“I mean the usual for someone who knows how to have a good time. You were automatically exempted.”
“Good to know.” He looked over at her. “You’re being very quiet, Alice.”
“I have to go to the ladies’ room,” Allie said.
Dwight chuckled. “Sounds like one of your plans, Reese. Full of piss and shit.”
Reese ignored his partner and said to her, “So go.”
She looked over at Dwight, expecting him to protest, but he only shrugged back at her. “What, you want me to hold your hand while you do your business?”
“If you insist.”
“Ask nicely, and I might think about it.”
“Maybe next time,” she said, and pushed off the car and began walking away.
“Promises, promises,” Dwight said after her.
She could feel eyes on her — maybe Reese’s, maybe Dwight’s, maybe both of them. She kept moving, forcing her legs to stride at a normal pace — one after another after another. Every part of her being wanted to pick up her speed; after that, it wouldn’t be difficult to transition into a jog before finally slipping into a fast run toward the bright lights.
“Alice,” Reese called from behind her.
She stopped and looked back at him.
“Grab me an extra bottle of water, would you?” he said.
“Anything else, master?”
He smiled. “No, that’ll do for now. Thanks much.”
“What about you?” she asked Dwight.
“Another Red Bull wouldn’t hurt,” Dwight said.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
She turned around and resumed walking toward the lights.
Keep walking, girl. That’s it. You’re doing fine. Now just pretend like your insides aren’t so twisted into knots that you can barely breathe and you’re either about to save twenty-three little girls or get them all killed, along with yourself in the process.
Yeah, no pressure.
Ten
“Allie Krycek,” Jane said over the phone. “That’s how you spell her last name? K-r-y-c-e-k?”
“That’s what the kid says,” Hank said.
He did his best to keep the phone as close to his ear as possible without actually letting the device touch him. There were things — sticky, discolored things — smeared on the receiver that Hank would rather not think about, much less let come into contact with his skin. It wasn’t as if he was afraid of ruining his looks — hell, he was beyond that these days — but he wasn’t stupid, either.
If the motel manager noticed how carefully Hank was being with the phone, he didn’t show it, or care. Of course, getting a ten-dollar spot to use a landline that was covered in God only knew what was probably the best deal he’d made while manning the motel.
“Then I don’t have a lot on her,” Jane said.
“How’s that possible?” Hank asked.
“I looked, lieutenant. I ran her name through every database we’re connected to, and she comes out pretty clean.”
“No criminal records?”
“Not a one.”
“Military service?”
“Unless she changed her name, then nothing there, either. Did she change her name?”
“The kid says no.”
“Maybe she lied.”
“Maybe. I’ve just barely met her, so I don’t know what she’s capable of yet.”
There were voices on the other side of the connection, doors constantly opening and closing, and a general buzz of activity that never seemed to ebb for even a second. All those things told him that Jane was back in the office and not out there running the roadblocks. Which made sense. Jane was a detective now, not a uniformed trooper. She’d be more valuable coordinating the action from headquarters.
That feeling of pride bubbled to the surface again, and Hank smiled dumbly across at the manager, who gave him a weird look before returning his attention to the game show playing on a TV in the corner of the room.
“So what did you manage to dig up on her?” he said into the phone.
“There is something odd about her records,” Jane said.
“Odd how?”
“She shows up from the time she was born to when she moves out to southern California for school, followed by graduation. After that, there’s a lot of temp work and some waitressing gigs. A few more stable ones every now and then, but they never last. Her tax returns indicate she kept changing jobs. Either she had a really rough time holding onto them, or she was only taking jobs where she could leave at a moment’s notice. You know what the pattern suggests to me?”
“What’s that?”
“That she’s an actor or a singer.”
“The Allie Krycek the kid’s telling me about isn’t an actor or a singer.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what I’m seeing here. Entertainer types. They do temp jobs where they can leave to go on auditions or take work as the opportunity comes up.”
“Okay, so this is all after graduation?”
“Uh huh.”
“That happens,” he said. “Kids don’t know what to do even with a pigskin. They sometimes wander around looking for themselves or some other abstract shit.”
“I would agree with that assessment, except about five years ago the woman pretty much vanishes.”
“How does someone just vanish?”
“Good question. The IRS seemed to lose track of her and there are no more city, state, or government records of her anywhere. It’s as if someone just took a magic eraser and wiped everything away that has to do with Allie Krycek, starting five years ago.”
“We’re kind of independently wealthy,” Lucy had told him. “Well, Allie is, anyway. We don’t need the money.” And when he asked how wealthy, the girl had answered, “Enough that we can get information we’re not supposed to have.”
Hank wondered if being “independently wealthy” meant Allie Krycek could hire the same people who got her information she wasn’t supposed to have to also erase information she didn’t want others to find on her.
Must be nice to have cash lying around.
“Lieutenant, you still there?” Jane asked.
“I’m here.”
“That’s all I have on Krycek. Sorry.”
“Did she have a sister?”
“She did, but she passed.”
“So it’s not Lucy?”
“You said Lucy was sixteen?”
“That’s what she told me.”
“Well, does she look sixteen?”
Hank thought about it, then said, “I think so, yeah.”
“Then she’s not the sister. The girl I’m looking at died over a decade ago, when she was nineteen. Her story’s all on paper.”
“What did you find on her?”
“Her name was Carmen, and she was abducted while on a cross-country road trip by someone called the Roadside Killer. Ever heard of him?”
“No. Should I have?”
“Not really. He did most of his work up north, never got close to us. Some national news coverage, but nothing that stuck. You know how it goes. Anyway, he killed the little sister and a few others.”
“How is Krycek involved?”
“I don’t think she was. Or, at least, I don’t see any involvement by her in any of the files. I guess you could call the states where this happened and ask them. I don’t have time to do that right now, Hank.”
“Maybe I’ll do that later.” He let the information roll around in his head for a moment before saying into the phone, “What about the kid? Lucy?”
“There is no Lucy Krycek. Are you sure her last name’s Krycek?”
“No.”
“So you don’t know.”
“She never told me her last name.”
“I can’t really do much with just a first name, Hank. You know that. Can you at least get me a picture of her? I could run that through the system.”