Mary cornered the pacing girl. “For what, trying to help?”

“She was so angry when she left—at both of us. Would she do this just to ruin my future? Or make the BPD look stupid? Or the FBI?”

The professor laughed, but Mike saw something in her eyes, something unsure. Both women turned his way.

He grabbed the keys to his rental. “Bergman’s got her own kind of code, but she wouldn’t mess with a story. First things first: we find out where she called from. Let’s go see Greenwood.”

They moved toward the door but didn’t get far. A black FBI SUV blocked Roman’s rental in the parking lot.

*   *   *

“I don’t know how else I can tell you go to hell, Roman.” Back in the BPD conference room an hour later, Agent Foreman gestured at the image frozen onscreen. “That is Caitlin Bergman walking through a metal detector at Miami Correctional Facility, five short hours ago.”

He slammed his hand down on the table. Mary and Lakshmi jumped. Mike shifted uncomfortably. Chief Renton, behind them with arms crossed, laughed.

“Here’s a copy of the visitor log complete with time stamp, a copy of her driver’s license, and her signature.” Foreman grabbed a stapled stack of pages. “Here are the GPS pings from her burner phone, showing her location directly outside the prison complex at the same time she called Lakshmi Anjale’s phone. And yes, in case you were wondering, we knew about her second phone since it was one of the many numbers we discovered and traced back from the Bro-duce farm’s records. I don’t know what you’ve read in the local press, but we’re taking both the Bro-duce bust and Caitlin’s disappearance seriously.”

He tossed the pages, grabbed another sheet, held up a printed image. “Last but not least, here she is in the visitation room, speaking to a prisoner. Caitlin Bergman is not missing—she just doesn’t want to be found. If you continue to waste the time of the BPD, the FBI, or myself, I will destroy all three of you. Do you understand me?”

Mary and Lakshmi promised to print retractions in the Daily Student, spin the story as a misunderstanding.

Chief Renton approached with a smile. “Mr. Roman, you’re awfully quiet.”

Mike kept mum. He could understand Caitlin cold-shouldering Lubbers and Anjale, but he hadn’t done anything wrong—not this time at least.

Eating that much crow turned his stomach. “Sorry to waste everyone’s time.”

Chapter 71

CHAPTER

71

“CAITLIN.” EMBOWER APPEARED on the TV once again, his face freshly scrubbed and pink. “Put the bag on.”

Caitlin left the couch, found the bag, and pulled it over her head. She’d spent three unsupervised hours going through books, then God knows how long napping. She hadn’t even considered poking eyeholes through the thick muslin. Dumbass.