THIRTY-TWO

QUINN sat up in his chair. “Clare’s missing?”

“Relax,” Lori said. “She left the hospital of her own free will, on her own two feet. But we believe she had some help, and we’re about to interview the prime suspects.”

“Where?”

“Meet me and my partner at the Village Blend as soon as you can.”

Quinn shook his head. Leave it to the Blend baristas to break out their beloved boss. Then he tensed. God, I hope Allegro wasn’t part of it. Given Clare’s vulnerable state, the last thing she needs is that operator trying to manipulate her.

“I’ll see you in twenty,” Quinn said, ending the call.

After clearing his desk and checking on the last of his people still on duty, he grabbed his coat and walked the short distance from the Sixth Precinct station house to the Village Blend.

He was surprised to find the front door locked, and the closed sign in the window. But the lights were still on, and Quinn could see people moving around inside. He knocked firmly, and waited. A few moments later, Esther Best practically ripped the door off its hinges.

Instead of the usual genial greeting, she pushed up her black-framed glasses and regarded Quinn with open suspicion.

“So, Lieutenant. Are you playing the good cop or the bad cop this evening? I hope you’re the former, because we have an annoying surplus of the latter.”

Quinn raised an eyebrow, and she jerked her thumb in the direction of two female detectives, sitting stone-faced at a table by the blazing hearth.

“Grab a chair, Lieutenant. This won’t take long . . .”

Detective Sue Ellen Bass, dressed in a navy blue suit this evening, her dark hair scraped into a ponytail, spoke in the same faux-friendly tone Quinn liked to use himself when starting an interview with a suspect.

Her blond partner, Lori Soles, equally tall and similarly dressed, took a sudden interest in her laptop.

Known in the department as the “Fish Squad,” Soles and Bass were liked and respected by their peers. They were usually on friendly terms with Quinn. Tonight, neither detective would meet his eyes, which instantly set off alarms.

As much as he wanted to ask questions and demand answers about his fiancée’s whereabouts, Quinn understood that he was on the wrong end of the interview for that.

Keeping his mouth shut, he took a seat at the table.

To his left sat two members of Clare’s staff: Dante Silva and Esther Best. To his right sat the shop’s venerable owner, Clare’s former mother-in-law, Madame Blanche Allegro Dubois, looking as poker-faced as the pair of detectives. There was no one else in the shop that he could see.

Lori cleared her throat. “Okay, let’s get started.”