Page 71 of Hotter than Wildfire

Montez stared at the monitor, scowling.

“And this,” Piet continued, pulling up another online map, “is a map of the bus routes in Seattle.” He manipulated the images until he found the section of town on the first map. The bus routes followed the doglegs exactly.

Montez wasn’t getting it and that made him angry. “Get to the point,” he growled.

“I think Palmer ditched her car before she arrived in Seattle or else ditched it in Seattle. I don’t think she had access to a car. I think she took the bus everywhere she went. And look at this…”

He brought up another map, a tangle of streets. Montez leaned forward, staring at the map with narrowed eyes. “So? What am I looking at.”

“A map of San Diego.” Piet tapped two points. “This is the hotel she booked into and this is the Greyhound bus station.” The two were a block apart. “I think she took the bus from Seattle to San Diego and checked into the first hotel she found.”

“Okay, okay.” Montez sat back. “I get it. She’s without a car. How does that help us?”

“When she came back to the hotel where your men were waiting for you, how did she get there?”

Montez was paying attention now. “The last word I had from my men was she was getting out of a cab.”

“Exactly. I hacked into taxi company records. She wouldn’t use an Uber because that requires an app. There are fifteen cab companies in San Diego and on the fourth company, I found a record of a fare being dropped off at that hotel at 11:52 on the 5th of April. He picked the fare up on Birch Street, which has a lot of fancy high rises, it’s in the heart of the business district. And the security cameras there worked just fine. Here she is. Coming out of the Morrison Building.”

Piet clicked and brought up the file. No grainy photogram per second film for that street, no sir. Top of the line cameras with high definition digital film that showed everything clearly. And it clearly showed Ellen Palmer running, hailing a cab and taking off. A white script in the bottom right hand corner showed the time in digital display. 11:34.

“Fuck,” Montez breathed. “That’s her.”

“Yes.” Piet realized that this was the first time Montez had seen Ellen Palmer in over a year and it was taking him a minute to process her image on the screen. His eyes were wide with surprise.

Christ, how had this guy ever become a soldier? Real soldiers process new intel instantly, no matter how surprising, otherwise you’re dead. Green-haired Martians could appear in front of him, and he’d have his weapon up and firing in a second.

Montez blinked, coming back to the here and now. “So what’s in there?”

“What’s in the Morrison Building? It’s a big complex. There are almost a hundred different companies in the building.” Piet clicked on the print function and paper scrolled out of the small laser printer on a console built into the bulkhead. He plucked the paper out of the printer and slid it across to Montez.

He hoped the guy wouldn’t have the smarts to ask the obvious question—which office did she come out of—because the answer was I don’t fucking know.

It made him angry that he hadn’t been able to crack the building’s internal security cameras. Someone really good with computer security had made the building’s system almost hack-proof. But nothing was completely hack-proof. When Piet got back home he was going to crack the system, on principle. In the meantime, though, he had fuckall.

“There are fifteen private investigation services, eight security companies specializing in various areas, most international, and a shitload of lawyer’s offices. Many of them specializing in criminal law.”

There, that would take Montez’s mind off wondering why Piet couldn’t hack his way into the building’s system.

Montez scrutinized the paper. His hand was firm but he was sweating. A drop of sweat trickled down from his forehead, over his temple and dripped down onto his white linen shirt. He ignored it.

“We’re going to get a ping when she accesses that bulletin board she set up with the dead bird. I’ll triangulate from there. But she’ll be in San Diego and I’m willing to bet good money, she’ll get back to whoever she was dealing with in the Morrison Building on Monday morning.”

The intercom came on and the pilot announced that they’d begun their descent into San Diego.

Piet sat and buckled his seat belt. He tapped his laptop screen before powering it down. “That’s our lead, right there. We’re going to stake out the Morrison Building during the day, sleep in a hotel across the street during the night, taking turns keeping watch. Sooner or later she’ll show up.”

Sunday

San Diego

Turned out nagging didn’t work, but tears did.

She started by dropping gentle hints, which Harry totally ignored. She even batted her eyelashes, to no avail. Harry stood firm, like a man.

But when Ellen teared up a little, Harry broke. The tears weren’t fake. She yearned to go for a walk in the sunshine so badly her heart ached. She drew the line at pouting but the tears were real.

It took most of Sunday morning, but she did it.