to an inside lane.
“We scrambled a unit out there and they already got a call out for a K-9 and a bloodhound unit. We used to wait for some kind of confirmation, but not anymore.”
We surged up on the bumper of a sport utility vehicle, Diaz laid on the horn and slid halfway into the inside emergency pullover lane so the guy got the full view of the flashing blue light in his side mirror.
“¡Muevete, hijo de puta!”
The SUV finally found room to merge over and there was a line of six more cars in the lane ahead. Diaz stayed straddling the emergency lane and forced them all over like he had some sort of force field pushing out in front of him.
“Six-year-old girl,” he said flatly as he pushed it to ninety miles an hour in the now open lane. “Playing in a fenced yard on the lake. This time he killed a dog on the way in.”
I looked over at the detective’s profile, saw his jaw muscles flexing and kept my silence.
Even at this speed it was a thirty-minute trip down into the next county. By the time we reached the entrance to Flamingo Lakes my calves were cramping from pushing my toes to the floorboards trying to put on my phantom brakes. After jumping off the interstate we’d swerved through suburban traffic going west, blew through six stoplights and caused a dozen cars to jam on their brakes.
When we turned onto the street I saw a spray of blue and red lights webbed at the end of a broad cul-de-sac. Diaz had to park a block away. I followed him in and we walked past two television trucks with their broadcast antennas up, a knot of huddled neighbors with cell phones, and a couple of K-9 patrol cars holding barking dogs. A big, boxy ambulance was backed into the driveway of the house at the end of the street. Letters on the mailbox spelled Alvarez. The place seemed too chaotic for a crime scene.
I walked a step behind Diaz, matching his stride as he nodded his way past several uniformed officers. No one gave me a second look. There were two plainclothes detective types just inside the entrance of the house, both talking into two-way cell phones, and we squeezed past.
Inside the house the energy hum changed. Every light in the big, two-story home seemed to be on, but it held the stark, empty feel of a nightclub thirty minutes after closing time. The décor was off-white and pastel and spotless. But the furniture— sectional couches and oversized chairs—had all been pulled out from the walls.
“Last time we had an abduction callout we were an hour into the search when the kid crawled out from behind a couch,” Diaz whispered, as if reading my puzzled look. “She’d climbed back there and fallen asleep.”
All conversation inside the house was consciously subdued. I followed Diaz into the kitchen and saw Detective Richards sitting at a polished wood table. Another woman sat next to her, elbows planted wide, her eyes in both palms, fingers thrust up into her dark hair. Richards had an arm resting lightly on the woman’s shoulder and was touching her head, stroking her hair as she talked to her in low tones.
Diaz caught his partner’s eye and mouthed the question: “Hammonds?”
Richards pointed a finger to the rear of the house and then looked directly into my eyes. Green or gray? I thought. She turned her attention back to the woman, a mother whose heart I could not and did not want to imagine. I followed Diaz through a set of French doors and out onto a patio.
In a corner of the backyard Hammonds stood within a huddle of men dressed just like him, suits minus the jackets, ties knotted, shoes tight and made for the city. I figured FBI, but Hammonds still seemed to be in charge, no matter how tenuously. He stood in the middle, his silvered hair glowing in lights blazing from two outside spotlights mounted high on the corners of the house. I stayed on the cut stone patio while Diaz went out to the group. I could see the low fence that surrounded the long sloping yard. An orange and blue plastic jungle gym and slide stood to one side. Next to it, a yellow crime scene blanket covered a large object on the grass. The dog.
When I looked up, Diaz was talking with Hammonds, who did not look in my direction,