her losses and the months she had lived at a rape hotel. “Like this, only with shootings and bombs. I’ve seen a man who works with Petrović at the steak house. He has a short gray beard. He …”Anna stopped to get control of her tears. Then, “He knows me from Djoba.”
“Marko,” Susan said. “He’s a sadist. Well. They all are.”
Susan told Anna about the night two weeks ago when Tony and Marko had abducted her and her friends, how Carly had gone crazy and Tony had killed her.
“An ‘object lesson,’ Tony called it. Oh, it got through to us, all right,” Susan said. “Then Tony said he was letting one of us go on an outing. He flipped a coin and Adele won. I wanted desperately to go, but I couldn’t be mad at Adele.
“Tony brought her new clothes and then, presto, drove her away. They let her leave.”
Anna asked, “Do you mean Adele Saran?”
“How did you know?”
“I’m sorry, Susan. Be glad you didn’t go.”
Anna told Susan what she’d seen on the news, that Adele had been killed and hanged from a tree. Susan clapped her hands over her mouth and cried. Anna put her arms around her new friend, and they clung to each other, grieving without making a sound.
When she could speak again, Susan said, “I don’t know why I believed Tony. I thought if I was sweet to him … I was so stupid.”
“You had hope,” Anna said. “They hadn’t destroyed it.”
Anna wondered if it was safe to have hope now.
In the dark, while the men slept, Susan and Anna discussed what they had to do to escape. Nothing was off-limits—violence, tricks, charm.
Together they checked the front door, as Susan had done before. Maybe this time the bastards had forgotten to lock it. No such luck. The shuttered windows were also locked. Their search in the foyer for cell phones in jacket pockets turned up nothing. Knives were locked in drawers.
At six in the morning Susan and Anna went to their bedrooms and got into bed with their captors.
CHAPTER 94
At just before noon, Conklin and I paid a call on Taqueria del Lobo to let Mr. Martinez know that the lab had impounded his vehicle again.
Conklin opened the door and we walked into a shit-storm in progress.
Martinez was yelling at Lucinda Drucker in the front room, which was packed with customers.
“I told you, Lucy. I warned you. And now you gave my car to that asshole boyfriend of yours and the damned thing is still missing and now you’re fired. I’m calling the police—oh. Hola, Officers. Here they are.”
I handed him the warrant and told him the bad news.
“Mr. Martinez, your vehicle was found at the scene of a crime.”
“Another one? Son of a bitch. You see what I’m saying, Lucy? You are such a dummy.”
Lucinda Drucker was crying now. “Mr. Martinez, please, I need my job.”
Conklin interrupted the shouting and crying to say, “Ah, Ms. Drucker, I have to speak with you for a moment. Outside.”
He led the sobbing woman out of the restaurant, and I took Martinez behind the counter to the kitchen doorway. As I gave the same news to Martinez that Conklin was delivering to Lucy, I was watching the late Denny Lopez’s girlfriend through the plate glass.
I saw Conklin talking to her, saw her jerk away from him, a look of horror on her face. She threw up her hands, like Get away from me. My partner reached out to her, and she pushed him off and backed away. Then she turned and lunged off the sidewalk, directly into the stream of traffic.
I shouted “Noooooo” from where I stood behind the counter. She couldn’t hear me, but Conklin was also shouting and moving fast. But Lucy was faster. I ran through the doorway and out onto the sidewalk just as the event unfolded.
Horns blared. Someone screamed, “Watch out!”
Its brakes squealing, a northbound car hit the young woman in stride, flinging her high and onto the hood of a car parked across the street. The sound of the impact was horrifying. But it wasn’t over. Cars were out of control and crashing, piling up.
I ran out to our cruiser, got my hands on the radio, and shouted the address to dispatch.
“I need paramedics now at my location. And send backup.”
By then Conklin had reached Lucy, and as I tried to cross the street to join him, I heard him saying her name, comforting her. I was relieved when I saw her try