18th Abduction - James Patterson Page 0,69

as pie, ‘Would you mind? We’re looking for a criminal.’ No problem. They’re father and son doing their store’s deliveries. We checked out the van. Nobody in there. No cigar fumes. Nothing but flowers. Ran Sunshine’s license, registration, plates. They’re clean. Showed them a picture of Tony. They don’t know him. We pulled the tracking device, so when you see the Jag moving, it’s us. We’re coming in to file a report.”

Joe hung up, thinking that he hadn’t heard from Anna in more than a day. Now that they’d lost Petrović, he felt alarmed. He called her, left a message, asked her to return his call. He texted her. No response. He called the general phone line at the Tesla dealership. After a ring he heard, “Sales, this is Dale Winston.”

Joe said, “Can you put me through to Anna Sotovina?”

“And who may I say is calling?” Winston asked.

“Joe Molinari, FBI.”

“Oh. Anna’s not here. Actually, she didn’t come in today. That’s not like her. In fact, I’m worried. She’s a very disciplined person, but she’s forgetting things, showing up late. And now—this is the worst. I don’t know why I trusted her.”

Winston explained to Joe that Anna had needed to use a loaner overnight, was supposed to return it to the shop this morning by nine. She hadn’t come in with the car, and he hadn’t been able to reach her.

Joe took down details on the vehicle, left an urgent message for Anna with Winston, hung up, and made notes to the file.

Petrović hadn’t been seen in twenty hours.

Anna hadn’t come to work and hadn’t returned calls.

It was premature, and highly speculative, but those facts added up.

One plus one equaled Petrović had Anna.

Where in God’s name were they?

CHAPTER 87

My anxiety was simmering as my partner and I crossed the motel’s parking lot at dawn.

Dispatch had roused me an hour ago saying there’d been another murder at the Big Four Motel. Was it Susan Jones? Were we going to find her body hanging in a shower?

The motel looked subdued at sunrise. The homeless campers in the parking lot were dozing in their bags and rags, despite the sirens and flashers and squawking of car radios. Many of the motel guests had pulled on robes and jackets over their sleepwear and were grouped under the big orange awning in front of Tuohy’s office.

One of the uniformed officers approached us, introduced herself as Officer Joyce Birmingham, and said that she was the first officer on the scene.

She said, “Sergeant, we got the call at five and responded. The manager asked for you. Mr. Jake Tuohy. He said you and Inspector Conklin have some history here.”

Carly Myers’s body was still vivid in my mind. I asked Birmingham to run the scene for us.

“The vic is a white male—”

“What’s that? Male?”

“Yes, ma’am. Approximately thirty-five, no ID on him, but Tuohy says he knows who he is. A pimp. Denny something.”

“Oh, no.”

“Tuohy didn’t know his last name. A guest found the body in the space between the soft drink machine and the ice maker. My partner and I taped off the vending machine area, and we’re about to do the same to the parking lot. Mr. Tuohy is waiting for you in his office.”

“Okay, Birmingham. Good job. You called CSI?”

“Yes, ma’am, and the ME.”

I said, “We’d like to see the body now.”

Officer Birmingham walked Conklin and me to the bank of vending machines on the ground floor. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Lopez was dressed in the same clothes he was wearing when we dragged him off the street and into our house yesterday. Jeans, cotton shirt, maroon pullover, denim jacket. He was lying in the gap between two large vending machines, folded neatly into the space. I saw no blood, no signs of violence.

But there was no question. Denny was dead. I thought of him saying, “For God’s sake. You’re going to get me killed.” Almost forty-eight hours later, it had happened.

Conklin and I looked at each other. No words were needed, but I felt responsible. It was a message. His killer was very likely the same person who’d killed the schoolteachers, or knew who did.

Conklin squeezed my shoulder. I patted his hand. And together we stared down at the dead man.

Had he been killed while loitering in the parking lot?

Or had he been murdered elsewhere? A car could have backed up to this spot to dump his body. Two men could have done it in under a minute.

I stooped to Denny’s body and,