Vanish: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

guest.”
    She returned to the list of his articles on the LexisNexis page. “You’re prolific.”
    “I’ve been writing for over twenty years, covering everything from gang warfare to gay marriage.”
    “And Bigfoot.”
    “Don’t remind me.”
    She scrolled down the first and second pages of entries, then moved onto the third page. There she paused. “These articles were filed from Washington.”
    “I think I told you. I was the
Tribune
’s Washington correspondent. Only lasted for two years there.”
    “Why?”
    “I hated DC. And I admit, I’m a born Yankee. Call me a masochist, but I missed the winters up here, so I moved back to Boston in February.”
    “What was your beat in DC?”
    “Everything. Features. Politics, crime beat.” He paused. “A cynic might say there’s no difference between the last two. I’d as soon cover a good juicy murder than chase after some blow-dried senator all day.”
    She glanced back over her shoulder at him. “Have you ever dealt with Senator Conway?”
    “Of course. He’s one of our senators. “ He paused. “Why do you ask about Conway?” When she didn’t answer, he leaned closer, his hands grasping the back of her chair. “Dr. Isles,” he said, his voice suddenly quiet, whispering into her hair. “You want to tell me what you’re thinking?”
    Her gaze was fixed on the screen. “I’m just trying to make some connections here.”
    “Are you getting the tingle?”
    “What?”
    “That’s what I call it when I suddenly know I’m onto something interesting. Also known as ESP or Spidey sense. Tell me why Senator Conway makes you sit up and take notice.”
    “He’s on the intelligence committee.”
    “I interviewed him back in November or December. The article’s there somewhere.”
    She scanned down the headlines, about Congressional hearings and terrorism alerts and a Massachusetts congressman arrested for drunk driving, and found the article about Senator Conway. Then her gaze strayed to a different headline, dated January 15.
    Reston Man Found Dead Aboard Yacht. Businessman Missing Since January 2nd.
    It was the date that she focused on. January 2nd. She clicked on the entry and the page filled with text. Only a moment before, Lukas had talked about
the tingle.
She was feeling it now.
    She turned to look at him. “Tell me about Charles Desmond.”
    “What do you want to know about him?”
    “Everything.”

THIRTY
    Who are you, Mila? Where are you?
    Somewhere, there had to be a trace of her. Jane poured herself a fresh cup of coffee, then sat down at her kitchen table and surveyed all the files she had collected in the days since coming home from the hospital. Here were autopsy and Boston PD crime lab reports, Leesburg PD files on the Ashburn massacre, Moore’s files on Joseph Roke and Olena. She had already combed these files several times, searching for a trace of Mila, the woman whose face no one knew. The only physical evidence that Mila had ever existed had come from the interior of Joseph Roke’s car: several human head hairs, found on the backseat, which matched neither Roke’s nor Olena’s.
    Jane took a sip of coffee, and reached once again for the file on Joseph Roke’s abandoned car. She had learned to work around Regina’s nap times, and now that her daughter was finally asleep, she wasted no time plunging back into the search for Mila. She scanned the list of items found in the vehicle, reviewing again the pathetic collection of his worldly possessions. There’d been a duffel bag full of dirty clothes and stolen towels from Motel Six. There’d been a bag of moldy bread and a jar of Skippy peanut butter and a dozen cans of Vienna sausages. The diet of a man who had no chance to cook. A man on the run.
    She turned to the trace evidence reports and focused on the hair and fiber findings. It had been an extraordinarily filthy car, both the front and the back seats yielding up a large variety of fibers, both natural and man-made, as well as numerous hair strands. It was the hairs on the backseat that interested her, and she lingered over the report.
    Human. A02/B00/C02 (7 cm)/D42
    Scalp hair. Slightly curved, shaft is seven centimeters, pigment is medium red.
    So far, this is all we know about you, thought Jane. You have short red hair.
    She turned to the photographs of the car. She had seen these before, but once again, she studied the empty Red Bull soda cans and crumpled candy wrappers, the wadded-up blanket and dirty