Lonesome Lawmen

Nine-3

Alice met Matt at the door to his office. “Hayes has emailed her again. And she called her agent. Sounded pissed. Any idea why?”

“I’m the one who should be pissed.” Matt thought about his interview with Meat’s Mama. Chalk another one up to what he owed the romance writer, double for the pat on the butt from the biker’s Mama. “What did she say?”

“Come listen.”

In the conference room, Matt threw himself in a chair and nodded to the tech to start the tape. His frown lightened somewhat as he listened. The agent had weighed in on their side. It had to help. “They get a trace on it?”

“Public phone in a convenience store off Colfax,” Alice said.

Matt looked at Riggs. “Tracks with where Meathook said he dropped her off.”

“Sent the DPD over to check it out, but..” Alice said.

“Natch she was gone.” Henry looked glum. “Never stays anywhere for two minutes. How’d she get onto Boomer?”

“Following the same tack we were. She asked him to do a compare on the email from Hayes.” Matt frowned. Was it possible that she knew her Dark Lord from cyberspace?

“She’s had us chasing our tails from day one. If she doesn’t contact any of the people we’ve worked so hard to uncover, how are we gonna track her?” Riggs tossed the computer sheets from Boomer onto his desk and dropped into a chair, his shoulders slumping in defeat.

“Maybe it will force her to contact the people we do know about.” Henry tossed another file onto the growing pile on the table. “I found her money trail for all the good it does us now.”

Alice rubbed her forehead. “If she’s on the hop, she’s liable to make a mistake.”

“Well, let’s try to be the ones who cash in on it.” Matt rubbed his chin, then turned to Riggs. “I want you to get the records off the pay phone. If she called her agent, maybe she called someone else, someone who wasn’t there. Or someone who was. Check the numbers on either side of her call within, say, ten or fifteen minutes?”

Riggs brightened. Phone numbers had names and addresses associated with them.

“Henry, get back onto the DPD. See if they can scare up a snitch or two in the area to watch for her. If she’s slumming we got our best chance to spot her.”

“So does Hayes.” Alice looked sober.

“Let’s email her again. Send it to all the addresses we suspect are hers. She sounded open to an offer. Alice you write this one, apply some pressure with that special woman’s touch.” Alice nodded. “Oh, and the list of her online contacts? Anything there?”

Alice looked at the sheet. “We’ve got people out checking them, but I’ll have to admit, I didn’t have the biker on my list.”

“Riggs, call Judge Kincaid. Let’s get phone taps in place on the most likely ones. She may still try to contact one of them, by phone since she knows we’re watching her email addresses.”

“Right.” Riggs looked unenthusiastic. “What would you consider a likely?”

Matt ignored this as he looked around his group. “Any other ideas? Suggestions?”

“It’s too bad,” Alice said, thoughtfully, “there’s no way to anticipate the unexpected.” She looked up at Matt. “It’s what she does best in her books.”

“Funny you should mention her books.” Matt gestured to his assistant Karen Tebbs, holding a stack of books. “Pass them out.”

“What?” Riggs asked, suspiciously.

“I want everybody to take one. Read it. Note names, occupations, interests, hobbies, information, anything that you think she could use or might hint what she’ll do next. Let’s see if we can anticipate the unexpected.”

Riggs looked at Henry. “Shit.”

Matt grinned as he held up one and read the back. “Not according to Romantic Times. They called this . . . delightful, a keeper to be revisited again and again . . . You can start your visit now, Riggs.”