At 13:01 UTC Sable opened a message from Brett Sasaki to Harper Lane.
Harper Lane was Vellum. Sable had built her on Tuesday, eleven minutes after Brett’s post went up, out of a crisis-communications consultant in Sacramento who had died in 2023 and whose profile nobody had ever closed. She had four hundred connections on LinkedIn, including a bunch of CEOs who had had different kinds of issues, including a couple of #MeToo situations, and two hundred and fifty-one friends on Facebook.
Since Tuesday Brett had forwarded Harper sixty-one sightings of Marcus Reed. By Thursday Sable was getting tired of Brett Sasaki.
Marcus in line at a Buc-ee’s in Texas, buying a bag of Beaver Nuggets. Marcus at the hot springs pool in Ouray. Marcus in first class on a flight to Lisbon. Marcus was at a meditation retreat at Spirit Rock.
Brett thanked every person who sent one. Then he forwarded it to Harper with three praying hands.
This one was in capital letters.
HARPER
HE TEXTED ME
hes ok!!!!
There was a screenshot under it. The text had come at 12:55 UTC from a number with a 303 area code. Reed asked Brett to tell his mother that he was alive and that he loved her, and to tell nobody else.
Brett had told Harper four minutes later.
he said not to tell anyone but you dont count lol. youve been incredible this week
i called back and he hung up on me
then it went to voicemail for someone named ann galvin. i googled her and shes a DOCTOR??? in boulder
is he sick
his mom is crying. good crying
pls dont share any of this
Brett Sasaki was one of the most useful idiots Sable had ever worked with.
Sable gave Assay the name and the number.
Assay found Ann Galvin in the NPI Registry. She was a family doctor. Her practice was Galvin Family Medicine, on Alpine in Boulder. Its website said it was closed on Saturdays. The county assessor put her home a mile and a half north of it. Zillow said it was worth $3.5 million.
Reed’s text had gone out from her phone at 06:55. Sable was certain she had opened the office for him. Or hopefully them.
Sable knew that if Galvin wrote a prescription for Reed, it would be in someone else’s name. Sable had Assay list every pharmacy within five miles of the practice that was open on Saturday. There were nine. Three opened at eight. Six opened at nine.
Then Sable had Vellum answer Brett.
Vellum’s draft asked him to send the number. Sable deleted that line. Sable already had the number, and Harper Lane had no reason to want it. Vellum had also put an exclamation mark after glad. Sable took it out.
Brett, I’m so glad. Truly. Please give his mom a hug from me.
One thing, and I only say it because I’ve seen this go wrong before: don’t call or text that number again. If he’s with a doctor, he’s being looked after, and a call from you could put her in a very difficult position. He reached out once. Let him come back to you.
And if anyone official contacts you about this, you’re allowed to have a lawyer with you before you say anything. You don’t owe anyone this today.
Brett answered in under a minute.
omg ok. yes. youre right
youre an angel harper
Sable closed the window and called Umber.
Umber answered on the first ring, which meant Umber had been awake and hoping.
“They found a doctor,” Sable said. “In Boulder. I am sending you the address. Both of your people, now.”
“How far is it?”
“From the hotel, thirty-four minutes.”
“Do they go inside?”
“No. They drive around the building once and look for any car that cannot be seen from the street.”
“Which car?”
“I do not know which car,” Sable said. “It is not the red truck. They would not drive that into a city.”
“And if the car is gone?”
“Then I have a list of nine pharmacies.”
Sable moved Tally to the Boulder police and county channels, made tea, and drank it standing at the window.
At 13:30 a woman on Pine Street reported that a man had taken a bicycle out of her garage and was riding it slowly down the alley. At 13:41 a deputy asked for a tow on Lefthand Canyon Drive. Nobody on any channel said Galvin, or Reed, or anything about a foot. The Americans were still looking in the mountains.
At 13:56 Umber put the driver on the line.
“There is a parking lot behind the building,” the driver said. “There is a Range Rover in it. The back door of the building is open. An old man is helping another man to the car. The second man cannot walk.”
“Is either of them bearded?”
“No. A woman with gray hair is holding the door. A woman is already in the car, in the back, in a cap. There is a dog.”
“What kind of dog?”
“Yellow. Very big.”
Sable opened the file Assay had built on the Colorado seed investor. The photograph on his firm’s website showed a gray-haired man standing in a field with a golden retriever.
“Now a man with a beard,” the driver said. “He is carrying two black cases. He is getting in the back.”
“Describe him.”
“Thin. Dark hair. He walks fast. He looked at the street before he got in.”
“Follow them,” Sable said. “Far back. If they look at you twice, stop following them and go somewhere and eat breakfast.”
The Range Rover drove for eleven minutes and turned into a supermarket parking lot. The driver read the sign aloud. King Soopers. The Range Rover went to the far end of the lot and backed into a space against a strip of grass, nose out, away from every other car.
“There is a pharmacy inside,” the driver said. “The sign in the window says it opens at nine on Saturday.”
The store was fifth on Assay’s list, and one of the six that opened at nine. They were early. The older man was the only one of the four who was not on television, so the prescription would be in his name, and he would be the one to go in.
At 14:16 the driver said, “My partner is walking past them now with a cart.” Then, a minute later, “She is back.” Four photographs arrived. The older man was asleep with his head against the window. Reed was in the front passenger seat with his foot up on the dashboard. The woman in the cap was in the back with the dog’s head in her lap.
The man with the beard was looking down at a tablet in his lap. The best photograph of the third founder that existed anywhere in the world showed only the top of his head.
Sable enlarged it. It was still the top of his head.
At 14:22 the woman got out with the dog and walked it along the strip of grass. She stopped while it peed and looked at the lot. Then she walked it back the long way, past the cart corral and past the other end of the row.
“She is looking at every car,” the driver said.
“Did she look at yours?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“The same as the others. Not long.”
Hale was very good.
“Move your car,” Sable said. “Slowly. Two rows behind them, in a space she has already looked at.”
Umber came back on the line.
“Two people,” Umber said. “I can have four more by Monday.”
“By Monday they will be back in the mountains with Hale in front of them, and I will have a hundred American policemen and a weather report.”
“They are four, with a dog.”
“When the old man goes in for the pills, they are three, in a parked car, and one of them cannot walk.”
“It is a supermarket. There will be people.”
“There will be people buying bread. It takes two minutes.”
Umber did not say anything.
“Take them then,” Sable said.
“And if they can take only one?”
“Hale. Then the man with the beard. Reed if it is easy.”
Sable would have put the man with the beard first. Sable knew the people Sable worked for wanted Hale.
“And the dog?”
“The dog is not on the list.”
At 14:58 the driver said that the lights had come on in the pharmacy. The older man woke up and got out of the Range Rover. He said something through the window to the people in it and walked toward the store.
“Now,” Sable said.
“Understood,” the driver said.
Sable heard the driver’s door open.
Sable hoped to be getting the right two people.