Page 156 of Blue Moon

“One floor or two floors?” Dan asked.

Ganser thought for a moment. “Two. Had a big stone chimney at one end. Do I get my hours?”

The man didn’t deserve them, but Dan said you couldn’t double-cross a prisoner. Word would spread, and you never knew when you might need help from one of his buddies.

“If the information checks out.”

The Saint Cloud Snatcher sat back with a self-satisfied smile on his face. “Go on, tell me what the boy did.”

Dan’s turn to shrug. “He’s more like you than you think. He abducted a young woman.”

For the second time, they got surprise, but this time there was no horror. Ganser gave a low whistle. “You’re serious? Man, I didn’t think he had that in him.”

“No, I’m sorry, Julia doesn’t live here anymore.”

The new owner of the house by Lake Geneva was a tiny blonde woman with a toddler on her hip and spaghetti sauce on her yoga top. A Mercedes was parked crookedly in front of the three-stall garage, and play equipment filled the yard.

Dan offered a sympathetic smile. “We understand she passed away last year.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

The blonde snuck another glance at Ryder. She seemed to be a fan of abs. Too bad Knox was at the other end of the street—he’d have been better to look at today. The lack of sleep was catching up with Ryder, he’d forgotten to shave, and he both looked and felt ragged.

“We’re actually hoping to trace a friend of hers, but we keep running into dead ends,” Dan said. “Can you tell us her surname?”

“I’m not sure I ever knew it.”

“It wasn’t on any of the paperwork?”

“No, I don’t think so. The house was owned by a company. What exactly is this about?”

“A young woman is missing, and we believe she could be with the current owner of Julia’s company.”

The blonde opened her mouth. Closed it again. “Well, uh, shouldn’t the police be looking into it?”

“They are, but they haven’t gotten very far.”

“Maybe I should speak with my husband about this.”

Ryder decided to put the truth out there. “The young woman is my girlfriend. She went missing from her hotel room, and I’m desperate to find her. If your husband was missing, wouldn’t you try everything you could?”

The blonde’s expression morphed into pity. “Really? That’s awful. But we moved here ten years ago, and I honestly don’t remember anything about her. The realtor showed us around this place, and our lawyer dealt with the paperwork. I only met Julia once. We were hoping to measure the windows for drapes, and we dropped by in case someone was home, and she said she’d just leave the drapes because they wouldn’t fit her new place anyway.”

“Who was your realtor?”

“Donna Jeffries, but she retired to Florida three years ago, and I don’t have a number for her anymore.”

Dead end after dead end.

“Did Julia happen to say where she was moving to?”

The blonde brightened. “Why, yes. Yes, she did. She moved to Berkeley. I remember because my husband went to college there, and we talked about the botanical garden. Does that help?”

Berkeley? Emmy was also in Berkeley, looking for Anton Hebert’s baby mama. The cyber team had traced the email Carole-Ann sent to an address in La Loma Park.

“It might help,” Dan told her. “We actually have a team in Berkeley already, following up another lead. If you could find the name of the company, it would help even more.”

The blonde turned back to Ryder. “You think your girlfriend is in trouble?”

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