“HER SON,” Kit repeated as she dragged her eyes away from the image. Drew nodded. She looked to Garret and Caleb, who both confirmed Drew’s statement with their own nods.
“I saw him in San Francisco when I was there in October,” Kit said.
“Impossible,” Drew cut her off. “He hasn’t been allowed entry into the US for years. Not even when his parents are traveling here for business. His ties to his mother’s family aren’t as severed as hers are,” Drew continued. “That fact, and a minor drug bust he was involved in when he was partying on South Padre Island at age sixteen, have landed him on the list of those not welcome in the US.”
Kit looked at Drew and frowned. “I have no reason to doubt you, but I can assure you, I saw him in San Francisco last October.”
Drew met her gaze and she held it, certain in her bones she’d seen that young man in the US less than six months ago. Something in her expression must have caused a shadow of doubt to creep into Drew’s frame of reference.
“Tell me what you saw,” he all but commanded.
She took a breath as deep as her aching body would allow and spoke. “I was in the city for business, doing some research, like I already told you. It happened to be right when the San Francisco Giants swept the World Series. People were dancing on the streets, partying everywhere.” She paused to both catch her breath and remember the scene as precisely as she could.
“I was down on the Embarcadero early in the morning the day after they’d won. I’d gone for a run along the bay and ended up down near the park where the Giants play. Of course they weren’t there, since they’d won the series on an away game, but people were celebrating everywhere. I stopped to watch for a bit.” She paused as another cup of tea was placed in front of her. She hadn’t even noticed Caleb get up.
“Anyway, I was standing next to a young woman and we got to talking. Turns out she was from Israel but studying with the San Francisco Ballet. We didn’t exchange names or anything, just talked the way strangers talk in crowds sometimes. We chatted for, oh, I don’t know,” she paused to remember, “maybe five minutes, maybe ten? But no more than that. And then she spotted her boyfriend, or someone she said was her boyfriend.”
“You didn’t believe her?” Garret interjected.
Kit pursed her lips and thought back. After a moment, she answered. “It wasn’t that I didn’t believe her, but she just didn’t seem happy about it. I remember thinking at the time that if the guy was really her boyfriend, he probably wouldn’t be for long. She just didn’t seem happy to see him, or even to have him nearby.”
She drummed her fingers on the tabletop for a moment, then took a sip of tea. “But I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe I was wrong, because she left with him. With him,” she said, pointing to the photo of Louis.
For a long moment, everyone was silent. Then Drew leaned forward and fingered the picture she was pointing at. “Are you absolutely certain it was this man you saw in San Francisco?”
“Yes,” she answered without hesitation. “And if you want proof, I have a video.”
“A video?” Drew repeated.
She nodded. “I was filming the antics of the partiers with my phone, and I know I caught the two of them on video—Louis and the young woman I was talking to.”
“You have a video of Louis Ramon in San Francisco?” Caleb repeated.
Kit spared a glance at him, just barely containing an eye roll. What was so hard to believe about what she was telling them? “Yes, I do. And I can show it to you too, if you give me a minute,” she added.
“And your phone,” Garret said, holding out her cell phone to her. She glanced at it, then really did roll her eyes.
“I lose phones like every two months. I think that is my second replacement since October,” she said, still scanning the room for what she needed.
“So then you don’t have the video?” Caleb asked with equal parts irritation and disappointment.
“Of course I do. Like I said, I lose phones all the time, so after the first two times, I learned a valuable lesson. I always buy insurance, and I always set my phone to wirelessly back itself up to a cloud storage account every four hours.”
“Are you telling me you have a video of Louis on your cloud storage account?” Garret asked. He dropped her hand to rummage in his bag for a laptop.
She didn’t deign to answer and as soon as he was logged in, he pushed the computer over to her. She typed in her account information and pulled up the videos. “It’s here,” she said, sliding the computer back to its owner. “They’re date stamped. You’ll find it in the October folder. I’d find it for you...” Her voice trailed off as Garret began opening files.
“Have I told you lately that I love you?” The excitement in Garret’s voice made him sound younger than he ever had before. But still, that didn’t excuse him.
“No, you haven’t ever told me you love me, and if you think that counts as the first time, I would strongly urge you to reconsider.” She meant to tease him, and really she was, but she hadn’t done a very good job of keeping the fatigue she felt crawling through her body from affecting her voice.
He glanced up sharply and took one look at her face. Less than ten seconds later, the computer sat in front of Drew as Garret helped her out of her chair.
“You need to get back to bed,” he said, guiding her back to their room. “We’re fine here for now. You’ve given us a massive tip, something that will take us a while to dig into. You rest and we’ll fill you in when you wake up.”
He was babbling. A bit. But he was doing it to make her feel better, to make her feel like she wasn’t quitting on them. And though she saw through it, she appreciated the effort. And slowly, as he held her, she sank back onto her bed and back into a dreamless oblivion.