Night Watch (Kendra Michaels #4)(31)
“Mine, too, my dear.” He wiped his eyes. “Thank you for tolerating my rude curiosity. I hope I can make it up to you.”
“You can,” Lynch said.
Rye chuckled. “Somehow I thought I might. What’s going on?”
Lynch stepped toward the monitor, getting down to business. “We’ve been working on a missing-persons investigation. He’s a resident of the UK, but it happened while he was here visiting Southern California. His name is Charles Waldridge, he’s a surgeon and medical researcher.”
“Who changed my life,” Kendra added quietly. “Dr. Waldridge gave me my sight.”
“Ah, then I understand.” Rye jotted notes on a small pad resting on his chair arm. “How long has he been missing?”
“Less than forty-eight hours,” Lynch said. “We found the body of an associate of his last night. He’d been murdered. We haven’t ID’d him yet.”
“Hmm. You don’t think Waldridge killed him and went on the lam?”
Kendra shook her head. She’d had an instant of fierce protective defensiveness before she’d smothered it. Rye was the first to say it, but she was sure others had begun to mull that possibility. “No,” she said flatly. “No way.”
“Where did Waldridge work?”
“He was vague when we spoke about it the other night,” Kendra said. “But he worked with the Night Watch Project for years. It’s based there in London. You can find a lot about it online.”
Rye jotted down some more notes. “And about you, I’m sure. I’ll take a look.”
“I’ll send you an e-mail with all the details of the case so far,” Lynch said. “The FBI and the local police are helping us locally, but we could use some help on the London angle. I thought that with your research and investigative background…”
“And a willingness to get my hands dirty,” Rye interrupted.
“That shouldn’t be necessary.”
“One man’s missing and another is dead.” Rye put down the pen and leaned forward in his chair. “Not a promising situation. There could be something very dark at the bottom of this. You should both be careful.”
Kendra smiled. “You’re the second person to say that to me today. The other was my mother.”
Rye groaned. “That’s a new low. I meet a beautiful woman, and she says I remind her of her mother.”
“I’ve heard women say much worse to you,” Lynch said.
“You’re right.” Rye sighed. “Often accompanied by a hard slap across the face. I guess I should consider myself lucky.”
“Will you help us?” Kendra asked.
“Why not?” Rye gestured around the room. “It’s about time I got out for a while. I’ve made this place far too comfortable for myself. Send me the info, and I’ll see what I can find out.”
Lynch bowed his head and gave a mock salute. “Thanks, Rye. You’re the best.”
Rye cut the connection.
Lynch turned to Kendra. “Well, that’s another front we’ve covered. Rye is extremely thorough. If there’s anything to be found out there, he’ll uncover it.”
“I hope so.” The moment of distraction and optimism that Rye had brought was fading fast. “Thank you, Lynch.”
He caught the change immediately, and his eyes narrowed. “Sure. Anything wrong?”
At that moment, the studio door opened, and Selena Motter entered with her eight-year-old twin sons. One of the boys suffered from depression, and Kendra had been successfully using duo sessions to draw him out.
Kendra nodded. “I think work is just what I need right now.”
“Good. I’ll go home and send Rye the photograph and everything else I have.” He reached out and gave her hand a quick squeeze. “We’ll touch base tonight.”
He leaned close to her, but pulled away as the two boys bounded closer.
Lynch smiled at them. “Go easy on her, guys.”
He turned and walked out of the room.
*
KENDRA’S BACK-TO-BACK afternoon sessions were just the jolt she needed. Her anxiety didn’t completely dissipate, but it felt good to focus on something other than Waldridge. It didn’t hurt that both clients appeared to be success stories.
Finally, a few rays of light to scatter the oppressive darkness.
She checked her phone for the e-mail that had come in early that morning. A psychologist in Mission Valley wanted her to meet with a young autistic girl who might benefit from her techniques. After an hour-long evaluation at her psychologist’s office, Kendra would decide if she’d take her on or not. Not everyone responded to music therapy, and it would serve no one’s best interest to waste time on techniques that would have little chance of succeeding with this particular patient.
Kendra drove the twenty minutes to Mission Valley and found her way to the smallish, two-story medical building that bordered the Riverwalk Golf Course. The medical building was new. So new, in fact, that there were still pallets of ceiling tiles sitting in the lobby, and the lone elevator had yet to be activated.
No problem, she thought as she started up the freshly tiled stairs. She needed the exercise anyway. She climbed to the second floor, then the third.
She left the staircase and stepped into the hallway. It was dimly lit, as if all the offices had closed for the day, and everybody had gone home.