Eddie lifted his head for a moment and gave a quick nod of acknowledgement. “Hey.” Then he immersed himself in his work again.
“I thought you might have gone to sleep.”
She shook her blond locks. “I can’t sleep. Too much has happened.”
“I know. Come, I want to talk to you.” He pointed to the Chesterfield couch in one corner of the office.
Lilo sat down, and he followed her. “I want to know more about this Ronny. We need to find him.”
“I’ve told the police everything I know.”
“Tell me again. Maybe there was something you missed. Every detail is important.” Blake sat on the edge of the couch and turned sideways, his elbows resting on his knees, leaning toward her. “Tell me everything Hannah told you about him.”
Lilo sighed. “It started maybe six to eight months ago. She didn’t tell me at first, maybe because she knew I wouldn’t approve of him.”
“Why?”
“Hannah is too good. She’s the kind of person who picks up strays, because she pities them, and then ends up a penniless cat lady.”
Involuntarily, Blake had to smile. “She always thinks the best of people.”
“Unfortunately,” Lilo agreed. “But it never ends well. I knew Ronny was a loser from the moment she told me about him.”
“A loser? In what way?”
She huffed. “Well, for starters, he was in between jobs.” She made air quotes around the words to emphasize her disdain. “I don’t think you can be in between jobs, when you’ve never had a real job.”
“So how did he make money?”
Lilo shrugged. “Hell knows. Sponging off girlfriends?”
“You think he used Hannah?”
“Probably. Or he did something illegal. She always made excuses for him when I asked why he hadn’t gotten a job.”
“What kind of excuses?”
“That he couldn’t work the hours they wanted him to work. That there weren’t that many jobs that would let him work the nightshift.” She threw up her hands. “I mean, who wants to work the nightshift if they don’t have to? Particularly if your girlfriend works during the day. That makes no sense at all.”
“Hmm.” Blake pretended to think about that, as he’d already guessed the reason why Ronny wanted to work the nightshift. “Did Hannah ever mention how she and Ronny met?”
“Through her job somehow.”
“You sure?”
“I think he was a customer, and they got to talking one day.”
This was the break he’d been looking for. Excitedly, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket. While dialing, he said to Lilo, “If he was a customer, Vüber will have his information. He would have had to sign up for an account.”
Lilo’s face brightened with hope. She reached for his hand and squeezed it. “Oh, I hope you’re right.”
The call was answered. “It’s Finn, what’s up?”
“Finn, it’s Blake. Can you please go through Vüber’s customer records and find anybody with the name of Ron, or Ronny, or Ronald. Cross-reference anybody you find with the fares Hannah Bergdorf accepted in the last eight months. Can you do that for me?”
“When do you need it by?”
“ASAP.”
“Give me about an hour and a half.”
“Thanks. Call me as soon as you have something.”
“No prob.”
Blake disconnected the phone. “We should know more in a couple of hours.”
Lilo shook her head, disbelief coloring her features. “I’m amazed at all the things your company can do. I mean, you seem to have more resources than the police. And you work a lot faster than they do.”
He grinned. “Don’t tell them or they’ll get envious.”
She hesitated, studying him for a long moment. “What you’re doing… it’s legal, isn’t it?”
“Of course it’s legal. The customer records belong to the company. We decide what to do with them, particularly when it means protecting one of our employees. So don’t worry about it.”
“Hey, I’m in,” Eddie interrupted.
Blake jumped up and rushed to Eddie’s side. “Let’s see. Go to her emails.”
Lilo walked to Eddie’s other side and looked over his shoulder, too, while he scrolled through Hannah’s inbox, scanning the emails. For fifteen minutes they all silently perused her messages, but there was nothing that gave any clue as to Hannah’s whereabouts or what she had wanted to speak to Lilo about so urgently.
“Nothing,” Blake said, frustrated. He ran a hand through his hair. “How about her calendar?”
Eddie navigated to her online calendar. A second later, he looked up, surprised. “Not a single entry.”
“Hannah was paranoid that her computer would crash and she’d lose all her appointment info.” Lilo met Eddie’s look. “She always wrote them on paper. She kept a diary.”
Blake nodded. “We need to find it.” He rounded the desk. “Eddie, can you go through whatever else is on the computer? And the tablet, too. Files, browsing history, etcetera, while I go over to Hannah’s flat and search for her diary?”
“Sure thing, just be quick about it.” He looked at his wristwatch. “I’ve gotta be back at the office in a couple of hours.”
“No worries. I won’t be long. And keep an eye on the boys while I’m gone, will you?”
Blake was about to storm out, when he heard footsteps behind him. He looked over his shoulder. Lilo was following him.
“I’ll be able to find it faster than you. I know Hannah’s taste. I know what her diary would look like.”
“Then describe it for me.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, drawing his eyes to those tempting curves. “I’m coming with you.”
“Damn it, Lilo. What if that intruder comes back while we’re there?”
“In that case it’s even more important that you don’t go alone.”
He did a double take. “Are you trying to imply that you’d be protecting me?”
From behind him, he heard Eddie chuckle. Without taking his eyes off Lilo, he growled, “Not funny, Eddie.”
Yeah, it was so not funny that this woman was getting under his skin with such ease.