“I don’tlikeanyone else,” I answered.
“Calvinknowsa lot of people,” Neil said. “And Sebastian isknownby a lot of people, but because of these messages sent to non–law-enforcement individuals, we need to focus on who may be aware of the interpersonal relations shared by them both.”
Quinn narrowed her gaze at me, waiting not so patiently for an explanation.
I shrugged. “We have a strict no-work-talk rule at home.Youwould have a better idea than me.”
Quinn’s phone rang then, and she had it to her ear before the jingle could come to a full stop. “Lancaster.” She made a sudden about-face for the street. “The cell towers pinged the phone and got a triangulation!” she called over her shoulder. “Let’s go!”
THE FINANCIALDistrict.
I slammed shut the passenger door of Quinn’s car and raced after her on the sidewalk. Along with two police cruisers and vans from both the Crime Scene Unit and Department of Environmental Protection, we’d managed to completely block the thoroughfare of Nassau Street. Obnoxious honking came from behind us as drivers were forced to merge onto John Street, backing up traffic for several blocks. The area directly ahead was taped off to pedestrians, and more LEOs swarmed in by the minute.
It seemed word was officially out that one of their own was in trouble. If it hadn’t been for the warnings to keep the policeoutof the search, I’d have felt a hell of a lot more hopeful.
A second call for Quinn had come in while she’d been driving us from the East Village to the coordinates provided—Calvin’s car had been located. It was parked a block and a half from the hotel, with no indication that he’d ever reached it that morning.
“It makes no sense that Calvin would have been grabbed all the way down here,” I called after Quinn. I nearly plowed into a woman exiting a sandwich shop, skidded sideways, and not so gracefully managed to avoid crashing into a sidewalk sign advertising the nail salon next door.
“He wasn’t,” Quinn agreed. She flashed her badge at an officer, lifted the crime-scene tape, and impatiently shouted for me to follow. When she finally came to a stop, it was beside the DEP truck.
The air crackled with the radios of uniformed officers, communicating in jargon that hardly made sense even if onecoulddecipher the conversation amongst all the static. Two city workers in hard-hats were pulling out crowbar-looking tools from their truck. I shielded my eyes from the glare of the midmorning sun as I scanned the rest of the scene. Neil had driven behind us from the Emporium in his CSU van, but just then, he’d hopped out of the open back doors in a full bodysuit.
“What the—” I bit my tongue when the DEP guys hooked their tools to the grate of a catch basin beside the sidewalk and hoisted the heavy cast-iron frame up.
I leaned over for a look. The hole was about ten feet deep and at least half-full of dark, stagnant water. Runoff from the road no doubt included additives such as motor oil and human piss, dead leaves, cigarette butts, candy wrappers, soda bottles, and used condoms, to name a few of the more savory ingredients.
Neil approached me, tugging a hood down over his head.
I reached an arm out and slapped him square in the chest. “You’re not seriously climbing into the witches’ caldron, are you?”
“It’s one of the more exciting aspects of working CSU,” he answered before pulling a respiratory mask over his face.
“But wait,” I protested. “Why? I know dropping a waterlogged phone into a bag of rice can work wonders, but you should consider Calvin’s a lost cause.”
“We need it as evidence, Sebastian,” Quinn said firmly.
I made a face and glanced back at the hole. “Neil’s fingers are going to fall off if he touches that toxic waste.”
“Hence the sexy PPE,” Neil said, voice muffled by the mask, before he stepped onto the street.
Quinn was watching Neil climb into the basin as she said, “Calvin’s car never left Midtown, yet his phone was discarded in the Financial District. It gives us a few clues.”
“Like what?” I asked.
I had to not think of Calvin asCalvin. Merely… a puzzle to solve. It was the only way I could do this—the only way I could investigate and get my sleuthing ass caught up in more mayhem without having another emotional episode cripple me. I focused on the moment. The details. The…Christ… rancid smell coming from the water as Neil’s body distorted the contents and released odors.
“This close to the Brooklyn Bridge,” Quinn started, making a motion over her shoulder without looking up, “leads me to suspect the Collector wants to get out of Manhattan. And if I were them, I most certainly wouldn’t take the chance at having a kidnap victim in my vehicle when I pop out to make a few threatening text messages before ditching the phone.” I felt her eyes on me for a brief moment. “Right?”
“Makes sense,” I whispered before covering my nose and mouth with my sleeve. “All it takes is getting pulled over for a taillight out, andbam!—cops find an unconscious detective in the back seat or something.”
“So what’s that say?” she pressed.
“If the Collector is smart, they would have dropped Calvin off at a safe house—or maybe even—” I stopped. Saying his name was hard. I forced myself to swallow the lump building in my throat. “The same place the headless body might have ended up. Or maybe… where Frank Newell currently is.”
Neil tossed a rat carcass up from the basin, the partially decomposed body landing on the asphalt with asplat.
“I will give the benefit of the doubt as to this individual’s intelligence,” I said, clearing my throat. “Because they’ve already killed two, possibly three people, and have taunted the police without being caught. I say they’d moveawayfrom their safe zone in order to ditch the phone.”
