18th Abduction - James Patterson Page 0,41

Bloodsucking bastard?”

“The victim’s name is Rona?”

“Yeah. That’s what she calls herself.”

“Last name?”

He shrugged for the second time.

I said, “Do you see that man here now?”

“No, he took off thataway.” He pointed southbound toward Twenty-First Street. “I didn’t get a good look at him.”

“Would you recognize him from a picture?”

“I wanna help,” Sam told me. “But my eyes aren’t good. And it’s blacker than black here, right?”

He was right. Almost total darkness with a chilly froth of fog.

The bystanders were getting rowdy again and a half dozen of them began to rock our car. It was a dangerous situation. I pictured ordering them to line up with their faces to the wall, frisking them, cuffing them.

I’d never pull that off. It was not a one-cop job and Frazer was occupied.

Where was our sergeant? Where was backup?

I turned to see Frazer still keeping pressure on the fire hose that was Rona’s severed carotid artery. She was saying, “Hang on, please, dear. Help is on the way. I promise.”

I thanked Sam for his time and went on to a witness found after I’d left the scene. This one was high on drugs and had not seen the crazed, bloodsucking psycho. Of the six men and women I questioned, only Sam had seen the actual assault, and his eyewitness report was almost useless.

To my great relief, Sergeant Correa arrived with lights and sirens on full blast and a cruiser drafting behind her. The ambulance pulled up, and after a moment the victim was lifted in and the bus took off.

Once the victim was gone, the crowd dispersed, and Frazer, Correa, and I waited for CSI with our hands on our guns. Correa went back to her car and took the call from dispatch, who informed her that Rona had died in the bus en route to the hospital.

Correa told Frazer, “I hope yours was the last face Rona saw before she died, not her killer’s.”

I felt sad and mad. He’d been right here, and for all any of us knew, he was still here, one of the shadowy figures just out of reach.

He was never caught. The killings of this type stopped, and that meant that the Bloodsucker had gotten scared, or married, or moved on. But unless he was dead, the odds were good that his blood lust was only dormant.

Another killer the SFPD chased, a sadist, committed a dozen murders. Then he put himself on the shelf for thirty full years, holding a regular job, belonging to the neighborhood watch and family-type organizations. Until he missed the attention and began to kill again.

Had the Bloodsucker retired? Or was he still living in the Mission, hiding out, working as a barber or a librarian, watching cartoons with his kids on the weekends, biding his time?

Was he watching us now?

My reverie dissolved when Rich said, “Chevy Tahoe at three o’clock.”

The Tahoe was dark blue, a full-size SUV with logos spelling out the taqueria’s name and phone number on the side doors. Across the street from the vehicle was the Taqueria del Lobo, a small walk-in takeout taco shop.

“That’s it,” I said.

I called in our location, and my partner double-parked beside the Tahoe, blocking it in its spot.

Conklin and I got out of our car into a neighborhood of bad old memories and ghosts that were still quite alive in my mind.

We waded through the fog.

CHAPTER 53

The Blue Tahoe had the Taqueria del Lobo logo on both sides.

The vehicle was locked, but I shined my light through the windows to look all around the interior. It was clean and tidy. There wasn’t even a taco wrapper in the footwell. Richie checked the tags and called out to me that the number was the same as what we’d gotten from the DMV.

Across the street and down a few doors was the taco shop. The sign overhead was a line drawing of a grinning wolf saying “Bite me” in a voice balloon. The sign hanging in the window read OPEN. We crossed the street and Rich pushed the door. A bell tinkled and I followed him in.

The place was small and brightly lit, and smelled delicious. That reminded me that I hadn’t eaten anything since coffee and toast with Joe this morning, eleven long hours ago. Something dancy was playing over the sound system, and three men in work clothes were hunched over one of the small tables, eating tacos and refried beans.

The woman behind the counter was in her late twenties, with auburn hair in a