“I tried to talk her out of it. It was the second time she’d gone up to Berman’s house by herself. The first time she had gone in to search his house.” Paul did not include the part about his giving her two capsules of Temazepam. In retrospect he was embarrassed about it. “On this second visit, my guess is that she was successful getting the photo she needed. Using it, I think, she got into a secret part of Nano and found something, as I said, extraordinary.” Paul then went on to tell George the story of the blood sample he’d been holding, and how she had shown up in the middle of the night to get it, wanting to look at it under a microscope.
“I wonder what she found?” George asked, looking off into the middle distance, trying to imagine. He looked back at Paul. “This is all very worrisome, to say the very least.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more. The security guys that showed up in my ER looked like a SWAT team. And on top of that was the accident.”
“Right!” George agreed, feeling anger well up inside of him. “Pia was convinced the car accident was no accident, and still you let her go back to Nano that night? And you also let her go and see Berman on her own, twice, with these crazy plans? What kind of a friend are you?”
George had promised himself that he wasn’t going to yell at Paul and suggest her disappearance was his fault if it turned out that Pia had gone rogue again. He knew better than anyone that Pia was fearless and single-minded. In the days that he’d spent in Colorado when Pia was injured after the car accident, he came to like and respect Paul, and he knew he was a good friend to Pia. But now that he was here, George couldn’t help himself.
“If you weren’t prepared to go with her, why didn’t you at least call me?”
“It wasn’t a case of my being prepared, George. She didn’t tell me anything. It was the middle of the night, for God’s sake. I had lectured her in the past about being responsible but she’s a grown woman. I had to trust that she knew what she was doing.”
“Yeah? And look where it got her!”
“I know that, George! Do you think I haven’t been thinking about all this the last thirty hours? ‘You should have stopped her.’ ‘You should have called the police.’ ‘You should have called George.’ I’ve thought all these things a hundred times. But at four o’clock in the morning, when she had woken me from a sound sleep, I wasn’t thinking as I might have had it been four o’clock in the afternoon. She always had a good reason to go it alone.”
“She always does, that’s the point.”
“Look, George, we can have this conversation later. Right now we need to concentrate on what we are going to do to find Pia. Agreed?”
George dropped his bluster and nodded. “You’re right,” he said. “And you’re not the only one beating yourself up. I should have been here myself when she told me a little of what she was planning to do, that’s the bottom line. So let’s go through it again, and see what we can’t figure out. We need to have all our ducks in a row when we go to the police, which I’m afraid we are going to have to do, even though we don’t have much to tell them. We have a woman who just didn’t show up when she said she was going to show up. I don’t think the police are going to do too much. I mean, there’s no sign of foul play or anything like that.”
“That’s part of the reason I haven’t called them yet,” agreed Paul.
“The obvious thing to do is check Berman’s house. Come on.”
“If he’s there with her, he’s hardly going to let us in,” said Paul.
“We have to try, Paul. Can I borrow your car? If you don’t want to come, that is.”
“I’ll come with you, of course.”
As they drove Paul’s Subaru to Berman’s house, Paul raised a question, a scenario he thought was possible, given what he knew of Pia.
“Let me ask you this, George. You’ve known her longer, but we both know how willful Pia can be, and, I have to say, insensitive to other people’s feelings. What do you think of the idea that whatever it was she discovered Sunday night, she just said, ‘Screw it, I’m not having any more to do with Nano,’ and actually did take off somewhere?”
George thought for a minute before responding. It was true Pia had a mind of her own, which was a major understatement, just as it was true that she often showed little regard for other people’s sensitivities, his in particular. But would she just take off? George couldn’t imagine it.
“No,” he said eventually. “I don’t think that’s possible. She’s what you have described, but a whole lot more, chief of which is tenacious. She’s the most tenacious person I’ve ever met. If she found something, she wouldn’t give up. She’d pursue it until hell froze over. Trust me on that.”
Paul nodded in agreement.
When they reached Berman’s gate, George got out and rang the buzzer, but there was no answer.
“He has state-of-the-art security, I assume,” said Paul. He stayed in the car.
“We’re being recorded right now. The camera’s up there.” George pointed it out to Paul.
“So what do we do now? I can’t see the Toyota parked up there,” said Paul.
“Berman would have moved it if she’s still there,” said George. “Maybe I can shimmy over the gate… Wait, someone’s coming.” Driving slowly down the long driveway was a white truck. The heavy iron gates swung open and the truck slowed to a stop. The men could see that the driver was not Zachary Berman.
“Let’s ask this guy,” said George. “See what he knows.”
The driver of the truck sounded his horn — Paul’s Subaru was blocking the way. The driver stuck his head out of the truck window. He was a blond-haired man with a deep tan. “C’mon, guys, can you move your car?”
“Is the boss man around?” said George.
“Mr. Berman? I’m his tree guy. I didn’t see him, but I don’t usually see him anyway. Look, I want to go to my next job and you know I can’t let you in. Have you buzzed up to the house?”
“Come on, George,” said Paul. “Get in! We’re in the man’s way.”
“Just a second,” said George. He wandered over to the truck and stuck his head in through the passenger-side window.
“Sorry, we don’t mean to get in your way, and we’ll move in a second, we’re just wondering if Mr. Berman’s around. It’s important to us. We’re old friends. I’ve come all the way from L.A. I just wanted to say hello.” George was at his most amiable — in his ultra-casual outfit he looked quite benign, and the gardener just wanted to be on his way.
“I don’t think he’s here. One of the guys who looks after the flower beds says he went on one of his trips.”
“Abroad?” said George.
“I don’t know where he goes. I just know that when he’s here, everyone’s on their best behavior, and right now, there’s a couple of the gardeners sitting out back drinking coffee and taking their time. I commented on that, and they said Berman’s away somewhere. But where, you’ll have to ask someone else. The gardener guys should be coming down within the hour.”
“Thanks,” said George. “We’ll come back.”
“If I see anyone when I come back tomorrow, who shall I say stopped by?”
“Just a friend,” said George, and waved a casual good-bye.
George got back in the car, where Paul was waiting.
“What was that about?” said Paul as he backed out of the way to let the arborist pass.
“Berman’s apparently gone on a trip, or so the guy heard from one of the gardeners. But he doesn’t know if it’s foreign or domestic or anything. But Berman’s apparently not around, at least not around here. How about we stop by Nano, see what we can find there?”
“I guess it makes sense,” said Paul, and they drove off toward Boulder.