“I’m just getting started. I’ll let you know when I find something.” She motioned behind her. “Now go see my father before he wonders what the hell is going on in here.”

This time, John took his leave and Rachel resumed working.

An hour later, she heard a ding and looked around for her phone.

A few minutes later she walked into the office next door.

She found her dad and John hovered over printouts—various lists compiled by the Yard, other agencies, and the ones she’d worked up with Hawley.

John was the first to catch her eye.

“You found something?” he asked.

“Not exactly,” replied Rachel.

She placed her iPhone on her father’s desk.

“What am I looking at?” asked Grant.

“The text I just got,” Rachel responded.

The two men read it together.

How come I haven’t heard from you since yesterday?

“It’s a continuation of the chat I was having with Sergeant Hawley.”

Her father looked up, incredulous. “That’s ridiculous.”

“One would think,” concurred Rachel. “But it was sent to me less than three minutes ago.”

Chapter 21

21

Frankel took a step forward and picked up Rachel’s iPhone off Grant’s desk.

“I’m willing to bet this isn’t the sergeant’s ghost,” he said.

“It’s him,” Grant expressed with certainty.

Neither Rachel nor Frankel disagreed.

With Hawley’s phone not found on his body or elsewhere in the mansion, they assumed it was in the possession of the person they were hunting.

Frankel scrolled up the phone screen to look at the previous text messages from the sergeant.

Checking something on my end. Will let you know if it amounts to anything.

It had been sent to Rachel the night before last—around seven. Right before Hawley made an unfortunate stop in Esher on his way home.

Rachel took the phone back from Frankel.

“Hawley had just sent a pair of constables to Primrose Hill to check on Dozier’s house, but they didn’t find anything. I just wish I’d pressed him more on what he was thinking.”

“You can’t blame yourself,” said Frankel. “We were too busy figuring out how to get over here as quickly as possible.”

“Not quickly enough,” said Grant.

Frankel felt the same regret, and he knew Rachel did as well. She asked the question at the forefront of all their minds.

“So, do we answer him?”

Frankel looked to Grant. Now that they were on the Scotland Yard man’s turf, he knew the commander should be leading the show—but Frankel couldn’t help his take-charge instinct.

“Anyone around here that can run a trace?” he asked.

Grant pressed the intercom button on his phone. “Get Mr. Morrow, please; come here right away,” he said into the speaker.