AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Faith tapped her fingers on the steering wheel, deep in thought. Finally, she came up with, "Tom Coldfield."
"He's around your age. He would've been barely pubescent when Pauline ran away."
"You're right," she conceded. "Besides, the Air Force psych evaluation would have flagged him up big-time."
"Michael Tanner," Will suggested. "He's the right age."
"I've got a background check running on him. They would've called if something hit."
"Morgan Hollister."
"They're running him, too," Faith said. "He didn't seem really cut up about Pauline being gone."
"Felix said that the man who took his mother was dressed in a suit like Morgan from work."
"Surely, Felix would've recognized Morgan?"
"In a fake mustache?" Will shook his head. "I don't know. Let's keep Morgan on the list. We can talk to him at the end of the day if nothing else has come up."
"He's old enough to be her brother, but why would she work with him if he was?"
"People do stupid things when they're being abused," Will reminded her. "We need to check with Leo and see what he's come up with. He was working the Michigan police, trying to track down Pauline's parents. She ran away from home. Who did she run away from?"
"The brother." Faith said, bringing them back full circle. Her phone rang again. She let it go into voicemail before opening it and dialing in a number. "I'll see where Leo is. He's probably out in the field."
Will offered, "I'll call Amanda and tell her we need to formally take over the Pauline McGhee case." He opened his phone just as the stutter of a ring came out. Since the phone had been broken, it had been doing unusual things. Will pressed his ear to the device, saying, "Hello?"
"Hey." Her voice was cool, casual, like warm honey in his ear. His mind flashed on the image of the mole on her calf, the way he could feel it under his palm when he ran his hand up her leg. "You there?"
Will glanced at Faith, feeling a cold sweat break out over his body. "Yeah."
"Long time."
He glanced at Faith again. "Yeah," he repeated. About eight months had passed since he had come home from work to find Angie's toothbrush missing from the cup in the bathroom.
She asked, "What're you up to?"
Will swallowed, trying to generate some spit. "Working a case."
"That's good. I figured you were busy."
Faith had finished her call. She was looking at the road ahead, but if she had been a cat, her ear would've been cocked in his direction.
He told Angie, "I guess this is about your friend?"
"Lola's got some good intel."
"That's not really my side of the job," he told her. The GBI didn't start cases. They finished them.
"Some pimp's turned a penthouse into a drug pad. They've got all kinds of shit lying around like candy. Talk to Amanda about it. She'll look good on the six o'clock news standing in front of all that dope."
Will tried to concentrate on what she was saying. There was just the whir of the Mini's engine and Faith's ever-listening ear.
"You there, baby?"
He said, "Not interested."
"Just pass it on forme. It's the penthouse in an apartment building called Twenty-one Beeston Place. The name is the same as the address. Twenty-one Beeston."
"I can't help you with that."
"Repeat it back to me so I know you'll remember it."
Will's hands were sweating so much that he worried the phone might slip from his grasp. "Twenty-one Beeston Place."
"I'll owe you one."
He couldn't resist. "You owe me a million." But it was too late. She had already hung up the phone. Will kept it to his ear, then said, "All right. Bye," like he was having a normal conversation with a normal person. To make matters worse, the phone slipped as he tried to close it, the string finally ripping out from under the duct tape. Wires he had never seen before jutted out of the back of the phone.
He heard Faith's mouth open, the smacking of her lips. He told her, "Leave it be."
She closed her mouth, kept her hands tight on the wheel as she made a turn against the light. "I called central dispatch. Leo's on North Avenue. Double homicide."
The car sped up as Faith blew through a light. Will loosened his tie, thinking it was warm in the car. His arms were starting to itch again. He felt light-headed.
"I'll try to get Amanda to—"
"Angie was calling in a tip." The words flooded out before he could stop them. His mind raced to think of a way to get out of saying more, but his mouth hadn't gotten the memo to shut up. "Some Buckhead penthouse has been turned into a drug den."
"Oh" was all Faith offered.
"She's got this girl she used to know back when she worked vice. A prostitute. Lola. She wants out of jail. She's willing to flip on the dealers."
"Is it a good tip?"
Will could only shrug. "Probably."
"Are you going to help her?"
He shrugged again.
"Angie's an ex-cop. Doesn't she know somebody in narcotics?"
Will let her figure it out. Angie wasn't exactly good at leaving bridges unburned. She tended to light them with glee, then throw gasoline on the flames.
Faith obviously reached the same conclusion. She offered, "I can make some calls for you. No one will know you're involved."
He tried to swallow, but his mouth was still too dry. He hated that Angie had this effect on him. He hated it even more that Faith was getting a front-row seat to his misery. He asked, "What did Leo say?"
"He's not answering his phone, probably because he knows it's me calling." As if on cue, her phone rang again. Faith checked the ID and again didn't answer it. Will figured he didn't have a right to ask her what that was about, considering he'd put a moratorium on discussions of his own phone calls.
He cleared his throat a few times so he could speak without sounding like a pubescent boy. "A Taser gun means distance. He would've used a stun gun on them if he was able to get close enough."
Faith returned to their original conversation. "What else have we got?" she asked. "We're waiting for DNA results from Jacquelyn Zabel. We're waiting to hear back from the tech department on Zabel's laptop and the computer from Pauline's office. We're waiting to hear back on any forensic evidence from the vacant house behind Olivia's."
Will heard a distinct buzzing, and Faith pulled out her BlackBerry. She drove with one hand as she read the screen. "Phone dump on Olivia Tanner's line." She scrolled through. "One number every morning around seven o'clock to Houston, Texas."
"Seven our time is six Houston time," Will said. "That's the only number she called?"
Faith nodded. "Going back for months. She probably used her cell for most of her calls." She tucked the BlackBerry back in her pocket. "Amanda's working on a warrant for the bank. They were nice enough to cross-reference their accounts for our missing women's names—no matches—but they're not going to give us access to Olivia's computer, phone or email without a fight. Something about federal banking law. We have to get into that chat room."
