He could feel the adrenaline, or endorphins, or whatever it was running through his veins as hot as that salsa music down below. He even did a few giddy steps while they talked. Back, forth, cha-cha-cha.
“Well, enjoy yourself,” Creem said. “I’ll catch up with you soon.”
Bergman smiled. “I hope that’s a double entendre,” he said. “Because just for the record, Elijah—if this were a race? I’d be winning.”
“Good night, Josh.”
“Love you, Elijah. Talk soon.”
CHAPTER
42
THE NEXT DAY WAS ONE OF THE WORST I’VE EVER HAD ON THE FORCE.
It started just before the 6 a.m. briefing at headquarters. With all three of these cases in full go mode, the brass had shifted our morning meetings up t
o the Joint Operations Command Center on the fifth floor. Everything to do with these homicides was now tracked in real time through the JOCC, so we would always know who was working which leads, and if anyone had made any progress. The briefings were a chance to cross-reference any police action from the overnight shift against our open investigations, to see if anything might prove relevant.
When I got there that morning, Tom D’Auria was waiting in the fifth-floor hall to head me off with some very bad news. Word had just come in that Jeannette and Tommy Reilly, as well as the sheriff’s deputy assigned to their house in Shellman Bluff, had all been killed sometime in the last eight hours.
“All three of them were shot,” D’Auria told me. “But they’re reporting two different calibers, so some of this is a little up in the air. CIC just got it a few minutes ago.”
I nodded, but I wasn’t hearing much. My chest had gone tight, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe until I got an answer to my next question.
“What about the baby?” I said.
“Missing,” Tom told me.
It was a one-word punch in the stomach. D’Auria ducked his chin, just to give me a moment of space. He knew I was invested here.
“What can I do?” I said.
“Not much,” he said. “FBI’s already on it. They’re working with McIntosh County, and the state troopers. The AMBER Alerts are up. Transportation hubs in all contiguous states are already covered.”
“There has to be something,” I said.
“You can give a call down to the Atlanta field office if you want, or the Savannah satellite office, if anyone’s there. They may want to talk to you. But other than that, it’s going to be a waiting game at this point.”
They were coming at it aggressively. That was good. If and when they determined Rebecca had been taken across any state lines, it would automatically go federal, and they were already set up for that.
I just hoped it was all enough. Without knowing how long ago she’d been taken, it was hard to say.
Meanwhile, the shift change was filing past us into the JOCC. I saw a lot of bleary-eyed cops, either because they were just finishing for the night, or just getting started for the day.
“I’m going to cover all of this inside,” D’Auria told me. “I figured you’d want a heads-up.”
“I appreciate it, Tom.”
“If you need to talk—”
“I’m good,” I said. “I’ll be right in.”
Every cop I know gets overwhelmed sometimes. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I always encourage my people to talk it out when they need to. We’ve got an employee assistance program for that, but there’s also supervisors, coworkers, shrinks, clergy, whatever. You just have to choose someone, is what I tell people.
Sometimes I take my own advice, and sometimes I don’t.
I walked down the hall and locked myself in the handicapped bathroom by the stairs. I just needed a minute to breathe.