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executives become harder to kidnap. It also had a rapid-response team available whenever a kidnapping did occur. Even if a corporation ended up paying, Jake’s company usually brought the ransom way down. For those reasons, they could charge top dollar.”
    “And his books?”
    “He has one for corporations, Kidnap-Proofing , and one for families, Safe Kid: The 25 Steps You Must Take Today to Keep Your Child From Being Abducted . The latter gets onto the best-seller list every time a child kidnapping gets national attention.”
    “Interesting. Any good?”
    “Both of them are excellent. Despite the alarmist title, the family book is thoughtful and smart. I’ve implemented some of the ideas.”
    Charli looked down at her legal pad. Everyone she worked with had at least one child. There’s no way I would be where I am today if I’d married and had children. Maybe with a house-husband —
    “Miss Keller?”
    “Sorry.” Charli looked up then back down to her pad. “What about the money trail? I assume he stopped paying taxes?”
    “Everything was consistent with him disappearing and dying, but the money trail is complicated. We have an expert working on it, but he hasn’t made much progress.”
    Charli stood up and paced to the window and back. “Okay, what else are we doing to find him?”
    “I’m not sure you want to know.”
    Charli stopped and looked at Bark. “Ah. That would be wiretaps?”
    Bark blushed again. “Yes. Friends, relatives, people he used to work with.”
    “Chandra, you’ve got to step up the effort on this thing. Act as if you know that he’s alive. Pretend he called you on the phone yesterday and taunted you. Can you do that?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “Good.” Charli had a flash of an idea and wrote the words “Jake magazine” on her pad. “Mrs. Bark, let’s meet again tomorrow. Right now I’m meeting with my psychic—and that’s something I never thought I’d hear myself say.”
    “One other thing.”
    Charli looked at her watch. “Yes?”
    “Corby has a brother, name of Louis Corby. He’s been hospitalized for mental illness twice and is now the top producer of methamphetamine in Kansas City.”
    “Whoa. You have a tap on his phone?” Charli walked Bark over to the door.
    “His phones have been tapped for a while.”
    “Okay, we’ll start with that tomorrow, I really have to go now.”
    * * *
    Charli sat in her office reading through the background information on Adina Golubkhov, shaking her head occasionally. What a story!
    Golubkhov had osteogenesis imperfecta, sometimes known as brittle-bones or glass-bones disease. Only four feet tall, her body looked like something a demented toddler might make out of clay. While she read, Charli held her hand over the grotesque photo that accompanied the file.
    Born to Russian parents in Finland, Golubkhov had received a normal education and was an above-average student, proving that her disabilities were physical only. She walked, with her two crutches, like an overly-cautious four-legged spider.
    Despite her caution, at age thirty, one of her crutches slipped on a discarded candy wrapper, and the spider’s head went down hard onto a cement curb in Helsingborg. Her brain bounced around in her skull so violently she sustained multiple subdural hematomas and spent the next year in a coma with little hope of recovery.
    But one day, when a nurse was turning her over to prevent bedsores, Golubkhov opened her eyes and rasped, “The cafeteria is burning the rice, you had sex this morning, and the doctor in the hall had oatmeal with blackberries and an avocado for breakfast.” The statement was especially surprising since the cafeteria was four levels below, the nurse had taken a shower following sex, and the doctor in the hall was at least forty feet away.
    Adina Golubkhov’s newfound olfactory ability was astounding but not controversial. Several other cases of vastly improved sense of smell related to brain damage had been