‘What kind of … Never mind, I don’t want to know. Not if …’ She doesn’t say the rest, but I hear it anyway. Not if he’s dead. I don’t want to tarnish his memory.

‘Did anyone strange come to the house?’ I ask. ‘Any large women?’

She looks confused. ‘Large like fat?’

‘Large like tall.’

‘No. Not while I was home, which has been pretty much always since I got out of hospital.’

I think back to the honey trap idea. ‘What about men? Big enough to overpower him. Anyone suspicious at all?’

‘We’ve had no visitors except the mailman. My dad was a good guy. A little oblivious, maybe, but good. He wouldn’t be mixed up with anything bad.’ She takes a shaky breath. ‘Do you think we’ll ever find him?’ she asks.

I look down at my sandwich.

‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ I say.

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 20

A man calls his dog from the other side of a lake. There are no bridges, and the dog doesn’t walk around the lake. When it arrives, it is dry. How?

‘I want to know everything,’ Thistle says, when she picks me up.

‘Shannon Luxford raped her,’ I say. ‘He filmed it. Then he used the video to blackmail her into talking him up to her father, who hired Luxford as a TA and gave him his own office—’

‘Where Luxford could rape more students and take more videos,’ Thistle says. ‘Holy shit.’

‘Right. I didn’t tell her about that part.’

‘Uncharacteristically tactful of you. Is that why she tried to kill herself?’

‘It couldn’t have helped,’ I say, ‘though it sounds like she was already depressed. Her parents basically haven’t let her out of their sight since the suicide attempt.’

‘Did her father know about Luxford? Does her mom?’

‘She says no. But we don’t know about Biggs’s final days. Maybe he found out.’

‘Well, we just got probable cause,’ Thistle says. ‘Hang on.’

She pulls out her phone and makes a call to a judge. It takes her a few minutes to explain what we know, leaving out the part about the photos in Luxford’s desk. But the remaining facts sound persuasive: Luxford’s boss is missing, and Luxford ran from investigators even before the boss’s daughter accused him of rape. Thistle glosses over the fact that no agents were present when the accusation was made.

Eventually she hangs up.

‘He go for it?’ I ask.

‘He’s deliberating. Let’s go to Luxford’s house. I’m thinking the search warrant will arrive before we do.’

I nod. Thistle takes West 43rd Street, and soon we’re speeding along Clay Road.

‘I don’t suppose Hope saw any giant women come by while she was under house arrest?’ Thistle asks.

‘I asked. She said no. But whatever Biggs was doing, he would have done it somewhere else.’