Chapter Three

After what seemed a long time, Joe appeared in the doorway of the study. He found Brent tapping doggedly at the keyboard, his phone cupped against his ear. "Any luck?"

Brent waved a hand for silence. "I think I see that file you're talking about. What do I do now?"

Joe cleared a space and sat on the sofa while Brent continued tapping keys.

After a few minutes, Brent looked up. "Elise is a good graphic designer, but it's obvious she's not a programmer. I've got a techie on the line who thinks this shouldn't be too hard. I doubt she expected an experienced programmer to try to break in. She probably figured she only had to hide it from you."

"And I'm easy to fool. Is that what you're trying to say?"

Brent shook his head in annoyance. "You haven't been working on computers since you were a kid and I've got a guy on the phone that has." He resumed working. "I didn't mean it to sound insulting," he added. "What have you found out?"

Joe rubbed his temples with both hands. "She took half the joint checking yesterday afternoon. Didn't touch the joint savings. She cleaned out both of her personal accounts, though."

"How much does that come to?"

"Plenty."

"What does that mean? Is it enough to buy a condo in Mexico? Enough to buy Scotland? What do you mean by plenty?"

"None of your damn business. Just a lot, okay?"

"Whatever." Brent hunched over the keyboard, his eyes fixed on a program cycle that was nearing its end. "This just might do it." He tapped a few more keys.

"Find out anything else?"

"No. I tried calling a couple of her friends, but got nowhere."

"Did you tell them she'd disappeared?"

"Of course not. Do you think I'm stupid? I said I couldn't remember where she was going today. They bought it."

"Good. Last thing we need is people breathing down our backs." The sequence had completed and Brent grinned as Elise's mailbox opened and the screen filled with archived messages. Remembering he still had Colin on the line, he shouted into the phone, "Hey, man, I think this worked." He began scanning the subject lines.

Joe came to look over his shoulder. "A lot of those are from you."

Brent's ears flushed red. "Shouldn't come as a surprise."

"I just didn't expect to see so many of them, or so recent. I thought this thing had been over for at least a month."

"That doesn't mean we weren't still friends," Brent said weakly.

"Open one up. I'd like to see what kinds of things you were telling my wife before she left me."

Brent closed his eyes, turned off his phone and turned around. "This isn't the time for that."

"Why not? Can't stand to have your girlfriend's husband reading your kinky little love notes?"

Brent jumped up. "Fine. Read every god-damned one of them and when you're through, let me know." He stomped out the door and disappeared down the hall.

* * *

Brent stood in the stillness of the walk-in closet, surrounded by the silent whisper of Elise's dresses, jackets and sweaters. He walked down the row touching each one, staring a long time at some as though they held special meaning for him, passing over others with a quick brush of fingers on a seam. Now and then he ran a finger along a collar's edge, tenderly smoothed a crease, or rubbed delicate fabric between thumb and forefinger. He smiled at the extravagance of a white sheath dress covered in glittering crystal beads. An angora sweater made him linger for a moment, stroking its silky fur. At the sight of a shiny button, he looked more closely, as if he might find an old reflection captured inside. A blue blouse of heavy silk caught his eye and he picked up a sleeve and rubbed his cheek against it like a cat.

At a sound in the doorway he turned around. Joe's heavy frame was silhouetted by the light coming into the closet from the bedroom window. Brent could barely make out the grim downturned corners of his mouth. Embarrassed, he let go of the blouse and returned Joe's stare.

"You know a girl in St. Argent, last name Lobo?"

Brent blinked. "Sylvia?"

"Obviously you do." He stepped away from the door and headed toward the hallway. "Better come read this email I found."

* * *

"It's kind of vague," Brent said, scrolling through the text of Sylvia's message.

"What's so vague about 'mi casa es tu casa?' Sounds pretty clear to me."

"But no dates, no phone number, no address..."

"Maybe Elise deleted that one."

Brent shook his head. "Colin said this would bring up even her deleted mail. If there was anything else, it would be here."

Joe was silent for a moment. Then, "What about her email at work?"

Brent's shoulders slumped. "I should've thought of that." He tapped some keys, then began making adjustments in the different menu windows, changing the mail settings. "Maybe what Colin showed me will work on our office server. It's not really legal, but neither is anything else we're doing." A status bar appeared at the bottom of the screen. "This could take anywhere from two minutes to two hours, depending on how long it's been since the last time she logged into her work account from this computer."

"Why don't you just call Colin and have him reset her password?"

"I doubt he'd go for it, and I'd probably have to fire him if he did. The only reason he helped me hack Elise's personal email was because I told him it was my own account. Privacy laws are a bitch and it'll be a big bloody mess if anyone figures out what I'm really doing."

Joe watched the status bar silently for a moment. "Guess I'll go pack."

Brent looked up from the computer. "Pack?"

"I'm going to St. Argent."

"What for?"

"To find Sylvia Lobo. You read the email. That must be where Elise went."

"You don't even know where Sylvia lives. What are you going to do, knock on the door of every apartment in the city?"

"How many Sylvia Lobos can there be? Look her up on the internet. It'll save us time if we don't find anything in Elise's other email."