As Beckett drove, Ryan called Tory, putting his phone on speaker. "Tory, hey. Beckett and I are headed to Davidson's place. What have you got?"
"Just over an hour ago, Joshua Davidson made a phone call to - wait a second." They heard typing. "Oh, so they think they're clever. Hmm. But if I just...okay. Got it. The call went out to a cell phone registered to - oh. Registered to Gina Griffin."
"Huh." Ryan shot Kate a look. "Remember how she claimed she didn't know him?"
"I'm sure it just completely slipped her mind."
Davidson was long gone. Kate watched the cops buzz through his place, carefully examining every shirt and shoe and item in the refrigerator and cleaning product in the closet, but there was nothing they could go on.
"He was a cop, you guys," she sighed. "If he wants to disappear, my guess is, he can."
Ryan finished jotting down notes in the living room and came to rejoin her in the kitchen. "Big fat nothing, Beckett."
"Well, we tried." She tightened the belt of her coat.
"You want to go talk to Bracken?"
She pursed her lips. "Not - not quite yet."
"But - Davidson's his guy. If he's on the run, you know he would have asked his boss for help."
"Bracken's a politician." Kate shook her head. "He's going to be insulated from all this. He's not stupid. Let's wait until tomorrow."
Ryan frowned quizzically. "I don't get it."
"Tomorrow, we can officially declare Josh Davidson a missing person. We can go to the senator and tell him how worried we are that his security chief might be in danger." She grinned. "I don't want to tip our hand. Not yet."
Rick knew Gina's schedule better than she did, a valuable side effect of the unhealthily close relationship editors had with their most valuable, prolific authors.
He was perfectly aware that her housekeeper arrived an hour after she left for Black Pawn. He also knew she had the exact same security system that he had. He'd been the one who recommended it to her. Her building wasn't particularly hard to get into; the doorman only worked evenings and nights. There was a security camera in the elevator, but it only got checked if someone reported a break-in.
And he had no intention of getting caught.
When he heard the whine of the vacuum cleaner move to the bedroom, he slipped in the front door, secreting himself in Gina's spacious coat closet. He had to chuckle. Wouldn't Powell be proud? Thief in the Night might have been one of his worst-selling novels, but the time he'd spent interviewing one of the most notorious jewel thieves in North America was proving to be handier than he'd expected at the time.
He could still just barely see through the slats in the closet door, and he watched Naomi tuck the vacuum back into the pantry, fold a few linens and take them to the master bath, and finally gather her purse and coat from the kitchen. And he watched carefully as she punched the four-digit code into the alarm before leaving.
He waited four seconds before darting out of the closet and quickly punching the in the same four digits, but backwards. It was the simplest feature of the security system, designed to foil intruders who thought the same code worked for 'arm' and 'disarm.'
Powell had mentioned this, too. Everyone thinks it's foolproof, Rick. Nothing's foolproof, if you're not too much of a fool.
He listened carefully for Naomi's steps, hearing her leave down the hallway, and immediately headed for Gina's bedroom.
If Gina had hidden Alex Conrad's book, and the fact he was writing it, then everything was connected to that.
Of course, thinking about the plot - which he'd originally was just Alex's fertile imagination, simply rooted in the publishing world he'd started to love - it wasn't hard to guess why Gina wanted it squelched.
Good plot, Rick. Now prove it.
Gina didn't like clutter; her place was elegant, with rich colors, spare furnishings, and carefully-chosen furniture. Space was ample.
He had a lot of searching to do.
Back at the office, Kate stopped in the tech lab, where Tory and Ryan were scrolling through security footage from a convenience store in the Pullman district. "Anything?"
Tory shook her head. "Your guy didn't stop here, and his car didn't drive past. Sorry, Beckett."
"Okay. I want to look at a new angle." Kate handed Tory and Ryan spec sheets. "This is a list of prominent hotels in the city. We need to check every hotel's records to see if either William Bracken or Gina Griffin stayed there in the past three years, and if so, we're going to need to check every frame of security footage."
Tory nodded. "You got it, Boss."
Ryan flipped through the list. "You looking for a sock on the doorknob, Beckett?"
Kate shrugged. "Everyone screws up eventually."
"Isn't that true," Tory muttered. "This one time, I was dating this guy, and he accidentally sent me a picture of -"
"Thanks, Tory," Ryan blurted out. "As interesting as I'm sure that story was going to be, maybe we can just agree that men are terrible?"
She beamed at him. "Your girlfriend's a lucky woman, Honeymilk."
"Guys. Case. Records." Kate tried to hide her smile. "Let me know if you find something."
"Fingers crossed." As Tory pulled up her search engines, Ryan pulled out his pen. "You know, you might be wasted as a Marshal, Beckett. You'd be a great P.I. You could wear one of those little deerstalker caps."
"I'm not jumping to conclusions. What we have is a theory," Kate told him. "Now we need evidence."
Bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, walk-in closet, pantry, laundry room, living room. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Rick was almost ready to give up on finding anything - even with Gina's perfectly tidy place, he'd found no proof she was really sleeping with the senator. Not that he'd expected to find a shirt with WB monogrammed on the pocket, but still.
He was about to leave when his eyes fell on her desk. Rich, dark wood, a simple beautiful finish and elegant design. Very Gina.
The only thing on the desk that wasn't her was the little train of toy elephants. Gina wasn't a fan of knick-knacks. They were pretty, but not what he'd expect.
He picked up the biggest one, turning it over carefully in his hands, tracing the delicate curve of the tusk. There was a thin, barely visible seam running over the elephant's back. Cautiously, holding his breath, he slid his thumbnail over the seam and watched the little glass elephant open, revealing a little black flash drive.
There were three more little elephants.
Two of them were empty.