“No,” Catherine said. “I think Reid would seduce a sixty-year-old, but we’re looking for a more confident, calculating killer. Mrs. Thomas may have overheard something, seen someone watching Kara. Michael, can you approach her?”
“First thing in the morning,” Michael replied. “I’ll have management flag her so that if she checks out earlier, they’ll call me.”
Ryder added, “The third time Kara’s background came up was when Matt was talking to a guest in the gym the morning before the first kidnapping attempt. The guest asked where his ‘hot wife’ was, and they had a conversation about Kara being a lawyer. That guest is gone now, but I can track him down.”
“Get his name and contact info, talk to him,” Catherine said. “We’ll start with Bridget Thomas.”
After a long silence, Jim stood up. “We all need sleep if we’re going to be any use to Matt and Kara. Let’s reconvene at six.”
“Agreed,” Catherine said. “I’ll reach out if anything new comes in.”
20
It was midnight. The moon had shifted in the sky and only a faint, eerie glow permeated the warehouse. Near-total silence—no traffic, no voices, no music, not even a dog barking. The only sound was the faintest hum of the generator somewhere on the bottom floor and a couple crickets that echoed from far below.
After Kara’s borderline panic attack, they’d stretched their limbs, then cleared a space in the corner and sat there, leaning against the wall and each other, exhausted, thirsty, weak. There was nothing else they could do.
They fell asleep. Or passed out. Until Kara startled awake, her heart racing.
“Kara,” Matt murmured.
She listened. It took a minute for her to tamp down on her fear and actually hear anything other than her ringing ears.
Matt shifted, then winced.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah. The stretches earlier helped.”
“What time is it?”
He pressed his watch. The dim light was comforting.
“12:02 a.m.”
They’d slept for less than two hours.
Kara had thought a lot about what the team was doing to find them, starting with interrogating Garrett Reid. Would he talk? What could they offer to a killer? Life instead of the death penalty? They certainly wouldn’t offer him freedom.
Would he even care? He could feign ignorance. Laugh in their face. Taunt them.
Or use the fact that Matt and Kara were missing—or dead—as proof that he had nothing to do with six murders.
She hadn’t wanted to wait to try the catwalks, but Matt was right, it had been too dangerous earlier, when it was nearly dark.
“I’m sorry I snapped at you,” she said as she put her head on his shoulder.
He put his arm around her, rested his head against hers. “No apologies, from either of us. We’re tired, hungry, angry—I get it.”
“You were right. It would have been a suicide mission to try and cross the beams when it was getting dark.”
“Not just that,” he said, “but this place is filled with traps. The elevator, the staircase, the door—it would make sense that they might create a trap on the catwalks. It’s more than a two-story fall—you might survive it, but—”
Kara jerked up. The fall. Booby traps. “Matt, thefall—one of the male victims, he had injuries consistent with a fall.”
“Kevin Blair, I think. The second victim.”
She nodded, even though he couldn’t see her.
