Once back out in the street, she took Blue’s hat off and kept behind the shrubs again on her way to the front of the car.
Technology, she thought ruefully. This was the first time she had reason to curse the very tricks she had used numerous times to catch criminals while on the vice team. But at least she knew the best ways to avoid the big giveaways.
Back at the car she slid into the passenger seat and immediately began to wrestle with the packaging on the burner phone. Without a word, Blue pulled a big clasp knife out of a belt sheath and held out his hand for the package.
“No payphone?” he asked when she handed it to him and he read the package.
“No payphone.”
“Should have brought mine.”
“Your battery was close to dead. We’ll sit here long enough to activate the phone before we go. I used my plastic, so they’re going to know I was here, and they’ll check the camera feeds. I want them to think I’m headed for the airport. I want a few more cars to come and go so they don’t easily match up me leaving the store with this car leaving the parking lot.”
Blue folded his knife closed before he handed the package back, neatly opened. “This running from the law stuff is complicated. Back home it’s more like a game. Sheriff Jonas knows everybody, and if you run, he’ll just go to your house and wait for you on your porch with your momma and daddy, rockin’ on the swing. ’Course, we’re not talking about murder now. Back home the worst crime I recall was when Luke Baylor stole 50 watermelons from Old Man Cassel, and sold them out on the highway for five dollars apiece. Turned out Old Man Cassel had hired him to do it, then forgot.”
Mitzi only half listened to Blue’s quaint story as she scanned through the directions on how to activate the phone. She hadn’t realized she would need to either go online to do it or call from a land line.
“Crap,” she muttered, fishing her old phone out of her purse and looking at it, considering the ramifications of turning it on to use the internet browser. She re-scanned the directions and decided it looked simple enough to try.
“I thought you said they could track you with that,” Blue said, watching as she put the battery in and turned on the phone. She left the back of the case off so she could take the battery back out in a hurry.
“I’ll have to act fast,” she said, trying not to let her anxiety overcome her focus. “If I can’t do it in under a minute, I’ll give it up. At least there’s a good signal out here.”
The phone had run through its startup, and she began the process of activating the burner phone. She could feel the beads of sweat forming on her brow as her fingers flew across the touch screen’s keypad. She wasn’t sure how long it actually took, but it seemed like no time at all before she got the confirmation that the new phone was now active. She quickly took the battery back out of her phone.
“That’s something they don’t ever go into on television,” she said at last. “I thought you just bought it and popped in the SIM, and everything was green to go.”
Blue chuckled. “You realize I have no idea what you’re talking about, don’t you? Are we ready?”
Mitzi resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at Blue, and just waved him on to drive out of the parking lot. “Let’s take a spin around the terminal drive.”
As they rolled, she took a moment to access seldom used memories, then dialed *67, then Justin’s cell phone number. The call went straight to voicemail.
Mitzi frowned, then dialed *67 and Justin’s home phone.
Shelly, Justin’s wife, answered the phone on the fourth ring. Not a good sign.
“Hello?” Shelly asked, her voice tense.
“Hi Shell,” Mitzi said in a level voice. “Justin’s not home, is he?”
“No, he’s not, Mitzi. He...called me last night, said he’d been switched to protection detail. Some senator or something coming to town. Never came home. How are you?”
Mitzi hung her head, knowing full well that there was some cop sitting next to Shelly, feeding her lines and trying to get her to drag the call out long enough to triangulate and zero in on the number. But as she had hoped, a plane roared overhead, the sound sure to travel through to listening ears.
“Haven’t you been watching the news, Shell?”
Shelly’s laugh was shrill, and Mitzi cut her off before she could say anything. “I didn’t do it, Shell.”
Before Shelly could respond, Mitzi ended the call and looked at Blue. “I just hope that hearing a plane taking off in the background will make them sloppy, and give me a little more time with this phone. Get us out of here, Blue.”
Blue sped up through the terminal drop-off lanes, though not fast enough to attract undue attention. Back out on Peña Boulevard, Mitzi spotted what she was sure were two unmarked police cars hurtling toward the terminal, and she ducked her head down below the dash well before they passed.
“That was fast,” she said, staying down. “Someone obviously expects me to run.”
Chapter Seven
“What now?” Blue asked, fighting the urge to drive away from the airport like a stampede was a-comin’ after them. Without moving his head he glanced down at Mitzi, still hunkered down on the seat beside him, fiddling with her new phone.
“We’ll go see the hypnotist,” she said. “It’s too risky to go driving around talking to people.... I don’t know who is in on it and who is safe. I really don’t know where else to start. I wracked my brain all night trying to think of what I could possibly have seen or done that might make someone want to kill me, and I just keep drawing blanks.”
“Where do I go?” He was merging onto I-70 West now, watching in his rear view mirror for any cars that looked like they might be following them. It was hard to tell in the heavy morning traffic, not to mention through the dirty back window.
“Do you know Westminster?”
“Some. I was over there last week to see if they’d let me work on a road construction project.”
“Okay, take I-270 to Highway 287 North. I’ll tell you where to go from there.”
Traffic was the typical commuter special. Stop and go, with frantic lane changers trying to get an extra inch ahead. Blue settled in for the wait, knowing impatience would serve no purpose.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” he asked, glancing down to where she still crouched on the floorboards. She couldn’t be very comfortable down there.
“You can ask,” Mitzi said, and he heard a cautious tone in her voice.
“Fair enough. Where did you learn to punch like that?”
“What?”
“Last night, you punched that guy in the nose.”
“Oh. Boxing club. I couldn’t join the force until I turned twenty-one, so I boxed for a few years. Had a sponsor and everything; even made the pros my last year. I won a few bouts, but I gave it up when I got accepted to the Academy. I still work out, and spar a couple times a month, but my work schedule doesn’t allow me to train for competition.”
“Nice,” Blue commented, feeling even more respect and admiration for this tough little calico. “You’ll let me know before I ever make you mad enough to fight, right?”
She chuckled. “Oh, I’ll see if I can’t get you into the ring sometime, cowboy. I often have male sparring partners. Sometimes it’s hard to find any takers though.” She paused, then went on. “Funny. I thought you were going to ask me why I became a cop.”
“The question crossed my mind,” he admitted, “but I figured that’s a little more personal.”
“It is,” she said. They fell silent for a few minutes, and Blue found himself pondering the idea of sparring with Mitzi and wondering how badly she would beat him.
“It was my dad,” she said softly. “And my brothers. They are the reasons I became a cop.”
“Are they cops too?” he asked, surprised.
“No.” Something in Mitzi’s tone of voice did not encourage any more questions, and he let it ride.
Finally, Blue took the exit for
I-270, and they were able to move more freely down the road.
“Do you think anyone is following us, Blue?”
“Well, if they are, they’re doing a good job of it. I’ve been watching and I don’t see anyone.”
“Just keep it at the speed limit, and see if anyone hangs out behind you. Folks around here are always zipping around faster than the posted limit. I’d be suspicious of anyone who doesn’t pass. Just be prepared to get cut off in front.”
They drove the next several miles in silence while Blue concentrated on the traffic and watched in the mirrors for anyone who didn’t pass him. True to Mitzi’s prediction, everyone flew around him like he was part of a rodeo circus act, cutting in front or behind him with minimal clearance to make exits. He almost expected the clown car to speed by.
“Our exit is coming up,” he said, feeling a profound sense of relief at seeing the sign for Highway 287.
“Don’t signal, and take it as late as you possibly dare,” she told him. “If someone is following us, it will be a giveaway if they have to swerve to follow. Once we get on 287, we’re going to hit the side streets immediately, so with luck they won’t see us when they exit.”
“All on the possibility that someone is watching,” Blue said wryly. With the exit sign fast approaching, he jerked the wheel to the right, swinging the huge car over the solid white line of the exit, clearing the crash barrier with only inches to spare. The Lincoln did not respond like his truck, and he worried for a second that he would ricochet off the far guard rail. But he brought it under control just in time to pull into the lane behind an SUV that had taken the exit ahead of him.
Mitzi sat up as he applied the brakes hard to slow for the short, curved off-ramp.
“Well done,” she said. “You sure you didn’t take a strategic driving course from the Denver PD?”
He glanced at her before checking his blind spot to merge onto the highway.
“You just don’t know how good you have it,” he said. “All these mad skills, and good looking too.”
She laughed out loud at him. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“That is the first trendy thing I have heard you say. Mad skills. Coming from your mouth?” Before he could affect hurt at her words, she pointed. “Take the first right, here at the light. Then if it is clear, take the first left. We want to get off the highway ASAP.”
He did as he was told, and they systematically worked their way through the neighborhoods of Westminster, turning at practically every corner and watching for cars that looked familiar ghosting them. Sometimes they parked in the middle of a block for a few minutes. After about thirty minutes of this, Blue could feel exasperation setting in.
“Don’t you think we’ve proved no one is following us?” he said, trying not to let irritation color his tone. He must have failed, because she shot him a look he couldn’t read, then sighed.
“I suppose you’re right. Very well. Go on up to that stop sign and turn right.”
Before too much longer, they pulled into the parking lot of a small office complex. The sign declared that a dentist, two lawyers, an acupuncturist, two massage therapists, and a hypnotherapist all shared the building.
“That’s quite a combination of professionals,” Blue remarked, taking Mitzi’s direction to pull into one of two empty spots in the middle of the crowded lot. “What now?”
“I wasn’t expecting so many people to be here,” she said, nervously surveying the parking lot. “I don’t think I should just walk in and ask to see him. What if someone recognizes me from the news?”
“I could go in and ask him to come outside.”
“No, I think that would be too weird. Too much out of the ordinary. I mean, who needs a hypnotist to do a house call?
“Well then, what do we do?”
“We wait, I guess. See if he comes out. Invite him over.”
“What if he doesn’t come out alone?”
“Then we follow him until he is alone, I guess. Let’s just hope he flies solo tonight.”
They settled back against the seat to wait. Blue closed his eyes briefly, but opened them again before too long. “What did you mean, invite him over?”
“Just that. It’s a fine line to walk, Blue. It has to be an invitation. He has to come to the car by his own decision. We can’t force or intimidate him, or he could call it kidnapping. And if we cause him even to reach inside, he can call it wrongful imprisonment. I mean, we’ll be at his mercy if he decides to lie in court, but at least we’ll know we were in the right.”
Blue thought about that for a moment. “So, you expect this to go to court?”
Mitzi didn’t answer, just watched the building’s door as if she could will it to open and spit the hypnotist out.
⋘⋆⋙
Police Chief Winston Hatfield could feel his blood boiling. He turned aside from the man across the table to growl softly into his phone. “What do you mean you lost her?”
On the other end of the call, Sergeant Eugene Murray paused for just a brief second. “Just what I said, boss. Reardon called her partner’s wife, but she must have known we were there. She hung up too quickly. We know she was at the airport, though. We heard a plane taking off. When we got to the terminal—I mean, I had guys there in less than five minutes—we couldn’t find her. No trace of her.”
“Are you checking surveillance? Are you sure she didn’t get on a plane?”
“We’re checking right now, but so far we don’t even have any hits on the platform, much less at any of the ticket counters or on the concourse. We’re searching earlier timeframes now.”
Hatfield heard the sound of papers rustling through the phone.
“We also got a hit on her debit card,” Murray continued. “She bought something and took some cash out at the Circle K on Peña Boulevard. The cashier at the K didn’t remember her.”
“And surveillance from the ATM?” Hatfield ground out.
“As we speak, sir, but as you know, it’s going to take some time. That is a busy store. A lot of traffic.”
“What about the phone she called from?”
“Like I said, she hung up too quickly to get a fix on her. All we got was that it was likely a burner phone. We checked her email accounts, but she deleted any confirmation email. It will take the guys in Tech a while to rebuild it. She just knows this job too well, knows where we’re going to look for her.”
“Keep looking. If she was out there, she can’t have disappeared without a trace.”
“Yessir.”
The sergeant hung up, and Hatfield turned back to the young Hispanic man seated across the table from him at the Mexican restaurant.
“Now, where were we? Oh yes. You were telling me how you no longer want to pay me my fair share of the take. When did you grow cojones, lombriz?”
Hatfield was as white as they come, but he knew enough Spanish to insult a little worm like Marco Antonio. “Last time I checked, you didn’t want me arresting your soldiers, your cholos, on drug crimes. Last time I checked, you knew I would lock you up for fifty years on every count I could bring against you. And you know I can bring plenty, manufactured or otherwise. Some more dangerous to an inmate than others.” He paused a moment to let that sink in. “Haven’t I proven this by locking up your predecessor? What was his name? Juanita? And exactly how long did he last in general population before he ended up with a shiv in his spleen?” Hatfield shook his head somberly at Juan Avila’s fate. “He never did recover from that dreadful wound.”
Marco Antonio swallowed convulsively, but held his ground. “You cannot hold this threat over me for long, güero. With the Mayor softening the system up, we will soon walk openly in the streets, secure in the knowledge that all we’ll get is a slap on the wrist and a treatment plan.”
Hatfield’s fist came down like a mortar shell on the table, causing all the dishes to jump spastically. “I own the Mayor. I own the prisons. I own the courts, and you can bet I own you. Your li
ttle gang would never have found a foothold here if I hadn’t sorted you out from the other gang-bangers.”
The Mexican leaned forward across the table, and Hatfield saw the resistance in his eyes still warring with his fear. “Como dices, güero,” Antonio responded. “As you say.”
But the words did not match what Hatfield saw in the young man’s eyes. He stood abruptly and glared down at the shorter man, hoping his greater stature would lend weight to his next words.
“I get my cut, one way or the other, Paco.”
Marco Antonio glared at him, but ultimately lowered his gaze before saying something in Spanish that Hatfield thought was surly capitulation. “Nosotros veremos quién paga, gringo.”
“I. Get. Paid,” Hatfield repeated. Then he stalked out of the restaurant, breathing in air free of the stink of refried beans.
With a grunt of pure frustration, he kicked the door of the cruiser that waited for him. The uniformed officer leaning against the car stood up with his hand on his weapon, but Hatfield waved him off.
“Drive!” he snapped.
Chapter Eight
Mitzi heard Blue’s stomach growl and she glanced over at him. He was leaning back into the corner made by the car door and the front seat, his hat pulled down over his eyes and his arms crossed over his broad chest.
“We’re completely unprepared for a stakeout, aren’t we?” she said ruefully. “We don’t even have coffee.”
“That’s what hurts the most,” he replied, putting his hand on his heart without looking up. “I can go without most things, but no coffee?”
“Well, maybe Doctor Smith will come out for lunch.”
Blue’s voice was flat as he answered. “I reckon ‘maybe’ never won a game of horseshoes.”
“You’re just full of those little pearls of wisdom, aren’t you? A girl could get mighty weary being stuck in a car with the Cowboy Lao Tsu.”
“Lao who?”
“Never mind. Do you have a better plan of action?”
He reached up and slowly pushed his hat back from his forehead with one callused finger. “I got no plans,” he said slowly, “though I think I should have wrangled some hourly wages out of you.”
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