“My, my.” A clucking of the tongue. “How the mighty have fallen.” Satisfaction oozed through the phone.
Ryder wondered again why he’d ever agreed to do this job. The answer was stone-cold simple. He’d wanted to chase her down. He wanted to face her. He wanted her to know that it was he who had found her.
“So what’s the problem?”
“As I said, I’m waiting for her to not be expected at her job so I can get a head start before anyone gets wise and realizes she’s missing.”
“Won’t they just think she took off? No one really knows her.”
“I can’t take a chance. The extra twenty-four, maybe forty-eight hours, will give me a head start.”
“I don’t understand.” Obvious irritation came through the phone.
“We don’t need any interference from the police,” Ryder pointed out.
A pause.
He could almost hear the gears turning in the head nearly a thousand miles away.
“Just don’t screw this up.”
“I won’t.”
“Good. Because it’s been awhile. I’ve been patient. Either she’s been extremely elusive or you’ve fucked up. Or maybe a little of both.”
“I said I’d handle it.” Ryder’s eyes focused on the screen where Anne-Marie was still sleeping. He was reminded of waking up next to her, the smell of her hair mixed with the odor of recent sex causing him to second-guess his need to run her to the ground.
Again.
He witnessed her shift again. One arm stretched over her head, her eyebrows drew together, and his guts wrenched.
“Just end this,” he was advised, then the connection was severed.
The woman on the screen opened her eyes wide, startled, instantly awake as if through some invisible cosmic connection, she’d heard the conversation and was ready to bolt.
“You’d better get down here,” Alvarez said as Pescoli groggily answered her cell. She’d spent the night with Santana in the new house again, the sun already up and shining, beams streaming through the windows.
“Why?” she asked, sitting up and pulling the sleeping bag over her naked breasts as she tried to shake the cobwebs from her brain. Beside her, a disturbed Santana rolled closer to her, one arm cir
cling her waist.
Alvarez said, “Could be a break. The lab found a print on Calypso Pope’s bag and get this. It looks like it matches the partial found on Sheree Cantnor’s shoe.”
As if the missing digit and ring weren’t enough to tie the two victims together, but at least it was physical evidence.
“I’m on my way.” Pescoli pushed her mussed hair from her eyes as she reached for her clothes.
Santana opened a bleary eye.
“Gotta run,” she explained, yanking on her underwear and jeans, then reaching for her bra. “Possible big break in the case.”
He didn’t argue, didn’t so much as mention that it was the weekend as he’d learned long ago that Pescoli’s work took precedence over her free time. “What about today?”
“How ’bout I meet you at the funeral?” she suggested. “I’ll go with Alvarez and the officers from the station, and you and I can hook up with the kids then. Jeremy is supposed to pick up Bianca at Luke’s place and they’ll peel off after the service.”
“Works for me,” Santana said, for once not trying to lure her back into the bed, which was really just sleeping bags thrown on the floor. He flung off the covers, got to his feet, and walked naked to the French doors where he looked through the clear panes to the grounds and lake. “Good day.”
Pulling her sweater over her head, she said, “For a funeral?”