Page 9 of Blood and Bone

“Good. I didn’t want to be forced to push you into traffic,” Eoghan said.

Ari chuckled. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Of course not.” Eoghan glanced over and made a kissing moue as he reached for his leg and squeezed his knee.

“So, not to change the subject from my stomach or anything but I have a question that’s been on my mind. I thought of it again when you mentioned the two marshals doing a prisoner drop off in Yreka.”

“Okay, we have a long drive. Shoot,” Eoghan replied.

“You said the marshals worked out of a satellite office up there.”

“Right. We have a few in California, one up by the Oregon border in Yreka, one down south near San Diego, another justoutside of San Francisco in Fairfield which would probably have handled Oberon and Titania if they weren’t otherwise occupied, and one in Barstow. They each have two marshals and a sanitizing team but all the support and administration are done here in L.A. headquarters.”

“Okay, that makes a lot of sense. I was wondering how the sanitizing teams got out to all the sites in California to contain incidents.”

Eoghan nodded, keeping his eyes on the road as he drove. “Fortunately, our rapid response handles a lot of it and there’s a way IT can help scramble transmissions at the site, they do that from L.A. But as far as the on-site cleanup crews, they come from one of the satellite offices. We’ve also got a second rapid response team in Fairfield. Their offices are located on Travis Air Force Base.”

“Really? You…I mean we…partner with the military?”

“Most of the satellite offices are located on military bases. San Diego is Camp Pendelton Marine Corps base obviously, Barstow is—”

“I can guess that one,” Ari said. “Fort Irwin Army base, yes?”

Eoghan smiled, darting a glance at him quickly before fixing his gaze back on the road. “Right.”

“And you said there’s a satellite office in Yreka, but there’s no bases that close to the Oregon border that I can think of,” Ari said.

“It’s actually in a warehouse,” Eoghan said.

“Have you been to all of them?”

“In the six years I’ve worked for the I.S.R.? You betcha. Multiple times.” Eoghan said.

Ari thought about that for a few minutes before shaking his head. “It’s an interesting setup and it seems efficient.”

“It is.”

“Okay, so back to the case. Do you suspect foul play with this one?” Ari angled himself toward Eoghan to watch him in profile as he drove.

Eoghan shrugged. “I’m not sure. I don’t think she’d take off with her kids unless she felt a real threat, though. She didn’t strike me as someone prone to flights of fancy. I remember thinking that I was impressed by the way Riversong protected her children at all costs.”

“But she voluntarily followed Vandross with her kids, didn’t she?”

“We don’t think so. Once she realized there was a way out when Gladys knocked on her car window outside the grocery store, she gave up without any protest. I honestly think she had no idea how much crap he’d pulled in the past but when she was confronted with the rap sheet Glad showed her, she accepted it right off.”

“She most likely suspected he was a piece of shit,” Ari said. “Most women know what their men are capable of.”

“And yet, she stayed with him and kept popping out babies,” Eoghan said, flicking a glance at Ari. “I just don’t understand that mentality.”

“Once she had the first child, it probably wasn’t easy to leave him,” Ari said.

“You sound awfully sure of that.”

Ari nodded even though Eoghan was paying attention to the road and not to him. “I’m speaking in generalities of course, but I think I’m pretty sure what I’m saying is true. Women and men are different. When a couple first gets together, sex usually plays a big part in the relationship but when there’s a baby involved, the entire dynamic between them changes. The woman goes from being an object of the man’s sexual desire to being the mother of a child. Children are innocent and a healthy woman who’s had a healthy rolemodel probably isn’t going to abandon that child for the man who impregnated her. It’s simple biology.”

“But some women don’t take to the role and they leave.”

“Yes, but that’s a low percentage of mothers. The instinct to protect their child is stronger than anything, I imagine.”

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