Chapter 8 #3
“So, the question isn't what the businesses have in common,” Haven said. She was already at the whiteboard, picking up the marker. “The question is what his clients have in common.”
She wrote it on the board.
WHAT DO HIS CLIENTS HAVE IN COMMON?
She stepped back.
They both looked at it.
“Tomorrow,” Marcus said, “when Webb brings the adjacent business profiles, we don't look at what those businesses do. We look at who they service.”
“And if they service the same industry,” Haven said, “we have a client profile.”
“And if we have a client profile,” Marcus said, “we have a field.”
The board held the question between them. The HVAC shifted off, allowing them to better hear the cleaning crew that moved through the floor below.
Neither of them moved to leave.
Marcus knew the assumption was a mistake.
One he couldn’t make again. He knew Haven would understand why he was pissed with himself.
Without looking up from the map, he said, “I worked a case seven years ago with a partner. A seventeen-year-old girl was abducted. She had high-profile parents who hired Guardian to help find her. We had the right suspect, wrong location. She didn’t make it because of that assumption.
” He paused. “I've worked hard to never make assumptions since then. I did here. I can’t do that again.”
Haven's pen stopped moving. She glanced up at him. “I think we both know you’re not the same man as you were when that happened. I can tell your heart is in this case. Your desire to perfect the build of the evidence, the way you double and triple check everything, the fact that you’re here with me at almost midnight proves it.
I know your heart is breaking for these women.
I can see it, and maybe that knowledge is part of what’s happening between us.
The chemistry that’s here.” She motioned to the space between them.
“It feels like we’ve known each other far longer than we have. ”
He stared at her. “I feel that, too. The way we fit.”
“It’s hard to miss.” Then she blinked and shifted a bit, refocusing. “Anyway, she'd want you to find this guy.”
Marcus looked at the map on the table.
He didn't answer. He didn't need to. “And you’re here because you want him more than anyone in this room.”
“It’s my right.”
He nodded. “It is.”
After a moment, Haven looked back at the board. Marcus went back to the dump site route. The building quiet around them.
Forty minutes later, Haven said, “The adjacent businesses.” She was pointing at the map at three cluster points where the dump site density was highest. “Look at where the clusters are. Not the individual sites—the clusters.”
Marcus came to stand beside her, looking at where she pointed.
Three points of higher concentration, Nashville, St. Louis, and a third cluster between Kansas City and Omaha. She put her finger on the Nashville cluster.
“What's at the center of that cluster?” she said.
Marcus looked. “Vanderbilt. Baptist Memorial. Saint Thomas.”
She moved to St. Louis. “And here.”
Marcus looked. “Barnes-Jewish. SSM Health. Cardinal Glennon.”
She moved to the third cluster.
“Same pattern,” Marcus said quietly. “Major medical complexes.”
“Not the dump sites themselves,” Haven said. “The dump sites are on the edges around them. But the clusters center near the medical campuses.”
They were both pointing at the same cluster. The Nashville one. His index finger on the Vanderbilt point half a second before her hand came to rest beside his on the same spot.
Neither of them moved until Haven's phone rang.
Delvecchio. She answered it and looked at him. “Another one. Jenna Callahan, Memphis.”
Marcus closed his eyes. “We need everything. I’ll get Guardian to request it.
” He grabbed his phone and made a call. When she set the phone down, she didn't look at him for a full minute. He didn't look at her either. Another body. Another data point … but more than that, it was another life extinguished before her time. The silence wasn’t reflective. It was remorse. Remorse that they couldn’t move fast enough to prevent that murder.
God knew he was trying. He glanced at Haven.
She was still here with him, and she was trying, too.
He understood that dedication, that drive.
Most people didn’t have the same type of compulsion.
He recognized it in her, and he had no doubt she saw it in him, too. He glanced at the board again.
“Medical campuses at the center of the clusters,” Marcus said to the map. “Dump sites in the edges around them.”
“Which could mean proximity to highways,” Haven said. “Medical campuses anchor highway access.”
“It could.”
“Or it could mean something else.”
“It could.”
Neither of them said what else it could mean. Because they didn't have the data yet. Because they were going to have to earn this.
Marcus picked up the marker and wrote on the board under the client profile question.
DUMP SITE CLUSTERS CENTER ON MAJOR MEDICAL CAMPUSES — CONFIRM WITH BUSINESS PROFILE DATA.
Not a conclusion. A hypothesis requiring proof. The board held it alongside everything else they didn't know yet.
“Tomorrow,” Haven said.
“8 a.m.,” Marcus said.
She gathered her jacket. He gathered the dump site files.
Damn it, he didn’t want to let her go. He wanted to spend more time with her, and not working on the case.
She was right; there was chemistry between them.
He needed to figure out why. After all, he was an investigator, wasn’t he?
“You haven’t eaten today,” he said as she started to leave.
“Neither have you.”
“Is there a good diner anywhere close?”
“Actually, there is. Follow me.”