Джеймс Паттерсон - The 18th Abduction

Twelve hours ago, at seven thirty this morning, Anna had called him at home to confess that she’d been doing her own stakeout of Petrović’s house, against Joe’s express directions to leave surveillance to the FBI.

She said, “I have to tell you what happened.”

Her Bosnian accent weighed down her English, but Joe listened hard and understood that Anna had been watching the Victorian house when Petrović arrived home last night at around midnight. She described the silvery-haired man who had visited. “He looked well off, Joe. He had very good posture and a strong step.”

Anna then recounted what he’d done.

She said, “I disguised myself. I had a scarf on, and there was no moon. But still, he saw me and stopped his car.”

“He stopped next to you?”

“Yes. That’s right.”

“Jesus,” Joe said. “What did he want?”

“He asked if I needed help. Pure evil was…radiating? Radiating off him. I know what you’re thinking. I have a panic fear of evil. But I tell you, it was as if he could see through me and wanted me to know that he had all the power.”

Joe could almost see the dominant smile Anna had described. He muttered “Jesus Christ,” then said, “You told him that you didn’t need any help.”

“Yes. Just shook my head. I started my car and drove to my house, and then, you would be proud, Joe. I parked several blocks away in case he was following me. I watched carefully. No one was following me.”

Joe sighed. She couldn’t know that for sure. Petrović knew that Anna was watching him. He might well know her as a survivor of his atrocities in Djoba and his personal attacks against her. Her scar, the size of a handprint, was unforgettable. Petrović might have had someone surveilling her house, and he might have a plan to take out this witness to his old life who knew his real name. It was possible, and it made Joe angry and frightened for this woman he hardly knew.

He said to her in this early-morning phone call, “Do you understand me now, Anna? Stay the fuck away from Petrović.”

“Joe. No shouting.”

“Sorry. Please. Anna, you’re looking for trouble.”

“Joe, listen to me. I woke up at dawn with my heart pounding. I knew the man in the Escalade. I’ve seen him before.”

“You’re sure?”

“I think so. I think he was in the Serbian Army. I don’t know his name and I never knew his name. I think he was a regular soldier. But I also think he was one of the men who came to the hotel.”

Chapter 57

Joe had ended the call by saying, “Stop by my office when you get off work. I’ll pull up as many pictures as I can of the invading force in Djoba. Maybe you can pick out that man in the Escalade. Are you up for that, Anna?”

“Yes. I get off at six.”

“So you can be here by six thirty or so,” he said. “Call me if you get hung up at work. I’ll let security know I’m expecting you.”

It was now 7:30 p.m. No call from Anna.

Damn it. Goddamnit. She’d been confronted by someone she thought might be a man who had attacked her, and he’d let her know that he’d seen her hiding in the dark.

Now she was late. Where the hell was she? Had something happened to Anna?

Joe called down to security to double-check that she wasn’t waiting downstairs. The guard at the desk was sure. No one had come to see him.

Joe went back to the photos.

They were still shots printed from videos of the Serbian troops entering Djoba in tanks and trucks and on foot. The soldiers wore fatigues and helmets, carried Zastava machine guns, and had bandoliers strapped across their chests. Most of the footage had been taken by civilians.

One of the videos had been shot from a balcony thirty feet up, showing soldiers mowing down fleeing civilians, shooting at random, the bodies jerking, falling, dust coming up on the street like a brown cloud. Women in head scarves held up their arms and cried out at the sight of the slaughter.

The still shots lacked sound, and for that Joe thanked God.

The last piece of footage felt like a jackpot.

It was a group shot of a hundred men gathered around a monument on the main street. The troops had formed rows, like a class photo, the tallest in the line at the back, others seated on the lower three tiers of steps around the monument.

At one end of the grouping, taking a strong stance, was Slobodan Petrović. He was red-faced, uniformed, in a gold-braided hat, and heavily armed. He waved at the camera, grinning and proud.

Joe was staring at Petrović when a thought struck him.

He pictured the gray-haired man in Tony’s Place, walking a half pace behind Petrović. He’d had a mustache, and he’d been speaking with Petrović in Serbian.

Could this be the same man who’d paid a call on Petrović at oh dark hundred last night? The same one Anna thought she recognized from the prison brothel?

Joe couldn’t help but remember in crisp detail when Petrović had called him out in the restaurant last week. He had mentioned Anna, referring to her as his “girlfriend.”

Maybe, as Anna suspected, the gray-haired man knew her, too.

Joe grabbed his phone and called Anna’s cell phone. No answer. He got the number of San Francisco Tesla, where Anna worked as a bookkeeper, and called there. He asked the woman who answered the phone to put him through to Anna Sotovina.

The receptionist said that Anna wasn’t there. She thought that Anna had gone to lunch at one and hadn’t come back. The dealership was closing now for the night.

Joe said, “Was anyone concerned that she didn’t come back from lunch?”

The woman said, “Not really. If she finished her work, no one would care if she went home. It was a slow day. Is there anything I can do to help you? Shall I leave a message for Anna?”

Joe said, “No. Thanks anyway.”

Anna wouldn’t have stood Joe up without calling. Had she been abducted by Petrović or the man in the Escalade?

Joe folded his hands on his desk.

This was unusual for him. He didn’t know what to do.

Chapter 58

It was after 7:00 p.m. when Conklin and I escorted Dennis Lopez from the back of the cruiser into the Hall and gave him a brief elevator ride to Homicide.

We had detained Lopez on reasonable suspicion, but that was short of probable cause, which would have allowed us to get an arrest warrant and toss his butt in jail.

Reasonable suspicion meant that anything he said could be used against him, but after questioning him for a short time, like twenty minutes, we would have to charge him and read him his rights, or let him go.

I hoped he’d break under pressure, confess to killing Carly, or give us something that would lead to the two missing schoolteachers. And that they’d still be alive.

Interview 2 was available. Conklin pulled out a chair for Lopez, and I kept my hand on his shoulder until he sat down. Time was blowing past.

Conklin removed the cuffs I’d slapped on Lopez in the basement, saying to him, “Okay? You should be more comfortable now. Can we get you something to drink? Soda?”

But Lopez had had experience with the police before. He turned down our offer and answered “No,” “No,” and “I don’t know” to our questions. Ten minutes into our interview, he asked, “Am I under arrest?”

“No,” I said. “We’ve brought you in for questioning. We’re detaining you on reasonable suspicion of having committed a crime. That’s because when I ordered you to stop, you stepped on the gas. You can’t do that. Like I told you, you broke a law.”

“Oh. But to be clear,” Lopez said, “can I leave?”

“Not yet,” I said. “That’s the detaining part. But you’re correct that you’re not in custody.”

“If you decide to hit the street,” Conklin told him, “we’re going to upgrade you to suspect. We’ll be taking a much harder look at you. We’ll work with the DA on getting probable cause, and that means search warrants and cops watching you until you screw up. Which I think we can count on.”