Текст книги "Snakes and ladders"
Автор книги: Sean Slater
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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 29 страниц)
Twenty-Six
Across the way from Larisa Logan’s place, beneath the overhang of a porch, the Adder stood in the total darkness. He stood tall in the night, completely still. Watching. Waiting.
Assessing.
Know thy enemy. These were words to live by. And how correct they were. For the cops had now found Larisa Logan’s place. He had no idea how they had done it, but it was impressive nonetheless.
It was not totally surprising. There were trails everywhere in today’s world. Physical. Audible. Electronic. Biochemical. No matter how hard a person tried to cover their tracks, there was always a trail. Always.
Somehow, some way, everyone was track-able.
The Adder watched both detectives enter and search the house, then the front and back yards. When they finally left, the woman carried a brown bag full of evidence. What it held, the Adder had no idea, but he assumed it was newspaper clippings and bills and whatever else they thought important.
Whatever the evidence, it was bad news for him. In fact, there was plenty of bad news to go around. Very bad news.
Larisa was gone.
The police knew of some part of her involvement.
And they would surely be coming.
The Adder frowned. The Doctor was going to be very unhappy with this news. There would be serious ramifications. Plan alterations. New strategies. And even worse problems if the cops – or the Doctor, for that matter – ever discovered why Larisa was so important.
This was most disconcerting for the Adder. The thought should have made him frown. Or squint. Or flinch. Or . . . something. He should have had some kind of physical reaction to it. At the very least, he should have worried for the future.
But he did not. He could not. All he could do was stand there and smile as the excitement built up within himself.
It was happening.
The game was on.
Twenty-Seven
It was well past midnight by the time Striker and Felicia pulled up to his house on Camosun Street. It was an old house, a small sleepy home on the corner lot. A tiny front yard with a maple tree stood out front. Most of the lights were off inside.
Striker looked at it with weary eyes. So many memories of Courtney and Amanda were here. After the suicide, he’d wanted to move out, but Courtney had freaked, so he’d abandoned the idea. There’d been good times and bad times here over the years, so many that it usually left him feeling awash in emotions whenever he looked upon the place. But now as he took everything in, all he could feel was a weary happiness to have arrived.
Home sweet home.
The day was done. He was done. Damn well depleted. And it was time for some much-needed shut-eye because tomorrow was undoubtedly going to be another wild day. He killed the engine and opened the door. When he started to get out, Felicia grabbed his forearm.
‘Hey,’ she said. ‘The keys?’
He stopped getting out of the car, hesitated, then dropped back into the driver’s seat. He looked at her. Felt a flood of disappointment. ‘You’re not coming in, are you?’
When Felicia didn’t respond, he looked at her face – at her dark eyes and warm lips – and he wanted more than anything to have her come inside with him, so he could snuggle up next to her in his bed. Feel her warm flesh. Have her long hair spill all around him. Smell her in the sheets. Wrap himself around her . . . They had done all this in the past. But that was just a distant memory now.
‘I really have to go,’ she said.
‘The door is always open for you.’
‘Jacob—’
‘Even if you just want to sleep on the couch, right?’
She looked over and met his eyes. ‘The couch? Really. Come on, Jacob. It won’t end there and we both know it.’
‘And is that such a bad thing?’
‘No. Yes. You know what I mean.’
‘Feleesh—’
‘I can’t do this any more, Jacob. Courtney hates my guts. And then there’s the whole thing with Amanda – I can’t compete with a memory.’
‘I never asked you to.’
‘You don’t have to ask – it’s always there no matter what you say, and it always will be.’
He only shrugged at the comment; he didn’t get what she was saying.
‘This just isn’t working out,’ she finally said. ‘Our relationship . . . it changes too many things. Especially at work. It’s altered our whole dynamic. We’re good partners, Jacob, and good friends, too. I don’t want to lose all that.’
‘And what about when we’re not at work?’
She laughed. ‘And when are we not at work?’
He searched for a response and came up short. And to be honest, he was too tired to argue the point. This was a conversation he was growing progressively weary of, and yet it was the same one that always seemed to pop up again and again at the end of every long day. He was beaten down by it, and he let it go.
He looked at Felicia’s face, took it all in, and felt so many emotions that they over-spilled. He wanted to tell her how much he missed her. How much he wanted her there with him every day. How they should always be together, and that all the little problems just didn’t matter.
But he didn’t say any of that. He just sat there and said nothing, and, eventually, he handed her the keys and stepped out of the car.
Felicia took a long look at his face and her expression softened. ‘I do love you, Jacob, if that means anything any more.’
‘It means everything,’ he said. ‘Which is why none of this makes sense.’
Felicia made no reply. She just moved to the driver’s side and closed the door. The transmission let out a loud clank as she put the car into Drive. And moments later, she was gone, speeding off down the road. Just a pair of tiny red tail lights growing smaller in the distance as the darkness thickened all around her.
Striker stood there in the cold and dark night, and stared at the empty road. Thinking, thinking, thinking. When it was more than Striker could take, he turned around and walked up the old porch steps.
Alone.
Inside, the house was dark and quiet. Only one light was on, coming from far down the hall, and Striker knew it was from Courtney’s bedroom. Ever since the incident last year, she’d had problems with the dark. And confined areas. And who could blame her for that? He let the light be. She had enough on her plate with therapy; he wasn’t about to push it.
He tiptoed down the hallway to his daughter’s room and peered inside. Crashed out on the bed in a soundless sleep was Courtney. Her thick auburn hair swept over her creamy cheeks and hid the rest of her face. Striker took a long look at her, watching her chest rise with every breath. Then he looked at the crutches leaning against the far wall.
More bad reminders.
He closed her door and let her sleep. He went into the kitchen and grabbed a beer – a Miller Genuine Draft – and then walked into the den. It was cold and dark, so he flicked on the gas fire. He crashed down on the sofa and felt the hardness of the cold leather. As the room warmed up, he went over everything in his head.
The day had been long and hard. A good woman had died. And now another was missing. His world had been turned upside down. Twice in one day.
‘Where the hell are you, Larisa?’ he asked aloud.
The words sounded weak in the open space of the room. For all intents and purposes, Larisa Logan had disappeared. She had become a ghost. A Missing Persons file.
It made no sense.
His eyelids felt heavy. Bed was calling.
Striker glanced at his iPhone one last time to see if Larisa had called and he’d somehow missed it. There were no missed calls, but there was a big red number 1 on the email notification. He hit the Email button and saw one message on the screen. He read the header:
From: Unknown
Subject: Snakes & Ladders
At first, Striker almost hit the Delete button, but something about the message bothered him. He put down his bottle of beer and leaned forward in his seat. Then he opened the message.
It was short, simple, and to the point:
You won today, Detective Striker. You climbed up while I slid down. Good play. But tomorrow it’s my turn to roll the dice, and it’s only fair to warn you, I always get doubles. ;o) Game on.
Yours truly,
The Adder
Day Two
Twenty-Eight
The world was still dark when Striker got up, and the room seemed to move on him in his half-asleep state. He kicked the blankets off his legs and stood up in the darkness, the hardwood floor feeling cold on his bare feet. He grabbed his robe from the hook on the wall, wrapped it around himself to ward off the chill, and stepped out into the hall.
Dim light flooded the far-away kitchen area and the sound of fingers tapping on a keyboard filled the air. It was Percy Wadsworth, Striker knew – Ich, as everyone called him, due to his uncanny resemblance to Ichabod Crane from the Sleepy Hollow fable. When Striker called him with news of the email message, the tech had come right over.
He was a godsend.
Striker walked down the hall and stopped in the kitchen doorway. The electronic blue light from the computer screen gave the corner where Ich was sitting an artificial look. Striker reached up and turned on the overhead light.
When the room brightened, Ich didn’t even react. He sat at the kitchen table, slumped like a scoliosis victim with an arthritic spine. His eyes stared out from behind large wire-rimmed glasses, and the shirt he wore was two sizes too big for his skinny build. On the table in front of him were several empty cans of Irish coffee Monster energy drink and a few Snickers bar wrappers.
‘Any luck?’ Striker asked.
Ich finally stopped typing. He looked up, pushed his glasses back up the long thin bridge of his nose, and let out a heavy breath. ‘Not much,’ he said, and the words were a let-down to Striker. Among other things, Ich was the department’s internet specialist. If he couldn’t trace the source of the email, then no one could.
It was just that simple.
The acidic smell of stale coffee filled the air, and it was a welcome aroma. Striker walked over to the machine, grabbed a cup from the sink, and poured some old Nabob. It had been made sometime during the night – who knows when – and the brew was as black as motor sludge. He pulled a package of pastries from the cupboard – raspberry Danishes and lemon rolls. He threw it on the table.
‘There you go, Ich. Breakfast of Champions.’
Ich looked over. ‘Freshly baked, I’m sure.’
‘Good hydrogenated pureness,’ Striker countered. ‘With a hint of trans fats.’
Ich grinned. ‘Felicia would kill you if she knew.’ He took a raspberry Danish without looking and bit off a chunk.
Striker came up to the table. ‘So . . . we even know how this guy found me? I mean, this message came from my own personal email account.’
Ich swallowed a mouthful of Danish. ‘Actually, that was the easy part. It’s called having a sixteen-year-old daughter.’
Striker didn’t like the ring of that. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Courtney’s listed on a social-networking site called MyShrine.’
‘So?’
Ich gestured for Striker to come around the table. Then he turned on Firefox and clicked on the MyShrine tab. Already pre-filled on the page was the login name and password. Ich hit Enter, and Courtney’s homepage loaded:
Name: The Court.
Striker watched the screen as Ich navigated through different profile sections. He couldn’t help but feel they were invading his daughter’s privacy. It was like reading someone’s electronic diary, and he self-consciously looked down the hall at her bedroom door.
‘Right here,’ Ich said. He clicked on the profile pictures and paged through them. As he did so, Striker saw several photos of himself among them – some of them in uniform. It was surprising. In some ways it made him feel good to know she had included him; in other ways, he didn’t like it. He’d been in the newspapers and on TV enough times over the years – always when working a big case – for the general public to know who he was. And that was one thing.
But this connected his career of policing to their home.
It wasn’t good.
‘I want these pictures removed,’ he said.
Ich nodded. ‘The message this guy left you is right here.’ He clicked on the Message Wall and brought up the veiled threat. ‘Courtney has all her privacy rules set to minimum – she really should change that. She’s got message forwarding clicked on, so all her messages are automatically relayed from here to your home email. And since you have email forwarding set up on your phone, you got it, too.’
Striker thought this over. ‘But I don’t get all her MyShrine messages, just this one.’
‘That’s because of the filter settings. They were altered the moment the email was sent. Which means that somehow he’s been playing with your settings.’
Striker frowned at that. It was all technical mumbo-jumbo to him. ‘Is this guy on her Friends’ list?’ he asked.
‘Naw, she’s never included him in that. He just sent a message to her wall – a post, like anyone can do. Normally, everything would be filtered to only Courtney. The weird thing is, this guy knew you would get it.’ He searched through the forwarding options and unchecked Striker’s email address. ‘There. Fixed again . . . But that doesn’t explain how he got into your email options in the first place. What are your security settings on your computer?’
Striker shook his head. ‘I don’t know. You tell me.’
‘You need to know this stuff, Shipwreck. It’s the computer age, remember?’
‘That’s Felicia’s role. I shoot people.’
Ich laughed softly. He worked his way to the internet settings and shook his head. ‘Your firewall is down, man. Anyone can get in here.’ He made a few clicks, then saved the changes. ‘There. It’s secure now. But for all we know, this guy could’ve been rooting around in your computer for months. If he’s good enough, that is – and I think he is.’
Striker said nothing. He was not a social-networking-savvy guy, nor was he technologically up to date. Every day, he just turned on the computer and it worked; that was about as far as his skills went. Felicia was the technological master of their partnership. He wished she was here right now.
For many reasons.
‘What about the original sender?’ he asked Ich. ‘Can we find him?’
‘Untraceable.’ Ich grabbed a can of Monster drink from the table and slurped back the rest of it. He then wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt and continued. ‘First off, you need a warrant for this stuff.’
‘That’s not a problem, I can get one in two hours.’
Ich shook his head. ‘Don’t bother, that’s not the point. I got a contact with MyShrine, and I already used him. He gave me the account info – off the record, of course. The message is being sent through a proxy server. Which isn’t good for us.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because most of those companies wipe their data every hour on the hour. And ninety-nine per cent of them are set up offshore. The chance of getting anything back is abysmal, much less something useful. Plus, if this guy’s smart enough to do this, he’s probably using other hide-ware programs as well.’ Ich gave Striker a hard look. ‘Be careful with this guy. This shit ain’t easy to do.’
‘Point taken.’
Striker read the message one more time. Analysed it. There was no actual threat in the words, only insinuation. But that was enough. And the sender had signed the message with no real name, only The Adder – a name Striker had never heard before.
It was typical. In a time when internet sickos were cyber-bullying people, opening paedophiliac chat rooms, and defacing online memorial sites like creepy electronic trolls, not much surprised him any more.
He swallowed back the rest of his cup of coffee. ‘Thanks for your help, Ich. Really, I owe you one.’
The techie just shrugged. ‘Any time, Detective.’
Striker put a hand on his shoulder. ‘You’ve done enough. Go home and get some sleep.’ He smiled. ‘My day’s just starting.’
Ich nodded and stood up from the computer. ‘If this guy sends any more messages, don’t delete them. Don’t open them. And don’t turn off the computer. Just leave it alone and call me – ASAP. I’ll come right over.’
Striker nodded. He walked Ich to the front door, thanked him again for his time, and watched as the police car drove off into the grey darkness of the winter morning.
Ich had no sooner left when another police car came roaring down the road. An unmarked. A Ford Taurus. It came to a sliding stop on the icy road and almost hit the kerb. The sight of it made Striker smile.
Felicia had arrived.
She got out gingerly, balancing two coffees in her hand. Tim Horton’s coffee. The Best. She walked up the sidewalk, kicked open the gate, climbed the steps, and handed him one. In the yellowish light of the porch lamp, she looked pretty. Rested. Like she’d slept well and was ready to go for another day.
‘Good morning, Sunshine,’ he offered.
She stepped right past him. ‘Where the hell’s this message?’
Before he could even answer, she walked into the house, kicked off her boots, and crossed into the kitchen. By the time Striker had shut the door and caught up with her, she was already paging through MyShrine.
‘The Adder?’ she asked.
‘It’s a type of snake,’ he explained. When she gave him one of her annoyed looks, he added, ‘A poisonous one.’
‘I know it’s a poisonous snake, Jacob. I didn’t grow up in a friggin’ commune. Who is this guy?’
Striker shrugged. ‘It’s untraceable.’
Felicia put down her coffee and shook her head. Her eyes stayed heavy on the screen and her jaw was tight.
‘I don’t like this,’ she said.
‘No one does. But there’s no real threat here, just a wise-ass message. And that’s the way I’m taking it for now. He’s just another loon.’
‘Or he could be our guy.’
Striker nodded in agreement. ‘I realize that. I understand the coincidence and timing. But the more you go over things, the more you realize that’s a pretty big could.’
‘How so?’
Striker joined her at the table. ‘Well, for one, the message was sent after we’d been seen on TV. If it had come in before the news segment, I would have given it a little more credit, but now, well, it could have been anyone in close proximity to a television set.’
Felicia thought this over, but her face remained hard. ‘Still, we should take some precautions. I mean, what if it is him? We just go around doing our job like a pair of sitting ducks?’
‘No, we watch our backs. Like we always do.’
She said nothing for a moment. She read the message once more, then twice, and frowned. ‘It’s like this is a game to him,’ she said. ‘He’s a sick fuck. And he’s bold. Who knows, he might even come after us.’
Striker smiled at that.
‘If only we could be so lucky.’
Twenty-Nine
It was just after six a.m. when Striker and Felicia decided to leave his little bungalow on Camosun Street and head for the downtown core. Courtney was still fast asleep in her bed, and Striker had considered waking her up to say goodbye. He missed her, as always, and he felt like they never had enough time together. Felt like he was failing her as a father.
That thought was always with him, clouding his thoughts.
In the end, he had opted to let her sleep. The girl had been depressed lately, upset over her injuries and the lack of progress in her rehabilitation. This morning, she seemed to be getting some much-needed rest.
He didn’t want to disturb that.
He left a note on the computer, telling her not to touch it because of police-related reasons, then left the house with Felicia by his side. As they stepped into the Ford, Striker took a long last look at his cosy little rancher.
Felicia noted this. ‘Holy Jeez, she’ll be fine, worrywart.’
Striker frowned and she laughed at him. He climbed inside the car, started the engine, and they headed for police headquarters. Not the downtown one, but the building on Cambie Street. It was their next best step in finding Larisa Logan.
It was where Victim Services was located.
Cambie Street was not far from the Dunbar area, so they made it there in less than ten minutes. When they arrived on scene at 0615 hours, the parking lot out front was unusually empty. Echo shift had already gone home for the night, Alpha was out on the road, and Bravo had not yet arrived.
Striker ditched the car and headed into the foyer. The building here on Cambie was owned by the Insurance Corporation of BC, not the Vancouver Police Department, and this pissed off a lot of the cops. Underground parking was shared with ICBC civilians – and, therefore, insecure – the elevators broke down every second week, and the entire building had a ramshackle, compartmentalized feel to it.
It made sense why. The building had been designed for the nine-to-five business crowd, not the twenty-four-hour/seven-days-a-week needs of a police department. Talks of relocating to a newer address out east were forever ongoing, but for now this was all the Vancouver Police had. Insufficient premises to go with an insufficient crime budget.
It was typical for the City of Vancouver.
In the end, Striker didn’t much care. The Cambie building was mostly patrol. He spent most of his time down at the 312 station, and a lot more of it out on the road. All he cared about with regards to the Cambie building was that it housed Victim Services.
That was Larisa Logan’s unit.
Sargheit Samra, the old bear, was the sergeant in charge of the Victim Services Unit, and had been for just over a year now. Before being transferred to the VSU, he’d spent damn near eight years working Alpha shift, so he’d become something of an early riser – the crazy hours were something he never could readjust from. For this reason, Striker hadn’t bothered to call ahead; he was betting on the fact that Samra would already be on scene.
Even at six o’clock in the morning.
Once inside, Striker and Felicia crossed the foyer and turned right, heading away from the elevators. The Victim Services office was located on the southwest corner of the foyer, surrounded by a transparent wall of tinted glass. By most accounts, it was a tiny section. Six desks, and sometimes not enough workers to fill them. Most of the counsellors were usually busy, called out to the worst crime scenes and at all hours of the day and night. Every shift was filled with stress and anguish.
Striker didn’t envy them their job.
He gave the glass door a solid rap with his knuckles, then turned the knob and went inside. Seated behind his desk with his police boots off, reading the Vancouver Province sports section was a fifty-ish East Indian male. Sargheit Samra.
The Sarj, as everyone called him.
He was a thickset man. Clean shaven. And even though he was carrying some extra cushioning these days, the thick underlying muscle bulk made his uniform fit well. Made him look like a force to be reckoned with.
Despite the fact it was a No Smoking building – a bylaw, in fact – a cigarette dangled precariously from his lips, and a steaming-hot cup of Starbucks coffee sat in front of him. Black as night, and in a paper cup, like always.
Upon seeing them, the Sarj looked up from his newspaper and a sly grin spread his thick lips. ‘Well, holy Shipwreck, look what the cat just dragged in.’ He spoke with no accent. He looked over at Felicia and smiled genuinely. ‘You still hanging out with this loser? He’ll get you a bad rep, you know.’
‘Damage is already done,’ she replied. ‘How’s life, Sarj?’
He folded up his paper and dropped it on the desk. ‘Slow this morning – and happily so.’ He gave them a dubious look. ‘Why? You two lookin’ at changing that?’
Striker closed the door behind them. ‘We’re here about one of your former counsellors. Woman who helped me out, in fact. Larisa Logan.’
The grin stretching the Sarj’s lips slipped away, and he took his feet off the desk. He sat up like he was getting ready for serious business, took a long drag of his smoke, and then spoke. ‘You really know how to kill a mood, Striker. Jesus Christ. What you want to know about her?’
‘Everything. Like why she’s messaging me, saying she has information on one of my cases.’
‘She did?’ The Sarj raised an eyebrow and stubbed out his cigarette in the plastic lid of his coffee cup. He rolled the butt thoughtfully between his fingers, as if debating something in his head. After a long moment, he gazed up at them, and suddenly he looked a whole lot older. Tired. ‘You know she left here, right?’
Striker nodded. ‘We’re aware.’
‘And not too long after I got here. So I didn’t have a whole lot of time to get to know the woman.’
‘Larisa didn’t spend too much time in the VSU?’ Felicia asked.
‘She’d been here for quite a while when I got transferred in. Bout three years, I guess. And by all accounts, she was one of the good ones.’
‘Good work ethic?’ Striker pressed.
The Sarj nodded. ‘The best. Had to be to work down here. Back then, the Victim Services Unit was really a hoppin’ place – as busy as it is now, but with only two girls working it. Now we got five. So Larisa and Chloe were really moving. Hell, they were overworked. It burned them out good.’
‘Chloe?’ Felicia asked.
‘Chloe Sera. Moved to one of the crime analyst areas. Burnaby South, I think.’
Striker nodded. ‘Did you two get along?’
‘Me and Larisa?’ The Sarj spoke the words like the question surprised him. ‘For sure. Everyone did. Larisa was a peach. Always happy, never moody. She did her work and she kept her mouth shut. Never gossiped, never complained. Hell, I wish I could say the same for the new girls – everyone feels so fucking entitled nowadays . . . I miss her.’
Striker crossed his arms, leaned against the wall. ‘So what happened then? What made her leave?’
The Sarj opened his packet of Lucky Strike unfiltered. Thumbed one out. ‘Bad times,’ he said. ‘Real bad. Stuff happened with Larisa.’
‘Stuff?’ Striker asked. ‘Jeez, don’t be so technical, Sarj, you’re losing me.’
The old bear just grunted. He lit his cigarette, sucked deep, and blew out a trail of smoke that clouded the small office. When he spoke again, his voice was gruff. ‘Her parents were killed. Her sister, too.’
Felicia made a surprised sound. ‘My God, how?’
‘Motor vehicle accident. Larisa was never the same after that. She wanted stress leave, I gave it to her. Shit, the tragedy aside, she had earned it. It was a bad, bad time for the girl.’
Striker thought that over.
A bad time. That seemed like an understatement.
On the far wall across the room hung a series of photographs, one for each of the counsellors in the Victim Services Unit. Larisa’s face was still up there. Dark brown hair with reddish highlights. A warm stare. And a big wide smile that was captivating, exactly how Striker remembered it.
He missed seeing it now.
He turned and met the Sarj’s eyes. ‘You talked to her at all lately?’
The Sarj looked at the picture with a lost look distorting his face, as if he had forgotten the photograph was even there.
‘No,’ he said after a long moment. ‘No, I haven’t.’ When Striker asked nothing else, the Sarj closed his desk drawer. Let out a tense sound. Continued speaking. ‘I’ll be honest with you, Shipwreck – and don’t go spreading this around – but Larisa got a little . . . weird on us there.’
‘Weird? How so?’
‘It’s kind of hard to explain, really. She got private. Fiercely private. And to some extent, I can see why – I mean, the way people gossip round here, it’s like a goddam high school sometimes. But after the tragedy with her family, she became really closed-off, really detached. Didn’t come to the social functions. Didn’t talk to anyone at the office – and it wasn’t from a lack of trying. We called her all the time, sent out condolence packages, and we each took turns dropping by her place to make sure she was okay.’
Felicia asked, ‘Did it help?’
The Sarj just furrowed his brow and sucked on his Lucky. ‘Did it help? Who the fuck knows? The more we tried to keep contact with her, the more she stayed away. One time, I remember going out there and knowing she was home – and I mean knowing she was there. But no matter how much I knocked, she just stayed inside the doorway there, pretending to be away. It was really, really odd. After that, I sent an email to Human Resources about her. Thought maybe they could check into it. Do some follow-up on her. See if maybe they could get Larisa some professional help for her problems.’
‘And then what?’
‘And then she left.’
‘You mean quit?’ Felicia asked.
‘Yeah, she quit. As in sayonara. End of April, I think. Maybe May. I’m not sure, exactly, but it was long after she’d fallen off the social ladder.’
Striker thought this over. ‘She give you a letter?’
‘Nope. Just sent an email, telling everyone how sorry she was, but that she could no longer do the job – and you know what? I don’t blame her for that, especially after what she’d been through. This place never gave those girls enough training and support for the job they did.’
‘What do you mean, training?’ Felicia asked.
‘On how to deal with all this stuff.’
‘But I thought they were all psychologists,’ she said.
The Sarj shook his head. ‘Psychologists? Fuck, no. That’s a common misconception around here. As of this last year, yeah, now they’re all psychologists – and that was done mainly for liability reasons to protect the department – but back then the counsellors were just a couple of young girls offering a shoulder to cry on. They got almost no training and even less support. Took the Union to get some changes on that.’
Felicia nodded as she thought this over. ‘The stress obviously took a toll on Larisa. And she broke down.’
The Sarj said nothing.
Striker agreed with Felicia’s analysis. He spoke with the Sarj some more and got all of Larisa’s last-known details – her address, phone numbers, email addresses, and contacts. But the information he received was no different from what he’d already found in the PRIME database.
In the end, it did nothing to help them.
‘I do have a photo of her on file,’ the Sarj offered. ‘Jpeg. Give me your cell and I’ll Bluetooth it to you.’
Striker handed him his iPhone and the Sarj sent him the photograph. ‘This is the latest picture we have.’
‘It’s appreciated,’ Striker said. Before leaving, he met the Sarj’s stare one more time. ‘This is a really delicate issue for us. You call me if you hear anything about her, okay, Sarj? And I mean anything.’
He nodded. ‘You and you alone.’
The Sarj stood up from the desk, rounded it in his socked feet, and started for the door to usher them out. At the wall, he stopped and stared at the photograph of Larisa Logan. ‘She was such a good person,’ he said. ‘And we all miss her. But over time, she just kind of . . . faded away. It’s not right.’
