She fastened her seat belt. “I’m just getting extremely irritated with people making that mistake.”
“Would it be dangerous to suggest that you might be the one making the mistake?”
“Definitely,” she said coldly.
“Then I won’t do it,” Jessie said. “Instead, while we’re on the road, I’ll ask you to call Harley’s vet and ask if he has a tech named Benton who made a call to Miller on Thursday of last week.”
Olivia nodded. “It was too coincidental. It sounded phony. And if the tech doesn’t exist?”
“Then we call Kendra and tell her what we’ve learned and ask her to have the FBI put a trace on all incoming calls on Miller’s phone that day to get a phone number.” She added, “And an address if we get lucky.”
“We might already have an address. Don’t you think that call probably came from Hayes?”
“Maybe. But there’s someone else out there and if I were Kendra, I wouldn’t forget about mystery man number two. Whom I so efficiently took down in that factory…”
* * *
Kendra and Lynch followed Metcalf and two of the FBI vans back to the regional office in a veritable caravan. They’d been on the I-8 freeway only a few minutes before Lynch pulled ahead and left the others in his dust.
“This Lamborghini could be a keeper,” Lynch murmured. “As unfaithful as it makes me feel, I’m not missing the Ferrari nearly so much anymore.”
“Nice car,” Kendra said absently.
“You’re thinking about Harley.”
“Of course I am.”
“If someone meant to do him harm, they could have targeted him with a high-powered rifle as easily as they did with that camera zoom lens.”
“The same could also be said for Elaine Wessler, and we know what happened to her.” Kendra leaned back against the headrest. “It’s sickening to think of her being stalked for days by a man who would eventually kill her. And Mr. Kim…two days and he was a dead man.”
“He had to have found out something he wasn’t meant to know. This doesn’t impress me as anything else.”
“Possibly.” She shivered. “But I’ve had several cases where murder victims were tailed before their deaths. Prep work for a certain type of cold, methodical killer who likes to get a handle on time schedules and personal habits as they plan their kill. Not only do they consider it efficient, but it gives them a sense of power.” She cursed under her breath. “We should’ve had this guy. Now both those men are still out there, planning who knows what.”
“We’ll find them,” Lynch said quietly. “Metcalf will start searching for that tech who called the trainer as soon as he gets back to the office. It almost certainly had to be either Hayes or his partner. I’m hoping it will be the partner so that we can open a new lead. And we just missed Hayes because of this snafu. But he’s clearly not overly bright. Forensics might even turn up something from that search of his apartment.”
There was such certainty in his voice that she felt better even though the response was totally irrational.
Her phone rang. She fished it out of her pocket and looked at the caller ID screen. Metcalf. She answered and put him on speaker. “Please tell me one of your guys picked up Hayes hiding in a trash dumpster down the street.”
“Next best thing. We got his car. SDPD just found it parked a few miles from his apartment.”
“Where?”
“Grant Hill. On Twenty-Eighth, near L. We’re on our way now.”
Lynch was already exiting the freeway.
“Good,” she told Metcalf. “We’ll see you there.”
“Maybe a little brighter than I thought,” Lynch said. “At least he knew it was smarter to ditch the car.”
* * *
Kendra and Lynch parked in front of a Twenty-Eighth Street liquor store and walked the half block to the spot where Metcalf and several of his crime scene techs were already standing. A San Diego PD cruiser was on the street with flashers on, forcing passing cars to go around.
As they came closer, Kendra could see that it was indeed the silver Audi TT RS Metcalf had described earlier.
Kendra placed her hand on the car hood. “Still warm. But not that warm. Car’s been here maybe half an hour.”
Metcalf nodded. “Soon after we raided his place. It looks more and more like he just managed to get away from us by the skin of his teeth.”
Lynch peered into the passenger side window. “Have you gotten inside yet?”
“Our warrant covers his apartment and car. We have a guy on the