Secure Location - By Beverly Long Page 0,66
to Lakeview Hospital. She was taken there by ambulance two days ago.”
“What happened?”
“She broke her hip. Said she fell down her basement steps.”
Cruz stepped forward. “You say that as if you don’t believe it.”
The woman shrugged. “I’m not accusing anybody of anything. All I’m saying is that Loretta Percy has been living in that house for twelve years and she’s never fallen down the basement stairs. But the one time her grandson visits, it happens. That seems like an odd coincidence to me.”
Cruz started running for the car. He could hear Myers on his heels. They made it to the hospital in less than fifteen minutes. They asked to speak to a charge nurse and they were quickly escorted into Loretta Percy’s room.
The woman was banged up. She had bruises and cuts on her face and arms. The rest of her body was covered by a sheet. Her eyes were closed.
“Mrs. Percy,” Cruz said, trying to keep the edge out of his voice.
The woman opened her eyes. “Yes,” she said.
“I’m Detective Cruz Montoya. I’m looking for your grandson, Troy Blakely.”
“What did he do?” she asked, her voice weak.
“I think he has my wife. Margaret Gunderson.”
The woman closed her eyes and seemed to shrink in her bed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “She’s a good girl.”
“We need to know where he is. Do you have any idea?”
She shook her head. “He lived with me up until a year ago. He changed after his mother died. They had had a big argument a few years back. He was very upset that they hadn’t reconciled before she died. My grandson has a tendency to blame others for his troubles. After his mother died, he became fixated on your wife. He said that everything that went wrong in his life started with her.”
Myers stepped forward. “Did he do this?” he asked.
The woman didn’t answer.
“Did you go to Meg Montoya’s office?” Myers asked. “To tell her about Troy?”
The woman nodded and licked her dry lips. “I could see that he was getting worse. All he talked about was that Meg had to pay for the trouble she’d caused. If it helps, he has my car. It’s a blue Ford Focus, a 2005.” She reached for the tablet and pen that was on the narrow tray table that swiveled over her bed. “Here’s the license plate number.” She shifted her eyes to Cruz. “You better find her fast.”
Chapter Twenty
It took Myers less than a minute to get the word out. Every cop on the street was going to be looking for the car.
“Now what?” Myers asked.
“We’re going back to the only place I know that he’s been to recently.”
It took them twelve minutes. The front door was locked and the restaurant was dark inside. It wouldn’t be open for several hours. “Back door?” Myers asked.
Cruz led the way through the alley. He didn’t bother to knock on the screen door, just pushed it open and walked into the kitchen. There were two men, one stirring something in a big pot, the other cutting up raw chicken. They started yelling in some foreign language.
Myers flashed his badge and they got quiet.
“We don’t want to cause you any trouble,” Cruz said. “I’m looking for the woman who waitresses here. Thin. Blond hair. Thirties. I want her name and address.”
The two men looked at each other. The man cutting up the chicken gave the other a curt nod. The man stirring the soup stopped.
“Abby Breese. She lives just down the street, in the three-story building at the corner.”
The man’s English was pretty good. Cruz nodded his thanks and took off running. He could hear Myers behind him. The building was old, dirty and smelled bad. There was carpet in the foyer that had likely been there twenty years.
The scratched and dented mailboxes at the entrance indicated that A. Breese lived on the third floor. Cruz ran up all three flights. He knocked sharply and waited impatiently. Finally, the door opened.
It was the woman he was looking for. She didn’t look surprised to see him and he figured one of the guys from the restaurant had called to warn her.
“Detective Montoya,” she said.
“I want to know if you’ve recently seen Troy Blakely. It’s important.”
She stared at Cruz. “He’s done something bad, hasn’t he?” she asked.
Cruz hoped not. “I don’t know.”
“I saw him earlier this week.”
“At the restaurant.”
“Yes. He stopped for food. I asked him where he was living and he said that he’d moved to an apartment in the Valdez area.”
“Street?”