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Court officers moved in on Sullivan, cuffed him, and took him toward the side exit. As Sullivan was led away, he shouted, “We’ll appeal! With what we have on you, Barbara, the verdict will be overturned. I’ll see you soon, sweetie. Love you …”
Judge Froman dismissed the court. Yuki stood. Len Parisi appeared at her elbow and Nick pulled back her chair. Together they left the room. By pure reflex, Yuki looked for Cindy as she and the prosecution left through the rear doors. That’s where Cindy usually positioned herself. Electrical outlet. Wide view. Easy exit. Cindy wasn’t there, but Yuki’s husband, Jackson Brady, was.
He reached for her, put his arms around her and pulled her to him. “Great job,” he said. “Congratulations, honey.”
Brady shook Len’s and Nicky’s hands as they cleared the doorway, then steered Yuki into a niche in the corridor.
“How do you feel now?” he asked her.
She felt light-headed, as if she might faint and float away.“There’s still the sentencing hearing,” she said to her husband. “I can’t read the judge at all.”
Yuki heard someone call her name. She looked and saw the bailiff pushing Barbara Sullivan toward her in her wheelchair.
“Barbara, this is my husband, Lieutenant Jackson Brady.”
After the greetings and handshakes andnice to meet yous, Yuki looked up into Brady’s face.
“Thanks for coming, Brady. I’ve got to get Barbara out of here. I’ll see you tonight.”
CHAPTER 72
BACK AT THE Hall at two thirty Thursday afternoon, I found Rich sitting behind Brady’s tidy desk. Rich got to his feet, and I asked if anything had come in while we were out.
“I eliminated some filters on the facial rec hoping we’d get an array of men looking something like Blackout. Didn’t matter. He still doesn’t exist,” he said.
“And Burke?” he asked us.
“Gave us the middle finger,” I said. “I’ll fill you in.”
Rich and I walked back to our desks. I greeted Alvarez and briefed her and Rich on our dead-end excursion to and from San Quentin.
“Steak and potatoes with Burke’s usual BS for dessert. Burke knew one unreported detail—what Cindy was wearing when she was kidnapped—but no real news. We were prepared for the Burke shit show and still fell for it.”
Richie’s face sagged.
“No, listen,” I said. “We’ve just begun to fight.”
He nodded, but he was well aware that when it came to kidnapping, the clock was running out.
I said, “When we were with Burke, I remembered that he’d had work done on his face. Claire thinks Blackout took a page out of Burke’s plastic surgery playbook.”
“That might explain why I get no hits,” said Richie.
Alvarez said, “Cappy got some surveillance tape from the Bay Pharmacy two blocks north of where Rich and Cindy live. Yesterday Cindy came in at eight thirteen a.m., bought some lip balm, and left. She was on the phone, had her computer with her, same jeans and baby-blue sweatshirt she was wearing on the Blackout tape. It’s not much, but it’s a time stamp.”
Bobby brought over a call-in sheet saying, “I just got a hang-up from a no-name caller,” he said. “I said, ‘hello, hello, hello’ and he terminated the call. Check your mail.”
I turned on my computer, started at the top of my office mail inbox and the message at the top carried the subject line “Blackout.”
Rich peered at my monitor, then scootched his chair closer to mine. I opened the mail. There was no message, but there was a video attachment. I hesitated. Rich was right beside me. God only knew what door to hell I could be opening. Rich reached out a finger, downloaded the video, then pressed Play.
The video bloomed on my monitor. Blackout was talking to the camera in his normal, undisguised voice. He was sitting in an armchair, holding his video glasses loosely by an earpiece so that the glasses swung in his hand, swooping past his face, showing us the ceiling light, beige sofa, dingy white walls, the bookcase behind the chair where he sat with one blue-jeaned leg crossed over the other.
Alvarez said, “Take screenshots, Lindsay.”
I captured a nanosecond of Blackout fooling with his glasses. Then he put them back on his face and looked around the room. I kept saving screenshots, scrutinized every inch of the scene, boosted the volume, and still there was neither sight nor sound of Cindy.
And then Blackout spoke to me.
