Emily Locke 01 - Final Approach

data.
    “July seventh,” I said. “Do a search on 0707 and see what hits.” God, please something hit.
    Jeannie opened a search window and typed in the characters. The computer found the text string in an Excel worksheet called Old that was in Scud’s Junk folder. When the file opened, my eyes went straight to the entry. I fell to my knees next to Jeannie’s chair.
    My voice sounded far away again, like a distant whisper in my own ears.
    “It can’t be anything else.” I scanned the row of data, reading out loud. “They took her on the seventh. She was ten months old. On the nineteenth, they placed her. That bastard Reed took sixty-five K for my baby.”
    Even as I explained, my eyes locked on the entry in the destination column: Galveston.

Chapter Thirty-one
    Jeannie and I took a few wrong turns on our way to Richard’s office, but eventually we found it. I was surprised to discover he shared a suite with a financial planner and a massage therapist.
    “Eclectic group,” Jeannie said as we followed him down a hallway, past posters of the musculoskeletal system and a shelf of body oils. She carried printouts of the Excel sheets in one hand.
    “This is me.” Richard peeled off into a side room. He flipped the light switch and I looked around. His furnishings were simple: desk, chairs, and a filing cabinet. The walls were bare. No drapes. A group of cardboard boxes were the only other items in the room.
    “Just move in?” Jeannie asked.
    Richard shook his head and tossed his keys onto his desk.
    “What’d you tell the police?” I asked. We hadn’t heard his rundown yet.
    “I told them I haven’t been to Gulf Coast Skydiving in over a week and I loaned the car to an associate helping me with a case.”
    Jeannie crossed her arms and circled a stack of waist-high cardboard boxes. “You didn’t just move in, but you leave boxes out like this?”
    Richard shrugged.
    “When they asked me how to contact you,” he said, “I gave the number at your motel. You don’t carry a cell phone, do you?” He winked at me.
    “Richard,” Jeannie said, “Has your wife seen this place?” She walked to his desk and sat in his chair. She found a rubberized stress doll, the kind that bends and stretches, and began flexing him in all directions.
    “You could get in big trouble if they find out you lied,” I said.
    Richard didn’t say anything right away. I had the uneasy feeling bad news was coming.
    “They won’t have to dig that far,” he said. “Because it’s time for you to tell them what happened last night.”
    “I can’t go to the police yet, Richard. Look what we found on the hard drive.”
    I extended a hand toward Jeannie, meaning for her to pass the printouts. She was busy contorting the desk toy.
    I found the printouts myself and brought them to Richard. I only showed him the entries from this year; I wanted his undivided attention when it was time to tell him about Annette. Richard studied the paper and sank into a chair on the visitor side of his desk, since Jeannie had taken over his usual spot.
    “If this means what you think,” he said, pointing to a row on the spreadsheet, “this entry must be for Casey. Eleven-month-old male, disappeared from Houston on February twelfth.”
    I looked over his shoulder. “It says he was placed in Tempe on the twenty-first. That’s today.”
    Richard stared into the space in front of him, thinking out loud. “Maybe he’s still here in town.”
    “Richard’s right,” Jeannie said. “About the first thing, I mean. It’s time to come clean about last night and hand all this over. If we wait too long, they might never find Casey. And the FBI needs to hear what you know about the agent that was shot. But, if you two go in now with everything that’s happened, you’ll be stuck there for days.”
    Jeannie tapped her model-perfect fingernails on Richard’s desk. “I think there’s one angle left that we can explore better than the Feds. David Meyer.”
    “The detectives can question him,” Richard said.
    “Yes, but he and Emily hit it off. She’s more likable than a strange man with a badge.”
    “Trish and her men won’t be back. Not after nearly being busted last night,” I said. “Maybe she’s right, Richard. David might be the piece that unravels this. He has to know
something
about what Trish was doing, even if he doesn’t
know
he knows.”
    “At least talk to him before you get tied up at a police station,” Jeannie