Dangerous Minds (Knight and Moon #2)(21)

“Then the body was switched between when he was picked up at Air and Space and when he arrived here. Do you know who delivered the body?”

Milton pulled the report out of the envelope and read down.

“The Park Police performed that service.”

“Is that normal procedure?” Emerson asked.

“There are several ways a body can be transported,” Milton said. “Most commonly it is by the coroner, but at times it will be delivered by the Park Police or a city ambulance.” He handed the report back to Emerson. “This is a very serious matter. Why would someone do this?”

“To conceal the attacker’s identity,” Emerson said.

Emerson thanked Milton, they did a complicated man-to-man handshake, and Milton walked away toward the bank of elevators.

“Will he get into trouble for this?” Riley asked.

“Unlikely. I simply circumvented procedure. The photos and the report are made available upon request.”

“I assume Milton works here.”

“He’s a forensic photographer.”

Emerson and Riley left the building and walked in silence to the Tesla. Riley got behind the wheel, and Emerson took the passenger seat next to her. Riley looked over at Emerson.

“Honestly? Really?” she said.

“What?” Emerson said.

“You’re gloating.”

“Not at all. Gloating implies a smug satisfaction in one’s success.”

“And you’re telling me you’re not feeling just a little smug.”

“I’d only be smug if I had an exaggerated self-opinion.”

“Heaven forbid.”

“Do you still doubt the existence of a secret society of Rough Riders?” Emerson asked her.

“I might have a little less doubt, but I’m not convinced. And at any rate I’m not ready to pin it on Teddy Roosevelt.”

“I like Teddy,” Vernon said. “He carried a big stick, if you know what I mean.”

Wayan Bagus smacked Vernon on the back of the head.

“Everybody knows that,” Vernon said. “Common knowledge.”

“The idea that there might be a society of Rough Riders is unsettling,” Riley said. “One psycho axe murderer is bad enough, but a whole army of them is truly disturbing.”

“It is written that the army, which the world with all its false gods cannot overcome, can be smashed with discernment.”

“Okay, then, Little Buddy. Let’s go to Yellowstone and discern the hell out of them,” Vernon said.

One of the many “attachments” that Emerson inherited from his late father was a Gulfstream G550 jet. It was configured to carry as many as fourteen passengers, two pilots, and a flight attendant up to 6,750 miles nonstop.

Riley appreciated it for the two Rolls-Royce engines and its engineering. Vernon appreciated it because it was stocked with a bottomless supply of Oreos, M&M’s and little bottles of rum. Wayan Bagus, for his part, looked like he was still deciding whether he appreciated it or not. It was, after all, a $50 million attachment, but the seats were extremely comfortable, and each had its own personal television. Not to mention the restroom had soft two-ply toilet tissue and tiny bottles of minty mouthwash.

Four hours into the flight, Vernon and Wayan Bagus were asleep. Riley and Emerson were wide awake.

“What’s your plan?” Riley asked Emerson.

“I reserved rooms for us at the Old Faithful Inn. It’s right in the center of the park and where the newlyweds were last seen. So I think it’s a good base of operations for us.”

Riley ate a strawberry off the catered fruit platter. “Search parties looked for them for two weeks, but the park is a thirty-five-hundred-square-mile wilderness. Nobody found anything.”

“They didn’t know where to look.”

“And you do?”

Emerson nodded. “If our theory is correct and the disappearances have something to do with the locations of mantle plumes, then our search area is limited to the blob of lava bubbling underneath Yellowstone.”

“That blob is enormous,” Riley said.

“Fifteen hundred square miles.”

“Criminy, Emerson, that’s the size of Rhode Island. It would take a hundred years. Maybe five hundred years.”

“As I could only reserve the hotel rooms for five days, I’ll just have to be extra discerning,” Emerson said. “Between my ability to discern, Vernon’s unagi, and Wayan Bagus’s special talents, it should be a piece of cake.”

Riley didn’t think it was going to be a piece of cake. She thought the investigation was going to be difficult and dangerous. Even if the homicidal lunatics didn’t show up at Yellowstone, there were the bears. She wasn’t a fan of bears. She could grab a snake with her bare hand and squash a spider with her shoe, but she didn’t like bears.

“What’s my role?” she asked Emerson.

“You’re the glue that holds our disparate personalities and talents together. You’re our Professor X.”

“The bald guy in Marvel comics? The founder of the X-Men?”

“Exactly! Only instead of being a bald dude, you have a lot of pretty red hair and you’re a girl.”

Riley stared at Emerson, trying to decide whether he was complimenting her, coming on to her, or just being, for lack of a better word, Emerson. She settled on just being Emerson.