Xo (Kathryn Dance 3)

She asked, "Could the mobile providers triangulate on his phone?"

Harutyun said evenly, "It wasn't one of Edwin's prepaids. Or any mobile at all. The call was from a pay phone, on the Fresno College campus. School's not in session yet. It's pretty deserted there. Nobody saw the caller."

"Well, where's Edwin?"

"That's the curious thing. Still in the Rialto--the theater. It must be somebody else."

They stepped into Madigan's office, where both the chief detective and Stanning, next to her boss, were on their phones.

Madigan looked up. He disconnected his mobile and ignored his desk phone when it rang, after a glance at caller ID. He looked too at a half-empty ice cream cup and pitched it. Rocky Road.

"Where's Kayleigh?" Harutyun asked.

Dance said, "She and the crew are at the convention center. Darthur Morgan's with her, and the deputy you sent is outside. Alicia's the only one not accounted for. I called her on the way here and left a message. I haven't heard back."

The detective glanced toward his phone. "That was Fuentes. Edwin's still watching his movie."

Harutyun asked, "Any way he could've called from the theater, either the landline or another mobile, and routed the call through the phone at the college?"

Good question. But Madigan had a good answer: "No, we checked with the Bell folks, or whoever the hell they are nowadays. The call was made from the phone at the school, direct to Kayleigh's."

Dance had to ask, "And there's no way he could've gotten out of the theater?"

"No. Fuentes is in a restaurant on Olive. He's watching the front entrance. The back doors're alarmed. He checked."

Dance supposed that Edwin was just what he seemed to be: a sad lump of a young man without a life, drawn to a woman who existed in an entirely different universe from his.

A common and boring story, once you took the violence out of the equation.

And yet she couldn't help but recall his icy demeanor, his calm attitude, his laser-like focus on Kayleigh, that phony smile.

And his intelligence.

Which prompted her to ask, "Basements?"

"What?" Madigan asked.

"In that block are there connecting basements?"

"I don't know." Madigan said this slowly and hit a button on the landline. A tone filled the room, then the rapid eleven digits of a phone number being dialed.

"Fuentes."

Without identifying himself, Madigan barked, "We're thinking he might've snuck out through the basement. The hardware store next door? They share a basement?"

A pause. "Let me check. I'll get right back."

Three minutes later they got the news that Dance suspected they would. "Yep, Chief. I went down there. There's a door. It's unlocked."

"Evacuate the theater," Dance said. "We need to be sure."

"Evacuate?" Fuentes asked.

Madigan was staring at her. Then he said firmly, "You heard Agent Dance, Gabe. Get the lights on and evacuate."

"The theater isn't really goi

ng to want to ..." His voice faded and he realized this wasn't the time to be worried about business relations in economically challenged Fresno. "I'll get on it."