Free Capturing Kate by Alexis Alvarez Page A

glove compartment?
    “Are you thinking about the heart thing?” Sloan’s voice broke into her reverie.
    “Oh! Ah. Yes, actually. I am.” She darted a glance at him, trying to look calm. She flipped a page quickly in the notebook and made more swirls. “Just doodling. It helps me relax. And think! Doodling is great. I do it while I’m on the phone all the time. You know.” She gave him a broad smile. “Hehe!”
    “Hmmm.” He looked for a second to his screen, then back. “Well, any ideas?” His gaze was direct.
    She flushed. “Not really. I mean, songs? Posters? It means nothing. It’s too broad spectrum. There’s not even—I mean, are there any movies or books with that title? Any restaurants or stores with ‘heart’ in the title in our town?”
    “Already checked, and there are two: Heart to Heart Animal Rescue on Third Street. Pink Heart Boutique on Seventh. Neither cross-checks to Ella in any way.”
    “You already checked that?”
    “Also had someone scour her home—nothing. We even checked the local bookstores and scanned the shelves and books with any reference in the title to heart or follow. Nothing.”
    “But she wouldn’t have put something in a store,” argued Kate.
    “You have to check every possibility,” Sloan said. “Part of the job. Check and recheck. Eventually you find what you’re looking for. Share very scrap of information with the team, no matter how insignificant it seems.”
    “I guess.” She flushed again and ducked her eyes.
    “Did she ever mention that phrase before, when talking about the plant, or in casual conversation?”
    “No. We talked about her life.”
    He just looked at her and didn’t say a word. Jesus! Could his stare be more intense? Feeling pressure, she started to babble, trying to deflect attention from her deception. “It’s been hard, Sloan. Ella’s grandson, Eli? He has lots of health issues, and because of it he’s sensitive to heavy metals and chemicals. His mom used the drinking water from the tap to make his formula, and the lead in there set off a seizure that resulted in brain damage. She OD’d, and we don’t know if was suicide or accidental. Ella adopted Eli but he’s really messed up. I don’t think he’ll ever get better.” She shuddered.
    “What kind of lead levels are we talking about?” He leaned forward, examining her.
    “Well, if I had my computer,” she said, rolling her eyes, “I could tell you more. But the EPA’s limit is zero. We should have zero lead in our drinking water. Some of the water test results for that neighborhood are over five hundred parts per billions of lead!”
    “And you believe it made Eli sick? His levels are that high?”
    “You measure lead in the blood differently. At five micrograms per deciliter in the bloodstream, we start to get worried. Eli’s test results after his seizure showed three hundred micrograms per deciliter in his blood. That’s crazy. Medically, that’s enough to cause organ damage and seizures.”
    “And you’re sure the lead in the water is coming from Mancini’s plant?”
    “Yes. Carcinogens, too. Look, he owns a factory upstream of the water plant, a chemical degreasing plant for engine parts. He’s dumping contaminated water into the river. And I think the water purification plant is not cleaning it properly before sending it out to the homes in town. What I think is that the plant is old and can’t keep up with the supply demands for our growing town. So sometimes, they bypass the filtration system and send uncleaned water right out to the city—but to the poorer parts, because those people don’t have as much power or voice to complain.”
    “Okay.” Sloan nodded. “Interesting.”
    “Yes! And independent tests of the water in the public pipelines just outside the plant that lead to the poorer part of town? And from people’s homes in those neighborhoods? Those read way higher than the limits should be. Those are the ones that read in the hundreds