Page 19

Chad sighed, sipped his coffee, then said, “Maybe. Maybe not. Anyway, Daffy put Penny in her crib and then went to read in bed. I clicked on the late-night news, waiting-and promptly fell asleep. When I woke up, it was after one-there was some rerun of a late-night comedy on the TV-so I called his cell phone. He apologized-”

“He’s good at that,” Matt interrupted. “Lots of practice over many years.”

“Are you finished?”

Matt slowly said, “Enabler,” then made a grand gesture for him to continue.

“He apologized, said he was running late, but he’d be over ‘in ten’ with the check. He said it was still in the motel safe. I tried to tell him it was already late and could wait till this morning. But Skipper insisted he wanted it done before he-they-went out of town.”

Chad looked toward the motel office and added, “Who knows when I’ll get in there.”

“So I gather he didn’t show in ten minutes?”

“Or in four hours, when I woke up again, this time from a sore neck from the way I’d fallen asleep in my chair. Then I couldn’t sleep. So, half pissed and half worried, I decided to go see if he was maybe passed out in one of the rooms here. Figured I’d bang on his motel room door and wake him up. What’s good for the goose…”

“But you never found him?”

Chad shook his head, then touched his phone. “And I tried calling at least a half-dozen times.” He paused. “The cops wouldn’t let me near the place, so I came in here, tried to think of who to call-”

“And I won.”

“You’re a cop, Matt. You understand this better than I do, than anyone I know does.”

Matt Payne didn’t say anything.

Chad went on: “Two ambulances, sirens blaring, came out from the back of the motel right before I called you. For Christ’s sake, Matt, did you not see her vehicle?”

Matt suddenly had a mental image of what horror could have happened to the gorgeous Becca, and it was clear from the looks of the right side of the SUV that the rescue crew had had to use a powerful hydraulic Jaws of Life metal cutter to remove the B-pillar and the front and rear doors in order to rescue-or, if dead, to recover-whoever was inside the SUV.

Then Matt’s mind suddenly flashed a Technicolor image of another beautiful young woman who’d suddenly been horribly mutilated-Susan Reynolds, her head grotesquely opened by a.30-caliber carbine round in that diner parking lot, blood and brains blown everywhere.

Matt immediately felt himself get clammy and tasted bile in his throat.

Dammit, not that now!

Don’t lose it.

He took a deep breath, swallowed hard, and drained his coffee cup.

Then he looked out at the motel and all the police activity.

Behind the yellow Police Line tape, he saw a familiar cop, one in plain clothes and his usual well-worn blue blazer. Detective Anthony C. Harris was slight and wiry, not at all imposing, but was, Matt knew, one of the best homicide detectives, right up there with Jason Washington, who was the best of the East Coast’s best, from Maine to Miami.

Jesus, that’s not a good sign.

If Tony is working the job, something big is up.

He looked back at Chad and bluntly said, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I’ll do it. Do whatever. But not for Skipper. For you. For Becca.”

“Matt, you can hate him-”

“Dammit, Chad, I don’t hate him,” Matt interrupted with more anger than he expected. He lowered his voice: “However, if he hurt Becca, that is subject to absolute immediate fucking change.” He sighed. “I’ll find out what I can.”

“That’s all I’m asking. Thank you, pal.”