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“Please.” She rolled her eyes. “How does that help me?”
“Possibly near Mount Hood. Renee said Mountain Hoodie, but I think—”
“Yeah, yeah. Got it.” Zhou’s fingers worked fast, clicking the keys.
“It’s owned by an uncle of one of her coworkers at the junior college.”
“Got a name?”
“No.”
Her gaze moved from the first screen to his face. “For the love of God, Thompson, I’m a hacker not a miracle worker.”
“That’s all I’ve got. I’m heading up there.”
“Where?”
“To the place you find,” he said. “Call me with directions.”
“If I find a place.”
“You will,” Ian said and took off, taking the stairs to the first floor of the building and the parking garage. Minutes later he was wending his way through traffic and crawling across the Bay Bridge, red brake lights a steady stream ahead of him, blocking his path, causing the seconds of his life to tick by.
Ever since speaking with Lucy and Renee, he’d felt an ever-rising sense of panic, an urgency to get to them, as if his ex-wife’s paranoia were infectious and could be transmitted over a wireless cell phone connection.
Stay calm. Everything’s fine. You talked to them less than an hour ago.
But the pressure on his chest was intense and he found himself weaving in and out of the lanes, his fingers drumming on the steering wheel, the need to get to his family overwhelming.
You don’t even know where they are.
Not true. Oregon was a vast state, yes, but he knew he had to get north and fast, at least cross the damned state line. “Come on, come on,” he heard himself saying out loud, willing the traffic to lessen, but the clog didn’t disperse, and only after a soul-gouging hour was he able to punch the accelerator of his Tahoe and put the Bay area in his rearview.
Less than two hours later, Zhou called him.
“You’ve found her,” he said.
“Maybe. We’ll see. But I did find a connection.” She told him that she’d located the cell tower from which Lucy’s call had pinged. She’d also broken into the personnel records of the school where Lucy worked and found a name that she cross-referenced against names of property owners who owned parcels of land close to said cell tower. “I’ll text you a map of the area and the cabin owned by Winston Jacoby, who just happens to be the uncle of Cynthia Jane Jacoby, who works in the same department as Lucy at the community college. And that’s all I’ve got. If I turn up anything else, I’ll call.”
“Thanks, Jun. I owe you.”
“I’ll add it to your ever-growing tab.”
“Do that, and while you’re at it, keep an eye on Ray Watkins,” he said and she gave a snort.
“Already done.”
Salzburg, Austria
Then
“We have a bit of a situation,” Sister Maria admitted and returned to the desk. She sat down, opened a drawer, and retrieved a fat manila envelope, which she placed on her desk.
How many times had Lucy sat in this very chair, often being reprimanded, sometimes being guided, always told to find her spirituality by the headmistress. She wasn’t sure of the exact number, but at least twice a year, she figured, and now, at eighteen, she’d been at the school about a decade, so somewhere around twenty. She wondered vaguely if it was some kind of record.
This, the centuries’-old grounds with its school, chapel, and cathedral had been her home, her sanctuary while Tina Champagne’s house in California was a place for vacations and time between semesters. And now she was leaving. As much as she’d hated being sent here as a child, she was now feeling some reluctance at returning to the States.
“Since you’ve graduated, and are of age, Sister Rosa and I think it’s time.”
