“He did. There was no answer.”
“I never bring my phone with me when I run.” She stared at him quizzically. “So he sent a squad car to lasso me in?”
“He was concerned for your safety.”
“My safety? Why would he—?” Her brow furrowed. “What’s this about?”
“If you’ll come with us, Lieutenant Ortiz will—”
“Tell me now,” she said flatly. “Or I’m not going anywhere.”
The cop sighed and glanced at his partner before turning back. “Do you know a Dr. Charles Waldridge?”
Kendra felt herself tense. “Of course I do. What’s happened?”
“He’s missing under suspicious circumstances. And you may have been the last person to see him.”
*
“DR. MICHAELS, GLAD you could join us.”
Lieutenant Mark Ortiz entered the police-headquarters lobby and gestured toward the detective walking a few paces behind. “Detective Vince Halderman, Kendra Michaels.”
Halderman nodded his greeting, but Kendra ignored him and launched immediately into attack mode. “What happened to Charles Waldridge?”
“We were hoping you could help us with that. When was the last time you saw him?”
“We had dinner together last night. At Geoffrey’s, in Malibu. We left around 8 P.M., each in our own cars. So what’s the story?”
“Be patient. I have a few more questions.”
“No. I answer some, then you answer some. That’s how this will work. What happened to him?”
Ortiz turned toward his partner with a pained expression that Kendra knew she’d given a lot of other cops in her time. Then he turned back to her. “Dr. Michaels, I’m afraid the answer is that we don’t know. He was staying at the Huntley Hotel in Santa Monica. There was some kind of disturbance in his room, a lot of noise. Other guests complained, but by the time security arrived, no one was in the room. The lamp was broken, and the television screen was shattered. But all of Waldridge’s belongings, including his phone and wallet, were still there.”
Not good. Kendra cursed under her breath. What have you gotten yourself into, Charles?
“You were in a relationship with him?”
Kendra shook her head. First Olivia, now this clown. But she knew that the detective was merely fishing, straight out of the cop playbook.
“No, we’re good friends. We’ve known each other a long time. We hadn’t seen each other for a while and he met me at Pepperdine, where I was presenting at an academic conference, and we had dinner afterward.” She went on the attack. “How did you know I had any connection with him?”
“He had your Pepperdine seminar page still up on his laptop, and we found your name and number in his telephone address book. Google told me a bit more about your medical history together.”
She raised her eyebrows in approval. “Wow. Good cop.”
“Now it’s my turn. He was a long way from home. What brought him to California?”
“He was fund-raising for a project. He’s a research scientist.”
The detectives shared a quick glance.
Kendra caught that look of doubt between them. “Now what?”
“We’ve been in touch with his colleagues in England,” Halderman said. “They didn’t even know he’d left the country. They had no idea why he would have come here.”
Kendra let that sink in for a moment. “Are you absolutely certain?”
Ortiz nodded. “As far as they knew, he was just taking a few personal days. What did he say to you?”
“Just what I said. He told me he was raising money for a medical-research project.”
“And yet none of his colleagues knew anything about it.”
“It doesn’t sound right to me, either. But a lot of what he said didn’t sound right.”
“Like what?”
Kendra told them about Waldridge’s evasiveness, general uneasiness, and cryptic statement about wanting to protect her.
Ortiz jotted down some notes in a notebook as she spoke. He glanced up. “Protect you? Were you under the impression that he felt he was in any kind of physical danger?”
“No, I didn’t get that vibe from him. I’m not sure what he meant, and he wasn’t in any mood to explain himself. I was planning to call him today.”
“And you had no idea what he was working on?”
“No.” She leaned back in her chair, wishing desperately that she’d pressed Waldridge to talk to her. Then maybe whatever mess he’d managed to get himself into wouldn’t have escalated to this degree.
Ortiz pushed a legal pad across the table. “We need a list of Dr. Waldridge’s friends and associates in the area.”
Kendra pushed the pad back. “There’s only one. Me. At least, as far as I know. Waldridge doesn’t like California. It’s too laid-back for him. The few times he’s come here since I’ve known him, he did his business and got away as quickly as he could. There may be some professional contacts here, but you’d have to ask his colleagues about that.”
“We have. They said you were the only one.”