“And the locals?” Fletcher asked.
“I’ll contact Evelyn to let them know the Bureau has taken control of the case. She’ll be able to handle any fallout from the locals.”
“What about Sanchez, have you heard from him?” Garcia asked.
“No, but we can’t wait. We have another life at stake.”
Fletcher and Garcia walked the neighborhood where they thought Miranda was located. The house looked exactly like it did in the painting. It was a four-story, Victorian-style home that had seen better days. The white paint was faded and peeling; the driveway and walk were cracked.
From the information Charlie and Sanchez gave them, the apartment was located in the backside of the house. A second apartment on the fourth floor faced the front. Fletcher was in front of the mansion, down on 1st Street, snapping pictures with a telephoto lens. He was able to shoot the front and sides of the building, but not the back. That was Garcia’s job.
The entire downtown area of Davenport was built on a huge hill. Everything ran down toward the Mississippi River. Garcia used the terrain to his advantage and found a perch four blocks north on the roof of an apartment complex on Harrington Street. Accessing these old buildings was easy, and he was able to get to the roof discreetly. The “golden days” had never planned for an FBI sniper.
From there, he lay prone on the edge of the roof and using a camera zeroed in the focus until he was able to see the target clearly. The back of the house was four stories boasting absolutely no ledges, balconies, or any other helpful architectural add-ons. He spotted three windows—one in the kitchen and two in the only other room: a bedroom / den combination.
He noticed a light coming from the den.
Using a high-powered zoom lens, he snapped photos of the house and its surroundings. Two hours after their reconnaissance began, the boys were back at the hotel.
While they had been away, Sin had been busy on the phone. She was able to gather some additional intel from Evelyn and found out that Sanchez was on his way to the Quad Cities. Sin wasn’t happy about Sanchez coming, but she understood his wanting to see this case all the way to a close. She relayed a message telling him where they were staying.
Most of her time was spent trying to reach Charlie, but she had no luck. His phone just went straight to voicemail; a fact that bothered her down to her core.
She had a bad feeling about Charlie since he hung up the phone during their conference call. It wasn’t like him to just hang up, especially when discussing a case that was so important to him. After the conference broke up, she had Evelyn try to trace where the call had originated. The information she just received from Evelyn made her feeling go from bad to worse.
According to Charlie’s itinerary, he should have left Africa and been in New Zealand for the last stop, but the information Evelyn received said the call came from Sweden. That made no sense to Sin. The one thing about Charlie was that he was a stickler for plans. Once made, he didn’t break them unless there was an emergency. Being his conspiratorial self, Sin figured he had either bounced his cell off a few satellites, or he had been in Sweden the entire time. If the latter, why?
While she was pondering that point, there was a knock on her hotel room door.
“You have a key. Use it,” she yelled.
“We brought food,” Garcia said, holding up the bag.
“We knew you wouldn’t take the time to eat,” Fletcher added. “You can’t live on coffee.”
Raul Sanchez entered the room right behind them. “She can if it’s Cuban coffee.”
“You’re light on your feet for a big man,” Fletcher said.
“Yeah, well, I’m feeling a bit lighter than usual so I hope there’s enough food in that bag for one more.”
“Hell, there’s enough food in here for a damn army,” Sin said as she laid all the fixings on a small table in the corner of the room.
Sanchez walked over and sniffed the air. “I see you’ve been to Aunt Millie’s.”
Looking at the nondescript paper bags the food was carried in, Garcia was stunned. “How the hell did you know that?”
“The smell. Wait until you taste it,” Sanchez said. “Once you’ve eaten at Millie’s, you will never forget it.”
His words made them salivate and soon they had doled out four heaping plates of home-styled comfort food.
After one bite, Sin’s expression soured as she swallowed. “This shit is terrible.”
Sanchez, who hadn’t taken a bite, watched the others and laughed so hard he had to put his fork down. “I told you that you would never forget it; I did not say it was good.”
“Damn,” Garcia said, “that’s just plain mean.”
Sanchez stood and grabbed his keys. “Come on, and I will take you to a place on the river. A local hangout with great food. We can continue this meeting there.”
Sin wiped her mouth with a napkin. “It better be good, or your final resting place will be that river.”
61
The four sat around a small metal table in an out-of-the-way dive called The Library and stared at the menus that were just a sheet of copy paper. There were only four choices on the menu—breakfast, lunch, dinner, and special.
“Get the special,” Sanchez said.
The other three eyed each other carefully before slowly putting the paper down, wondering if they were about to be played for fools again.
An attractive middle-aged woman with a stern expression came to the table. She didn’t say a word, just stood quietly and stared at Sanchez.
“Four specials and four Cuban coffees,” Sanchez said.
The corner of the woman’s full lips turned upward ever so slightly, and she walked back to the kitchen.
“Cuban coffee?” Sin asked.
“Some of the best you will ever taste west of Miami,” Sanchez said. “That was Trudy who took our order. She was a lot younger the last time
