“Tonight. After we were finished. I needed some time. If you refused, he’d show the video and I’d be trapped.”

“I, I, I,” murmured Albert. “You took a lot on yourself. When did I get to choose?”

“What would you have done differently, Albert?”

For a moment Albert said nothing. When he spoke, his voice was cold. “I wouldn’t have kept it from you. I’m not going to run. This person, how does he contact you?”

Eric took the cell phone and MP3 player from his pocket. “He texted me on my cell, then told me where to find these.”

“Tomlinson is not a KRB investor.”

“No.”

“That was not a question, Eric. Did you think I was too stupid to check on this myself? Before I agreed to this arson scheme of yours, I wanted to be sure you would remain unhurt. I checked the condo investors to be sure your father’s company was not among them, that they would take no financial loss. That in your zeal you would not bite the hand that feeds you.”

“And that feeds you, too?” Eric asked bitterly.

Albert’s expression remained unmoved. “Did you not wonder why I went along with you?”

Eric shook his head, not sure he wanted to know. “I thought you believed.”

“In saving a lake?” Albert scoffed. “I believed in your future. I thought if you got this… obsession out of your system, you’d be able to go on. I wanted to be sure you’d be safe.” This was said stiffly, accusingly. “So I did what needed to be done.”

“I’m sorry,” Eric said quietly. “I didn’t think.”

“No, you didn’t. Now it’s my turn to think. Tell me everything you know. Somehow we have to figure out who this blackmailer is.”

“And then?” Eric said.

Albert lifted a shoulder. “We kill him. What’s one more?”

Eric drew a breath, nodded. “And then?”

“And then, I’m leaving. Find yourself another toy. I’m not interested anymore.”

Monday, September 20, 12:45 p.m.

Abbott leaned against Olivia’s desk as she hung up the phone. “Well?” he asked. “You get anything from that serial number?”

“The girl’s name is Tracey Mullen,” Olivia said, moving her goddess statue to one side so that Abbott didn’t knock her fedora to the floor. “Tracey was sixteen. Her father lives in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and her mother lives in Gainesville, Florida.”

“You were right about the Gators,” Abbott said, then pointed to Kane who was drumming his fingers impatiently, the phone crushed against his ear. “What’s with him?”

“He’s talking with Tracey Mullen’s father in Iowa, who is deaf. They’re using a relay service. Kane speaks, the relay operator types into a TTY, Mr. Mullen types back, and the operator reads to Kane. It’s a slow process.”

“So what was Tracey Mullen doing in Minneapolis?” Abbott asked.

“We’re still sorting it out. I spoke with the mother in Florida, who’s hearing and who has custody, but who said Tracey begged to live with her father and go to the deaf school in Iowa. She put Tracey on a plane to dad two days before Labor Day. She thought Tracey was with dad. Dad thought she was with mom. It’s not clear why Tracey ran away, but she hasn’t been seen since Labor Day. She’d texted both of them, as recently as yesterday morning, indicating she was with the other parent.”

“Did either parent indicate the other was abusive?”

“Mom didn’t, but they don’t seem to communicate very frequently. Most of their communication went through Tracey. We haven’t mentioned the bruises and arm fracture yet. We’re going to talk with her teachers and area social workers in both Iowa and Florida to see if anyone noticed anything suspicious. This could take some time.”

“How did the mother sound?”

Olivia shrugged. “Devastated. Stunned. Angry. She and her new husband are flying up here on the first flight they can get.”

Kane hung up and let out an exhausted breath. “There has got to be a better way. Dad is on his way. He should be here after dinner. He seemed very upset, especially at his wife for ‘throwing Tracey out,’ but going through the operator, it’s hard to say.”

“Mom said Tracey begged to live with dad,” Olivia remarked.

“Dad said Tracey hated Florida but never said she’d asked to live with him. It’ll be interesting to have them all in the same room. I’ll line up a sign-language interpreter.”

“What about the guy she had sex with?” Abbott asked.

“Mom said there was no boyfriend. Tracey was focused on her studies,” Olivia said. “Whether that was true, Mom wanted it to be, or Mom was naïve remains to be seen.”

“Dad said Tracey didn’t have a boyfriend because her mother forced her to go to hearing school in Gainesville and she was isolated,” Kane said.

Abbott sighed. “I’ll call Jess Donahue. I’m going to want a shrink’s take on this family. I thought this girl had the implant, so she could hear.”

“Mom said they hadn’t had a lot of success with the implant,” Olivia said. “Tracey didn’t get the surgery until she was ten, after Mrs. Mullen got remarried. Her new husband paid for the surgery. Tracey didn’t have good success. Not everyone does.”

Abbott smoothed his bushy mustache thoughtfully. “I’m more concerned with the identity of the male she was with just before the fire started. Focus on him for now.”

“Let’s go back out to the lake,” Olivia said, “and see if anybody saw her there.”

“What’s going on with the Feds?” Kane asked.

“I called Special Agent Crawford, but he wasn’t in the office. Tried his boss, left a message.” Abbott got up to leave, but Micki breezed in from the elevator.

“I’ve been trying your phones for an hour.”

“We ID’d the girl,” Olivia said, “and were talking to her family. What do you have?”

“I ID’d the gel.” Micki pulled up a chair and sank into it. “Sodium polyacrylate.”

“And now we wait for English,” Kane said.

“Baby-diaper goo,” Micki said, chuckling when they stared. “Commonly called super-absorbent polymer or SAP. The crystals in baby diapers that do all the absorbing.”

Olivia was starting to feel the tug of fatigue. “Why?”

“Why coat the glass globe?” Micki asked. “Turns out SAP is also a fire retardant.”

“Absorbs pee and puts out fires. Can it cure cancer?” Kane asked, tongue in cheek.

“Smart-ass,” Micki said. “I couldn’t find any record of arsonists coating a glass ball in diaper gel. The old SPOT group used ripped-up firefighter coats to keep the glass ball from becoming damaged from the heat.”

“So this isn’t SPOT,” Kane said.

“Not necessarily,” Micki said. “Ultrathin baby diapers were around in SPOT’s heyday, but not the knowledge that the gel was fire retardant.”

“Can you track that particular kind of gel?” Olivia asked.

“No,” Micki said. “That’s what I wanted to tell you. This stuff is as accessible as a bag of baby diapers. Which is pretty damn accessible. There’s no way to track it, and it’s a lot easier to get and cheaper than firefighter coats.”

“Aren’t you the bundle of joy?” Abbott asked sourly and she shrugged.

“Sorry. I’m going back to the site. We’re processing the scene outside and assisting the arson guys inside.”

“We’ll canvass the lake area with Tracey’s picture,” Olivia said. “Back at five.”

Monday, September 20, 1:00 p.m.

He checked his laptop, hidden under the counter. The phone he’d given Eric allowed him to track his movements all over town. Eric was on the move, but not on the run. He’d stopped at a butcher shop. He pictured Eric leaving with some thick steaks he could use to drug Tomlinson’s guard dog.

That they hadn’t been paranoid enough to have their conversation out of range of the bugged cell phone he’d provided disappointed him. He’d thought Eric smart enough to check for a bugged phone, but Eric was too scared to be smart right now.

That Joel was dead was a bit of a jolt. He wondered if Joel had really killed himself or if they’d already started to turn on one another. He’d put his money on Albert.