But Quinn had been right. The Collector had contactedme. And now I needed to make that the Collector’s first mistake.
Because maybe I wasn’t an action hero like Calvin, but Iwasa know-it-all who ran headfirst into danger. I had an undeterrable curiosity and an inability to give up. That alone made me one serious pain in the ass. But couple that with having the love of my life torn from my grasp?
They’d taken up battle with the wrong color-blind sleuth.
I jumped over a puddle of slush at the end of the block and raced across the street as the crosswalk hand began flashing. I pulled Max up in my phone’s contacts once I reached the other side.
He picked up on the first ring. “Boss! I called you like a hundred times!”
“Five,” I corrected.
“What’s going on?” he continued. “Neil called me a while ago—Calvin sent me some bizarre text—but when I asked Neil what it meant, he was a total jackass and wouldn’t tell me anything.”
“Max,” I interrupted. “Listen to me. The Collector—ah, the person—”
“Oh, Jesus,” he groaned. “He’s got a serial-killer nickname now.”
“Listen,” I hissed before taking a deep breath. “Calvin’s in trouble.A lotof trouble. The Collector took him, and I have less than forty-eight hours to save him.”
I could hear Max’s voice shaking as he said, “I d-don’t understand.”
“I think I was the original target,” I explained. “But I wasn’t budging.”
“Calvin,” Max whispered, piecing it together on his own.
“Right,” I said, clipped. “Because now I’m fucking invested in the mystery.”
“But what was that text message?”
“We’re assuming the Collector sent those from Calvin’s phone after he was taken. The phone was ditched. Neil pulled it out of a drain in the Financial District.”
“Holy shit,” Max said, voice still panicky. “This is some fucked-up Hollywood bullshit!”
“You saw the message. No cops. But try telling them that,” I said in a mocking tone. “I have to find Calvin before the law-enforcement pressure makes the Collector act earlier than planned.” I was breathing hard, pace short of an all-out sprint. “I need help,” I pleaded. “I’ve been tossed curbside, even after Quinn fought her sergeant to keep me involved, and—”
“Let’s get this guy,” Max returned. “What do you need from me?”
The relief of those words hit me like a brick to the face. I slowed to a brisk walk and took a deep breath. “Calvin told me an assistant curator at the Museum of Natural History, Frank Newell, received a package of human remains last Wednesday,” I explained. “That’s where the case began. The same man was reported missing on Saturday by his girlfriend. As far as anyone can tell, he’s simply vanished.”
“Dead,” Max muttered.
“I think so,” I admitted. “But he wasn’t our head. So something happened to an additional person between Wednesday and yesterday. I need to figure out what.”
“Are you going to go to the museum?”
“Yeah. To try to get Frank’s supervisor to talk to me. While I do that, can you try to get some information on his girlfriend?”
“How, pray tell?”
“The Face-stalking thing you do.”
“Dude. I can try, but do you at least have her name?”
“No.”
“Job?”
“No.”
