Blue Gold (NUMA Files 2)

She suddenly had the odd feeling that she wasn’t alone.

She turned from the door and stared with unbelieving eyes, frozen with fear.

The man with the metallic teeth was standing in her way. Impossible. He was out in the hall. Then the answer came to her in a flash.

Twins.

The epiphany came too late. As she backed against the door he began to walk slowly toward her, his eyes glittering like black pearls.

• • •

Cohen sounded frantic on the phone.

“Joe, for Godsakes, I’ve been trying to reach you for an hour!”

“Sorry, I was out,” Zavala apologized. “What’s wrong?”

“Sandy’s disappeared. The bastards have got her.”

“Calm down for a minute,” Zavala said evenly. “Tell me who Sandy is and these bastards you’re talking about. Start from the beginning.”

“Okay, okay,” Cohen replied. There was a pause as he pulled himself together, and when he spoke again it was with his normal composure, although it was clear from the tenseness of his voice that panic lurked close to the surface.

“I went back to the paper. I just had a funny feeling. All our source material is missing. We kept it in a locked file. Empty.”

“Who had access?”

“Just the members of the team. They’re all solid. The only way someone could get them to open the files is if they had a gun at their head. Oh, God,” Cohen said as the implication of his statement sank in.

Zavala could sense that he was losing Cohen.

“Tell me what happened next,” he said.

Cohen took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay. Sorry. Next I checked the computer disks. Nothing. You needed a password to get into them. Everybody on the team was aware of it. We backed everything up at the end of each working day. We took turns. Sandy Wheeler, one of the reporters, took the disks home with her today. I got a message saying some guy was following her. She was in a parking lot near her condo. We were supposed to have dinner tonight, go over some material for the first installment of the story. I called when I heard her message. There was no one home. I came over. Sandy had given me a key. The grocery bag was on the table. The wine was still in it. She always puts her wine into the rack. She’s compulsive about that.”

“There’s no sign of her?”

“Nothing. I got the hell out of there as soon as I could.”

A thought came to Zavala. “What about the other reporters on your team?”

“I tried to call them. No answer. What should I do?”

Cohen probably saved his own life by going to Sandy’s apartment and then leaving quickly. Those who were rolling up the investigative team had already been there, but they might check back.

“Where are you calling from? I hear music in the background.”

“I’m in a leather bar near Sandy’s condo.” Cohen nervously laughed through his fear. “I ducked in here when I thought someone was following me and wanted to be in a public place.”

“Anyone follow you inside?”

“I don’t think so. This is pretty much a biker crowd. They’d stand out.”

“Can you call me back in five minutes?” Joe asked.

“Yeah, but make it fast. There’s a tall transvestite giving me the eye.”

Zavala looked up the number Gomez had given him. Gomez answered the phone on the third try. Zavala brushed off the usual greetings.