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My hand fisted on the back of Slate’s chair, and I suppressed the overwhelming urge to move for just a little longer. “Looks like a hatchback.”
“Yeah, maybe a Hyundai? Look at that symbol there.”
“That’s a fucking blur to me.” I bounced off the back of his chair, and he swiveled to look at me, a helpless expression on his face.
“Could it have anything to do with her roommate’s death?” I asked, but Slate began to shake his head before I could finish.
“I checked in with the cops already. They’ve got a suspect in custody as we speak, been there since last night. Some dude called Henry Lukacik. Balding, married fifty-year-old with kids.” I started pacing as Slate spoke, just to give my raging energy somewhere to go. “They’ve matched him with the pictures you found at Peyton’s apartment, and they’re going with my theory of a secret boyfriend. Only they seem to think Lukacik himself, and not his wife, is the murderer. Something about that Chloe girl being pregnant and blackmailing him with her pregnancy, or some shit.”
Both my hands found their way up to rake through my hair, and I growled. “That doesn’t make any fucking sense. What the fuck would he want with Peyton, if that’s the theory we’re going with?”
“Even if she was fucking him,” I immediately rounded on Slate, who raised his hands in defense. “I don’t think she was. Because even if she was somehow involved with him, he’s been in custody since last night. It’s gotta be someone else.”
I paused mid-step, a sudden thought occurring to me. “Zachary.”
Slate’s eyes widened. “Oh shit, that college friend of hers we all told you not to worry about?”
I squeezed my eyes shut. I’m so fucking stupid, why didn’t I think of him earlier? “She just fucking messaged me about him again this morning. Fuck.”
Immediately, Slate’s chair swiveled back to his computer, and he started clacking away on the keyboard, muttering, “Zachary, twenties, Hyundai. Great, so much to work with…”
“Can you enlarge the video footage, make it clearer so we can see a face?” I asked.
Slate let out a snort of derision, “This ain’t CSI or some shit where I wave a magic wand and you can count his fucking zits. That pixelated image is the best we’re gonna get.”
I reached into my back pocket and threw Peyton’s phone down on the table before him. “Isn’t there something on here that can help you?”
“Well…” He grabbed the phone and plugged a cord into it, but his expression didn’t look hopeful as he turned back towards his screens. “I’ll have a look, but since the messages had been patched through a VPN, they…”
I stopped listening and started pacing again instead.
Five minutes later, I was fairly sure I was going to lose my fucking mind.
“Okay, okay, I have some…medium news.”
“Lay it on me.” I was immediately by his side and staring at all the bullshit on his screens as if they meant anything to me.
“There are twenty-eight Hyundais registered to assorted Zacharys in the city.”
“Text me a list,” I said, immediately grabbing at my keys and striding for the door. “I’ll search them one by one.”
“Jesus, hold on a second!” He threw me an incredulous look and gestured at his desktops. “I can do better than that, thank you. Damn.” I released the door handle and turned back to him. “I’ve hacked into the traffic cameras around you and checked the video footage at the time Peyton was taken. I think I’ve found a match for his car. Possibly. Dark blue Hyundai that crossed a red light a couple of streets from you, driving away from your direction. You can see a male driver wearing a cap, same coloring as the guy at your door, but no passenger. She could be laid out in the back, though. Or in the trunk.”
I clenched my fist at the thought and stalked back over to try and memorize the car on the screen, tapping its registration plates into my phone. “Can you cross-reference the vehicle to your list? Get an address on him?”
There was a furious tapping as Slate started entering the details on his laptop, while keeping one eye on the PC screens, “Will do—damn it!”
“What?” I asked.
“He’s gone. Tracked him until he disappeared on the interstate. I’m hacking into highway cameras now, but so far, nothing.”
“Shit. What does that mean?” My heart pounded inside my chest, so loud that I could hardly hear the world around me, and so hard that it was difficult to breathe.
“It means that it’s likely he took one of the hundreds of off-road exits, unmarked or private roads from here to the California border.”
I nodded, and gave Slate a long, hard look. “Thanks, brother. I’m heading towards the interstate now.”
“Wait, but I haven’t—”
