Fallon scared all of us. Lucy, listen, I think that Myers is involved. That's why they took Ben; and that's how they knew about me. Through Myers.'
'Why would--'
I put the copy of my 2o in her hands. She looked at it without understanding.
'This is my military record. It's private. You can't get it from the Army unless I request it or you have a court order. The Army sent out only two copies of this thing, Luce, one to Starkey because of this investigation, and one to a judge in New Orleans three months ago. That judge sent it to Leland Myers.'
Lucy looked at the pages. I knew from the way she darkened that she was remembering Richard in the interview room.
'Richard had you investigated.'
'Myers is his head of security, so Myers would have handled that. Myers also handles security at Richard's
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overseas facilities. I talked to a man today who says that Schilling was looking for security work in Central America.'
'Richard has holdings in E1 Salvador.'
She glanced up again, and now she didn't seem so
