Cold Springs(19)

“I'd have to see the house.”

“Never picked your daughter up there? Never visited?”

“No.”

“Your—uh—driver, Mr. Pérez, ever pick her up there?”

“No.”

“Your daughter was friends with her son for how long—about six, seven years?”

“Sergeant,” Prost intervened. “Mr. Zedman said no. Twice.”

“My apologies,” Damarodas said. “Mr. Zedman, one Realtor I spoke to told me the Montrose place wouldn't sell for more than a hundred grand, tops.”

“Why are you telling me this, Sergeant?”

“Thought you could help me understand how Mrs. Montrose got such a good deal.”

“Ask her family.”

A tick started in the corner of Damarodas' eye. “Love to. You wouldn't happen to know where they are?”

“No idea.”

“Funny. I get that answer a lot. Neighbors can't even tell me how many kids she had. Talia Montrose's mother—you ever had the pleasure?”

“No.”

“She supposedly took care of the grandkids from time to time—turns out she's an unmedicated schizophrenic. Morning I talked to her she was busy swatting pink cockroaches out of her dress, couldn't really answer my questions. That leaves us with Race, who hasn't been seen since the murder. A boyfriend, Vincent, seems to have left town. And of course, your daughter.”

“My daughter has nothing to do with this.”

“Probably not. Probably we could clear this up if we could ask her a few questions, seeing as Race was her best friend . . .”

“Classmates.” John said the word with distaste. “Not best friends.”

“Okay,” Damarodas agreed. “Classmates who were staying together for several nights. Her personal effects were found at the crime scene. Her voice was on the 911 tape reporting the murder. She and Race disappeared before the patrol officers arrived—”

“Sergeant,” Detective Prost broke in again.

Damarodas paused from ticking off the items on his fingers, his index finger hooked on his pinky. “You haven't heard from your daughter, Mr. Zedman?”

John hated that his lips were quivering. He hated that this insignificant man could make him nervous. “I told you, Sergeant. Mallory only comes here every other weekend. Her mother has full custody.”

Damarodas nodded, looking disappointed. “My mistake, then. I came out here thinking perhaps you'd heard from Mallory today. I thought she would be here.”

“And why would you think that?”

“We had a lead on your daughter,” Damarodas said. “A possible sighting.”

“A sighting.”

“We're still piecing things together. This just happened about an hour ago.”

John resisted the urge to ask. Damarodas wanted him to ask—wanted that little bit of power—but John wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.

“The BART police,” Damarodas said at last. “A supervisor I know, he called me, reported a girl matching your daughter's description at Rockridge station. Apparently she made an impression with the officer on duty. Jumped a turnstile, spilled cash all over the platform, threw herself into the rail pit. She was pulled out by a large man—white guy, like six-six, six-seven, blond buzz cut, beige overcoat. Said he was picking the girl up for her parents, had paperwork to prove it. They let him go. Supervisor heard about it, made the connection, called me. I figured the girl would be back here by now.”

Zedman's throat was closing up. He couldn't breathe. Damarodas' eyes were like the air at thirty thousand feet—clear and thin and inhospitably bright. He wanted to put them out with a poker.

“Sir?” Damarodas said. “You know this guy?”

“I hired no one to pick up my daughter.”

“Your ex-wife, then?”

John had a sudden, vivid memory of holding Mallory the day she was born, stroking his thumb over the warm velvet of her forehead, the blond fuzz of her scalp, understanding what it was like to love somebody so much you would take a bullet for her.

He remembered the night Katherine had died—rushing back to the Mission, scooping up Mallory and holding her in that big black leather chair while she trembled, so small and cold, John knowing even then that something inside her had broken. In the next room, Chadwick had been sobbing, his fingers curled in the fabric of Katherine's empty bed, and John had vowed—Nothing else will ever happen to my girl. I will never again let Mallory out of my sight.

He swallowed his bitterness, the coppery taste of failure. He thought about the demands in the latest letter. He thought about Chadwick, coming back into his life, taking his daughter.

“I know the man you're describing, Sergeant. My ex-wife must've hired him.”

John told him about Chadwick, what he knew about Chadwick's job in Texas, which wasn't much—bits and pieces of gossip from Norma, rumors of his pathetic self-imposed exile that they shook their heads over when they had lunch in the city.

He should've seen this coming—Ann's revenge for him challenging the custody arrangement again. While he was busy trying to save their daughter, all Ann could think about was hurting him.

“Chadwick.” Damarodas wrote the name in his notepad, stared down at it. “Well, damn.”