"Sort of."
A young man appeared in the open doorway. "Ready, Mr. Wheatley?"
Morgan glanced up, as if to ask, "Who's that?"
Gus got down on one knee so they could speak eye to eye. "Morgan, this is Jeremy. He's very nice. He works in the mail room. He's going to take Daddy's car and drive you to school."
"Why don't you take me?"
"I can't. Not today."
"Why can't Mommy take me?"
"It's like I said last night. Mommy is taking some time away."
She frowned. "Will she pick me up?"
"I don't know. We'll see.'
Morgan lowered her head in silence. Gus wasn't sure if he should say something, maybe give her a hug. He rose and gave Jeremy the car keys. "She goes to Bertschi."
"To what?"
Jeremy wasn't the kind of kid who'd know the way to a grade school with a five-figure annual tuition. Gus quickly sketched a map on his legal pad. "It's on Tenth Avenue. Easy to find. Drive carefully. And be sure she rides in the backseat."
"No problem."
Morgan was still visibly upset. With one finger Gus lifted her chin from her chest. "Hey, no long faces, okay? I promise, if your mother doesn't pick you up this afternoon, I'll pick you up myself. Is that a deal?"
She clutched her nylon book bag, saying nothing.
He gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Can Daddy have a hug?"
Her arms never left her side. He hugged her anyway, but she didn't hug back. He rose, somewhat embarrassed in front of Jeremy. "You better get going. She has to be there by nine."
Jeremy guided Morgan to the door. Gus watched as they passed the secretarial pod outside his office and started down the hall. Instinct told him to act normal around Morgan until he heard from the police, not to say anything that might scare her. Problem was, he had very little sense of what was "normal" between him and Morgan.
He closed the door and started back toward his desk. He stopped in mid-step. The end table caught his attention, his collection of antique horses. One of them was missing. The one Morgan had been playing with.
He checked first under the table. Nothing. He searched the couch where she'd been sitting, shoving his hand between all the seat cushions. A couple of pens emerged, a lost nickel. But no carved horse.
He glanced out the window, focusing on the waist-high palm prints Morgan had left on the glass. An unsettling feeling slowly washed over him, but the conclusion was inescapable.
His own daughter had just shoplifted.
Andie entered the main terminal through the American Airlines entrance. The sun had yet to rise, but the airport was bustling. The hour before dawn was like yin and yang at SEA-TAC. Half the people were full of energy, hurrying toward flights that marked the start of their day. The other half were like zombies, arriving from some faraway place after a long night of travel. Andie was somewhere between the extremes, excited about her new assignment yet sickened by the shaky start. She hadn't decided exactly what to tell Victoria Santos about the press leak, but she had to think of something fast. Throughout the terminal, it seemed like every fifty feet there was another newsstand blasting the premature headlines about a serial killer. She tucked a copy of the Seattle PostIntelligencer under her arm and moved with the crowd toward the baggage carousels.
At the turnstile she stopped short. Just ahead was Victoria Santos.
She was dressed comfortably for the long flight, slacks and a sweater, but Andie recognized her instantly. Santos was a bit of an FBI legend, especially among female agents. Years ago she had made a name for herself with the Child Abduction and Serial Killer Unit. It was her profiling and hard work that had cracked the famous "tongue murder" case, a nationwide string of bizarre murders that were connected only by the killer's gruesome signature--the extraction of each victim's tongue. It was the first of many success stories. She was well established as a supervisory special agent by the time Andie had met her for the first and only time, at a training course Santos taught at the academy.