Middle Of Nowhere

   "You fuck this up," he warned her, "and you will know so much pain you will wish you were dead. You will beg me to kill you." He grinned wickedly. "And I won't. Not until I'm good and ready. Not until I've had every inch of you." He added, "You ask Courtney about that. She knows."

   He stepped forward. Daphne could taste her impending freedom.

C H A P T E R

57

"Osbourne can't kill the system, Sarge," LaMoia reported from the passenger seat, "but they can lock a phone out from the entire network—all the carriers—and that's what he's done: He's locked out both Matthews' and the number we have for Flek. Both phones will get a circuit-busy signal."

   "Flek is known to carry more than one cloned phone," Boldt reminded. "He's got to kill the system." Samway had said he had only the one, but Boldt wasn't convinced.

   LaMoia repeated the request into his phone and then listened. "Don't work that way," LaMoia said. "AirTyme's one of three carriers. Only some of the towers are theirs. They attempt an AirTyme handshake first, but if that fails, it's rerouted, first come, first serve—the call's going to go out."

   "What about the location?"

   "A couple minutes more to pinpoint it exactly, but we know it came from off-island."

   "My phone's good to go?" Boldt asked.

   LaMoia checked and awaited an answer. "That's affirm, Sarge."

   Boldt flipped open his phone, pulled his notepad from his jacket and dialed a number, all with one hand. LaMoia maintained the open line to Gaynes. They crossed the bridge at Agate Passage. Still on the phone, Boldt pulled the car over in a park and ride just ahead of the signage for the turn to Suquamish—Indianola.

   He listened more than he talked, and then hung up the call. "You know how I feel about coincidence," he told LaMoia.

   "What's up?"

   "Poulsbo PD never made contact at the restaurant, but they have this nine-eleven call reporting a taillight of an old Eldorado sending SOS out its right blinker."

   "Son of a bitch."

   "They observed our request for radio silence, but still alerted their cars via their MDTs," mobile data terminals. "Nobody caught sight of the Eldorado. But the caller reported that it turned off three-oh-five here," he said, pointing to the intersection not a hundred yards down the road. "North, toward Suquamish." Boldt added, "I say we trust this one. If it's right, it buys us a hell of a lot of time over running out to Poulsbo and back." Boldt looked out at the dark road. "If it's wrong information, or if it's Flek trying to mislead us, then we lose any possibility of a jump on him."

   "Old Indian saying," LaMoia replied, his jaw wired, his words sounding drunken. "When you come to a fork in the road, take it."

   "That certainly helps a lot," Boldt said sarcastically. But it did help; it briefly lightened the moment.

   "I can see her doing that, Sarge. The SOS. You know? Who else but Matthews? You know her better than anyone. What do you think?"

   Boldt pushed down the accelerator and turned right at the intersection. North, toward Suquamish.

C H A P T E R

58

"This thing is out of hand. Does it feel that way to you?" Daphne asked. He didn't know handcuffs. He'd clamped the left cuff way too tightly to her wrist so that her hand felt cold and her wrist felt broken. She winced with pain every time the car bumped, which on the dirt road was every few yards.

   "No talking." He said this, but lacked the authority of his earlier insistence. She knew he wanted to talk, needed to talk. It was the only way for him to build his confidence.

   "Have you thought about why we've pursued you?" she asked.

   "To fry my ass," the driver answered.

   "You see? It is out of hand. That's not it at all."

   "Right," he snapped. He reached for a beer. It was his fourth.

   "Have you thought about how Davie would play this?"

   "Don't you talk about him!"

   "He wouldn't know how to play it, would he, Abby? Because Davie wasn't like you. Davie took the straight road. Davie was doing fine until you talked him into letting you hit that delivery."

"Shut up!"

   "There's a tower," she said, pointing through the windshield. Sweet and sour—she needed to be both for him, play both roles herself, one moment the accuser, one moment the accomplice.

   Flek slowed, but kept driving. He tried the phone and once again nearly lost his patience. He reached over the backseat and fished in her purse and came out with her phone. Same reaction to his attempt with it.

   Daphne didn't believe in coincidence—Boldt had trained her not to, along with every other detective with whom he'd worked over the years. If the circuit was busy, then that was Boldt's doing. And if that was Boldt's doing, then she still had hope.

   "What the fuck am I thinking?" Flek said. He sped up the car. It had finally occurred to him, she realized, to use a pay phone. She had wondered how long it might take him to see this. Get him into town—Boldt was on the same page as she.