Page 69 of Forgotten Path

“Brianna.”

“Okay, so just keep tabs on her?”

“A little more than that. If she tries to talk to Bodhi King, or the medical examiner, or your grandmother privately, you need to stop her.”

“Stop her?”

“Yes.”

There was a long pause while Lowell chewed on this information. Then he asked, “Stop her how?”

“However you have to.”

Another pause. “What does that mean?”

Fred laced his fingers together and cracked his knuckles. “Exactly what it sounds like. Do whatever you have to do to prevent Brianna Allen from having a private conversation with any of those three people.”

“Whatever I have to? So … hurt her? Or one of them?”

Fred enunciated slowly and clearly so there would be no confusion on Craig Lowell’s part. “Whatever. You. Have. To. Do.”

He ended the call and contemplated turning off his ringer so Ralph, the overzealous security guard, couldn’t get ahold of him. But in the end, he didn’t. Just in case Craig needed him.

CHAPTERTHIRTY-SIX

Felicia had long since stared down the security guard. He’d hightailed it back behind the construction gate. And she sat on the hood of the rental car, baking in the mid-afternoon sun and waiting for Chief Rodman to call her back.

If she’d been smart, she’d have retreated to the car’s interior, cranked the air conditioning, and cooled her metaphorical and literal heels in relative comfort. But she’d spent the entire day in a series of metal tubes of one sort or another, and she’d rather be hot than cooped up.

She took off her jacket, folded it neatly, and sat it on the hood beside her. Then she wiped the sweat from her neck and twisted her hair into a knot. Well,maybeshe’d rather be hot. It was getting to be a close call.

Just when she was beginning to think Chief Rodman was blowing her off, her phone trilled. She grabbed it and accepted the call.

“Detective Williams.”

Instead of the Oyster Point police chief’s gravelly drawl, Vick Medina’s voice filled her ear. “It’s Medina. You busy?”

“I am the furthest thing from busy that you could possibly imagine,” she told him.

“Uh, good—I guess? I don’t know. Listen, you were right about Ga-Eun Kim. She’s a freaking wizard.”

Felicia sat up straighter. “She got into Joel’s mobile customer account?”

“Without breaking a sweat.”

“And?” she demanded, very much breaking a sweat.

“His phone hasn’t been used—or even turned on—since last Friday. The last tower it pinged was in Kendall. Right along the Turnpike.”

“Kendall, that’s the Snapper Creek Service Plaza?”

“Right. We’re thinking one of the drivers stopped, pulled the SIM card, and dumped the phone at the rest area.”

She muttered a string of profanities, which Medina interrupted. “Wait, though. There are two calls from Friday morning that ought to interest you.”

“Oh, okay. Go on.”

“First, the incoming call that Joel received while he was at the juice place. It came in shortly after seven o’clock from a Tallahassee phone number registered to a Mitzy Hornbill.”