Stone Cold Heart (Tracers #13)(69)
“Diego, good to see you. Is it your birthday?”
“My pop’s. You staying for dinner this time?”
“?’Fraid I can’t.”
Diego shook his head, and Talia gestured for Nolan to follow her out.
Nolan stepped into the yard, where another relative stood beside a giant barbecue pit. Talia led Nolan away from the smoke to a wooden picnic table. She hopped on top of it and smiled at him.
“You found the Tahoe?” Nolan asked.
“Almost.”
He crossed his arms. “What does that mean?”
“I almost found the Tahoe that ran Sara off the road, and I almost found the driver.” She took a swig of her beer and set the bottle down. “Sure you don’t want one?”
“Yes. Talk.”
“Okay, so I read Sara’s statement. She first spotted the Tahoe when she pulled in for gas at that place on Highway 194.”
“Arnie’s, I know. I interviewed the clerk already,” he said. “Nothing. And they don’t have surveillance cams.”
“You interviewed a clerk.”
Nolan frowned.
“The clerk on duty that day was in the back when you stopped in for an interview.”
Nolan’s phone buzzed in his pocket, but he ignored it. “You talked to him?”
“Took some doing, but yeah.” She rolled her eyes. “I had to sweet-talk Arnie—gag—but I knew he was full of shit because he hires people off the books, and I knew he probably had someone else working who didn’t want to get mixed up with police.”
Nolan tamped down his annoyance. He hated being lied to, but it came with the job. “Okay, what’d you get?”
“The clerk—Manuel Gomez, forty-eight, no rap sheet, by the way—remembers the vehicle. Says the guy comes in from time to time.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Every few weeks or so. Always buys twenty dollars cash of the cheapest unleaded.”
“He have a description?”
“Yes.”
Nolan watched her, rubbing his jaw. Talia’s eyes danced with enthusiasm over this supposedly great lead.
“Why aren’t you excited?” she asked. “Haven’t you been saying the fact that this particular Tahoe ran Sara off the road means this particular Tahoe is our unsub? I mean, he’s clearly from around here. He stops at this place on a regular basis.”
“It’s circumstantial.”
“God! Nolan, come on! Don’t you even want a description?”
“Let’s hear it.”
“White guy, thirties. Medium height, medium build, brown hair.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
“And he has a scar on his forehead above his right eye.”
“That’s better, but not by much.”
She tipped her head to the side. “You’re really pissing me off here.”
“Sorry. I’m frustrated.” He blew out a sigh. “I’ve spent the last three days running down crap that hasn’t gotten us anywhere.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Okay. We need to get this guy with a sketch artist.”
She nodded. “I agree. But we have to get one who speaks Spanish, or else I need to sit in and translate. And besides a sketch, there’s also the possibility we could stake out the gas station and wait for him to come in.”
“Yeah, with all our unlimited manpower and resources.”
Nolan’s phone buzzed, and this time he looked. It was Springville PD, and he’d also missed a call from the Delphi Center.
“One sec.” Nolan stepped away from Talia and called the Delphi Center back. Maybe it was Sara.
“Detective Hess, I just left you a message.”
He recognized the voice as Mia Voss from the DNA lab.
“Sorry I missed your call.”
“Good news,” she told him.
“I could use some.”
“I finished my work on that T-shirt you submitted and corroborated my findings. In addition to the victim’s DNA, we found a second sample.”
“Okay. And?”
“We’ve got a forensic hit.”
? ? ?
The darkness seemed endless, but Grace refused to let it take over her mind. She was going by the bat clock now, tracking her days and nights with the animals’ nocturnal movements. All but a few of them had left for the nighttime feeding, and Grace had a break from the squeaks, which meant she could focus.
Her bindings were some kind of synthetic twine. The bindings around her wrists were attached to the wall with something metal that clinked when she moved her arms. Was it a chain? Several carabiners linked together? Grace didn’t know. But it was short, giving her just enough room to have one place to sleep and one place to pee. She was like a dog on a very short leash. A pit bull someone kept chained in the front yard to growl and look menacing.
Why hadn’t he replaced the twine with something stronger by now, like handcuffs? Maybe he thought she was weak. Dehydrated. Depleted. And she was.
Maybe he thought that even if she did manage to free herself, she would have no idea how to get out of this pitch-black cavern. Maybe he thought she was too injured to go anywhere. Maybe he was just fucking with her.
Grace lay on the cold floor of the cave, sawing away at her bindings. It was her only option. She’d tried over and over to pull the chain from the wall. But it was in there good, and all she’d managed to do was rub her skin raw until her wrists were on fire. The pain was excruciating. And she’d once thought her blisters from Bella’s sandals were bad.