And now he was waiting for that report. He was holding his phone in his hand when it beeped. “Talk to me.”
“I’m here, but I don’t think she is.”
Roland’s blood pressure rocketed. “What about a car?”
“None out front. Hers could be in the garage, but the door is down, so I can’t be sure. The house is completely dark.”
“At this time of night, wouldn’t it be?”
“Yes, but there’s mail in the box, plus a UPS package on her front porch. Wouldn’t she have taken that inside if she were here?”
She hadn’t gone home. She’d never even gotten into the fucking car! She had lied to him.
“Sir? Do you want me to keep watching the house? It’s on a cul de sac. I’m afraid staying might arouse the suspicion of neighbors, and it’s only a few hours before I have to be at work. What do you want me to do?”
Roland thought for a moment, then gave the mole another assignment with explicit instructions. “Can you do that?”
“It won’t be easy.”
“I didn’t say it would be easy,” he growled. “I asked if you could manage it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Then report for your shift. This didn’t happen. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You breathe Dylan Reede’s name in connection to mine, I’ll cut out your tongue. Focus on Haskell. Anything regarding him, I want to hear about immediately. Got it?”
“Ten four.”
Roland disconnected but remained sitting on the edge ofthe bed, rotating his signet ring, literally gnashing his teeth as he ruminated over this unexpected turn.
Tonight, his confidante and a homeless man had vanished at approximately the same time from outside his restaurant. The homeless man had the aggressiveness, agility, and speed of a cagey ex-fed who had, just this week, begun seeing Dylan for therapy. What are the chances?
That was a niggle with the magnitude of a quake that his mother had warned him about.
Roland opened his nightstand drawer and took out his spare rosary.
Chapter 25
Mitch didn’t think he could sleep, but he must have. When the burner phone rang, it woke him up from a bad dream. Andrew was lost, he could hear him crying, “Daddy, Daddy,” but couldn’t find him.
He was lying on his back, holding the phone on his chest so he wouldn’t miss a call from either Tucker or Clarence. He answered on the second ring. “Here.”
“Hi, Mitch, it’s me.”
Clarence. Earlier, he’d called in a favor of the young cop. Clarence had been happy to oblige when Mitch had asked him to stake out a house. “It’ll give you a chance to brush up on your surveillance skills.”
“Sure. When?”
“As soon as you can get there, and I’d like you to stay until sunrise.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“I’ll pay your overtime rate, but out of my own pocket, sodon’t turn in the hours. And take your own car, not a squad car.”
“Okay.”
