“What the hell is this?” My voice sounded strange alone in the room.
He knew what I was talking about without describing the flashy case that looked so out of place in the shabby room.
“Sharon bought it today. Open it up.” He gave me a code. I dialed open the lock and unlatched it.
Inside were some men’s clothes, legal pads and pens, and a shaving kit.
“Look in the socks,” he said.
Sure enough, inside one of the rolled-up pairs of socks was a flash drive.
He was inviting them to steal it.
“Is this the real flash drive?”
“Of course not,” he said. “But Lindsey encrypted it so it would take even a good techie hours to break in.”
“But…”
“Mapstone, why don’t you hang there for a few more minutes, then find a place to stash the case, and call me when you’re back in the car.” He hung up.
The motel room felt close and hot around me. I used the bathroom, checked to make sure the door was locked again, and searched for some artful spot to place the briefcase. The bed was on a solid wood frame, so that wouldn’t work. The drawers would be too obvious: better to make them think I was trying to hide it. So I arranged it under the pillows and remade the bed with military neatness.
Back in the car, sweating and worried, I started to go out to the access road, but changed my mind.
Instead, I cruised north through the alley behind the motel, turned around, shut off the headlights, and slowly drove back the way I had come. I nosed out behind the building in time to see another car: a new white Chevy Impala coming around the front of the Super 8. There are thousands of lookalike Impalas. But this one looked exactly like the one that I saw on the security camera earlier in the day outside our office, right down to the Nevada tag.
Wishing the Prelude were not so damned white, I watched as the Impala sped up to the door I had left minutes before. If he noticed me, it didn’t show. He was moving so fast, I thought he might ram through the wall. But, no, he slammed to a stop at the last second. If I had the brake-shop monopoly in Phoenix, I would be a rich man.
I dropped the emergency brake enough to slide another couple of feet beyond the edge of the building. The security lighting on the outside of the motel was impeccable. Back where I sat was relative darkness.
Out of the Impala stepped the high-and-tight haircut who had been searching the Prelude earlier in the day. He was wearing jeans and a black T-shirt, carrying something in each hand. One something was a gun. He headed straight to the motel room door without even looking in my direction. If he were a soldier or a former soldier, it was poor situational awareness, but it worked in my favor.
I relayed all this to Peralta on the iPhone.
“He’s also got some kind of a crowbar,” I said. It was small and black, easy to conceal, and made quick work of the door. “He’s inside. I’m going to take him.”
Peralta might have had a very clever plan. But this was as close to the suspect as we were likely to get. I felt suddenly cool and comfortable, my breathing even.
Peralta barked at me. “No. This is not the guy who was tailing you. Don’t go back to that room, Mapstone…”
“Too bad.” I pressed the little red virtual button on the glass screen that said, “end call,” and tossed the earbuds onto the seat.
I mapped it out in my head: twenty quick strides to reach the door, keep the Python down against my leg so it wasn’t obvious I was packing, pause, assess, and try to quietly ease the door open. No kicking it down. The crowbar had made that unnecessary. Then he and I could have a civil conversation about where the baby was. That is, unless he raised his firearm.
But with my hand on the Honda’s door latch, I hesitated. What if the black Dodge Ram suddenly showed up?
High-and-tight almost immediately re-emerged, carrying the Halliburton briefcase. It gleamed in the light. So much for my clever job of hiding it. He quickly got into the Impala and drove toward the access road. I rolled after him, headlights off.
After the third ring, I activated the iPhone.
Peralta’s voice came across: “don’t follow him.”
“Are you nuts? This is the guy who was casing our office.”
“The plan is working, Mapstone. Let the plan work.”
All I knew was that I had spent several hours I could never get back driving around Phoenix and had nothing to show for it. Still, I reluctantly swung around the other way, back north through the alley, and turned on my headlights.
As I came around the other side of the motel, two Phoenix Police cruisers were sitting driver’s door to driver’s door. They might have been talking shop or sports or flirting with each other. Or they were watching me. By this time, however, I was only another law-abiding citizen driving through the night.
The Impala driver was long gone.
I muttered profanities.
“Glad you didn’t use the hammer, Mapstone?” I could feel the gloat carried across the cell towers. “Sharon left the briefcase when she rented the room. Earlier today she sewed a small tracking device into it. Two can play this game with electronics and ours are better.”
I spoke low and slowly, in a rage. “So explain the next move to me, Sheriff.”
“Come down to the Whataburger at Bethany Home. Go through the drive-thru. We’re in the silver convertible. But don’t come over to us.”
I did as told, merging into the concrete river of lights that was the freeway and speeding south two miles. After taking the Bethany Home Road exit, I crossed over and made a quick jog up the northbound access road to the restaurant. The building was separated from the traffic by a faux desert berm with a couple of palo verde trees and some creosote bushes. And the drive through, which ran around it like a letter “C.” The entrance was at the top of the “C,” so I went that way, noticing Sharon’s Infiniti parked in one of the spaces to my left, across a gravel-covered berm.
The bad guys knew his pickup, thought they had it rigged with a tracker. In its place, he was driving a silver two-door convertible, starting price sixty grand.
“You’re very inconspicuous in that ride,” I told Peralta, “especially in this part of town.”
“Check it out, Mapstone.”
On the left, immediately in front of the restaurant, a black Dodge Ram was parked near the door. Sure enough, his frame hearted Rancho Bernardo. The windows were tinted dark and I couldn’t tell if the engine was running.
Better to not linger: I pulled into the drive-thru, anxiously tapping the steering wheel and wondering about the truck’s occupant. His partner had probably told him that he had broken into the motel room and taken the briefcase. Now, what would he think if he saw me pulling in? Maybe he was inside, but I doubted it-he would be tracking me from the cab of the truck.
I didn’t understand why Peralta was taking the risk of having me drive here. I hoped he believed in coincidences.
“So what’s the plan again?”
“Get your order,” Peralta ordered. “Pull around to the front, pull in a couple of spaces apart, and eat it where he can see you. Pretend to be dumb.”
That part was easy.
By this time, I was actually hungry. So I got a burger, fries, and Diet Coke. Then I parked three spaces south of the Dodge Ram. The tinted windows made it impossible to see if anyone was inside.
Take small bites in case you get in a gunfight, like your grandma taught you.
I was two bites into the cheeseburger when Lindsey stepped out of the convertible and walked toward the restaurant. She was wearing a short khaki skirt and a tight sleeveless top that accentuated her small, pert breasts and very erect nipples. Her ability to look ten years younger than her real age was not diminished by the harsh lights of the parking lot.
She strutted within inches of the Ram driver’s door and went inside.
My head throbbed. Over the phone, I demanded, “Are you crazy?”
“No.” Peralta was fully in his Zen master mode. I almost preferred the volcano. He was taking a hell of a chance, assuming that my presence would distract the driver. I prayed he hadn’t checked me out in enough detail to realize that the woman with the legs that went on for days was Lindsey Faith Mapstone.