5:21 p.m.
2 hours 39 minutes until Cassandra’s deadline I was striking out. The only image of Cassandra on the Sherrod Aquarium’s surveillance video was the one of her entering through the employee’s door at 5:03 a.m. No footage of her abductor.
Solomon swung by my workspace to tell me he’d found a match on the dart. “It’s a Sabre 11, military issue. He could have gotten it at any of a dozen places in town. No prints.”
“What about the drug?”
“Tox screening is backed up. It could take a couple days.”
“We need it now. Get on their backs, and if they won’t put a rush on it, sic Ralph on them.”
He nodded and was about to leave when he added, “Oh, and by the way. We still don’t have anything solid on Cassandra’s family.
We confirmed her mom’s death, found strangled in an alley, but can’t find any record of her dad. He might be dead too. No way to tell.”
That was par for the course. “Thanks.”
Solomon left and I returned to my research on Cassandra’s grant, but that didn’t seem to lead anywhere helpful either. All I found were a few references to something called Project Rukh and some PDF files with additional information about magnetoencephalography technology and mucopolysaccharides, the jellylike substance that acts as a semiconductor in the shark’s electrosensory organs.
But how was it related to the case? A way to improve an MEG’s efficiency for a new generation of machines? Maybe trying to figure out how sharks can sense and locate fish so you can find a way to do it synthetically?
Possibly. But how that might be connected to her abduction I couldn’t even begin to guess. To use Lien-hua’s analogy, I needed to step out of the car. Or maybe look out a different window.
Since the aquarium was owned by Drake Enterprises, I thought maybe I could find out more about the grant by following the money backward.
Their website featured a prominent picture of the CEO, Victor Drake, and I recognized him as the man who’d almost knocked me down when I was leaving the aquarium earlier in the day. Even though I hadn’t heard of his company before this week, he’d apparently managed to build one of the leading biotech firms in the country.
But how is that relevant? How is it connected?
Biotech?
Shark research?
Magnetoencephalography?
They all seemed to have something to do with the fires and with finding Cassandra, but what?
It seemed like every step I took toward gathering more clues led me farther away from the heart of the case. I looked at the clock: