“I’m looking forward to seeing you try,” he said, nodding back. “Good luck, kid, let’s play poker.”
***Emily***
Emily stood in front of the coffee maker, sucking in deep breaths of the fragrant air that was beginning to fill her tiny kitchen, wondering when she’d gotten too old to function on only a few hours sleep. Between studying and hours of research on the internet, she’d been pushing herself to the limit, but she’d put several of the pieces of the puzzle in place, and a few things were beginning to make more sense. Even more reassuring, it looked like they hadn’t stumbled onto a government operation, or anything illegal; in fact, it was a bit of a disappointment to discover that what they had was nothing more than a feud between two prominent families in the state.
When her phone rang ten minutes later, Emily picked up the call far more alert, thanks to a generous amount of caffeine pumping through her veins. “Good morning, Captain Strattler,” she said, pausing a second. “I’ve finally made some progress on the case.”
“It’s about time, you’ve been there for weeks,” he growled. “What have you got? Is there going to be more violence? What is everyone hiding?”
She knew that she had to be careful because she didn’t want to insult her boss. “I don’t think there’s as much to this as we first thought,” she said. “I’ve been doing a lot of digging, starting with Marcus Reynolds. I tracked him back to a big operation headquartered in the northern part of the state called Barrington Industries. Mining and logging were the backbone of their business until recently, when they were forced to diversify. They own thousands of acres of pristine wilderness and assets in the billions of dollars.”
“What does this have to do with a bunch of fraternity boys?” Captain Strattler demanded. “You’re losing me, Torres.”
“Hang in there, sir, I’m sending you my written report right now, that might help,” she said, opening her computer. “The reason that this matters is the same reason I don’t think we’ve got as big of a problem here as you think we do.”
Her boss grunted, and she heard him tapping on his computer keys. “Go on,” he finally said. “I’ve got it open.”
“Sir, I think what we have here is a feud of sorts between two old New York families,” she said, then paused to let that sink in. “Barrington Industries to the north and Marbury Coal and Lumber to the south.”
“Hmmm,” Captain Strattler hummed. “Still waiting…”
“Sir, they’ve both sponsored a fraternity, they both have men on the regent’s council who could have only gotten there through bribery,” she explained. “It’s all there in my report, all we’ve got here are two rival families, two fraternities trying to show each other up.”
Captain Strattler remained silent so long that she began to get nervous. “I know you thought there was more to this, but I don’t…” she trailed off, then took a deep breath and tried again. “There hasn’t been any violence in weeks. It’s pretty obvious that Diego really was responsible. I think we can let our guard down, sir. Wherever he is, he won’t be coming back.”
“That’s part of what bothers me, we haven’t picked up a trace of him anywhere, he couldn’t have just disappeared, it’s not possible these days,” Captain Strattler said, his voice full of doubt. “My gut tells me that something happened to the boy, and I always listen to my gut. We keep on with the investigation, stay close to Taylor; those boys know what happened, and I want you to get the truth out of them.”
“It’s only been a few weeks, sir, Diego will show up soon,” she said, not wanting to think Taylor and his friends could be responsible for murder. “Taylor and his friends aren’t responsible, I’m sure of it. You’d agree with me if you knew them.”
“Then someone is, and I want to know who,” CaptainStrattler said. “No one else may care that the boy has gone missing, but I’m not going to forget him.”
“Yes, sir, I understand, I’ll keep digging, I’ll try to get Taylor to talk about Diego,” she said, then hesitated. “But I just don’t think…”
“You’re not paid to think, Torres,” Captain Strattler snapped at her. “That’s my job, so just let me do it. Stay on Taylor, get him to open up about Diego. I don’t believe for a second that he ran away to avoid getting caught, it doesn’t follow the evidence. Everyone we’ve talked to said that he’d gone after Jackson somewhere in the mountains right before he disappeared, but we can’t place him there. Maybe you can trip Taylor up, get him to tell you the truth.”
“I’ll do my best,” she said, trying to ignore the sick feeling in her stomach. “I hope that you’re wrong, I hope Diego turns up, I don’t like to think about what it means if he doesn’t.”
“I know, Torres, it’s hard when you let yourself get personally involved,” Captain Strattler said, the first hint of sympathy in his voice. “I want you to be careful, don’t let your emotions distract you, murder is serious business.”
When she hung up the phone, she stared at it for a long time, trying to picture Taylor or any of his friends killing another human being. She just couldn’t make the leap, but she knew that appearances could be deceiving. Captain Strattler had been a cop for a long time. If he still thought that there was more going on than it looked like on the outside, she’d work a little harder to uncover the truth. She owed him that much.
CHAPTER 16
***TAYLOR***
Taylor took the front steps of the library two at a time, preparing himself for Emily’s anger and going over his list of excuses in his head, wondering which one to use, then decided the truth was probably the best. Throwing open the front door, he rushed through, but had to come to a sliding stop to keep from colliding with another student standing only a couple of feet inside the building. Letting out a little curse, he started to push past him, then realized he was at the end of a long line of people trying to get into the library.
“What’s going on?” he asked the guy in front of him. “Why aren’t they letting us in?”
“They are, it’s just taking forever,” the guy answered, then shrugged his shoulders. “I guess they’re checking everyone’s student ID and keeping track of who comes and goes.”
“You’re kidding, it’s just a library,” he said, a frown of confusion on his face. “What’s the big deal?”
“It’s not just the library, they’re doing it all over campus,” a woman a few feet ahead of them in line answered. “I guess they’re not taking any chances since therobberies started, but I don’t see how this is going to do any good.”
Feeling like he’d missed something, he stood there silently for a second. Before he could ask another question, the line began to move, and he let it go. After showing his identification to the security guard sitting behind a folding table just inside the door, he rushed through the library to the little room Emily had reserved for them so they wouldn’t disturb the other students practicing for the debates.
He could see her through the windows, books spread out around her, a pencil stuck into the messy bun on the top of her head, and he had to pause for a second to fight off a wave of desire. After three days of controlling the urges that erupted any time he was around her, he’d been sure he was mastering the attraction, but it was clear standing there that he was just fooling himself.
