Acoustic Shadows by Patrick Kendrick Page B

was Sara Logan on the phone. ‘Good morning,’ she purred.
    Despite everything, his heart crept into his throat. ‘Are you here?’ he croaked. ‘I mean, at the hotel?’
    ‘No,’ she answered. ‘Still at the Gaylord Palms. We Feds like to stay at Marriotts. I keep the reward points and use them when I go on vacation.’
    ‘Since when do you take vacations?’
    ‘You’re always on vacation when you love your job.’
    ‘I wouldn’t know.’ Thiery rubbed his head, aching from lack of sleep.
    ‘You should come up. I’m sure it’s a wee bit nicer than your dive.’
    Thiery ignored the invite. ‘I don’t know. This place is pretty sweet, if you don’t mind cockroaches.’
    ‘Eeeeyew,’ said Logan. ‘I’ve got a suite with a balcony overlooking a lake and a huge, very comfortable bed. I’m afraid I’ll get lost in it all by myself.’
    Thiery shook his head. The girl didn’t give up. ‘I’m sure you’ll be fine.’ Changing the subject, he asked, ‘Anything new on your end?’
    ‘With the school shooting?’
    ‘Ye-es,’ he said, managing to make the word into two syllables.
    He closed his eyes and could see her as clearly as if she were still in the bedroom they shared years ago. Still standing in front of the window at her little fuck pad in Ormond Beach, pulling her then shoulder length hair up into a ponytail, the sweat of their exertions still glistening on her dark skin.
    ‘I talked to the ATF agents last night,’ she answered, a noticeable shrug in her voice. ‘There’s nothing for them here, so they’re popping smoke and gone. Like you said – all amateur stuff on the explosives – probably couldn’t get them to detonate without attaching a grenade. We’ve got Coody’s hard drives. We overnighted them to our lab rats. I’ve got some people chasing down the numbers on the Weisz gun. So far, nada. And I’m collating a list of guns that the shooters had on them, and in their vehicle, and I’ll run that through our database as soon as I can. My boss told me to stick around to represent our bureau and assist your department as needed. So, if you need forensic or lab work, or just old fashioned …
leg
work … ’
    Thiery again ignored her sexy punning.
    ‘So, how are you?’ Logan finally continued. ‘The boys doing well?’ she asked, straining to make personal conversation.
    ‘Grown and out of the house now. You still married?’
    She hesitated. ‘Afraid so.’
    He could have asked, ‘why so glum?’, or lent her a consoling ear, but he didn’t. He heard a click on his phone, glanced at the incoming call, but didn’t recognize the number.
    Logan asked, ‘Is that your phone missing a beat or mine?’
    ‘Mine,’ he said. ‘Let’s touch base later, okay?’
    ‘Sure,’ said Logan. ‘And hey, thanks for not being a dick to me.’
    Thiery clicked over to the second call without comment.
    It was Chief Dunham. ‘She’s gone,’ he said, dolefully.
    ‘Who?’ asked Thiery, wide awake now.
    ‘The wounded teacher: Erica Weisz.’
    ‘She died?’
    ‘No, sir. She’s just … gone. Left without checking out. I got a call from the Sheriff’s office this morning. The hospital called them late last night.’
    ‘Why did they wait so long to notify you?’
    ‘Not sure. They had a deputy watching her last night, but he’s a young guy and got distracted. Stepped away for a minute. They looked around the hospital for a couple hours, but couldn’t find her, so they just wrote it up as a missing witness wanted for questioning. She hasn’t been gone for twenty-four hours, and it wasn’t reported by a family member, so it’s not really an official missing person’s case yet. They think she just left.’
    ‘With a shotgun wound to the abdomen?’ Thiery questioned. ‘She’d have to be really scared of something. Maybe she’s afraid of the trouble she could be in over having a gun?’
    ‘Could be. Federally, schools are supposed to be part of the Gun Free Zone Act. Breaking