“It’s moving forward,” he said. “How ’bout I catch you up when you return Monday.”
Her eyes narrowed. She pushed wet hair back from her face, weighing him in the dim light and mist. “You sure everything is okay?”
“Yeah.”
She frowned slightly, wavering again, as if torn by some inner conflict. “Thanks for listening,” she said. “I’ll come by Monday night, see if you’re home, let you know how it went.” She stepped closer, reached up, placed her palm against the side of his wet face. “And then you can catch me up on your case and . . . everything else.”
He swallowed as her words churned a cocktail of conflicted emotions and desire through his gut. “Look after yourself, Angie.”
She smiled. “Yeah. Yeah, you too.” She turned and strode with renewed purpose for the gangway that led up to the marina security gate.
“You better be back Monday!” he called impulsively after her.
She raised her hand without turning back, and then she was gone up the gangway, through the gate, and along the walkway, where she was swallowed by a swirl of mist and darkness. A foghorn sounded out in the harbor, deep and sonorous and lonely.
He stood there, silent in the rain, watching the mist where she’d disappeared. A chill of foreboding sank through him. But before he could probe it, the cell in his pocket rang. Maddocks spun and made for his yacht. He answered the call as he got down inside his cabin, Jack-O still sleeping, oblivious to all on the sofa.
“Maddocks.”
“It’s Flint. Sorry to wake you—”
“I’m up.”
“Good. Just got word. You’re in. You’ve got full security clearance. You’re being temporarily assigned as the sole MVPD member on the integrated task force. They want you for a full briefing in Surrey Saturday at noon. Chopper will be waiting for you at the heliport at six.”
CHAPTER 36
The helicopter banked and lowered through skeins of cloud that wrapped around mountains like sleeping dragons. Suddenly, beneath the clouds, to Maddocks’s right, lay the city of Vancouver, gleaming silver in the wintery light and shimmering with rain. On the opposite side of the Burrard was the Lonsdale area development marching up the flanks of the North Shore mountains. But above the snowline there was just dense, endless forest blanketed by white and stretching clean up to Alaska.
The pilot’s voice came through his headphones. They were about to land.
As the bird descended, a squat sea bus pulled away from its North Shore mooring and began to ply a foamy wake across water toward the city.
The chopper angled past a white giant of a Norwegian cruise ship docked near the city’s landmark convention center and aimed for the small heliport near a railyard. The pilot brought his craft down with a neat and sudden bump dead center of a white X that marked the waterfront heliport landing.
As Maddocks disembarked and ducked beneath the rotors, carrying his bag, he reached into his pocket for his phone. He called Flint as he made his way up the long wooden gangway that led to the small terminal building. Up ahead in the heliport parking lot, he could see a Mountie in uniform waiting next to a squad car—Maddocks’s transport to Surrey.
As soon as Flint picked up, Maddocks said, “Did they agree?”
“It took some convincing, but yes, they’ve conceded—no one on the task force interviews either Sabbonnier or Camus without you being present.”
A bite of victory punched through him. Whether Sabbonnier or Camus would say another word to anyone was highly doubtful, but Maddocks was heading into his first briefing bearing a grudge against Sergeant Parr Takumi, the task force lead investigator, who’d failed to alert Flint and the MVPD of the potentially lethal danger facing the barcode girls. This was now personal.
He killed the call, jogged up the steps to the lot, and approached the squad car. He introduced himself to the young Mountie, who took his bag and said that he was Constable Sammi Agarwal.
As Agarwal drove through the city and onto the highway that would take them to Surrey, Maddocks watched the urban scenery unfold, and his chest grew tighter and tighter. Surrey was his old home. It was where he and Sabrina had married and where they’d started their dreams of building a family. Where Ginny had been born. Where it had all gone wrong.
His mood turned sullen as he recalled Sabrina’s words from her recent phone call about Ginny’s missed appointment. They’d cut like a knife, ramming home all his failures, reminding him of his scuttled dreams of spending an early retirement with his wife, his naive visions of buying a yacht, sailing with her up into Desolation Sound, camping on remote islands, fishing, while Ginny went to college. Instead, Sabrina had begun her affair with Peter, an accountant with regular hours, a good paycheck, a family inheritance, weekends off, and a passion for opera. How could he beat a fucking passion for opera? And then had come the shocker—Sabrina had filed for a divorce. How’d he not seen that coming?
Now he was back here on the mainland while Ginny was on the island, alone. While Angie was in Victoria working a desk job. While his old yacht was probably springing another leak in the windswept marina. Conflict churned through him. And as the rain and clouds pressed in, so did that odd sense of foreboding that had assailed him while he’d watched Angie disappearing into the fog. He was losing her, too.
He checked his watch. She’d be driving out to Hansen right now. He hadn’t even asked what Vancouver hotel she’d be staying at upon her return tonight. Tension twisted through him.
CHAPTER 37
The guard brought the inmate into the room where Angie waited at a table. Milo Belkin was not tall—maybe five foot six—but he was broad across the chest and thighs. The fifty-six-year-old had clearly been working out in his cell or in the exercise yard. He was dressed in a prison sweatshirt, loose pants, white runners. His gray hair had been trimmed in a short buzz around his skull.
“Milo Belkin,” she said as he stepped into the room.
He froze as he caught sight of her. His face went white. He shot a glance at the guard, as if suddenly desperate for escape.
Angie’s pulse quickened at his reaction.
The guard’s features remained impassive as he took position in front of the door. The inmate turned slowly back to face Angie.
“I’m Angie Pallorino,” she said, closely watching his face, his eyes. “I’m an officer with the Metro Victoria Police Department.” Maddocks’s voice played through her head as she said the words.
Tell me you didn’t use the fact that you are law enforcement in order to get that interview with Milo Belkin tomorrow.
Belkin slowly seated himself in the chair across the table from Angie, his gaze riveted on hers. His body language screamed reluctance. But he said not a word. The color of his eyes was dark brown—so dark they looked almost black. Intense eyes, set too close on either side of his big beaked nose.
Excitement trilled through her.