The dismal atmosphere, the lack of light and color in the world, tempted him to stay in bed, uncomfortable as it was, but he knew that would be an emotional mistake, so he forced himself up and into the bathroom. His feet were cold. He turned on the shower.
Thank God, he thought once again, for the primal magic of water.
Cleanser, restorer, simplifier. As the tingling hot spray massaged his back, the muscles in his neck and shoulders relaxed. His knotted, hyperactive thoughts began to dissolve in the water’s soothing rush. Like surf hissing over sand… like a benign opiate… the pelting of the water on his skin made life seem simple and good.
Chapter 70
After a modest breakfast of two eggs and two slices of plain toast, Gurney decided to reground himself, as tedious as that might be, in the original facts of the case.
He spread out the segments of the file on the dining table and, with a spark of contrariness, reached for the document he’d had the most difficulty concentrating on when he’d gone through everything originally. It was a fifty-seven-page printout listing all the hundreds of sites Jillian had visited on the Internet and the hundreds of search terms she had entered in the browsers on her cell phone and her laptop during the last six months of her life-mostly related to chic travel destinations, super-expensive hotels, cars, jewelry.
After this personal computer and Web-usage data had been acquired by BCI, however, no analysis had been performed. Gurney suspected that it was just another piece of the investigation that had disappeared into the crevasse separating Hardwick’s stewardship from Blatt’s. The only indication that anyone other than himself had even seen it was a handwritten comment on a sticky note affixed to the first page: “Complete waste of time and resources.”
Perversely, Gurney’s suspicion that the comment was the captain’s had intensified his attention to every line of those fifty-seven pages. And without that attention boost, he might very well have missed one little five-letter word halfway down page thirty-seven.
Skard.
It appeared again on the following page, and twice more a few pages later.
The discovery propelled Gurney through the rest of the document, then back through all fifty-seven pages one more time. It was during this second pass that he made his second discovery.
The car makes that were scattered among the search terms-makes that at first had blended in his mind with the names of resorts, boutiques, and jewelers into a general image of material comfort-now formed a special pattern of their own.
He realized that they were the very same makes that had been the subjects of the missing girls’ arguments with their parents.
Could that be a coincidence?
What the hell had Jillian been up to?
What was it she needed to know about those cars? And why?
More important, what was she trying to find out about the Skard family?
How had she come to know they existed?
And what kind of relationship did she have with the man she’d known as Hector Flores?
Was it business? Or pleasure? Or something much sicker?
A closer look at the automobile URLs revealed that they were the proprietary advertising websites maintained by the companies to provide model, feature, and pricing information.
The search term “Skard” led to a site with information about a small town in Norway, as well as to a number of other sites with no connection to the Sardinia-based crime family. Which meant that Jillian had already learned in some other way about the family’s existence, or at least the existence of that name, and her Internet search was an attempt to find out more.
Gurney went back to the master list and noted the dates of her car and Skard searches. He discovered that she’d visited the car sites months before searching the Skard name. In fact, the car searches went back to the beginning of the six-month time window that had been documented, and he wondered how long she’d been pursuing that kind of data. He made a note to suggest to BCI that they get an expanded warrant for her search records going back at least two years.
Gurney stared out at the wet landscape. An intriguing, if highly speculative, scenario was beginning to take shape-a scenario in which Jillian may have played a much more active…
A low rumble from the road below the barn interrupted his train of thought. He went to the kitchen window, which offered the longest view in that direction, and noticed that the police cruiser was gone. He looked at the clock and realized that the promised forty-eight-hour protection window had expired. However, another vehicle, the source of the throaty engine rumble, now distinctly louder, came into view down at the point where the town road blended into the Gurney driveway.
It was a red Pontiac GTO, a seventies classic, and Gurney knew only one person who owned one-Jack Hardwick. The fact that he was driving the GTO instead of a black Crown Victoria meant he was off duty.
Gurney went to the side door and waited. Hardwick emerged from the car in old blue jeans and a white T-shirt under a well-worn motorcycle jacket-a retro tough guy stepping out of a time machine.
“This is quite a surprise,” said Gurney.
“Just thought I’d drop by, make sure you weren’t getting any more doll gifts.”
“Very thoughtful. Come on in.”
Inside, Hardwick said nothing, just let his gaze wander around the room.
“You drove a long way in the rain,” said Gurney.
“Rain stopped an hour ago.”
“No kidding. Guess I didn’t notice.”
“You look like your brain’s on another planet.”
“Then I guess it must be,” said Gurney with a sharper edge than he’d intended.
Hardwick showed no reaction. “That woodstove save you money?”
“What?”
“That woodstove, does it save you money on oil?”
“How the hell should I know? What are you here for, Jack?”
“Can’t a guy drop in on a buddy? Just to shoot the shit?”
“Neither one of us is the kind of guy who ever drops in on anyone. And neither of us has any interest in shooting the shit. So what are you here for?”
“Man wants to get to the point. Okay, I can respect that. No wasted time. How about you make some coffee and offer me a seat?”
“Right,” said Gurney. “I’ll make coffee. You sit wherever you want.”
Hardwick ambled to the far end of the big room and studied the stonework of the old fireplace. Gurney plugged in the coffeemaker and started the brewing process.
A few minutes later, they were facing each other in the pair of armchairs by the hearth.
“Not bad,” said Hardwick after a sip of his coffee.
“No, it’s actually pretty good. What the hell do you want, Jack?”
He took another sip before answering. “I thought maybe we could trade some information.”
“I don’t think I have anything worth trading.”
“Oh, yeah you do. No doubt about that. So what do you say? I tell you stuff, you tell me stuff.”
Gurney felt a surprising surge of anger. “Okay, Jack, why the hell not? You go first.”
“I spoke to my friend at Interpol again. Pushed him a bit on that ‘Sandy’s Den’ thing. And guess what? It was also called ‘Alessandro’s Den.’ Sometimes one, sometimes the other. That come as a big shock to you?”
“How could it be a shock?”
“Last time we talked about it, you seemed pretty sure it was all a coincidence. You don’t still think that, do you?”
“I guess not. There can’t be that many Alessandros in the sexy-photo business.”
“Right. So you got your little absinthe glass from Saul Steck, who happens to work under the name Alessandro for Karnala Fashion taking pictures of Mapleshade girls who shortly thereafter disappear. So tell me, ace, what the fuck are you up to? And by the way, while you’re explaining that, how about you explain the look on your face yesterday afternoon when you were staring over Holdenfield’s shoulder at that Karnala ad.”