Hide (Detective D.D. Warren, #2)(57)

"Do not take that tone of voice with me—"

"Look in the mirror, D.D."

"I will not be patronized for doing my job—"

"Look in the mirror, D.D."

"I will have you know, I'm one of those people who don't need much sleep."

He took her shoulders and firmly turned her toward the wall mirror.

"Holy crap!" she said.

"Exactly."

She reached up, fingered her wild mane of hair. "It's the humidity."

"We're in Arizona."

"New hair product?"

"D.D, you need sleep. Not to mention a shower and a two-week vacation to Tahiti. For now, however, try a bath."

Her nose crinkled. She finally sighed, her shoulders slumping forward.

"There are just so many pieces of this puzzle," she said tiredly. "And none of them fit."

"I know."

"Christopher Eola, Richard Umbrio, Annabelle's father. My head is spinning."

Bobby pulled out the desk chair, took a seat, lacing his hands behind his head. "Okay, so let's talk it through. November 1980…"

"Umbrio abducts a young girl and stashes her in an underground chamber he's conveniently found in the woods." D.D. plopped down on the edge of the bed, leaning forward and planting her elbows on her knees.

"We believe this is his first act, done independently," stated Bobby.

"Fits his profile as a loner with subpar social skills."

"His victim is selected at random, a crime of opportunity."

"Because she has the right taste in clothes," D.D. amended.

"But also because she's alone and falls for his lure. Point is, no premeditation. So one key difference between Umbrio and the UNSUB who pursued Annabelle Granger."

"Catherine was adamant that Umbrio preferred his bare hands." D.D. hesitated. "I can't be sure, but it looked to me like there was something around the victims' necks, inside the plastic bags. Some form of ligature."

"He tied them up awfully fancy," Bobby agreed.

"So another difference."

"We assume."

"Umbrio only kidnapped one victim," D.D. stated.

"Boston State Mental subject took six. But maybe one at a time, so we're still uncertain there."

"Yeah." D.D. was nodding slowly She seemed to have recovered from her earlier fugue, was getting it together now. "Then, of course, we have the little gem regarding Annabelle's father."

"Oh yeah. Then there's that."

"Annabelle's father brings us back to our first theory—that someone was inspired by Umbrio's crime and thought to replicate it at Boston State Mental. We'd made the assumption that this 'apprentice' would've reached out to Umbrio in prison, maybe in person or by mail. But masquerading as an FBI agent and grilling Catherine in the hospital does the trick just as well."

"Yes, it does," Bobby concurred grimly

"How goes the search for background info on Russell Granger?"



[page]

Bobby made a face. "Still can't find a driver's license or a Social Security number. Have tried multiple databases, multiple spellings. Have tried Leslie Ann Granger, Annabelle's mother. I got zero, zip, nada."

"In other words, Russell Granger is an alias."

"Your guess is as good as mine. I managed to reach a personnel director with MIT right before we left town. According to her, there's no record of a Russell Granger in the HR files. She's working on tracking down the former head of mathematics in the eighties to verify. Hopefully, I can talk to him the minute we're back in town."

"What about life on the road?" D.D. quizzed. "Every time Annabelle and family got the hell out of Dodge, there must have been a reason. Have you tracked the cities, checked with local law enforcement?"

Bobby gave her a look. "Sure, boss, those are exactly the type of calls I can make in my free time. You know, between two and four a.m."

"Hey, if this job is getting too tough for you—"

"Oh, shut up, D.D."

She smiled at him. Not too many people felt like they could tell D.D. to shut up these days. He supposed it was part of his charm.

Now, however, her expression returned to being serious. "Bobby, what was the alias Annabelle's father was using in Boston again?"

He looked at her in bewilderment. "Russell Granger. I thought that was the whole point of this conversation."

"Not in 1982, Bobby. Later, when he and Annabelle returned to Boston. If she became Tanya Nelson, then he became…"

"Mr. Nelson?" Bobby quipped. He flipped through his spiral notepad. First time they'd questioned Annabelle at BPD headquarters, she'd provided a rough overview of cities, aliases, and dates. He found the page in his notes, skimmed through, repeated the process two more times. "I don't… I don't have Boston listed. Annabelle didn't discuss their return."

D.D. arched a brow. "Interesting omission, don't you think?"

"There are a lot of cities and akas," he countered, holding up the page for her inspection. "Come on, we just figured out we'd overlooked that information ourselves."