Page 50 of Billion-Dollar Ransom

TIM DOWD HAD a decent place in a bad neighborhood. The SWAT team was currently surrounding it.

Dowd lived in a rented bungalow in Atwater Village. Somebody in command was going through the real estate records looking for specs, but it didn’t matter now. The SWAT team was about to enter regardless.

After Jeff Penney announced their presence and gave Dowd ample time to respond—the former police sergeant should know the routine—Jeff ordered the team to breach the doors.

Bam! Bam!

Two enforcers—thick steel battering rams with handles—blasted open the front and back doors. The team fanned out through the bungalow, guns at shoulder level, prepared for any response from a former cop who knew every trick in the book.

Bedroom one—clear.

Bedroom two—clear.

Closet—clear.

Bathroom—clear.

Sitting room—clear.

Crawl space—full of insulation and dust and spiders, but clear.

In under five minutes, Penney’s tough, efficient squad made a thorough sweep and determined one thing with dead certainty: There was no trace of Tim Dowd in this house.

Penney entered and did his own sweep, looking for anything his team might have missed. He was known in certain circles as the “crime scene whisperer”; he found tiny details that often made all the difference. Halfway through this sweep his cell went off. He answered. “Penney.”

“Any sign of Boo Schraeder?” Mike asked.

“There’s no sign of nothing,” Jeff replied. “Hell, I don’t think Dowd’s been here in a while. Mail’s piling up in the box, stuff in the fridge is past its sell-by date.”

“Shit.”

“You knew the man best. Any idea where he might be?”

“If I had any clue,” Mike said, fighting to keep the annoyance out of his voice, “I would already have shared it with you and the entire task force.”

“Take a minute and think. Vacation pads? A sibling somewhere with a big house?”

“I’m telling you, Penney, I have no idea.”

Jeff walked around the bungalow, taking in details of this former cop’s sad little life.

Why anyone would want to live in this neighborhood—with homeless people camping out on your front lawn and junkies puking in your hedges—was beyond him.

Maybe Tim Dowd had spent so much time in squalor, he’d gotten used to it.

Jeff Penney had a three-bedroom, three-bathroom mini-manse way up in Santa Clarita, far from this misery.

“Looks like there are two possibilities, Hardy. Either your buddy found some little hiding place that he kept a secret from everybody or your witness is fucking with you.”

“Yeah,” Mike allowed. “Let me get back to you.”

“Go on and do that. But the clock is ticking for poor Boo Schraeder.”