Page 6 of The Search

“So do I. But even if Sanchez proves useless, I’ll still find Bassett.”

Castleton shook his head. “No one around here is going to tell you where he is or go into that jungle to look for him.”

“Then I’ll find him on my own.”

“How?”

“I know someone who might be able to help me.”

“The right person for the right job?”

“Exactly.”

“Then God help him.”

“It’s not a man.” Logan glanced back over his shoulder at the ruins. “It’s a woman.”

Logan called Margaret Wilson, his personal assistant, the minute his jet was airborne out of Santo Camaro. “Pull the file on Sarah Patrick.”

“Patrick?” Logan could visualize Margaret mentally going over the files in her head. “Oh, the dog lady. I did that research on her about six months ago, didn’t I? I thought you’d gotten what you needed from her.”

“I did. Something else has come up.”

“The same lever won’t do?”

“Maybe. But this situation has complications. I need to review the file because I’ll probably have to use everything we know about her. Not just how to make her jump when I whistle.”

“I don’t think Sarah Patrick is going to jump when anyone whistles,” Margaret said coolly. “And I’d like to be around when you pucker your lips, John. I have an idea that you got lucky the last time. Serve you right if you go around—”

“Lay off me, Margaret,” he said with a sigh. “I’m not up to defending myself right now.”

“Why not?” She paused. “Is Bassett dead?”

“No, I don’t think so. He was alive when they took him.”

“Shit.”

“I need that file, Margaret.”

“Five minutes. Do you want a fax or should I give you the information over the phone?”

“Call me back.” Logan hung up, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes.

Sarah Patrick.

Her image was there before him: short dark hair streaked by sunlight, high cheekbones, olive skin, and a lean, athletic body. Features more interesting than pretty and a wit as sharp as her tongue.

That sharpness had stung him innumerable times during the time in Phoenix. Sarah was not one to forgive and forget. But the sharpness had been for him only. She had become good friends with Eve Duncan and Joe Quinn after Logan pressured Sarah into working with Eve. The three were still good friends, according to Eve. She had called him last month and told him that Sarah had visited them in Atlanta and had—

His phone rang.

“Sarah Elizabeth Patrick,” Margaret said. “Twenty-eight. Half Apache Indian, half Irish. Grew up in Chicago, except the summers she spent with her father on the reservation. Mother and father both deceased. The father died when Sarah was a child, her mother five years ago. High IQ. She studied veterinary medicine at Arizona State University. Inherited a small ranch from her grandfather in the foothills of the mountains outside Phoenix at about the same time the mother died. She still lives there. Oh, you know that. You visited her ranch. She’s something of a loner but got along well with students and professors. After school, she started working with the K9 training unit of ATF. She can do anything with animals. She’s affiliated with a volunteer search and rescue group based in Tucson, and evidently ATF has given her permission to work with them on both man-made and natural disasters. She and her dog, Monty, have also been lent out to several police departments to find cadavers and also to detect explosives. Monty is something of a wonder dog.”

“I know.”

“That’s right, he found that body in Phoenix.” She hesitated. “You know, I think I’d like her, John. Those search and rescue people are pretty wonderful. When I was watching the television coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing, I wanted to give every one of those guys a medal. Or my firstborn child.”

“You don’t have a child.”