Elysium Dreams

Twenty-One

"We have another problem," Gabriel announced as we stood clustered in the Marshals' conference room. The lights were out and floor lamps had been brought in at Xavier's insistence.

"A few hours ago, the FBI notified us that one of their employees had gone missing. Dr. Ericson reported to them that his wife, Hilary, who is a forensic accountant, had not come home. He currently has pneumonia and is laid up. However, when he woke up around two in the morning, his wife had not returned home. He tried to call her phone and got no answer. She was last seen talking to Special Agent Fred Arons who is also not answering his phone. Someone has been to his house and he and his car are both missing," Gabriel continued. "We have units canvassing the neighborhood for any witnesses, but so far they haven't come up with anything. No one saw him leave this morning or come home. Now we know that both were at work until five last night, but their whereabouts after that are unknown."

"Do we think this could be another double?" Lucas asked.

"We don't think anything at the moment. There is some indication that Arons and Hilary Ericson might have been having an affair," Gabriel said. "If that's the case, we are hoping to find them asleep in a motel room and they'll have to sort that out themselves. We will be coordinating all the search efforts, but the FBI and the Marshals will be lending us agents. I'm going to sort them out and then figure out where to stick you guys. You aren't exactly good at playing with others."

Gabriel left the room.

"I'm almost offended by that," Xavier said. "It's hard to play well with others, when everyone is out to kill you."

"Some indication? Wonder what they have that says the two of them are having an affair?" I picked up a photo from a file on the table, ignoring Xavier. I wasn't sure if he was really talking about all of us or just me. "Is it me or does Hilary have blue eyes?"

"She does," Lucas said.

"Dr. Ericson showed me a picture of his daughter, she has brown eyes," I said.

"How do you remember that?" Michael asked.

"Never know when eye color is going to be important," I responded.

"Maybe she's adopted," Xavier said.

"She looks like her mother," I said. "Remember?"

"Dr. Ericson even said she looked like her mother," Xavier said.

"What are you two getting at?" Michael asked.

"Two blue eyed parents cannot have a brown eyed child," Xavier said. "It is genetically impossible. Blue eyes are a recessive gene. Brown eyes are a dominant gene. If one of them had brown eyes or hazel eyes, she could have brown, but they don't. So she isn't Dr. Ericson's child, even if she is Hilary Ericson's."

"He's a doctor," Lucas said.

"He would know that his daughter was not actually his daughter," I said.

"Do you think Dr. Ericson is our serial killer or that he just made his wife disappear?" Lucas asked.

"I don't know," I said. "If he is our serial killer, it is hard to believe that he could kill his wife or Agent Arons. I am not at 100% and I was not injured nearly as badly."

"If he's our serial killer, he's suffering. Could be why he wasn't at work yesterday. I checked on him while you were in the hospital yesterday morning. The morning you and Lucas were attacked, he came down with pneumonia and missed work that day. So, I called him yesterday morning, he still had pneumonia, wasn't feeling much better, but said he was taking antibiotics and would be back today or tomorrow," Xavier said.