Free J. Daniel Sawyer - Clarke Lantham 01 by And Then She Was Gone Page A

of the City in maybe half an hour to forty minutes. They weren’t supposed to be open today, but it was all I had on this side of the water.
    North on Highway 1 it was.
    Two blocks out of town, motion in my rear view mirror caught my attention.
    A gray Mustang slid from a cross street and swerved side to side less than twelve feet off my bumper. Gravity raised his arm and made a shooting motion with his fingers, then laid on the gas and tapped my bumper.
    I floored it.
    He’d ducked off the main drag. I got that—but why did he give a damn?
    For two miles he rode my ass like I was a three-dollar rent boy from the bad side of town, and no way out. Zipping past the housing developments between Half Moon Bay and El Granada wasn’t getting me anywhere.
    I waited for a break in opposing traffic.
    Right past the farm truck…now!
    Hand on the e-brake. Clutch in, shifter into third. Slip it soft. Yank the hand brake. Crank the wheel, floor the gas.
    The little Civic turned left and slid right, almost floating across the opposing lane as its weight pivoted around the engine block. The back end swung past center. I dropped the brake handle.
    I could smell the rubber smoke through the vents.
    The tires moved from squealing to screaming to howling in agony. The gerbils weren’t happy either.
    Ten seconds, maybe less, till the next clump of traffic was on top of me.
    I’d pushed the turn too hard. The car was still sliding.
    In the lane I’d just left, Gravity blew by in a honking tornado.
    My right rear tire slid off the road. My front had no traction. The tach was down under 2k. I dropped to second and gave the gerbils one last hard whip. The tires hauled at the ground.
    The back end slid more than halfway into the open air over the drainage ditch.
    And suddenly I was going forward again.
    No more risks, Lantham. He could still be back there.
    I set course for home, back over the mountain, moving as fast as I could. If I got nabbed by a cop, it would at least keep me off the radar for a while.
    Now, how the hell had he spotted me? How did he know I was a threat?
    Where had he been going before he tied to shake me?
    Most importantly, who was Mr. Gravity?
    And why had he been at the Symposium, dressed as a student?

5:30 PM, Sunday
     
    “Thank you for calling the office of Serena Tam, MFT. Office hours are ten AM to six PM, Monday through Friday. Your call is important to me, and if you leave a message I will return your call as soon as I’m able. Thank you.”
    Beep.
    “Doctor Tam, my name is Clarke Lantham. There is an emergency regarding your patient Nya Thales. If you can call me back as soon as possible, I’ll explain. You can reach me any time, day or night, at 5-1-0 3-2-6-3-8-2-7.”
    I hung up the phone. Between that message and Mrs. Thales’s promise that she’d also call Nya’s therapist—secured from her as I waded through traffic on the San Mateo Bridge—I’d hopefully get a return call.
    With that promise secured, I cranked some Zeppelin and took a break while I drove back to the office.
    Now it was time to get back to work. I typed up the notes, dropped the conversation to the server with a note to Rachael to transcribe them when she came in tomorrow.
    More important, though, I had an evening free. Nothing to do for the next few hours. Besides, running around all creation talking to everyone wasn’t getting me anywhere.
    What I really needed was time to think. Get to know the missing girl, not the screwy fruitcakes that populated her crazy corner of the world. If I was going to find her, I needed to understand her. A heroin kit and some pot, a box of trophies and a description of her disability only took me so far.
    Rawles and Dora both said she was special. I needed to know why.
    I still had those flash cards and the thumb drive from her room. The vids on them might even be something other than porn. Maybe a video diary? Memories? At this stage, anything personal other than pictures might help.
    Propped