The man’s nervous gaze indicated the glove compartment.
Buchanan opened it and found a Smith amp; Wesson.357 Magnum revolver. “So where are the others?”
“I don’t
“Maybe, Frank. I’ll soon find out. But if you’re lying, I’ll blow off your right kneecap. You’ll be a cripple for the rest of your life, which might be a whole lot shorter than you’d hoped. Turn into this convenience store. Swing around. Go back the way we came.”
“Listen, I don’t know what this is about, but I’ll give you all the money I have, and-”
“Spare me the line, Frank. Careful. I told you, both hands on the steering wheel.” Buchanan cocked his pistol and shoved it harder against Frank’s ribs.
“Come on, man! If I hit a bump, that thing might go off.”
“Then don’t hit a bump,” Buchanan said. “What are you? Official or private?”
“I don’t know what you-”
“Who do you work for?”
“I don’t work for anybody.”
“Right, Frank. You just decided to amuse yourself by following me.”
“I wasn’t following you. I’ve never seen you before.”
“Of course, Frank. We’re just two strangers who bumped into each other and happen to be carrying guns. A coincidence. A sign of the times.” Buchanan studied him. “You’re not a cop. If you were, you’d have been covered by a backup team. You could be with the mob, but an Oilers jacket and a Jeep Cherokee aren’t exactly their style. What are you?”
No answer.
“Frank, I’m getting bored talking to myself. If I find a PI license on you, I’ll shoot
“All right, all right.” Sweat beaded Frank’s trembling upper lip. “I’m a PI.”
“Finally, we’re getting to know each other. Tell me, Frank. Where’d you get your training? Come on. Keep up the conversation. Your training. Where did you-?”
“I learned on the job.”
“That’s what it looks like. On the job and from movies. Here’s a tip. When there isn’t much traffic, follow your target from one block over. Stay parallel to him. If you keep the same speed, you’ll see him at every intersection. But the odds are, he won’t notice you. Only when you
The phone rang.
“No, Frank. Keep your hands on the steering wheel.”
The phone rang a second time.
“Whoever it is can wait to talk to you,” Buchanan said. “In fact, why don’t we talk to him in person? Let’s go back to Castle Hills.”
10
On his tilted mattress in the rear of the van, Duncan Bradley kept watch on the television screen that showed the magnified area in front of the Mendez house two blocks away. Simultaneously he listened to his earphones, although the audio transmissions from the target area had stopped thirty minutes ago, shortly after the man who called himself Jeff Walker had been forced from the Mendez house. The wife had argued with the husband about what he had done, about how the stranger might have been able to help find their daughter. The husband had told her to shut up, that the stranger was obviously no different from the other imposters who had asked about Juana. They’d gone to bed in sullen silence.
While he listened, Duncan kept trying to telephone his partner. Twice now, he’d let the phone ring ten times before canceling the attempted call. Tucker’s failure to answer troubled him. Granted, there might be a reasonable, nonthreatening explanation. Tucker might have followed Jeff Walker into a hotel, for example. But Duncan’s unease prompted him to pick up the cellular phone yet again and press the button that would automatically dial Tucker’s number.
He never had a chance to press the number, however, because movement attracted his gaze toward the second television and green-tinted night-vision images of what was going on behind the van. The movement he’d seen was Tucker’s Jeep Cherokee stopping behind him. The Jeep’s headlights went off. Duncan exhaled. Something must have gone wrong with Tucker’s car phone. That was why he’d come back to tell him in person what he’d learned about Jeff Walker.
As the monitor showed Tucker getting out of his Jeep and approaching the rear door of the van, Duncan raised himself off the mattress, crawled on his hands and knees toward the back, heard Tucker’s knock, and opened the door.
“What happened to your phone? I’ve been trying to-” Duncan’s throat clamped shut. His mouth hung open in stunned surprise as he saw a man next to Tucker. The man must have been hiding in the Jeep. The man was Jeff Walker.
The man had a gun.
Oh, shit, Duncan thought.
11
The persistent ringing of the doorbell made Pedro Mendez angry.
For a lot of reasons. Worry about his daughter, confusion about Jeff Walker, and apprehension about the microphone in the bathroom’s light-switch socket had made him so restless that it seemed he would never get to sleep. What was Jeff Walker going to tell him when they met at the garage tomorrow morning? Tense, Pedro had squirmed beneath the covers until at last, impossibly, mercifully, he’d somehow managed to doze, and now somebody was pushing that damned doorbell.
“Anita, stay in bed,” he ordered as he fumbled to his feet, put on a bathrobe and slippers, grabbed a baseball bat from the closet, and stormed downstairs. Through the front door’s window, he saw the shadow of a man on the murky porch. By God, if this was someone else looking for his daughter, Pedro intended to make very sure that the man explained what was going on.
But when Pedro turned on the porch light, his determination wavered when he saw that the man was Jeff Walker, who gestured impatiently for Pedro to unlock and open the door.
Pedro obeyed to a certain extent, making sure that when he inched the door open, he didn’t release the security chain. “What do you-?”
“Hurry. I have to show you something.” Jeff Walker pointed urgently toward the street.
Staring past him toward the darkness, Pedro noticed a small van at the curb. “What are you doing here at-?”
“Please,” Jeff Walker said. “It’s about Juana. It’s important.”
Pedro hesitated-but only for a moment. There was something about Jeff Walker that insisted on being trusted. Compelled, Pedro stifled his misgivings and opened the door.
Jeff Walker was already off the porch, moving quickly toward the van.
Pedro ran to catch up to him. “What do you want to show me? Whose van is-?”
For the third time, Pedro was interrupted, this time because Jeff Walker opened the back of the van and turned on a flashlight.
Two men-naked, their hands tied behind them by their shirt sleeves, their ankles tied by their pant legs, their
