I shook my head, annoyed with myself: I’d lectured Sergeant Everard for profiling August, but here I was, profiling Sonia—last night I’d wondered if she’d killed Cady Perec’s mother, and now I wanted to frame her for Doris McKinnon’s death. It would be more to the point if I could find out who had fed her roofies at the Lion’s Pride the other night—someone had tried to silence her, and it could well be the person who’d actually killed McKinnon.

26
Patriots Care

Neither Gisborne nor Baggetto tried to stop me from getting into my car. As I bounced down the gravel road to the highway, I kept checking my rearview mirror, but neither of them was following. I got off at the first exit and doubled back, pulling onto the shoulder on top of an overpass, watching the silo through my binoculars.

Baggetto was just leaving. I watched the dust cloud he stirred up until he reached the paved road and turned westbound onto the highway, where I lost him in the mass of cars. He might be going to Fort Riley or Lawrence, or taking the long way around to circle back on me.

Gisborne stood by his squad car, talking on his phone, then went into the missile site. If he had a key to the gate, he didn’t use it—like me, he sidled through a gap in the fence. Once inside, he walked over to the loading bay, but the concrete wings blocked my view, so I couldn’t tell what he did there. After a few minutes, he wandered around to the side, to the surface where the snakes had been resting, and tapped it with his boot. My binoculars weren’t strong enough to see whether the snakes scampered off. He walked around to the annex with its black-painted windows and tried the door, which didn’t open.

As if he could feel my eyes on him, he scanned the landscape before sidling through the gap in the fence and returning to his car. I watched him drive down the county road and turn south, past the silo, toward the highway entrance. I thought maybe he’d spotted me, but he continued south, turning into a building complex at the limit of my vision’s range.

Local offices for Sea-2-Sea, my map app told me, where Bram the hippie hater hung out. I didn’t need to gate-crash—I could picture what I’d find, Gisborne and Bram powwowing over what I’d been doing at the silo. They’d look at me with guilty or aggressive or guiltily aggressive faces. All I’d learn was that they didn’t want me in Douglas County.