he didn’t yet have enough specifics to convince them. He needed more detail, and to get that, he needed to start at the beginning.
All he had to do was find the place where the girls had been abducted. Stefan hitched his backpack to a more comfortable position, thinking about the problem, and then strolled over to the nearest bank of phones. He flipped through the directory to find the number for the television station whose call letters he’d seen on the TV earlier, then programmed the main number into his cell phone.
He always did like the press. They were all show people at heart.
The cab stand outside the terminal was a zoo, every cab already claimed and being loaded. Katie growled in frustration and paced, watching as vacationers and business travelers loaded bags and laptops and kids into the available transportation. Come on, she thought. All I need is a damn cab.
One pulled up at the far end of the row, and Katie dashed for it. Out of the corner of her eye she saw someone else heading there, moving fast, and he was closer. His hand touched the door of the cab before she made it, and she pulled up short, fuming, as he pulled on the handle.
It was the man from the California flight, the one she’d bumped into. He’d been gorgeous in the terminal, but out here in the sun he glowed, his skin an impossible shade of light bronze, his deep black hair picking up blue highlights.
His smile was as warm as the sun.
“Okay, this time I do apologize,” he said and stepped back from the door to offer her the cab. “You look like you’re in even more of a hurry than I am. How about we share? You get dropped off first.”
She wrenched her stare away from that smile to some less dangerous territory. Not his eyes. His eyes were definitely, lethally beautiful.
“No,” she said.
“No?” He hung on to the smile. “You mean, no, you don’t want to share the cab, or no, you’re not taking the cab?”
Yes, she thought. He was rattling her, and that was strange and very distracting in its own right. She never let guys get to her. She’d seen all kinds—gorgeous charmers included—and she was definitely inoculated against their particular gifts. She’d seen the wreckage they left behind.
But this one…well. He was a challenge.
“I’ll take the next one,” she said. “You take this one.” She didn’t need a distraction, and he was the Las Vegas of distractions, neon and glitter and flashing arrows.
He frowned a little, and started to say something she was sure was going to be an argument, but then she heard someone behind her call, “Agent Rush?”
She turned. There was a police cruiser parked at the curb farther down, lights flashing, with two uniformed officers standing next to it. Katie waved.
“I think I already have a ride,” she said.
She walked away, resisting the urge to look back. After a few seconds she heard the click of the cab door shutting, and breathed a sigh of relief as the yellow sedan rolled by. She kept her focus on the police cruiser, and the two officers beside it, as she walked.
Okay, one glance at the taxi. He wouldn’t still be looking….
He was. She looked away, furious with herself, as he waved.
“Agent Rush, welcome to the lovely city of Phoenix. Detective Ryan sent you chauffeurs. Hope you don’t mind riding in our special visitor’s seats.”
The male officer was already opening up the back door of the cruiser. She ducked inside and found it depressingly familiar; she’d ridden in a lot of police cars around the country, and it always seemed to be the same damn car, over and over. Different colored wipe-down vinyl upholstery, and the heavy grillwork separating her from the front seat. There were no handles on the inside of the doors, of course. The whole thing smelled of the body odor and vomit of the last transport, overlaid with the astringent wipe-down they’d given it to make it presentable for her.
“Nice,” she said. “So I’m getting the royal treatment.”
“You know us locals, anything for our cousins from the FBI. Watch your head.”
Their names, according to the name tags, were officers Samson and Gilhoulie—one black, one white, one thin, one plump, one female, one male. The differences didn’t matter much, as far as Katie could tell; they seemed used to each other, in the way of partners or old married couples. Aware of each other at all times, but comfortable.
Samson was the driver of the two, apparently. He got behind the wheel and steered the cruiser into traffic, lights still flashing. Katie looked out the freshly cleaned window—it still smelled of the cleaning product they’d used to give it a streak-free shine—to get her bearings in the city again. In a sense, they really had rolled out the red carpet. Most cop shops would have assumed she could take care of her own transportation.
Phoenix never looked lush, but the weak winter sunlight gave it a wan quality that mirrored Katie’s mood. She remembered the city very well, but it wasn’t a homecoming, not given the circumstances.
“So,” Officer Gilhoulie said and twisted around to look at her. She was a height-challenged redhead with fair Irish skin and blue eyes that seemed pleasant, but had that inner distance all cops everywhere shared. “How long have you known Detective Ryan, ma’am?”
The ma’am was reflexive. All beat cops were courteous to a fault, until they weren’t. Part of their charm.
“Detective Ryan and I went to school together,” Katie said. That usually derailed the conversation because there was nothing more boring than old school-days reminiscences; nobody wanted to hear high school stories except people from your high school. Sure enough, Gilhoulie turned back to face forward.
But, to Katie’s surprise, she continued asking questions.
“You originally from Phoenix, then?”
“Pennsylvania. Philly, actually. I’m just assigned out of the Kansas City field office right now.”
“They move you around in the FBI, huh?”
“Every two years,” Katie said. “Until you get to a certain service level. I’ve probably got one rotation to go before they let me choose a permanent duty station. Doesn’t matter, though. I work all over the country.”
Chitchat, nothing Katie had to focus her attention on beyond the bare minimum. Gilhoulie’s partner, Samson, drove without saying much; he was constantly scanning the streets and sidewalks. Gilhoulie seemed to think it was her duty to entertain the guest, for some reason. “So,” the officer asked, “do you have some kind of specialty, or…?”
“Missing persons,” Katie said. “I specialize in missing persons cases.”
“No wonder Ryan called you,” Gilhoulie said. “So, what kind of school was it? Some kind of prep school, right? I heard it’s exclusive.”
Time to change the subject. “You get a lot of these kinds of abductions in Phoenix these days?”
“No, ma’am,” Samson said immediately. “Mostly the usual, you know, custody disputes. Sometimes we get a kid or woman
