Simon stared at her. “You mean, we can track her?”
“I have no idea. That could be a nickname. We need more than that.”
“Can you get her image off the bridge cameras?”
“Yes, and I can do facial recognition, and we have those other photos you took too.”
“But will that help?”
“Not necessarily. We’ll run it through the DMV and see if we come up with anything,” she said. “Come on. Let’s get you home.” He stopped, and she asked, “Do you really think she’ll come back tonight?”
He frowned, then shook his head. “No.” He looked down at his feet, gave them a good shake, and said, “My feet say it’s okay to go home.”
She looked at him, and he shrugged. “I know. I get it. Trust me. I already know what that looks like, and I also know what it feels like,” he said, “so don’t even start with me.”
She nodded quietly and said, “Okay, fine. I get it. Let’s get you home.”
Chapter 18
And, with that,they got into her car. “Do you really think they’ll find her?” Simon asked.
“Maybe,” Kate said.
He looked at her and said, “I’m really sorry about last night.”
Surprised, she stared at him and said, “It wasn’t your fault.”
That was the very first time she had really acknowledged that it was something beyond his control.
“I don’t know what to do about it,” she said. “It’s something beyond my experience. It’s beyond the norm for me. I’m not sure how I feel about any of it.”
“Good enough,” he said, and he just relaxed into the seat beside her.
“It was kind of a day as it was,” she said. “We caught the drive-by shooter, who was killing healthy guys because he was crippled.” With a shake of her head, “I’ll never understand people. Then I thought we had a hot lead on this case, and we may still. Just have to wait.” she said. “The frustration just continues.”
“That’s part of your world, isn’t it?” he asked.
“It is,” she said. “Unfortunately it gets to be a little too much sometimes.”
“And you’ve got a double set of cases going on here.”
“Oh, don’t forget the giant stack of other cases on my desk as well,” she said. “But, when things are hot, you’ve got to move and take advantage of it. You’ve got to stay on top of things. Otherwise you lose the threads and the momentum, you know? Then the trail goes cold, and people get away with all kinds of shit.”
“Sounds like you’re always juggling priorities.”
“Exactly, so right now, the top priority is tracking down this girl. How did she look to you?”
“Distraught, upset, like nobody in the world understands, and, although I kept saying there was another answer, she kept telling me there wasn’t.”
“Well, I’m not sure in that suicidal mind-set anybody ever believes that some of these things can have a solution that’s equitable for everyone,” she said quietly. “So, even though you were telling her that, she’s probably thinking you don’t know anything, you don’t really understand, and you’ve never been there.”
“Yet I have been there,” he admitted quietly.
She gave him a half smile and said, “So have I.”
He looked at her in surprise and then nodded in understanding. “We’re a pair, aren’t we?”
“Well, we’re a pair all right,” she said. “A pair of what I’m not sure.” Her phone rang again. She hit Speaker and said, “What have you got, Bronwyn?”