Then she took out the Toyota burner and showed them the Telegram messages. “He calls himself Circuit Rider,” she said. “I think the Toyota is actually his, not Scott Enderby’s, which is why I found that weird registration history. The owner of record appears to be dead. Which means Circuit Rider’s been hiding his ownership for years. This thing has been brewing for a long time. And now he’s driving Enderby’s car, a Rivian electric SUV. Which is why he got away from us so fast last night. Those new electrics accelerate a lot faster than a regular car.”
“We should tell Durant,” Peter said. “Maybe he’ll put it on the radio and the cops will start looking.”
“About that.” June gave him a look. “If we tell Durant what we know and how we know it, you’re in even more trouble.”
“Don’t have to be that way,” Lewis said. “We say the guy came after us and we ran him off, got his plate that way. Turns out to be the dead guy’s.”
“What about the Telegram messages,” June asked.
Lewis shrugged. “Dumb motherfucker dropped the phone when he was running away. You picked it up and saw his messages. Now you doin’ your duty as a citizen, keeping Durant in the loop.”
“You’re disturbingly good at this,” Peter said.
Lewis smiled that tilted smile. “Life of crime, you pick up some skills.”
June pointed her fork at them. “You guys are missing the point. We have the address on the Toyota’s registration. We can go there and look around, see what we can find. Maybe track down the owner or leasing agent, see if they remember something.”
“If Circuit Rider even had a real connection to that address at all,” Peter said. “Maybe he just used it as a drop, stopping in to ask thereceptionist if any mail had come for him. Anyway, Durant said it’s vacant, remember?”
“Don’t be Mister El Negativo,” June said. “Maybe Circuit Rider’s got a key. Maybe it’s their secret clubhouse or something. We won’t know until we go down there.”
Lewis held out his coffee mug. “You still the brains of the outfit.”
“Damn right.” She clinked his cup. “And there’s more.” She held out the phone so they could see the open app. “We can message this Circuit Rider asshole on Telegram.”
Peter looked at her. “If he hasn’t pitched his phone already. Anyway, what would we say?”
“Aside from cursing him out?” She frowned. “I don’t know yet. I’m working on it.”
Peter’s breakfast burrito arrived, along with Lewis’s Greek scramble and June’s strata.
They dug in. “Why don’t we divide and conquer,” Peter said, his fingers greasy with chorizo. “I’ll call Durant and go down to Tacoma, check out that address. You and Lewis track down those people KT interviewed, see what they know.”
“That was my thinking.” June looked at Lewis. “We’ll need another ride.”
Lewis gave her a tilted smile. “Already got one. Made a call last night. Should be parked down the block.”
Peter shook his head in mock disgust. “See, now you’re just showing off.”
36
Peter dropped June and Lewis at the other car, a used white Lexus SUV that looked like a tank, then headed south in the Tahoe toward Tacoma to find the address where Enderby’s Toyota was registered. They’d lingered over breakfast, and the mid-afternoon traffic was unusually heavy.
Although he’d just seen Ellie at dinner the night before, he’d promised to call her every day, so while traffic crept along, he pulled out his burner and called the phone he’d given Manny. If Peter ended up getting charged with kidnapping a minor or whatever else Durant could come up with, there was no reason to implicate his friend by calling his personal cell.
Manny answered on the second ring and quickly put Ellie on the line. “Why does he call you Ashes?”
“Long story,” he said. “How’d you sleep?”
“Okay, I guess? I dreamed about my mom.”
“A good dream or a bad one?”
“It wasn’t about, you know, the motel, if that’s what you mean. We were sitting at our kitchen table, eating pizza. A normal night.” She sniffled. “Just thinking about her makes me want to cry.”
“It’s okay to cry,” Peter said gently. “Part of the process.”
“I still can’t quite believe she’s really gone. It’s like the world changed completely in two minutes. And then I’ll start playing with the twins and forget for like an hour. How can I forget my mom is dead? What’s wrong with me?”
