“Stupid bitch. Now I have to deal with your ass too.”
Josh stared at Jesse’s unconscious girlfriend lying five feet from the bound detective. He had to get rid of the car that was running in the driveway, but he had to secure the woman first. Luckily, her street had plenty of leaf-filled trees and blooming shrubbery that partially obscured the driveway.
Josh checked on the detective before addressing the girlfriend. “Looks like you’ve been busy. Guess I’ll have to tape over what you’ve worked so hard at.” Josh tore off a two-foot length of tape and wrapped Jesse’s right hand again. He did the same with the left. He checked Jesse’s ankles and saw that the detective hadn’t gotten that far. “Ankles are still good. Now relax and quit working so hard. You don’t want me to inflict more pain on you, do you?”
He jammed what was left on the roll of tape in his waistband, grabbed Hanna by the legs, and dragged her down the hallway. In the guestroom, he tossed her on the twin bed and pulled the final length of tape off the roll. There wasn’t enough to do the job. “Damn it. Guess I’ll have to do some shopping after all.” He gave her a glance and decided he had enough time to hunt for something to bind her before she regained consciousness. Josh ran to the garage, searched the shelves, and found a canister of various-sized cable ties. “These will do.” He ran to the bedroom, and by using the longest ties, he secured her hands and feet to the scrolled metal headboard and footboard. Mirroring how he’d muffled Jesse, Josh stuck a washcloth inside the woman’s mouth and used his last piece of tape to keep her quiet.
“There, that’ll do for the time being. Now I have to get rid of that car.” He closed the bedroom door and shot McCord the middle finger as he passed him on his way out. He yelled to Jesse before closing the door. “I’ll be right back.”
Josh saw Hanna’s purse in the passenger-side footwell as he climbed into the Lexus. “That can’t stay with the car.” He grabbed the purse by the strap and noticed the cell phone.
Hmm, that must explain why her old phone doesn’t work anymore. She’s already replaced it with a new one. I don’t need either phone, but it looks like this charger might fit my prepaid one.
Josh pulled the charger out of the port and pocketed it. Inside the garage, he hung the purse on a nail then realized he didn’t know the code to lower the door. He would have to get that from the girlfriend later. He closed the overhead with the wall switch and left through the front of the house.
Inside the car, Josh dug through the glove box to find out who the Lexus belonged to.
“Here we go, a Lee Denise Bradley. Obviously a relative of Hanna Bradley. No matter what, the car has to be left a good distance from here so nobody puts two and two together.”
Josh drove to a less-desirable area of town a good four miles away. He turned in at a run-down alley that was littered with trash cans, dumpsters, and discarded stained mattresses. It would do just fine. He shut down the car and left the keys in the ignition and the phones visible on the passenger seat. He stared at the new phone before climbing out. If there was any charge at all, he could call for a driver to pick him up. Josh pressed the power button and saw the slightest charge on it. He made that quick call and hung up. After erasing that entry, he wiped down both phones, the steering wheel, and the driver’s-side door handle with his shirt, then he walked away from the car. The next person to turn on the phone could possibly be tracked—or not, he wasn’t sure—but at that point, he didn’t care.
Josh was picked up fifteen minutes later at the intersection of West Sixty-First Street and South Yale and dropped off at the corner of South Stoney Island and East Sixty-Seventh Street. He had an eight-block walk to Hanna’s house, so he kept his head low as he took to the alleys.