He’d introduced himself as Detective Brewer, strong emphasis on the job title. Thin, narrow-eyed, and about ten years younger than his partner. A small-town cop from Sonora who was suffering from an overkill of TV crime dramas and thought tactless and pushy equaled urban tough. He wore no topcoat over his navy suit and had left his umbrella in the stand out in her reception room.

Megan directed her response at Erickson.

“If I’m to contact Mr. Gordian, I need to know generally what brings you here,” she said.

The older cop sat very still. His eyes showing a flicker of compromise before the flat resistance dropped back over them.

“We need some information about his daughter,” he said.

Megan concealed her disappointment. It was only when she braced for the question she needed to ask that her control almost faltered.

“Has anything happened to Julia?”

Erickson took a breath, released it. Megan saw his foot move up and down over his knee.

“We have to get in touch with Roger Gordian,” he repeated again, clinging to his laconic manner.

Megan waited before she answered. Her office was silent. The double-pane glass of its windows completely deadened the lash of wind and rain against them, somehow increasing her awareness of the dark splotches of moisture on Erickson’s coat.

“So far we’ve been talking through a wall,” she said. “It’s difficult to come together that way. How about we step around it and see if it works any better?”

Brewer shook his head angrily, almost rising off his chair. “We don’t have to do anything or step anywhere. We are conducting a police investigation, and you should be aware you’re on the brink of obstructing—”

Erickson got his partner’s attention with a tap on the knee, held up a preemptive hand. He looked embarrassed.

“Consider us as having stepped,” he said.

Megan kept her eyes off Brewer’s flushed face as he settled back in his chair. Compounding his belittlement would serve no useful purpose.

“I realize that whatever has brought you here must be very serious,” she told Erickson. “And you can rest assured I’m ready to help you reach Mr. Gordian and anyone else who has to be contacted. If there’s bad news to be broken, however, I intend to be the person who does it. As a second in this company and a close family friend. But I obviously can’t until you tell me what this is about.”

Erickson sat there looking at Megan another moment, shrugged, and uncrossed his legs.

Then he leaned forward and told her.

“Still ain’t heard nothing from Africa?” Thibodeau said.

“Not yet,” Megan said. “Pete’s on his way to tell Gord right now.”

“Seems like it’s taking a while,” Ricci said.