That made Striker pause. ‘Yeah, memories better left forgotten,’ he finally said. ‘Look, I got some victims of identity theft here, and I was wondering if you could research them a bit for me.’
‘How fast you need it?’
‘Like yesterday.’
‘I should have let it ring to voicemail.’
Striker just laughed and gave the man a list of the names he had accumulated from the boxes.
‘And what exactly are we looking for?’ Collins asked.
‘You’ll know it when you find it,’ Striker said. ‘I need this done fast. Today sometime.’
Collins let out a sour laugh. ‘Your way or the highway, like always, huh?’
‘What can I say? I’m particular.’
He hung up the phone, feeling better. He liked Tom. The man had been a good cop and a better friend. It had been too long since they’d seen one another.
Typical in the world of policing.
He looked back at Felicia, who had her head buried in the computer. ‘What are you finding on Gabriel in PRIME?’
She looked up as if she was only now aware that his conversation with Collins had ended, and turned the screen to face him. ‘With the exception of Dr Ostermann, there’s not a whole lot on any of them,’ she said. ‘Gabriel is carded in a few of the police reports as a witness, but that was only due to car accidents. There’s also a report here from almost twelve years ago. He must’ve been, what, eight at the time.’
‘What does it say?’
‘I can’t bring it up, it’s privatized, and it’s a Burnaby file.’
‘We still need it,’ he said.
‘Well, duh!’ She laughed at the surprised look on his face. ‘I’ve already left a message for the detective in charge. Get this: her last name is Constable. Can you believe that? Detective Constable.’
Striker grinned. ‘Well, if she ever makes Chief Constable, the papers will have a field day with it.’
‘Yeah, no kidding. I’m just waiting for her to get back to me.’
‘What about Lexa?’ he asked.
‘In PRIME? Lexa is listed only once. Under a fingerprint file.’
‘Probably for when she got her criminal record check done for nursing.’
‘Bang on,’ Felicia said. ‘As for Dalia, she is a complete nonentity. Not in any of the systems. She doesn’t exist.’
Striker thought this over.
‘Run both their vehicles for tickets. Any infraction. Speeding. Red light. Parking. I don’t care. Just run it all.’
Felicia didn’t move. ‘We already know Ostermann drove like a maniac.’
‘I’m not interested in the offence, I’m interested in the locations.’
Felicia said nothing and turned back to the computer. After a few clicks, she made an interested sound. ‘Hey, look at this. We know the X5 has streams of tickets, but the Land Rover, which is registered to Lexa, has only three tickets – all of them on the Trans-Canada Highway.’
This piqued Striker’s interest. ‘Where exactly?’
‘One out near Furry Creek, and the other two just outside of Whistler Village.’ She looked up. ‘Maybe they have a cabin there, or something. I’ll check it out.’ She turned around and got on the phone to Whistler’s registrar office; while she talked, Striker continued going through the boxes of files. When he finished the Ks and started the Ls, he found one file that made him pause.
Logan, Larisa.
‘Holy shit,’ he said.
He opened up the file, but it was empty.
Confused, he looked back in the box for any loose papers, but found none. The words on the tab stared back at him. Made him angry. He searched the next three files to see if Larisa’s paperwork had accidentally slipped into the wrong folder.
None had.
He sat there, letting everything sink in and feeling sick about it. He picked up his desk phone and checked his voice messages. There were seven, but none from Larisa, and none relevant to the file.
No time for them now.
He archived the phone messages and looked through his emails. Again, there were tons of messages, but nothing pertinent to this investigation. Irritated, he brought up the email Larisa had sent him the previous day and made another reply to it:
To. L.Logan@gmail.com
Subject: Contact me!
Larisa,
Please tell me where you are! Or go to the nearest police station and call me. Dr Ostermann is dead. Gabriel and Lexa and Dalia are missing. They are very dangerous. Beware of them. Come in or call me. Please!
– Jacob
He looked at the message for a moment, hoping it was personal enough to make her respond. He hit Enter and the message sent. After that, he sat there for a long moment, waiting for a response. None came. And after recalling the way things had gone down at the Arabic Beans coffee shop at Metrotown, Striker wondered if one ever would.
It was doubtful.
The woman no longer trusted him. She trusted no one. She was all alone and in hiding. And the longer she stayed missing, the worse their chances of finding her became. It was a cold, hard fact. But it was real.
They were running out of time.
Eighty-One
It was morning by the time the Adder reached his destination. He was tired. He had not slept all night. He was hungry. He was cold.
He rounded the cabin from the north in the mid-morning light, and stood on the back deck. As he breathed out, the warmth and moisture from his breath fogged the air. He stared out over the lake. The edges were still covered with a fine layer of ice, and the weeds and reeds were frozen in place. The air smelled strongly of pine and cedar. Morning sun broke the top of the mountains to the far east. It gleamed on the cold, calm waters of the lake.
It was the perfect day. The kind of morning every skier and snowboarder craved all season long. Crisp, clear, cold. It should have been beautiful.
But the Adder could focus on none of this. All he saw was one bad memory. And the images in his head. Ones that had once been terrifying but now seemed like faded stills from a different life. A different world.
And in some sense, that was exactly what they were.
The sliding glass door opened behind him with a soft rolling sound.
‘Gabriel,’ a feminine voice said. Soft, and with emotion. With relief. And the Adder immediately knew it to be Dalia. She was the only one who cared. The only one who had ever cared. She came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his chest, then let loose a gasp and shivered. ‘You’re so cold,’ she said softly. ‘Come inside. Later on, I’ll help you warm up.’
He said nothing; he merely turned around and walked with her towards the cabin. Before entering, he stopped.
Thought.
He knelt down and removed the DVD from his pocket. It was Disc 1, the only copy he had left, and the only one that truly mattered. He slid it beneath the porch steps, far into the back where it was out of view. Then he stood up and moved into the warmth of the cabin. He’d barely stepped foot on the ceramic tile when the smell of green tea hit him. And then the Doctor came storming into the kitchen. Her eyes were set and dark, her face so tight it looked bloodless.
‘It’s about time – you fool,’ she said.
Dalia stepped forward. ‘Mother, please—’
‘To your room, girl.’
‘But Mother—’
‘To your room!’
Lexa Ostermann stepped forward and gave the Girl a backhanded strike – a sharp, hard SLAP! that resonated like the crack of a whip. Dalia recoiled from the blow and grabbed her cheek. Sobbing, she spun from the kitchen and raced up the stairs to the second floor of the cabin.
The Adder watched her go, but did nothing. A strange tingling sensation was tickling the back of his mind. His heart. His entire body.