“After the Dallas Cowboys quarterback? Christ, that’s treason in Washington Redskins territory.”
“No truer words.” As he got out of the car, he grabbed the brown paper bag from the back seat, and the two crossed the lot to the hospital entrance. He could not say he had broken the ice with Shepard, but there was a small crack. Normally, he did not bother beyond basic politeness when working with local law enforcement. But Shepard stoked his curiosity.
The elevator doors opened, and they stepped inside, joining a doctor and a couple of nurses. The nurses were discussing an upcoming wedding, but he quickly filtered out the details.
When the doors opened to the pediatric ward, the nurse on duty offered a quick update on Elena. The girl had had a fair night, but there had been some crying. Still, physically she was fine and would be released soon.
They found the little girl sitting up and watching a cartoon. Ramsey did not recognize the characters, but judging by the child’s face, she did. She was not really animated, but any child in a stressful situation would be the same. She appeared less lethargic and scared. He sensed she had lived a transient life and accepted change as a matter of course.
“Hey, Elena,” Shepard said. The lightness had returned to her voice. “How are you doing?”
The girl kept her gaze on the television and tightened her hold on the stuffed dog as if she sensed another change was coming. Shepard’s watch dangled from the girl’s tiny wrist. “Good.”
Shepard pulled up a chair. “I came by last night, but you were asleep. Sorry I was so late getting by. Been trying to figure out a lot of things.”
“Okay.”
The monotone, almost dismissive tone was a coping mechanism. This kid was very wary of emotional connections. He bet she had been burned enough times before.
For several minutes, Shepard watched the cartoon, laughing in a few spots. “I love this one. It’s when Papa Smurf builds a house.”
“Yeah.” This time the girl tossed a side-glance at him. “Do you want your watch back?”
“You keep it for now,” Shepard said.
The girl rubbed her other hand over the watch’s face. “Okay. Who’s he?”
“He’s a sailor and has a dog named Romo. His name is Jerrod, and when he’s not sailing or playing fetch with Romo, he works for me.”
Ramsey shifted, amused at Shepard’s assessment. It was designed to soften up the girl’s fears but revealed a few of Shepard’s inside thoughts about him. He grinned, but the girl shifted and dropped her gaze.
“I did stop by a store today, Elena.” Ramsey held up the paper bag. “Want to see?”
She did not answer, but he had her attention.
He removed the pink plastic vial from the bag. When her expression turned quizzical, he explained, “I used to play with this when I was a kid. It says on the label that if you blow once, it will make a million bubbles. I’m not sure you’ll get a million, but you’ll get a lot.”
“I don’t know how to make bubbles,” Elena said.
“It’s easy enough,” he said, moving slowly toward the bed. He twisted off the top and handed it to Shepard, then, removing the wand from the container, held it up and blew into the hollow circle at the end. A large bubble materialized, broke free, and then floated toward the girl.
Elena looked amazed.
He blew a few more bubbles, and by the third time she was smiling. “Do you want to try?”
“Yes.”
Ramsey came around the side of the bed and handed her the plastic container. “Dunk the wand, hold it up, and blow.”
She blew hard, but the thin coating of liquid popped before it became a bubble. “It didn’t work.”
“Dunk it again, and this time blow very gently.”
Her second try was also a fail, but her third worked, to her great delight. The three sat there for another five minutes while the child created bubble after bubble.
Finally, she grew tired and handed the bubble mix to Shepard, who carefully screwed on the top. “I’m putting this over here so you can play with it later.”
“I like bubbles,” Elena said.
Shepard removed her phone from her back pocket and found the picture of Bonnie Guthrie. “Elena, can you look at a picture and tell me if this is BB?”
The girl shrugged.
Shepard showed her Bonnie’s picture, and Elena took the phone, studying the face closely.
“Is BB coming for me? She said she would come get me if I stopped crying,” Elena said.
“I’m still trying to find BB,” Shepard said. “Does BB have friends or family in Nashville? Did you two stop and visit anyone?”
Elena stared at the picture of BB. “She said don’t talk to cops. They’ll put you in jail.”
“I’m not going to put you in jail,” Ramsey said. “Neither is Melina.”
“BB says cops lie.” Elena laid down the phone and shifted her gaze back to the Smurf cartoon.
“I don’t lie,” Shepard said. “I said I’d come back, and I did.”
The girl glanced down at the watch and the stuffed dog. Absently, she twisted a piece of the fur between her fingers. “BB has a friend.”
Slight traces of tension rippled through Shepard’s shoulders. He knew the feeling. It was exciting when a piece of the puzzle presented itself.
She did not rush to comment, as if seeming to understand that gaining more of the girl’s trust needed to be slow and steady so she would not spook the kid. “I know we’ve talked about the man BB talked to before. You think maybe we can talk about him again? I’m trying to figure this guy out.”
The girl was silent a moment before she said, “Okay.”
“Where did you see Sonny?” Shepard asked.
“At his house.”
“What did the house look like?” With children, interview questions had to be specific.
“Brown.”
“Brown paint. Brown bricks?”
“Bricks,” Elena said.
“Did the yard have green grass or pretty plants?”
“Yeah. There was also a bath for birds.”
This information suggested to Ramsey that Sonny kept up appearances. That was not surprising, considering his killings went back so long. He was accustomed to masking his behavior.
“You said he had a mean face,” Shepard said. When the girl appeared to tense, Shepard scrunched up her face. “Did his face look like this?”
A ghost of a smile teased the girl’s lips. “Meaner.”
Shepard tightened her face another notch. “Like this?”
“You don’t look mean,” Elena said, smiling now.
She jabbed her thumb toward Ramsey and stage-whispered, “I bet he can make the right kind of mean face.”
The girl cupped her hand close to her mouth. “He can.”
Ramsey scrunched up his face and looked in a mirror across from the bed. “I don’t look mean. Melina looks mean.”
“I do not,” Shepard said lightly.
The girl’s eyes widened with amusement, and then she giggled softly.
Shepard was smiling, and he sensed a genuine amusement that he found was very satisfying. “Did something make Sonny mad?”
“Sonny didn’t like it when BB called him Sonny. He said it wasn’t his real name,” Elena said.
“Did he say what his real name was?” she asked.
“No.”
“What does Sonny look like when he doesn’t have the mean face?” Shepard asked. “What color is his hair?”
“Black. Like yours. And his eyes are brown like yours,” the girl said.
They went through a series of questions until they had a rough description of Sonny. He was likely in his midthirties, tall, not fat but not thin, brown hair and eyes, and he had several guitars in his house. It was a start, but with no last name or an address, Sonny would be impossible to trace.
“When you were at Sonny’s house, did he give anything to BB?” Ramsey asked.
“No.”
“Did she go back to Sonny’s house?” Shepard asked.
The girl shrugged. “I don’t know. We went to the motel and I fell asleep.”
Which did not rule out the possibility that BB had left the girl and returned to Sonny’s house.
The girl yawned. “BB takes stuff all the time from everyone.”
Did the preserved fingers belong to Sonny? Had BB taken them for some kind of leverage? He made a mental note to check past known associates for Bonnie Guthrie.
“You’ve been a big help,” Shepard said.
The girl yawned again and blinked slowly. “Okay. When you find BB, can I leave?”
“You get to leave here really soon. I’ll talk to your doctor again when I come back later. I should know more this afternoon.”
The girl’s eyes widened with panic before she seemed to catch herself. “Do you have to leave?”
Shepard smiled at the child. “I can’t find BB if I don’t leave for a little bit. And we need to find her.”
The girl frowned. “Okay.”
Shepard smiled at the girl, but as she turned to leave, the girl grabbed her fingers in a surprisingly tight grip.
Shepard seemed to tense, as if absorbing the child’s desperation. She leaned forward and hugged the girl. The child’s arms clutched her neck, and her small frame melted into the agent’s.
Shepard patted the girl on the back. “I’ll be back. I won’t leave you hanging.”
“Promise?” Elena whispered.
“Promise. And don’t lose my watch.”