Coming Back

by Marcia Muller

  For a moment Hy couldn’t respond. Then he said with forced calm, “I hear you. And you’re right to be worried about Adah.” He described the scene at the apartment and everything Shar had found out.

  “Jesus Christ! Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I didn’t know about it till this evening, and Shar assumed if Adah had found out anything she’d check in. And why didn’t you think to let us know she was missing till”—he looked at his watch—“eleven-thirty?”

  Pause. “Because Adah’s not good at outlining her plans to me. She could’ve been working or with friends or at a movie. It wasn’t till Ted called and said she hadn’t come back to the pier that I sensed trouble.”

  “That damned independent-woman shit.”

  “Well, you and I aren’t so communicative about our plans either. But, Ripinsky, this sounds serious. You know what I’m thinking?”

  “I do.” And now he’d changed his mind about staying out of whatever was going on. With Adah apparently missing, they were already in it, like it or not.

  Craig said, “Let me get on to my contacts at the Bureau. Ask if this is government-related or if they’ve heard any buzz about it. And give me the address of that building where Adah was supposed to be going.”

  He did, and he heard scratching noises as Craig wrote it down.

  “You heading over there?” he asked.

  “Right away.”

  “Want company?”

  “No need. Why don’t you start checking with your contacts at other security firms?”

  “Will do.”

  Hy hung up, then reached for his BlackBerry and speed-dialed the one man in the industry he trusted: Trent Curtis, owner of TXC Executive Protection. He was located on the East Coast, conveniently close to DC and, even though it was now well after midnight there, always available to Hy.

  Curtis must’ve been working because his voice was clear and alert when he picked up.

  Hy explained the situation and asked, “You have any idea who may have engineered this thing?”

  A pause. “There’s been some talk here about a lucrative contract being awarded to a Frisco firm by a very covert intelligence agency, and that people from the outfit were sent out to assist. The fact that there’s any gossip at all leads me to believe that either the government op or someone at the firm itself was careless with information.”

  “Which leads me to believe they’re vulnerable.”

  “Exactly. You want me to put out the nets, see if I can come up with a name?”

  “If you would, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Done.” Another pause. “Ripinsky, watch your back. No matter who ordered this, you’ll be going up against very powerful people.”

  TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10

  CRAIG MORLAND

  The night was cold when he stepped out of his SUV on Tenth Avenue. Clear and star-shot, but about as icy as it got during San Francisco winters. DC’s climate was more moderate at this time of year, but the summers—so hot and muggy that you could see the moisture in the air. His new home suited him better. His new home, and Adah.

  Where the hell was she?

  This was a quiet neighborhood at quarter-past midnight. A few lights glowed behind closed curtains and blinds, but for the most part the residents must go to bed early. Middle-class homeowners mixed in with renters; places well cared for; deep lots with backyards; probably a fair number of children to play in them. It reminded Craig of the street in the Inner Richmond where Patrick Neilan lived with his two boys.

  The address Hy had given him was totally dark except for a light that illuminated its number. He went to the door, noting the lack of names on the mailbox, and pressed one buzzer after the other. No response.

  He stepped back and looked at the building. A narrow alley ran along the left side, opposite the garage. He turned to scan the street. No pedestrians, no faces at windows.

  He wasn’t armed; his gun and shoulder holster were in the safe at the pier. Briefly he’d thought of stopping by to get them; he had a carry permit, but the situation really didn’t warrant a weapon, and there was too much chance of discharging it accidentally in a public place. Bad enough he was about to commit criminal trespass; the gun would only compound the situation for him and the agency.

  He headed for the alley. Lights on in a back room next door, but no windows overlooking his position. A security spot high up near the other building’s roofline cast rays into both backyards; in this one he glimpsed plastic outdoor furniture on a stone patio and raised beds that held the withered remnants of tomato plants. A stairway led up to the second and third stories, but apparently the first-floor resident—Piper, Shar’s friend—would have had to come around on the path to use the garden. Given her disability, Craig doubted she had.

  As he headed for the windows of the ground-floor apartment, he scanned the buildings behind and to the right. A tall bushy cedar screened part of the view from the next street, and the windows to the left were dark. Not much chance that anyone over there had seen anything unusual here, but it’d be worth checking out at an hour when the residents were receptive to talking.

  New-looking white pleated shades covered the large window of the apartment. Craig tried to open the sliding panels, but they were secure. A second smaller window was to his left. The same type of shades hung to the sill. The window wasn’t locked.

  He slid it open a crack, heard empty silence and smelled the fresh paint and newly cleaned carpet. He pushed up and eased himself over the sill, dropped down, then took out the small flashlight he kept in a zipper pocket of his jacket.

  Empty room, just as Hy said Shar had described it.

  Craig moved to the wall and edged along it to the open door. Same kind of silence, made oppressive by the fresh paint and sickly sweet carpet-cleaner odors. He raised the flash. Nothing but another empty room, and a single wire hanger lying on the raised hearth—the hanger Shar had found the dry-cleaning tag on. The reason she’d rushed out of here without waiting for Adah.

  He moved through the other silent rooms. No evidence of violence. No evidence of what had happened to Adah. He wondered if she’d even gotten inside the building. But she must have, because nothing else would have kept her away from home this long.

  He went to the lobby and scaled the stairs to the third floor—farthest place first. Its door was unlocked. He checked the rooms. No evidence of recent occupancy, and vacuum tracks prominent on the floor. Down to the second-floor unit, which also was unlocked. This one had been cleaned and repainted like the one below. Craig went over it slowly, looking for any trace the cleanup crew might have missed.

  On the far wall of the living room near the middle was a lumpy place that had obviously been patched. He trained his light on it, then took out his Swiss Army knife and dug at the spot. Spackle crumbled, and he cleared it out, found a hole the size and shape of a bullet.

  Christ! Had Adah been shot?

  No, dammit. Somebody had fired a gun into this wall, but it didn’t have to have been aimed at Adah.

  He was sweating heavily, so he sat down on the raised hearth. What to do? Call the SFPD? He was here illegally. He’d lose his license and compromise the whole agency.

  But losing Adah would be much worse.

  Make an anonymous call? The cops weren’t going to come out without probable cause—and certainly not for one of their own who had embarrassed them all by speaking to the press when she quit to work for a private firm. There’d been a lot of hostility toward Adah; the only person who would deal with her there was Dom Rayborn, her replacement on Homicide—and Craig suspected he was simply grateful that she’d opened up a slot for him on the elite squad.

  He could report Adah missing after the requisite seventy-two hours, but they’d give the case little attention and by then it might be too late. This was something the agency would have to deal with on their own—with the assistance of Hy and RI.

  One more place to check: the garage. There must be an entrance to it o
ff the building’s foyer.

  He went back downstairs, found the door, opened it, and shone his flash around once he was inside. Room for two cars, if one was small enough to fit in the space that was truncated by Piper’s apartment. A set of three storage lockers on the rear wall. They were all empty, but a padlock on one hung open from the hasp. He examined the inside closely.

  Wet spot on the bottom of the locker. He touched it and smelled his fingers. Urine.

  Somebody had been locked in here—and recently. Adah?

  He stuck his head inside and breathed deeply. Under the urine smell was another—perfume, a brand not sold in the United States that he’d brought home to her when a case took him to Hong Kong. How many chances that another woman who wore that same scent had also been in this building?

  A more careful examination of the locker revealed no other traces of Adah. Still, he could imagine her imprisoned here, without bathroom facilities and probably without food and water. Bile rose in his throat, and rage filled him.

  Out of there, back through Piper’s apartment into the yard. As he dropped down from the window, there was movement in the shadows at the rear of the lot, behind the beds full of dead tomato plants. A dark, slender shape, crouching low, darting into the shadow at the fence line.

  Immediately Craig gave chase, but it was dark at the border of the deep lot, and he lost sight of his quarry. Something banged, and he went the way of the sound.

  A loose board hanging crooked from the fence. Footsteps pounding on dirt beyond it. He pushed through, saw a narrow unpaved lane between the two rows of buildings. At its end a hunched figure turned to the left on Kirkham and was gone.

  Craig ran to the end of the lane and looked both ways on the cross street, but there was no sign of anyone. He ran up the block to Ninth Avenue and looked both ways. No one. And no one on Eleventh. Lost him. He returned to Tenth, where he’d parked his vehicle.

  He started it up and drove to Pier 24½, parking on the Embarcadero a way down from the pier’s entrance, and walking there. When Shar had been shot, the tenants had fired the drunken security guard who’d been on duty that night and put in his place a woman from RI. No more key cards, no more automatic openers in the cars. Nobody allowed inside without being visually identified by Bonnie Smith.

  She smiled at him through the bulletproof window beside the entry. Face round and brown and wrinkled from years in the sun. She’d been a glider pilot and a skydiver and had spent most of her life on beaches. Had only moved to the city and taken this job because her elderly mother was ill and needed her. By day, she tended to things at home; by night, she worked and a sister took over there.

  Craig admired the hell out of her.

  “If you’re looking for Adah,” Bonnie said, “she’s not here.”

  “I know. Coming in anyway. Something I need to do in my office.”

  Bonnie buzzed him in, and he crossed the floor and went up the stairs to the catwalk.

  Adah’s office was empty. He checked for messages, accessed her computer files. Strictly routine.

  He went to his own office, which he shared with Julia Rafael, an all-around operative currently on vacation in Hawaii with her older sister and young son. Made calls and woke up all the agency personnel, who snapped to attention when he told them Adah was missing. They’d be there ASAP for an emergency meeting.

  Then he began going down his list of his contacts at the Bureau, leaving messages that he needed information about any covert operations in the Bay Area.

  SHARON McCONE

  Four-thirty in the morning but they were all assembled—Ted, Kendra, Patrick, Craig, Thelia, Mick, Derek, Hy. Missing were the vacationing Julia Rafael and Rae Kelleher, who freelanced for us but was currently on deadline for her next novel. They were bleary-eyed, bedheaded, chin stubbled, but attentive and determined.

  God, what a great team I’d created!

  Since he’d called the meeting, Craig chaired it, outlining the situation. Crisp, incisive, more in his FBI persona than that of the mellow man he’d become after moving to the city. Hiding his emotions behind a years-long professional facade. And with good reason.

  “I’ve checked with my contacts in DC,” he told them. “Those who have called back say they’ve heard that the business with Piper Quinn is a ‘matter of national security.’ That means nobody is getting any voluntary information. Period. But I’ve got people working on trying to pry it loose.”

  “What happened to our ‘transparent’ government?” Mick asked.

  “If you believe that…” Thelia said.

  “Hy?” Craig nodded to him.

  I watched him closely. When he woke me for the meeting his anger had been controlled; it still was to the casual eye, but to me he seemed even more on edge, his hazel eyes sparking.

  Angry with the situation but also with me, I knew. As I was angry with myself: I’d been thoughtless, left Adah out there in danger.

  Hy said, “My best contact in the private security sector has heard that a firm here in the city was involved. The cleanup job was contracted out by a covert agency. My contact’s looking into it.”

  “How long will that take?” Craig asked.

  “He’s supposed to get back to me by this afternoon, latest. I have my own short list of firms to look at—the ones who get down and dirty. My contact indicated that the agency is highly covert.”

  “Mine said the same—so secret that even the White House and Congress don’t know about it. Could be a holdover from the last administration.”

  I felt a helplessness settle into my bones. How did people like us go up against an agency so clandestine that even the president didn’t know it existed?

  Craig said, “Shar?” His voice had a distinct edge to it.

  I related what I knew, hearing the tentative sound of my voice. I avoided the others’ eyes, focusing on the table. This was not me, and the silence that followed my last words was not them.

  Craig, his voice icy, finally asked, “Why didn’t you wait for her?”

  “I was following a lead. I knew Adah could take over for me at the building.”

  “And after you followed up on that lead, why didn’t you go back to the building and look for her?”

  “I did. Maybe you misunderstood me. The building was locked, and no one would answer my rings. I called Adah’s cell, got no answer; then I went to the rehab center and tried to get them to let me look at Piper’s records, but they wouldn’t. I kept calling Adah all afternoon, but she didn’t answer her voice mail here at the pier and her cell was out of service.”

  “But you didn’t call our apartment. Or me.”

  “I didn’t think…” I lowered my head, rubbed my fingers over the grain of the old oak conference table. “I made a bad error in judgment.”

  It was a difficult admission—like most people, I hate to admit when I’m wrong—but I meant it. I’d screwed up, put my friend and employee in danger, and now she might be lost to me forever.

  “Yes, you did,” Craig told me. “A major error.”

  “Craig.” Hy held up his hand, a warning signal.

  “Well, it’s true. Talk about being cavalier with a friend’s well-being.”

  I continued to rub the table. I had nothing more to say. No rationalizations, no excuses.

  Ted broke the tension. “So we need a plan. Ideas?”

  Craig said, “I don’t think we should call in the cops. They’ll just tell us to file a report after she’s been gone seventy-two hours.”

  “But she was one of their own.”

  “Emphasis on was. When Adah left the department and spoke to the press about what a mess it was over there, she—in their vernacular—broke blue. That’s the ultimate betrayal of her fellow officers. I doubt there’s anyone on the force who will lift a finger for her.”

  Mick said, “Maybe one—her replacement on Homicide, that Dom Rayborn.”

  “If we go to him, I’d have to admit to trespassing. Rayborn’s as by-the-book as the
y come. He’d arrest me and report the agency to the DOC licensing bureau.”

  “What about the FBI?”

  “They’re already helping on an informal basis. I’d rather keep it that way.”

  Mick shrugged. “Well, you know how to deal with them.”

  “I say we follow our leads. Keep contacting people,” Thelia said. “I’ll start monitoring Adah’s credit cards and bank accounts to see if there’s been any activity.”

  They were talking as if I wasn’t there. I was losing control of my own investigative team.

  I said, “What about canvassing the neighbors over there? Somebody must’ve seen something.”

  Hy nodded, looked at Craig. “You can do that. Tenth Avenue, and the buildings overlooking on Ninth.”

  “Right. I’ll be there as soon as their lights start coming on.”

  “Maybe wait a little longer. Most people’re more responsive after they’ve had their first cup of coffee.”

  Shut out. Shut out of my own investigation.

  Hy said, “The rest of you will stay here, get on your phones and computers. See what we can turn up.”

  As the others agreed and started moving, I continued to stare down at the table. Moving my fingers over and over the wood’s grain, thinking of how my life as an investigator had begun at this table, and how it might be ending. Hy squeezed my shoulder on the way out, but I couldn’t respond.

  TED SMALLEY

  He’d stayed in the conference room after the others dispersed and now sat silently next to Shar at the table. After five minutes her head was still bowed, her breath quick and shallow.

  Finally she said, “You remember when this table was by the windows in All Souls’s kitchen?” The kitchen of the Victorian in Bernal Heights that the law co-op had occupied.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Board games, poker, celebrating when things went well and bucking each other up when they went badly?”