“I started looking for a way out. The only windows that weren’t boarded up were on the top floor. I couldn’t just break one and climb out. I started looking for a door. They were locked or nailed shut.”
Screwed shut, actually, Shaw recalled. Recently. He told them that he too had looked and found only one open — in the front.
“Didn’t get that far.” She swallowed. “I heard the gunshots and... Kyle...” She sobbed quietly. Her father approached and put his arm around her and she cried against his chest for a moment.
Shaw explained to him how Sophie had made a trap from the fishing line and had used another piece to tie it to her jacket and made it move back and forth so there’d be a shadow on the floor. To lure the kidnapper closer. And nail him with an oil drum.
Mulliner was wide-eyed. “Really?”
In a soft voice she said, “I was going to kill you... him. Stab him. But I just panicked and ran. I’m sorry if you got hurt.”
“I should’ve figured it out,” Shaw said. “I knew you’d be a fighter.”
At this she smiled.
Shaw asked, “Did he touch you?”
Her father stirred, but this was a question that needed to be asked.
“I don’t think so. All he took off was my shoes and socks. My windbreaker was still zipped up. Your handwriting’s really small. Why don’t you just write on a computer or tablet? It’d be faster.”
Shaw answered the young woman. “When you write something by hand, slowly, you own the words. You type them, less so. You read them, even less. And you listen, hardly at all.”
The idea seemed to intrigue her.
“Anybody at the Quick Byte try to pick you up recently?”
“Guys flirt, you know. Ask, ‘Oh, what’re you reading?’ Or ‘How’re the tamales?’ What guys always do. Nobody weird.”
“This was in the Quick Byte.” On his phone Shaw displayed a photo of the sheet that had been left in place of her MISSING poster. The stenciled image of the eerie face, the hat, the tie. “There was also a version on the outside wall of the room where you were held.”
“I don’t remember it. The place was so dark. It’s creepy.”
“Does it mean anything to either of you?”
They both said it did not. Mulliner asked, “What’s it supposed to be?”
“I don’t know.” He’d searched for images of men’s faces in hats and ties. Nothing close to this showed up.
“Detective Standish didn’t ask you about it?”
“No,” Sophie said. “I would have remembered.”
A ringtone sounded from inside her robe pocket. It was the default. She hadn’t had time to change it on her new phone. The old was in Evidence and would probably die a silent death there. She looked at the screen and answered. “Mom?”
She glanced toward Shaw, who said, “I have enough for now, Fee.”
Sophie embraced him and whispered, “Thank you, thank you...” The young woman shivered briefly and, with a deep inhalation, walked away, lifting the phone. “Mom.” She picked up the glass of orange juice in her other hand and walked back to her room, Luka following. “I’m fine, really... He’s being great...”
The corner of Mulliner’s mouth twitched. He glanced at Shaw’s naked ring finger. “You married?”
“No. Never.” And, as happened occasionally when the topic was tapped, images of Margot Keller’s long, Greek goddess face appeared, framed by soft dark blond curls. In this particular slideshow she was looking up from a map of an archaeological dig. A map that Shaw himself had drawn.
Then Mulliner was offering an envelope to him. “Here.”
Shaw didn’t take it. “Sometimes I work out payment arrangements. No interest.”
“Well...” Mulliner looked down at the envelope. His face was red.
Shaw said, “A thousand a month for ten months. Can you swing that?”
“I will. Whatever it takes. I will.”
Shaw made this arrangement with some frequency and it drove business manager Velma Bruin to distraction. She’d delivered many variations on the theme: “You do the job, Colt. You deserve the money when it’s due.”
Velma was right, but there was nothing wrong with flexibility. And that was particularly true on this job. He’d gotten the lesson about the financial stresses of Silicon Valley.
The Land of Promise, where so very many people struggled.
27
Halfway to Henry Thompson’s address, Colter Shaw noted that his pursuer was back. Maybe.
He’d twice seen a car behind him making the same turns he’d made. A gray sedan, like the one outside Salvadoran coffee heaven. The grille logo was indiscernible six or seven car lengths back. Nissan? Maybe, maybe not.
He believed, to his surprise, that the driver was a woman.
Shaw had been keeping an eye on the car when the driver blew through a red light to make a turn in his direction. He caught a glimpse of a silhouette through the driver’s-side window. He saw again the short stature and frizzy hair tied in a ponytail. Not exclusive to women, of course, but more likely F than M.
You wouldn’t think a woman would do that to another woman. I guess we can be as messed up as a man...
Shaw made two unnecessary turns and the gray car followed.
Eyeing the street, the asphalt surface, measuring angles, distances, turning radii.
Now...
He slammed on the brake and skidded one hundred and eighty degrees, to face the pursuer. He earned a middle finger or two and at least a half dozen horns blared.
A new sound joined the salute.
The bleep of a siren. Shaw hadn’t noticed that he’d U-turned directly in front of an unmarked Chrysler.
A sigh. He pulled over and readied license and rental contract.
A stocky Latino in a green uniform walked up to him.
“Sir.”
“Officer.” Handing over the paperwork.
“That was a very unsafe thing you did.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
The cop — his name was P. ALVAREZ — wandered back to his car and dropped into the front seat to run the info. Shaw was looking at the space where the gray car had been and was no longer. At least he’d confirmed that it was the same vehicle as at the Salvadoran restaurant — a Nissan Altima, the same year, with the same dings and scrapes. He hadn’t caught the license tag.
The man returned to the driver’s window and gave Shaw back the documents.
“Why’d you do that, sir?”
“I thought somebody was following me. Was worried about a carjacker. I heard they go after rental cars.”
Alvarez said slowly, “Which is why rental cars don’t have any markings to indicate they’re rental cars.”
“That right?”
“You troubled by something, call nine-one-one. That’s what we’re here for. You’re from out of town. You have business here?”
A nod. “Yep.”
Alvarez seemed to ponder. “All right. You’re lucky. It’s my court day and I don’t have time to write this up. But let’s not do anything stupid again.”
“I won’t, Officer.”
“Be on your way.”
Shaw restowed the papers and started the engine, driving to the intersection where he’d last seen the Nissan. He turned left, in the direction where she would logically have escaped. And, of course, found no trace.
He returned to the GPS route and in fifteen minutes was at the complex where Henry Thompson shared a condo with his partner, Brian Byrd. A police car, unmarked, sat in front of the building. Unlike with Sophie’s kidnapping, the Task Force, or whoever was running the disappearance, would know for certain that Henry Thompson had been kidnapped, having found the man’s damaged car. The officer — maybe the elusive Detective Standish — would be with Byrd, waiting for the ransom demand that Shaw knew would never come.