She heard a soft click, which in some ways was worse than him slamming down the receiver in her ear.
OLIVIA TANNER LIVED in one of those deceptively small-looking Midtown bungalows that from the street appeared to be around a thousand square feet but ended up having six bedrooms and five and a half baths, with a price tag running slightly north of a million dollars. After being in Pauline McGhee's office, seeing the missing woman's psyche laid bare, Faith looked at Olivia Tanner's house differently than she would have otherwise. The flower garden was beautiful, but all the plants were lined up in uniform rows. The outside of the house was crisply painted, the gutters in a graceful line along the eves. Based on Faith's knowledge of the neighborhood, the bungalow was probably thirty years older than her own lowly ranch house, but comparatively speaking, it looked brand new.
"All right," Will said into his cell phone. "Thank you for talking to me." He ended the call, telling Faith, "Joelyn Zabel says that her sister struggled with anorexia and bulimia when she was in high school. She's not sure what was going on recently, but it's a pretty fair bet that Jackie hadn't given it up."
Faith let the information settle in her brain. "Okay," she finally said.
"That's it. That's the connection."
"Where does it get us?" she asked, turning off the ignition. "Tech can't break into Jackie Zabel's Mac. It might take weeks for them to find the password on Pauline McGhee's computer, and we don't even know if the anorexia chat room is where she met the other women or if it was just something she cruised during her lunch hour. Not that she ate lunch." She looked back up at Olivia Tanner's house. "What do you want to bet we don't find a damn thing here, either?"
"You're focusing on Felix when you need to be thinking about Pauline," he said softly.
Faith wanted to tell him he was wrong, but it was true. All she could think about was Felix in some foster home, crying his eyes out. She needed to concentrate on the victims, the fact that Jacquelyn Zabel and Anna were precursors to Pauline McGhee and Olivia Tanner. How long could the two women endure the torture, the degradation? Every minute that passed was another minute they would suffer.
Every minute that passed was another minute Felix was without his mother.
Will told her, "The way we help Felix is to help Pauline."
Faith breathed a heavy sigh. "It's really starting to annoy me that you know me so well."
"Please," he muttered. "You are an enigma wrapped in a sticky bun." He opened the car door and got out. She watched him walk toward the house with a determined stride.
Faith got out of the car and followed him, noting, "No garage, no BMW." After her awful phone call with Leo, she had followed up with the desk sergeant who took the initial report on Olivia Tanner's disappearance. The woman drove a blue BMW 325, hardly distinctive in this neighborhood. Tanner was single, worked as a vice president at a local bank, had no children, and her only living relative was her brother.
Will tried the front door. Locked. "What's keeping the brother?"
Faith checked her watch. "His plane landed an hour ago. If traffic's bad . . ." She let her voice trail off. Traffic was always bad in Atlanta, especially around the airport.
He leaned down, checking under the welcome mat for a key. When that didn't work, he ran his hand along the top of the doorsill and checked the flowerpots, coming up empty. "You think we should just go in?"
Faith suppressed a comment about his eagerness to commit breaking and entering. She had worked with him long enough to know that frustration could act like adrenaline to Will, while it acted like Valium to Faith. "Let's give him another few minutes."
"We should go ahead and call a locksmith in case the brother doesn't have a key."
"Let's just take this slow, all right?"
"You're talking to me the way you talk to witnesses."
"We don't even know if Olivia Tanner is one of our victims. She could end up being a bottle blonde and vibrant with tons of friends and a dog."
"The bank said she hasn't missed a day of work since she started there."
"She could've fallen down the stairs. Decided to skip town. Run away with a stranger she met in a bar."
Will didn't answer. He cupped his hands and peered into the front windows, trying to see inside. The uniform patrolman who had taken the missing person report yesterday would have already done this, but Faith let him waste his time as they waited for Michael Tanner, Olivia's brother, to show up.
Despite his anger, Leo had done them a solid by handing over the call. Procedure would have dictated a detective be assigned to the case. Depending on what the detective had on his books, it might have taken as long as twenty-four hours for Michael Tanner to talk to someone who could do more than fill out a report. From there, it might've taken another day before the GBI was alerted to a match on their profile. Leo had bought them two precious days on a case that desperately needed help. And they had kicked him in the teeth in way of thanks.
Faith felt her BlackBerry start to vibrate. She checked the mail, saying a silent thank you to Caroline, Amanda's assistant. "I've got Jake Berman's arrest report from the Mall of Georgia incident."
"What's it say?"
Faith watched the flashing file transfer icon. "It'll take a few minutes to download."
He walked around the house, checking each window. Faith followed him, keeping her BlackBerry in front of her like a divining rod. Finally, the first page of the report loaded, and she read from the narrative title. "Pursuant to complaints made by patrons of the Mall of Georgia . . ." Faith scrolled down, looking for the relevant parts. "'Suspect then made the typical hand gesture indicating he was interested in sexual intercourse. I responded by nodding my head twice, at which point he directed me back toward the stalls at the rear of the men's room.'" She skimmed down some more. "'Suspect's wife and two sons, approximately age one and three, were waiting outside.'"
"Is the wife's name listed?"
"No."
Will walked up the steps of the deck that lined the back of Olivia Tanner's house. Atlanta was on the piedmont of the Appalachians, which meant it was riddled with hills and valleys. Olivia Tanner's bungalow was at the base of a steep slope, giving her backyard neighbors a clear view of her house.
"Maybe they saw something?" Will suggested.
Faith looked at the neighbor's house. It was huge, the sort of McMansion you usually only saw in the suburbs. The top two stories had large decks and the basement had a terraced seating area with a brick fireplace. All the shutters and blinds on the back of the house were closed except for a pair of curtains that were pulled back on one of the basement doors.
"Looks empty," she said.
"Probably a foreclosure." Will tried Olivia Tanner's back door. It was locked. "Olivia has been missing since at least yesterday. If she's one of our victims, that means she was either taken right before or right after Pauline." He checked the windows. "Are we thinking Jake Berman might be Pauline McGhee's brother?"
"It's possible," Faith conceded. "Pauline warned Felix that her brother was dangerous. She didn't want him around her kid."