Road Less Traveled by Cris Ramsay Page B

Wilkerson,” Jo supplied. “She’s got the day off and has been out at the lake with her boyfriend. She’s not answering her phone.” For just a second, Carter thought he saw a sappy expression cross the face of his tough-as-nails deputy. Was she thinking about picnics like that with Zane? But her face was back in its usual sharp, unforgiving lines now. Maybe he’d just imagined it.
    He was one of the few people in town, however, who knew that Jo Lupo did have a sappy romantic side to her. She just kept it under lock and key most of the time.
    â€œOkay, so we’ll talk to her when she gets back into town,” Carter said, stating the obvious. “Though if she and her boyfriend are the thieves, spending a day incommunicado at the lake would make for a perfect cover. She could have gone up there with his phone, in fact, so both their signals would match their alibi. Then he could have met her there with the eggs. She’d know exactly how to keep them safe and stable.”
    â€œTrue, but why do it?” Jo shook her head. “Andee’s been a lab tech for eight years, and she’s been on the Thunderbird project with Boggs and Korinko since the beginning—she’d worked with Korinko on another project before this one, and they requested her specifically. Why suddenly decide to betray them? And would she really wait all those years for something to steal?”
    â€œShe could have needed a lot of money in a hurry,” Carter suggested. “A dying relative, a gambling debt, plans for a big wedding, a baby on the way—there are lots of reasons.” He was tossing the baseball from hand to hand while he thought. “Whoever stole the eggs knew exactly how to get into GD and get past its security. That means either a master thief or a genius who knows GD’s security measures.”
    â€œThe second one describes just about everyone who works there,” Jo commented.
    â€œI know. But whoever it was also knew how to get past the eggs’ containment field. That’s got to require a bit more specialized knowledge, right? Do any of the other labs use the same sort of field? Who repairs them when they break down? Who installs them in the first place? Do the maintenance guys check on them along with the lights and the locks, or is that a different department?”
    Jo nodded. “Plus, we still need to figure out what the thief plans to do with the egg,” she added. “Is he going to sell it? Who’s going to buy this thing? A rival think tank? A corporation? A small country?” She frowned. “If we can figure out who he—or she—is hoping to sell to, we can work out how he’s planning to get it out of Eureka, and then we may be able to catch him in the act.”
    â€œGood.” Carter set the baseball back on his desk and stood up. “You take that angle. See if anybody’s been asking the same questions, too—if this was an inside job, our thief might not know a good fence for the eggs, in which case he must have asked around before he decided to pull the job. I’ll nose around GD, find out about the containment fields. We’ll compare notes and see if any of the same names pop up.” That would certainly be nice, though he wasn’t counting on it being anywhere near that easy. Things in Eureka almost never were.
    Jo glanced at the clock. “You’re not going to find out much at this hour.” It was almost six. Carter shook his head. Ever since Zoe had left for college, he’d had a harder time keeping track of the hours. It made a big difference when you no longer had a kid in high school who had to eat a decent dinner at a decent hour.
    â€œYou’re right. I’ll head over there first thing tomorrow morning.” It wasn’t like the containment fields were going anywhere, after all. And unlike most problems in Eureka, the missing Thunderbird wasn’t so urgent it