Velocity (Karen Vail #3)(19)

She realized now she had pushed him as far as she could. But for Robby’s sake—she felt justified.

“Karen, this is close to home and the crime scene is fresh; it’s the perfect opportunity to see things as they are. I don’t have to tell you it’s a world better than photos and reports. No, that won’t cut it. Not for this case.”

Vail slunk down in her seat. I’ve got no choice. Short of resigning, I have no leverage, no valid reason for staying behind.

“Karen. You probably know I’m fond of Hernandez. I knew his mother.”

After a long silence, Vail asked, “How soon?”

“How soon, what?”

“Till I have to leave. How soon?”

“Lenka is booking your flight as we speak. You leave tomorrow morning, a 6:30 connecting flight out of SFO. She’s arranging a car to pick you up at 4:00 AM. She’ll email you the flight info.”

Vail set her jaw. “Anything else, sir?”

“We’ll find him, Karen.”

“Yeah. Okay. Thanks.” She disconnected the call and let her hand drop into her lap.

“He wants you back,” Dixon said.

“I’m leaving at 4:00 AM tomorrow morning.”

“We’ll handle it, Karen. I’ll stay in touch with you. We’ll be your eyes and ears. We won’t let you down. Okay?”

Vail nodded out the windshield at no one in particular, numbly and blindly. “No. Not okay. We’ve got several hours.” She turned to Dixon, her face hard. “Before I leave, god help me, I’m gonna have some answers. We’ll find Cannon. We’ll find out what Merilynn Lugo knows. And we’ll know if César Guevara is involved in Robby’s disappearance.” She pressed a hand against her pocket, which contained the photo of Robby. “You with me on this?”

Dixon did not hesitate. “Yes.”

“Good. Then start the fucking car. Let’s get the hell out of here.”





12


Vail and Dixon’s first stop was Superior Mobile Bottling, located in a light industrial area of nearby American Canyon.

The company was a local concern that brought equipment-laden semis to wineries throughout the region to perform bottling and labeling functions. It was a cost-effective approach for many wineries, as they didn’t have to expend resources and take up prime space for production machinery used only once a year.

The facility was overseen by César Guevara, a man who supposedly served as its CFO but appeared to be much more. Vail, Dixon, and Ray Lugo had questioned him a couple of days ago. Vail had picked up on strange body language—silent communication between Lugo and Guevara. It was an observation that led the task force to aggressively investigate Guevara as the Crush Killer. The likelihood of him being their UNSUB, or unknown subject, shriveled like a desiccated grape when John Mayfield emerged as the offender.

But Lugo’s involvement with Guevara remained in Vail’s craw, though with the harried pursuit of Mayfield, it became a lost seedling among a forest of concerns.

On the drive to Superior Mobile Bottling, Vail explained their rationale for pursuing Guevara: if Lugo knew Guevara, and Lugo was involved somehow with Mayfield, there was an outside chance that Mayfield and Guevara knew one another . . . Lugo being the common link. At the very least, Guevara might know something—or might even have had something to do with Robby’s disappearance.

Dixon had remarked that there were a lot of suppositions factored into that reasoning. Vail could not dispute her point, but felt they needed to pursue the lead.

“Ray claimed he only knew Guevara when they were teenagers, working in the vineyards,” Dixon said.

“That is what he said. But sometimes I’ve got to rely on my intuition. And I sensed there was more to it than that.”

Dixon navigated out of Napa proper toward American Canyon, and the landscape changed from wineries to a more urbanized backdrop. “What Ray said. It’s not an unlikely story.”

“If it’s true, I’d bet it’s only the first chapter. Working the vineyards is probably how they met. But what happened after that? How did their relationship develop? That’s what we need to find out. That could be a key.”

Having arrived at Superior Mobile Bottling, Vail and Dixon slammed their car doors and headed toward the back of the warehouse-type structure. Bypassing the front entrance—and the interference-running administrator—they entered through the side roll-up steel door. Highly polished chrome and burgundy rigs sat stoically in their stalls in the spacious facility, like fine racehorses waiting for their turn to perform.

Mounted on the wall, at least a dozen feet off the ground, was the largest LCD high-definition television Vail had seen outside a professional sports stadium. The volume was turned down, but it was tuned to what looked like the replay of a vintage baseball game.

A medium-build Hispanic man appeared from behind the far end of one of the rigs. He wore a blue dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves and held a long screwdriver. César Guevara. He made eye contact with Vail, then looked away in disgust. “Not you again.”

Vail glanced sideways at Dixon. “Wonder why we always have that effect on people.”

“More questions?” Guevara asked.

Vail nudged Dixon with an elbow. “I told you he was smarter than he looked.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the photograph of Robby, keeping it shielded from Guevara’s view until she was ready. She needed to watch his face carefully for the slightest of tells: a flicker, a sudden flutter of his eye, a squint, a hardening of his brow or a lift of his Adam’s apple.