The People vs. Alex Cross (Alex Cross #25)(75)

I saw he wasn’t talking about the cat but about the apartment. The place was empty and swept clean.





CHAPTER


96


FEIFFER TRUDGED INTO the modest one-bedroom apartment and we followed.

When he reached the living area, he gazed around in disbelief. “She never said anything about leaving.”

“We heard she’d inherited a lot of money,” I said.

“That right?” the super said, raising one bushy gray eyebrow. “She never mentioned it, but why would she? How long ago?”

“Few months.”

“Big money and she lived here for months?” Feiffer said, incredulous.

What could I say? The man knew his place in the market.

“Could we see your copy of her lease?” Sampson asked.

“Why?” he said, suspicious again.

“I gather you have no forwarding address since she skipped out, but there will be bank and reference information in the lease agreement that might help us figure out where she’s gone.”

Feiffer considered that and then nodded.

After confirming that Rodriguez had indeed removed all her possessions, we were on our way out when I noticed some newspapers in a brown paper bag behind the door. I picked the bag up, hoping they’d give us an idea of how long she’d been gone.

I pulled out a stack of loose newspaper sections and flipped through a few.

The sections were all from the Washington Post, several going back a month or more, front pages mostly, with a few Metro sections thrown in. I kept looking through the newspapers as we rode down and noticed something that quickly became a troubling pattern.

I kept it to myself until Feiffer had gone into his apartment and we were alone in the lobby.

“We’re keeping these papers,” I said, slipping them back in the bag.

“Why’s that?” Sampson asked.

“In almost every section there’s a story about Gretchen Lindel or one of the other missing girls.”

“So maybe Lourdes Rodriguez had reason to sneak out in the middle of the night.”

“Maybe she did.”

Feiffer emerged from his apartment with a file marked APARTMENT 805—L. RODRIGUEZ. I flipped the file open, took a glance at the standard rental-agreement form, and then zeroed in on a photo of the tenant stapled to the contract.

“Huh,” I said, seeing Rodriguez in a whole new light. I took a picture of the rental agreement and the photo, then handed the contract back to Feiffer.

“That it? I’ve got to go find that cat.”

We thanked the super for his time and left. The second the front door clicked behind us, Sampson said, “What did you see on that lease?”

“My poker face didn’t work?”

“I have known you since we were ten.”

I pulled up the shot of the picture stapled to the contract.

“Lourdes Rodriguez?” I said. “I know her by another name.”





CHAPTER


97


THE ULTRA-LUXURY UNION Wharf apartment complex on Fell’s Point was the most expensive place to live in Baltimore, costing five times what Lourdes Rodriguez had been paying at Feiffer’s. We’d used the bank account and other information on Rodriguez’s old lease to track her to her new digs.

A small moving van was snarling traffic on South Wolfe Street. The front door to one of the apartment buildings was propped open for workmen carrying furniture wrapped in blankets. We followed them inside and up the stairs to 2E.

The door was open. Reggae music was playing. The workmen went in. So did we.

I trailed Sampson past stacks of moving boxes choking the front hallway, hearing a familiar voice saying, “Be careful with that! It was my mother’s!”

We stepped out into a living area with large glass windows that gave a sweeping and dramatic view of Baltimore Harbor. Wearing jeans and a loose-fitting pink jersey, Lourdes Rodriguez paced by the window, watching the workmen move a table into position.

She looked puzzled when she saw Sampson standing there holding his badge. Then she noticed me.

I stepped into the room, said, “You never sent me your new e-mail, Annie.”

For a second, the love junkie was so shocked, I thought she might faint dead away.

Then she croaked, “Dr. Cross? What are you doing here?”

“I could say the same, Annie. Or is it Lourdes?”

She swallowed, looked away. “Lourdes.”

“Why’d you use the fake name when you came to see me?”

Rodriguez blinked, puffed out her cheeks, and glanced at the workmen, who were leaving the room. “Isn’t this privileged?”

“Not when it comes to murder, kidnapping, and torture,” Sampson said.

That threw her. “What are you talking …” She looked at me. “Dr. Cross, I came to you under an alias because of the addiction I told you about. I don’t know anything about any torture or murder or kidnapping.”

“The van that was stolen from you when you were working for Dish,” Sampson said. “We ran tests on the interior. Whole lot of blood spatter.”

She looked down. “Blood spatter? I don’t … it was stolen. I had nothing to do with that.”

“Didn’t you?” I said. “The same van was caught on film when two blond girls from Pennsylvania were taken.”