The Tenth Justice - Brad Meltzer [88]
Ben’s heart beat faster as he reread the letter. He pushed himself away from the desk and left the room. Racing downstairs, he returned to the living room, where he saw Nathan hanging up the phone. “Who was that?” Ben asked.
“My mom,” Nathan explained. “I just wanted to tell her we got home okay.”
“This was hand-delivered while we were gone,” Ben said. handing Nathan the letter. “There was no postage on the envelope.” As Nathan read the short letter, Ober returned from the bathroom.
“What’s up?” Ober asked.
Saying nothing, Nathan passed the letter to Ober, who quickly read it.
“Can I ask you a question in your office?” Ben asked, motioning Nathan and Ober toward the front door. Stepping outside, the three friends got into Nathan’s car.
“When did you get that?” Nathan asked, slamming the car door shut.
“Just now,” Ben said nervously. “What do you think about that last part? Where he says that he’ll hear all about my Thanksgiving.”
“You already know what I think,” Nathan said. “If that’s not a reference to Lisa, I don’t know what is.”
“I know. I know,” Ben said. “But if he was in cahoots with Lisa, do you really think he’d blow her cover?”
“At this point, I think Rick is just playing with us,” Nathan explained. “If he is secretly working with Lisa, he’s enjoying the game. If he isn’t plotting with her, he’s got us worried by hinting that he is. Either way, he’s playing on that fear, and either way, he’s making us crazy. He obviously knows how much you care for her.”
“Shit,” Ben said, slouching down in the seat.
“Can I ask a question?” Ober said, leaning forward from the backseat. Without waiting for an answer, he asked, “Why are we in the car?”
Nathan shook his head. “Goofus, if Rick was close enough to hand-deliver a letter, and he knew we weren’t home, chances are he took a stroll around our house.”
“You think he broke in?” Ober asked.
“Why wouldn’t he?” Ben said. “He knew he could look for any information we have on him. He could bug the house in complete privacy. He could do whatever he wanted. As far as I’m concerned, I wouldn’t say another word in that house.”
“So what do you want to do now?” Nathan asked.
“I think we really have to I.D. Rick—if we can get a photo and run it through the State Department, we’ll be a lot closer to catching him.”
“He obviously knew about our little photography plot,” Nathan said.
“Exactly,” Ben said. “So if I were him, I wouldn’t risk another meeting with us until we hand him the decision. That means we’re going to have to use a more unconventional way to find him.” Sitting up in his seat, Ben continued, “All we really know about him is that he’s between twenty-eight and thirty-eight years old, he’s smart, and he knows what he’s doing. Also, the way I figure it, Rick, if that’s even his real name, has got to be a lawyer. He knows way too much about the law to be a layperson.”
“Do they take your picture when you take the bar exam?” Nathan asked.
“That’s exactly what I’m thinking,” Ben said. “If we think about all the information we have on him, we can find someplace where he had his picture taken. And if we can find that picture, we should be able to I.D. him.”
“So what about the bar exam?”
“Some states don’t take your picture,” Ben said. “And I’m not sure if the Bar Association would even release the information.”
“What about driver’s license photos?” Ober asked.
“Too broad a category,” Ben said. “Even if we knew what state he’s from, it’d be too many people to search.” While the three friends sat in the motionless car, they rubbed their hands together to keep warm. “I was thinking that if Rick is a lawyer, he had to go to law school. So his picture should be in a law school yearbook from the last ten to fifteen years. Since there are over a hundred law schools nationwide, there’d be too many to search, but I was thinking that we can limit our search to just the top dozen or so schools: Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, and so on. Rick’s a snob—I’ll bet he went to a top law school.”
“That’s still a lot of photos to search through,” Ober said.
“Not really,