"Roger. Units en route, K."
Bell clipped his radio to his belt and sent Martinez and Lynch to search the apartment building itself while he hurried downstairs. The street in front of the building had been under surveillance by Lynch, while Martinez had been on the roof. But they'd been expecting Unsub 109 or his accomplice to be heading toward the building, not going away from it. Martinez thought he'd seen a girl and a man, who could have been the uncle, walking away from the apartment about three minutes ago. He hadn't paid attention.
Scanning the street, Bell saw no one but a few businesspeople. He jogged down the service alley beside the building. He noticed a homeless man pushing a grocery cart but he was two blocks away. Bell'd talk to him in a minute and find out if he'd seen the girl. Now, he opted for the other possible witnesses, some young girls playing double-Dutch jump rope.
"Hi." The rope went slack as they looked up at the detective.
"Hey there. I'm a police officer. I'm looking for this teenage girl. She's black, thin, got short hair. She'd be with an older man."
The sirens from the responding officers' cars filled the air, growing closer.
"You got a badge?" one girl asked.
Bell tamped down his anxiety, kept smiling and flashed his shield.
"Wow."
"Yeah, we saw 'em," one tiny, pretty girl offered. "They went up that street there. Turned right."
"No, left."
"You weren't looking."
"Was too. You gotta gun, mister?"
Bell jogged to the street they'd pointed to. A block away, to his right, he saw a car pulling away from the curb. He grabbed his radio. "Units responding to that ten two nine. Anybody close to One One Seven Street . . . there's a maroon sedan moving west. Stop it and check occupants. Repeat: We're looking for a black female, sixteen. Suspect is black male, forties, K. Assume he's armed."
"RPM Seven Seven Two. We're almost there, K . . . . Yeah, we've got a visual. We'll light him up."
"Roger, Seven Seven Two."
Bell saw the squad car, its lights flashing, speed toward the maroon sedan, which skidded to a stop. His heart beating fast, Bell started toward them, as a patrolman climbed from the squad car, stepped to the sedan's window and bent down, his hand on the butt of his pistol.
Please, let it be her.
The officer waved the car on.
Damn, Bell said to himself angrily as he jogged up to the officer.
"Detective."
"Wasn't them?"
"No, sir. A black female. In her thirties. She's alone."
Bell ordered the RMP to cruise up and down the nearby streets to the south, and radioed the others to cover the opposite directions. He turned and picked another street at random, plunged down it. His cell phone rang.
"Bell here."
Lincoln Rhyme asked what was happening.
"Nobody's spotted her. But I don't get it, Lincoln. Wouldn't Geneva know her own uncle?"
"Oh, I can think of a few scenarios where the unsub could get a substitute in. Or maybe he's working with the unsub. I don't know. But something's definitely wrong. Think about how he speaks. Hardly sounds like the brother of a professor. He's got some street in him."
"That's true . . . . I want to check with my team. I'll call you back." Bell hung up then radioed his partners. "Luis, Barbe, report in. What'd y'all find?"
The woman said that the people she'd canvassed on 118th hadn't seen either the girl or the uncle. Martinez reported that they weren't in any of the common areas of the building and there'd been no sign of intruders or forced entry. He asked Bell, "Where're you?"