The Sentry - By Robert Crais Page 0,30

paper booties over his running shoes, then quickly moved through the house. His sole mission was to search for bodies. He would take the time for nothing else because nothing else was as important.

Pike slipped through the laundry room into a hall, then swept through the kitchen, a large family room, a small bedroom with an adjoining bath. He did not touch or examine anything, though he quickly scanned each floor for blood. He found no obvious drops or splatters, no signs of a violent struggle, and no bodies.

He took the stairs three at a time to the second floor, flowing through a large office, an enormous master bedroom, and the master bath as smoothly as if he were liquid.

He went through the entire house in less than sixty seconds, and never once stopped moving until he knew there were no bodies. Wilson and Dru had not been murdered here. Their dead bodies were not waiting here.

Pike came out of the master bedroom and paused for the first time on the second-floor landing. Only now, for the first time, the outside world slowly found its way in. Pike felt himself sway, just a little, as if from a tiny temblor. A helicopter passed nearby. He caught the scent of lilacs, and knew the scent was Dru’s.

Pike left the house as he entered, and moved quickly back to his Jeep. He saw Reuben Mendoza, and the heads in Wilson Smith’s shop. He saw two men opening Wilson’s gate, one with a cast on his arm. He saw Miguel Azzara with his brilliant male-model smile, saying it would never happen again.

Hello, Reuben.

Hello, Miguel.

I am here.

12

Pike cruised past the Our Way Body Mods shop, turned at the next block, then circled the block and pulled into a loading zone on the opposite side of the street. Their corner location on the busy street made reconnoitering easy.

Pike wanted Gomer or Mendoza, but they were not around. Neither was Michael Azzara or his shiny new Prius, but the maroon Monte Carlo was parked at the curb outside the fence.

Pike studied the number and locations of the people, the position of the vehicles in the parking lot, and everything surrounding the building. Something about the body shop bothered him.

Pike counted one man in the service bays and two in the parking lot by a 1969 candy-gold SS396. The man in the service bay was fitting a fender onto a car, but having a difficult time. None of them were familiar, but the men by the 396 drew Pike’s attention. One was a younger man in grease-stained work clothes who was showing the other man something under the hood. The other man was duded up in lizard-skin cowboy boots, an immaculate white Stetson, and a pink-and-white cowboy shirt under a suede sport coat. A Western belt with an enormous brass buckle held up jeans sporting a razor crease. A few minutes later, the cowboy had seen enough. He walked over to the service bays, said something to the man with the fender, and that’s when a man Pike recognized from the Monte Carlo appeared. He was the man who had pointed his gun hand at Pike; the man who lifted Mendoza off his feet to welcome him home. The two men shook hands, then the cowboy walked through the main gate to an anonymous Buick and drove away.

Watching the cowboy leave, Pike understood what had been troubling him. Yesterday, a dozen men were present and the yard was busy. Today, only three men remained, leaving the body shop deserted. Pike found this curious, but it would also make his job easier.

Pike circled the block again, but this time he parked on a residential street behind the body shop. He stripped off his sweatshirt, then strapped into a lightweight ballistic vest. He cinched the Velcro tight, pulled the sweatshirt back on, and reset his holster. When he was good to go, he let himself out of the Jeep and approached the body shop from the rear.

The man from the Monte Carlo had disappeared, but Pike saw the yard man helping his co-worker with the fender in the far bay. Pike did not care about them. He wanted Mendoza’s friend.

Pike stepped into the first bay and spotted the man from the Monte Carlo in an office at the rear of the building. He was in front of a television with his back to the door. The Dodgers were playing a day game. Pike checked to see that the other