Joule’s phone rang. It was sitting in front of her, face up on the table, and she reached out to answer it. But a quick flat handed gestured stayed her.
“Who is it?” Officer Jacob McQueeny asked.
“It’s Dr. Chithra Murasawa. Sarah's boss, from Helio Systems Tech. She’s mine and Cage’s old boss, too.”
“Okay. Answer.”
Interesting, Joule thought. McQueeny was monitoring her calls now, but maybe that was important. What if Cage or Aurora called?
Even as she hit the button, Joule glanced toward Malcolm, who seemed to be processing the same idea. She almost didn’t get the whole name out. “Dr. Murasawa—”
“Joule! I just heard. I'm so sorry. I know you were all out last night just trying to find Sarah.”
And then this. It was what it was, and she couldn't let it be anything more. She couldn't afford to think about what her life might be like if her brother didn't ever come back.
But Dr. Murasawa was still going a hundred miles a minute. “You have all of us. Right now, if you want. It was finally enough paperwork and not cases where someone might have wandered off. The bosses finally pulled the plug. We’re stopping all work and helping.”
Joule was feeling the warmth as the offer infused through her system, though McQueeny was looking surprised. Apparently, he then decided to jump into the conversation himself, rather than letting Joule be a go between through the unwitting third party of her boss and him.
“Hello, Dr. Murasawa? This is Officer Jacob McQueeny with the Maverick County Sheriff's Unit.”
“Officer?” Murasawa sounded as relieved as Joule had felt. “Are you on this case?”
“Yes, ma'am. And on Sarah's, too.” He almost let a wry sound escape. “Well, I am as of a few minutes ago when I was informed how the cases are related.”
Joule almost opened her mouth as if ready to say and on three hundred others apparently, but she held her tongue. If McQueeny was helping them, she needed to let him make the best decisions he could. She didn't know enough in this area to override him.
“What does that mean?” he asked Murasawa now. “When you told Joule ‘you've got all of us’?”
“I have a unit of almost thirty engineers, computer whizzes, and bioscientists ready to help in any way we can. Our job is to install a solar panel array and a small hydroelectric dam. But we have finally halted the work in order to find our missing people.”
She paused. “So, we can give you about thirty, smart—but probably untrained—hands on deck to help search, research, whatever you need. Full-time.”
“That is a wonderful offer, ma'am. And I am going to take you up on it, just not right now.”
“Understood. What should we be doing in the meantime?” Dr. Murasawa was the best.
Joule knew her old boss had previously risked getting at least written up and possibly losing her job. And she wouldn’t make the employees under her risk that. Chithra Murasawa would make it clear that it was entirely her decision. But she’d finally made it work. Until somebody overrode her, the team had everyone they needed for the search.
“Have everyone who interacted with Sarah put together everything they can remember about her activities from when she arrived in Texas until she disappeared. Use cell phones, emails, everything. Hopefully, I'll get back to you in a few hours with more of what we need.”
“Do I need to send my employees home to rest after that. So they can be available this evening?”
McQueeny had been holding his pen between his two hands, and now, surprised, he dropped it and leaned back in the seat. “I don't know about that yet. We're still formulating our plan. There's a lot more going on here than we initially thought.”
A pause from Dr. Murasawa let Joule’s brain wander.
Cage and Aurora had only gone missing just after 1am last night. It was a good reminder that they hadn't been missing for very long—despite the fact that it felt like forever.
In a moment, her boss’s pause became clear. It sounded as if she were talking to someone else in the room with her. The sound faint, but the words detectable.
“Are there satellites overhead? Over the desert last night?” she asked someone.
“There are always satellites overhead,” a male voice responded. It was far enough away that Joule couldn’t identify it. She even had trouble picking out the words, but she managed.
“Anything like Earth imaging?” Dr. Murasawa asked him.
“Hold on.”
During the brief pause, McQueeny turned to look at Joule and Malcolm as if to ask if this was good help, help they wanted. It was Joule who nodded at him. Yes. She knew Dr. Murasawa could and would take over if she had the means to do so. She wasn't bad at it when she did.
She was still talking to whoever was with her. “With something like that could you be able to pinpoint two people?”
“Pinpoint their location? And time?” the voice in the background answered. “Some satellites can. The problem is getting access to them.”
“Wait!” Joule broke in. “What?”
She could almost hear Dr. Murasawa turning her face back toward the phone. “I’ve got David here on the system.”
“Hi, David!” Joule’s heart swelled. He’d been the data analyst in Alabama. He was good. Overwhelming relief flooded her at the sound of his voice.
“I owe you and Cage one,” he called out across the room. “More than one.”
“You don’t owe us anything,” She almost yelled it back, though she was plenty close to the phone. It was so good to hear from a friend.
“I do. And I’ve got you.”
She would take it, but then she added, “It was more than two people.”
“I thought it was Cage and Aurora?” That was Dr. Murasawa.
“It was Cage and Aurora,” Joule said, “until sometime between one and two-thirty in the morning. That’s when we discovered the tracks. We think the tracks relate to whatever kept them from checking in, which means probably closer to one a.m.”
“Go on.” She could hear the tension in the doctor’s voice and Joule watched as the officer leaned forward, pen ready for more tight notes.
“There were a lot of footprints,” she told them.
“Human?” the officer asked.
“Yes. Human tracks that crossed their path. It looked like the new tracks surrounded Cage and Aurora’s footprints, and then they all went off together.”
“How many?” This from David.
“I don't know.”
“At a minimum?” Murasawa pressed.
“Ten. It could have been twenty though. Everything was jumbled.” But even as Joule was talking McQueeny was picking up his own phone and dialing up someone.
She heard the faint ring though her concentration stayed on Dr. Murasawa as the woman once again sounded like she was talking over her shoulder. But this time with McQueeny talking to whoever he was talking to, Joule couldn't hear the answer.