“June. Is she working with Joe now?”
“I don’t know, Lindsay. But you should know that it’s not impossible. Alison and Joe were close.”
There was a lot of static in my head. “Close.” Meaning sexually. Romantically. Joe and that blond flytrap. I could actually picture that.
“I’m just guessing,” June said, “but maybe his relationship with Alison Muller got out of hand. Maybe that’s why he moved over from the CIA to the FBI. This is speculation built on rumor—but then, that’s my stock in trade.”
I took a swig of the whiskey and coughed most of it up. June handed me a cocktail napkin, and as I dabbed at my face and the table, she said, “Mind if I ask you a few questions?”
“No. But I’m almost completely in the dark.”
Not just dark, pitch freaking black. I remembered what the horrible Brooks Findlay had said to me: “I don’t think you know who you’re married to, Lindsay.”
Wasn’t that the truth?
June said, “To your knowledge, when was the last time anyone saw Alison Muller?”
I told June that the video featuring Alison Muller was shot Monday a week ago.
“And the last time you saw Joe?”
“I saw him on surveillance video that was shot the next day.”
June sighed and sat back hard.
I managed to ask, “Is Joe alive?”
“I don’t know,” June said. “He hasn’t answered my calls. Look. I have a name for you. John Carroll. He used to go by the tag Number Six, because that was his number on our CO’s speed dial.”
June laughed.
“Funny guy. He was my mentor at the time, and he knew both Joe and Alison before he retired. He may still be in touch with Alison or know someone who is. You can trust him.”
She wrote a name and number down on the cocktail napkin, then answered her phone. When she clicked off, she said, “I’ve got to go. Good luck, Lindsay. Call me if you need to talk.”
CHAPTER 53
THAT MORNING’S THREE a.m. wake-up call had nothing to do with Julie. It was utterly silent in my big hotel room, but my mind was far away and it was very busy.
I ran my memories of Joe in fast forward, picturing him when I’d first met him. How he looked. How impressed I was with the way he worked our case. How smart and funny and solid he was. I tried to skip over the first time we made love, but the pictures took up a whole room in my mind.
My apartment. Our second date. Even now, as scared and as angry as I was, I could still feel the chemistry.
After that, Joe flew across the country to see me, time upon time. And then he left DC and his job and moved to San Francisco so that we could get off the roller coaster of bicoastal relating. That was meaningful. Job vs. Lindsay. He chose me. And I couldn’t have loved my big handsome lover more.
When my apartment on Potrero Hill burned to the ground, Joe said, “Move in with me.”
I did it.
I thought about the fights we’d had, and how he’d walk us back down. I liked that he was older than me, and I saw a good husband and father in his values and his manner and his actions.
When he proposed marriage, I had no hesitation, and since then, no regrets.
Until now.
Now it seemed that he had lied to me. Not “No, you don’t look fat.” This was enormous, a huge honking omission the size of a city. He’d not only left out a telling chunk of his life story, but he’d also skipped right over a relationship with a woman who’d been very important to him, a woman who might be a killer.
I couldn’t fool myself any longer.
Joe’s disappearance alone was a betrayal. And if he had been “involved” with Alison Muller once, he could damned well be involved with her now. It could not be a coincidence that Joe and Alison Muller had been in the same place and had disappeared at the same time.
A closetful of lacy lingerie flashed into my mind.
I couldn’t stand my thoughts.
I could not bear to be alone in this hotel with no moves at all. It was too late to call Claire or my sister. And I could not call June.
I thought of the last time Joe and I had made love. How warm and silly and wonderful that romp had been. I’d held him and kissed him and loved him up and then we’d had breakfast with our baby girl in a shaft of morning sunshine.
And now?
Was he in bed with another woman?
Or was he lying dead somewhere with a bullet through the back of his skull? Had Alison Muller killed him?
Had that bitch killed my husband?
CHAPTER 54
I DRESSED FOR my appointment to meet John Carroll at seven-thirty that morning. I put on yesterday’s trousers, a clean blouse, and my best blazer.