Free 18th Abduction (Women's Murder Club) by James Patterson Page A

information, Linds. Want to go to bed and sleep on it?”
    Sounded good to me. I cleaned up while Joe stacked the dishes in the dishwasher. A few minutes later I met the man I loved in the bedroom. We got under the covers, and Martha climbed in between us.
    We all slept.

CHAPTER 29
    My eyes flashed open at some dark hour.
    I couldn’t remember the whole of my dream, but the fragment that remained was a picture of Carly, Adele, and Susan climbing into a vehicle outside the Bridge.
    Now my conscious mind kicked in.
    If the three women had gotten into a car with a killer, how was it that twenty-four hours later, Carly had checked into the Big Four Motel alone?
    Big question: Where had she been during that time?
    If Carly had been tricking,
any
smart and careful psychopath could have killed her in room 212.
    I was scared.
    I was afraid that this case could be an endless ball of string that would be unsolved for the next twenty years. Or it could go cold forever.
    Next unrelenting question: Where were Adele and Susan?
    Joe said, “You can’t sleep, either?”
    “Oh, damn. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
    “I was awake. I can’t turn off my brain.”
    Martha rolled onto her back and I mindlessly rubbed her belly.
    “I’ve got unsolved murders running through my head,” I said.
    “And I’ve got voices talking to me,” said Joe.
    He rolled toward me. “The voices are saying, ‘Get it together, you dumb shit.’”
    “That’s just
mean
of your voices.”
    Joe sighed and reached for me.
    Martha jumped off the bed and I went into Joe’s arms.
    We comforted each other, and then we made love, and fell asleep again until the sun came through the bedroom window.
    It was Friday morning. I was primary on a sickening case, and I still had no clues. I had to go to work.

CHAPTER 30
    By eight thirty that morning Conklin and I were at our facing desks trying to get a lead on Nancy Koebel, the housekeeper who’d come upon the gruesome scene in room 212.
    Then she’d vanished.
    Her phone number came up as a prepaid phone, a burner. I called Tuohy, and he told me once again that it was the only number he had for her.
    “She’s only been here for a coupla months.”
    “Thanks,” I barked at him. This guy really pissed me off.
    I went back to my computer.
    Koebel’s name was absent from the DMV, SFPD, NCIC, and other available criminal databases. Did she get payroll checks from the Big Four—or was she paid off the books? Did she pay taxes? I doubted it. I couldn’t find a trace of her.
    “She’s undocumented,” I said to Conklin. I was taking an educated guess.
    That’s when Clapper called.
    Maybe he’d found evidence on Carly Myers’s body.
    “Hold a sec,” I said, “I’m putting you on speaker.”
    I stabbed the button on my phone console.
    Hellos were exchanged, then Clapper said, “What do you want first? Bad news or good?”
    “Bad,” I said. “Don’t cushion it.”
    “Inventory of Carly’s handbag: two textbooks, American history, Western civ. Hefty makeup kit. Pair of sneakers and two white socks. Miscellaneous pads and pens. A strip of condoms. Phone and charger. Laptop and charger. We’ve run down the numbers and email; she shops and pays her bills online. Nothing pops.”
    “Shit.”
    Clapper kept going.
    “Meanwhile, here’s something to keep hope alive. We’ve impounded the ATM from the Stop ’n Go facing across Polk toward the back of the motel,” he said. “We’re taking it apart and should know shortly if the camera was working, the disk was usable, the lens was clean. If all that’s a go, we’ll see if it captured anything useful.”
    “Good,” I said, crossing my fingers.
    Clapper said, “I’m being paged, but we finished processing Carly Myers’s body down at the morgue last night. Claire has my detailed notes. Call me if you have questions.”
    I had questions. Lots of them.
    I shouted, “Charlie, wait.”
    “Can’t,” he said. “Boxer. Go to the morgue. Claire’s