Chapter 14 #2
They sat across from each other in ergonomic seats covered in soft butter-colored leather with a designer fibreglass table between them. Piet was peering into his computer monitor when Montez spoke.
“So why the fuck are we heading back to San Diego?” Montez’s voice was sullen. He was still mad at having lost the girl before he could have his fun, the moron. “She could be anywhere by now.”
“Mm.” Piet finished what he was doing before answering.
Montez being Montez would find it a sign of disrespect but he didn’t give a shit.
“It’s a question of psychology. She’s been on the run for a year and she’ll be tired of that.
She went across the country and settled in the last city you can be in before falling into the ocean and stayed there until you flushed her out. ”
And lost her.
The words were unspoken but a dull flush appeared under Montez’s dark skin.
“For some reason she goes straight to San Diego. And it turns out that the reason she’s there is because she’s got a protector of some kind.
Girl’s not ex military, doesn’t have a martial arts background.
Near as I can tell, she’s just an accountant who sings.
She’s got someone, I think she’ll keep him. As long as he’s around, she’ll stay.”
“Even if you’re right, San Diego’s a big town.
We’re looking at three million people in an area that’s almost 400 square miles in size.
And that’s not counting Tijuana just across the border.
” Montez slapped the expensive leather of the seat.
“Shit! We’d know where she was now if that bitch hadn’t offed herself! ”
Piet doubted that. But whatever. The woman was dead and indulging in theatrical outbursts wasn’t going to bring her back to life and, more importantly, wasn’t going to help them find Ellen Palmer. Cool, calm logic would do that.
“Look at this.” Piet turned the laptop so that both of them could see the monitor. It was a map of a section of Seattle. Red lines connected dots of different sizes. It was the same map with the same data points that had helped them find Kerry Robinson.
Montez’s jaw muscles clenched. “Yeah, so? We found her friend and now she’s dead. How’s this going to help us?”
Piet didn’t sigh but he did want to punch that childish pout off Montez’s face. “Look at these routes.” Piet ran his finger from the Blue Moon to where Ellen Palmer had been living to Kerry Robinson’s apartment. The lines made huge dog legs. “What do you see?”
Montez fixed him with a hard, black stare. “I don’t like guessing games, van der Boeke.”
Geeste bul, Piet thought. Damned idiot.
“This,” he indicated with his finger, following the dogleg routes, “is how she got to work and how she went to visit her friend, Kerry.”
Montez stared at the monitor, scowling.
“And this,” Piet continued, pulling up another online map, “is a map of the bus routes in Seattle.” He manipulated the images until he found the section of town on the first map. The bus routes followed the doglegs exactly.
Montez wasn’t getting it and that made him angry. “Get to the point,” he growled.
“I think Palmer ditched her car before she arrived in Seattle or else ditched it in Seattle. I don’t think she had access to a car. I think she took the bus everywhere she went. And look at this…”
He brought up another map, a tangle of streets. Montez leaned forward, staring at the map with narrowed eyes. “So? What am I looking at.”
“A map of San Diego.” Piet tapped two points. “This is the hotel she booked into and this is the Greyhound bus station.” The two were a block apart. “I think she took the bus from Seattle to San Diego and checked into the first hotel she found.”
“Okay, okay.” Montez sat back. “I get it. She’s without a car. How does that help us?”
“When she came back to the hotel where your men were waiting for you, how did she get there?”
Montez was paying attention now. “The last word I had from my men was she was getting out of a cab.”
“Exactly. I hacked into taxi company records. She wouldn’t use an Uber because that requires an app.
There are fifteen cab companies in San Diego and on the fourth company, I found a record of a fare being dropped off at that hotel at 11:52 on the 5th of April.
He picked the fare up on Birch Street, which has a lot of fancy high rises, it’s in the heart of the business district.
And the security cameras there worked just fine.
Here she is. Coming out of the Morrison Building. ”
Piet clicked and brought up the file. No grainy photogram per second film for that street, no sir.
Top of the line cameras with high definition digital film that showed everything clearly.
And it clearly showed Ellen Palmer running, hailing a cab and taking off.
A white script in the bottom right hand corner showed the time in digital display. 11:34.
“Fuck,” Montez breathed. “That’s her.”
“Yes.” Piet realized that this was the first time Montez had seen Ellen Palmer in over a year and it was taking him a minute to process her image on the screen. His eyes were wide with surprise.
Christ, how had this guy ever become a soldier? Real soldiers process new intel instantly, no matter how surprising, otherwise you’re dead. Green-haired Martians could appear in front of him, and he’d have his weapon up and firing in a second.
Montez blinked, coming back to the here and now. “So what’s in there?”
“What’s in the Morrison Building? It’s a big complex.
There are almost a hundred different companies in the building.
” Piet clicked on the print function and paper scrolled out of the small laser printer on a console built into the bulkhead.
He plucked the paper out of the printer and slid it across to Montez.
He hoped the guy wouldn’t have the smarts to ask the obvious question—which office did she come out of—because the answer was I don’t fucking know.
It made him angry that he hadn’t been able to crack the building’s internal security cameras.
Someone really good with computer security had made the building’s system almost hack-proof.
But nothing was completely hack-proof. When Piet got back home he was going to crack the system, on principle.
In the meantime, though, he had fuckall.
“There are fifteen private investigation services, eight security companies specializing in various areas, most international, and a shitload of lawyer’s offices. Many of them specializing in criminal law.”
There, that would take Montez’s mind off wondering why Piet couldn’t hack his way into the building’s system.
Montez scrutinized the paper. His hand was firm but he was sweating. A drop of sweat trickled down from his forehead, over his temple and dripped down onto his white linen shirt. He ignored it.
“We’re going to get a ping when she accesses that bulletin board she set up with the dead bird. I’ll triangulate from there. But she’ll be in San Diego and I’m willing to bet good money, she’ll get back to whoever she was dealing with in the Morrison Building on Monday morning.”
The intercom came on and the pilot announced that they’d begun their descent into San Diego.
Piet sat and buckled his seat belt. He tapped his laptop screen before powering it down. “That’s our lead, right there. We’re going to stake out the Morrison Building during the day, sleep in a hotel across the street during the night, taking turns keeping watch. Sooner or later she’ll show up.”
Sunday
San Diego
Turned out nagging didn’t work, but tears did.
She started by dropping gentle hints, which Harry totally ignored. She even batted her eyelashes, to no avail. Harry stood firm, like a man.
But when Ellen teared up a little, Harry broke. The tears weren’t fake. She yearned to go for a walk in the sunshine so badly her heart ached. She drew the line at pouting but the tears were real.
It took most of Sunday morning, but she did it.
“No,” he said at first, and kept repeating it. No no no no.
Seducing him softened him up for the kill. They had brunch in bed and she was lying on his hard chest, listening to the deep vibrations of his voice as he patiently listed the reasons why going for a walk on the beach was a bad idea.
Though he couldn’t know specifically where she was, presumably Montez realized she might still be in San Diego.
Never underestimate the power of coincidence.
They might be walking along and one of Montez’s thugs might be casing the beach at that exact moment.
Montez wouldn’t have access to NSA satellites, thank God, so they didn’t have to worry about something Harry called Keyhole, some superspy satellite.
But Montez could have a couple of ships at sea, men with binoculars lined up along the railing.
And maybe one of those men might be looking through a scope of a rifle, on the lookout for her.
That stopped her for a second, then she shook the thought away.
“Harry. Listen to me.” She reached up to kiss that strong firm mouth and it turned down.
He patted her behind. “I know you think you can get anything from me using sex, and it’s true, you can get more or less anything you want, just not this. Diamonds and rubies, yes. This no.”
“I don’t want diamonds or rubies.” Ellen drew a circle in his chest hair until hair swirled around her fingertip, then pulled.
“Ouch.” His voice was mild. “And torture won’t work either.”
She’d been teasing, but now she sat up, covering her breasts.
“Oh man,” Harry sighed in regret at seeing them disappear behind the sheet.
Ellen looked him straight in the eyes and spoke to him from the heart.