“Give me the number.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?” He gritted his teeth. “Give it to me.”
“I’ll give you the number, but I’ll only give it to you in person.”
“We’re wasting time—”
“I give it to you now, you’ll go after him on your own, and we’ll probably never see either one of you again. Meet me at Jen’s apartment. I’ll give it to you then.”
Lonnie had disconnected before Will could respond, and after he slammed his hands on the steering wheel several times, tears of anger, frustration, and fear filling his eyes, he slumped back in the seat for a minute. Lonnie was right. He had to be smart about this if he hoped to save Jen. If she wasn’t already dead—and he couldn’t accept that she was—then he had some time. Artie—and he was sure it was Artie now, Artie getting his revenge for Will’s role in capturing his father—had lured him to Indianapolis with the phone call. He would know it would take some time for him to find out the phone call was a fake and get back to town.
An hour later, he slid into Jen’s lot, threw the gearshift lever into PARK, and was out of the car before the engine had completely died. Two marked units sat next to Lonnie’s unmarked, along with Pat O’Neill’s van. As he opened the door to Jen’s building, he saw a uniformed officer exit the building across the street and head toward the one next to it. They were canvasing the neighbors to see if anyone had seen anything, but it was pointless. He knew who had taken Jen, and finding a neighbor who had seen it happen wasn’t going to save her.
“Give it to me.” He stepped through the door into Jen’s apartment, his hand extended.
Lonnie’s eyes widened slightly, but he didn’t argue. He handed the envelope to Will and stepped between him and the door. Will started to tell him to get out of the way, but he stopped. First, the note. He stared for a second, noting the gray fingerprint powder that surrounded his name on the front, then turned it over. The flap had been torn open.
“Pat checked it and the envelope for prints,” Lonnie said. “He got nothing, so he probably wore gloves. Note’s short and to the point.”
Will pulled out the folded piece of plain white paper smudged with the fingerprint powder. He felt a wave of nausea wash through him at the thought of Artie’s hands having held the sheet, but he fought it off and unfolded the note. Lonnie was right about it being to the point.
“Call the number below if you want to see Detective Dillon alive again. If I hear any voice but yours, she dies—slowly.”
“We haven’t been able to trace the number to anyone—no surprise. It’s bound to be a burner. We can put a trace on it, though, and when you call it—”
“No.” Will started for the door, but Lonnie sidestepped to block him.
“What do you mean, no? Who do you think you are, Anderson?” Lonnie’s face was turning a dangerous shade of red, and the part of Will’s mind that wasn’t focused on Jen wondered if he had high blood pressure. “She’s been ours a lot longer than she’s been yours.”
Will took a deep breath. It wasn’t going to do Jen any good if they wasted time fighting turf battles.
“I’m not saying you don’t care about Jen,” he said. “But a trace isn’t going to do any good. Say you narrow down the location he’s in when he answers my call. How long do you think he’s going to stay there? He’s probably going to run me all over creation making phone call after phone call and will probably have me under observation the whole time to make sure I’m not followed. If he sees cops showing up where he was when he answered the first call, that will be it for Jen. I’m not taking that chance. Artie wants me, and I’m going to give him what he wants.”
Before Lonnie could respond, Will continued.
“Brandon?”
“He’s okay,” Lonnie said. “The marked unit sent to get him got there just as the taxi he’d called pulled up. He’s scared, but he’s okay.”
Will closed his eyes for a second.
“Thank God,” he muttered. Then he remembered the old lady. “What about Jen’s neighbor?”
“She’s not okay,” Lonnie said. “Still alive, but last time I checked, she hadn’t regained consciousness. He hit her pretty hard. My guess is he intended to finish her off, and he probably would have, but…”
“Jen showed up,” Will finished for him.
“We think so.” Lonnie ran his fingers through his hair. “Look, Will, I get what you’re saying, but you know we have to have some way to know where you end up. We can put a tracker on your car—”
“Then do that,” Will said. “And you can use Find My Phone and Find My Friends—that is, until Artie tosses my phone. Don can get me something wearable from the Cincinnati office.”
He pulled out his cell phone and pressed Don’s number.
“I need a tracker,” he said as soon as Don answered. “Something I can wear that Artie won’t be likely to find. And I need it fast.”
“Way ahead of you,” Don said. “Lonnie told me what the note said. I’m on my way back from Cincy now with a couple of things you can use. Where do you want me to meet you?”
Will started to tell him to come to Jen’s apartment, but he stopped. Maybe he was being paranoid, but there was always the possibility that Artie had left a bug when he took Jen. Maybe he had heard everything Will had said.
“That’ll take too long,” he said. “I’ll just have to go with the car tracker and hope for the best. I’ll go to the station and get that and make my call from there.”
“Okay.” Don sounded puzzled, but he didn’t question it. “I’ll see you there.”
“It would be a couple of hours at best
