Unlucky 13 (Women's Murder Club 13)

“What’s Walt’s last name?” Conklin asked as the elevator doors slid open.

“Bremmer. Or something like that,” Caroline said. “I only met him once, but I think he’s a very popular guy in our delivery fleet. He’s not in any trouble, is he?”

“How fast can you get into the files?” I asked her.

CHAPTER 74

IN HER OWN humble opinion, Cindy was a good driver. She kept to the speed limit, slowed at yellow lights, and let moms pushing baby strollers cross the street in their own good time.

So it was against her own rules of the road that Cindy sped up Lake Street at sixty-five, cutting in front of slower cars as she shot through the residential neighborhood.

If only she could be sure that the taillights up ahead belonged to the green Subaru. She pulled out of line to pass the vehicle in front of her, but she was forced to return to her own lane as an oncoming van leaned furiously on the horn.

It was frightening and embarrassing, and Cindy hunched reflexively, worried that if Mackie was up ahead and looked into her rearview mirror, she might once again make Cindy.

Still, Cindy pressed on.

At the moment, she was riding the tailgate of a Ford Escape, flying past the fenced-in, well-cropped lawns of St. Anne’s Home of the Poor. The Subaru was two cars ahead of the Escape, and although Cindy couldn’t identify the driver as Mackie Morales, she thought that the back of the driver’s head definitely looked to be that of a young adult female with short dark hair.

The driver turned her head to check her mirror, and Cindy saw her face.

That was her. That was Mackie Morales. For sure.

Cindy reached for her phone in the seat beside her and hit number three on her speed dial.

Lindsay’s voice came through the earpiece: “You have reached Sergeant Lindsay Boxer. Leave your name and time that you called—”

Damn it.

Cindy needed both hands on the wheel. She clicked off without leaving a message and tossed her phone back onto the passenger seat. Up ahead, Lake Street terminated at a T intersection. Cindy saw the Subaru take the left onto Arguello Boulevard toward the Presidio, and she followed the Outback into the turn too fast. Centrifugal force sent her handbag and cell phone off the passenger seat and

onto the floor.

Cindy kept going, past the gate to Presidio Terrace and onward toward the Presidio, a former army post for more than two hundred years and now a National Park.

Where was Morales going?

It didn’t really matter. All Cindy had to do was follow her to her destination, then park inconspicuously, and call Lindsay, text Lindsay to death, wait for Lindsay.

As Cindy passed Inspiration Point on her right, she saw the Subaru gather speed around the next curve. Traffic had thinned so that now there was very little cover on the two-lane road between her Honda and Morales.

Whatcha going to do now, Cindy?

Cindy eased up on the gas. That was really her only option. She let a gray Lexus pass her and then a line of three motorcycles, and now the road split at a fork; it continued as Arguello on the right and was Washington Boulevard on the left. And there, up ahead, was a stop sign and there was no running it. This was a damned three-way stop. Cindy swore as she braked, and traffic filled in from Washington, crossing in front of her, blocking her view. And when she could move forward again, she didn’t see the Subaru anymore.

Had Morales stayed on Arguello, the main route to the lower part of the Presidio? Or had she taken the left onto Washington? Cindy stayed on Arguello, but a short distance later, as she passed Infantry Terrace, she knew that she had lost Morales and maybe given herself away.

She drove on at a steady fifty, her eyes going everywhere looking for a station wagon that would no longer look green in the dark.

She wanted to call Richie. She wanted to hear him say, “What is it, Cin? What’s wrong? Okay, I’ll put in a BOLO for that Outback. We’ll find her. You sit tight.”

It was a compulsion the size of a long-haul truck, but her phone was somewhere on the floor and there was no place to stop. Cindy was actually glad she could wait out the urge to call Richie.

Just then, somewhere near the gas pedal, her cell phone started to ring. Cindy had a horrible feeling it was Mackie Morales calling to tell her that she was an asshole and a loser.

She wished she could take that call. She wanted to tell her, “Grow up, Mackie. Meet with me. I want to talk with you and I’m not giving up. Not now. Not ever.”

CHAPTER 75