“Are we getting shut down or something?”
“We might have been close to that a week ago,” I said. “I guess that’s why we pushed the gun case so hard. But there was a cost. I left you on an island by yourself.”
“Where are you?” Richie asked, and my eyes moved to the meter in the cab, which read $22.50.
“Lucas Beach,” I said.
“He’s from there,” Richie replied. “El Médico.”
Inside the cab, I sat up straight. “What?”
Again Richie cut out.
“Richie?” I said, looking around. Down one street, I saw no power on.
“Remember Dog?” Richie said then, his voice coming back in. “He was getting drugs supplied to him. Unusual stuff, Gardner. I asked his cousin where Dog got his junk from. He said a guy from some beach town just north of Daytona stole the drugs. Resold them to Dog, who cut them up. Put ’em on the street.”
I swallowed. Clearly no one had told Richie yet thathehad been injected with those same drugs. Sleep Cut, as Frank’s source in Shilo vice had called it.
“I think Dog’s cousin called El Médico, Gardner,” Richie said. “Two days ago. Led him right to me. I was working at the hotel, and I told the cousin where he could reach me. Rookie fuckin’ move.”
“Did you tell Poulton this?” I asked.
“No,” he said.
“Don’t.”
Richie exhaled loudly. “My point is—you didn’t leave me on an island, Gardner. I screwed up. You can act nice and all… act like I didn’t, but… it’s not your style.”
Richie was right. It wasn’t my style. But he was wrong about the assumption that went along with this. That I didn’t make the kind of mistakes he had.
“I left Frank last year, and he almost got killed,” I said. “I turned my wife in to the police nine years ago. I say things to Craig Poulton I should never say to anyone. And you know what?”
“What?”
“The way my mind works—I remember every single detail about those mistakes.”
He went silent for a moment, and I did not fill the space.
“Cassie is close,” Richie said finally. “She’s tracked phone numbers and narrowed it down to the same place you’re headed.”
My mind felt thick and dull. I was exhausted. “The project with the stingray?”
“I heard Frank and Poulton talking,” Richie said. “They said 386. After they left, I asked a nurse to look it up on her phone. It’s the area code for Lucas Beach.”
This was why Frank had flown to Jacksonville. The team must’ve had a bead on El Médico. But night had come, and they needed to put in a request with the specific phone carrier to ID a device. That took legal paperwork. The kind that had to be done during working hours, even if you were the FBI.
“Richie,” I said. “Did you or Jo make any other time estimates as to how long this guy holds his victims?”
“No,” he said. “But the ME found no signs of dehydration. We thought it was a day. Why?”
“Amber Isiah,” I said. “She’s been gone almost twenty-four hours. With Natalie Kastner murdered—”
“He’s tying up loose ends,” Richie finished my thought. “You think he takes them to Lucas Beach?”
“Maybe,” I said.
Then the phone went dead.
