address.”
“Can you run just the name then? Leave the address blank. And extend the search to businesses.”
“One moment.” More time passed. I started biting my nails, my pulse quickening. Amanda smacked my arm and I tucked my hand into my pocket.
“Sir? I still have no such listing in Manhattan. Shall I try a different borough?”
“Are you positive?” I asked. “How did you spell the name?” She relayed it back to me, her spelling correct. Impossible. Grady Larkin lived in that building. I’d seen his name on the directory. He’d been quoted in the newspaper. Hanging up the phone, I turned to Amanda.
“What? What’s wrong?” she asked.
“The superintendent. There’s no record of him at that address.” I knew what had to be done. I said, “We need to find Grady Larkin.”
Amanda looked skeptical. “You think this rent thing has something to do with John Fredrickson?”
“Not directly, but I think it’s a thread that might tie into a larger spool. Something’s not right. Between the Guzmans lying about the drugs and this, Grady Larkin has to know something. He’d have records of payments, security deposits.”
“So tell me, Mr. Bernstein,” Amanda said. “How do we find Grady Larkin?”
There was only one thing we could do. One way to find out what was going on. One way to try and clear my name before the shadows caught up with us.
“New York,” I said solemnly. “I need to get back to New York.”
Amanda waited for the punch line, then realized there was none.
“Henry, that’s insane. You know how many cops are looking for you? All the train stations and bus terminals with your picture plastered everywhere, it’d be like dipping yourself in cow’s blood and hiding in the middle of a shark tank.”
“I don’t have a choice. It’s either that, jail or a grave.”
“You mean we don’t have a choice.”
“I don’t want you coming with me. You saved my life. I can’t ask anything else.”
“You don’t have to ask,” she said. “And I’m not even going to let you. I’m coming with you.”
Amanda said it with the kind of finality that let me know there was no changing her mind.
“Right now we have a slim advantage. Nobody knows where we are. The sharks are swimming in a completely different tank than us. But that won’t last long.” I took out the map. “Union Station. It’s a cab ride from here. If we can get on a train, we’ll be on our way back to New York before they even know we’re not in St. Louis. But the question is, once we get to New York, how do we keep from walking right into a phalanx of New York’s finest?”
Amanda put her arm around me and winked. “Henry, you clearly haven’t lived in the Big Apple very long. The whole trick to going unnoticed is by being even more noticeable.”
“I don’t follow.”
She took my arm, led me away from the pay phone. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go for a walk. I have seventy dollars, it should be enough for two one-way train tickets, with just a little left over for something special.”
28
Six hours and still nothing. There was no trace of Henry Parker. No sign of the Davies girl. It was like they’d vanished into thin air. The roadblocks had gone up, but not fast enough. They had no way of telling if Parker was still in St. Louis, had crossed state lines, or if he was hiding in a fucking shrubbery outside this very house.
His head was wracked with pain and guilt, and through it all agent Joseph Mauser could hear Linda’s voice.
You’re letting him go. The man who killed my husband. How does that feel, agent? How does it feel to know my family is smaller by one and you can’t do anything?
He and Len sat at a table in the Davies kitchen. They’d managed to reach Lawrence and Harriet Stein on their vacation in Santorini. Told them their daughter had been kidnapped. The Steins would be on the first flight back to the States, but had no idea where their daughter might be.
“Who are her friends?” Mauser had asked.
“Um…we’re really not sure.”
“Old classmates, boyfriends, someone she might contact for help?”
“Maybe my sister?” Lawrence Stein had suggested. “Or Harriet’s ex-husband maybe, I always thought Barry and Amanda were close.”
Clearly these two didn’t know their daughter very well. They couldn’t offer any names. They couldn’t name any friends she’d seen in the past year. They were about as helpful as asking a stranger on the street if he knew where Amanda Davies was. Linda would have been appalled. She took such pride in being a good mother, never understanding how awful some parents could be.
They’d discovered a trunk full of old notebooks in Amanda’s room, one of the strangest things Mauser had ever seen. Every one was filled with descriptions of people Amanda had met. They were being combed through for leads, but there were literally thousands of names to follow up on, and most of the entries were hopelessly dated.
Denton was drinking a bottle of water, tapping his finger against the dining room table. St. Louis PD had been coming in and out of the Stein house all night, still looking for forensic evidence that could provide a clue. Everything in Amanda’s room had been bagged and tagged. Joe only hoped the poor girl would live to sleep in her own bed again.
“What if Parker somehow crossed state lines?” Joe said, half to himself. “As much as I hate to do this, we might need to expand the search to adjacent cities.”
Denton looked at Joe. He seemed to know that Mauser had resigned himself to this. The last thing he wanted to do was allow local authorities to collar Parker before he could wrap his hands around that young neck, and squeeze. But the longer they waited, the greater chance he would be picked up on someone else’s terms. Or not at all.
“I know how bad you want him, Joe. We all do,” Denton said. Mauser nodded. He’d been awake for nearly forty-eight straight hours. His eyes were heavy. And he’d probably built up such a tolerance for caffeine that coffee had been rendered useless.
Joe reached into his pocket, took out his cell phone. With a heavy heart, he dialed the Department of Justice.
When the operator answered, Mauser asked to be connected to the DOJ’s Criminal Division. Ray Hernandez was an old friend. Guy worked around the clock. No family, no children, no life. Maybe that’s why they’d bonded.
“Department of Justice, Criminal Division. This is Hernandez.”
“Hey, Ray, how’s my favorite burrito bandit?”
A hearty laugh came from the other end.
“Joe, you alky fuck, how’s it going? Hey, I heard about your sister. Man, I’m so sorry, please give Lin my best. Are you close to catching this Parker dick?”
“We almost had him last night, but there was a pretty big snafu I won’t bore you with. Anyway, Ray, I need your help. I need you to run a search of all violent crimes in states including and adjacent to Missouri in the last six hours.”
“That’s a lot of crimes, my friend. Any chance you can narrow it down?”
Joe thought for a moment.
“Okay, limit the search to grand theft auto and armed robbery.”
“Gotcha. I’ll run a check in Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Illinois.”
“And cross-check the victims and criminals to see if they have homes or businesses in St. Louis or neighboring counties.”
