We moved the car to the end of Sartini’s street. Sam got out and I sat in silence. A light breeze blew in through the open windows, filling the car with the scents of early fall. Soon enough the ground would be littered with dead leaves and the smell of smoke would linger throughout the day. But for now, it was still warm out.
What was it like where Cassie was? Was she near the city or the coast? Or had they pressed west? Maybe Novak had travelled into South Carolina. Was it possible he’d come back here?
I doubted the last option right away. He hadn’t been in this area in fifteen years. Things had changed. Any support network he had back then had most likely been put through the ringer by the detectives working the case. If Novak showed up, he’d hang, and he knew it.
The murders had occurred in Savannah. Several of his previous murders had taken place in and around Savannah. He’d abducted Cassie in Savannah. Call it intuition, gut instinct, or simply looking at and digesting the obvious facts, but I knew he was somewhere near Savannah.
Sartini said he’d continue to work on the license plate. He could try other still frames, and even send it off to the one guy who was better than him. Mostly because the other guy had the best equipment, and it wasn’t worth Sartini upgrading, because according to him, he had one foot, both nuts, and an ass cheek in the grave already. I didn’t want to know what all that meant, so I simply gave him my blessing to do anything and everything in his power to decipher that license plate. It was all we had.
Sam’s cell phone screen streaked past the open window as he shoved it in his pocket. I’d caught bits and pieces of his conversation with his NSA contact, but had been too far into my own head to pay much attention. He dropped into the driver’s seat. The car dipped noticeably to his side.
“Anything?” I asked.
“Still working on it. They’re one hundred percent certain the call originated from the Savannah area. Now they’re trying to trace it to the device it originated from. Since it’s a spoof number, it could’ve been done on a computer or another cell phone.”
“It’s a start,” I said. “That’s better than what we had before.”
“Don’t let the license plate thing get you down. We’re gonna figure this out and get her back.”
“We?”
He nodded. “I’m coming down to help you.”
“Pennington and Cervantes are gonna love that.”
“Screw them. Cassie’s my friend, too. Yeah, I know she weirds me out sometimes, but the lady has grown on me. Any extra help should be welcome as far as I’m concerned.”
I stared out the window at a couple jogging toward us. The guy spotted us and placed himself between the car and his wife. He stared us down as they trotted past.
“We better get out of here,” Sam said. “That guy’s a threat to call the cops.”
He navigated back to the highway. I went back and forth on whether it would be a good idea for Sam to come down. I know I’d asked him earlier, but I hadn’t thought it through then. The situation evolved by the minute. Would he help or hamper? I considered several of the cases we had worked, and one thing stood out. I probably wouldn’t have solved seventy-five percent of them if he hadn’t been my partner.
“All right, maybe it is a good idea to have you down there with me.”
“I knew you’d see it my way.” Sam hugged the centerline tight on a sharp curve.
“But we need to be on separate flights. Someone’s gonna be watching out for me. I don’t want you mixed up in it if they try to take me down.”
“All the more reason for us to get on the flight together.”
I raised my hand, but Sam shut me down quick.
“Mitch, listen. They know you. What makes you think they know about me?”
“Shouldn’t take too much Googling to figure out we work together. All the spotter needs is a picture of you and you’re done, too.”
“Then they’ll see me anyway.” He turned into a Hardee’s parking lot. It was the only fast food I could stand. “Mitch, we’re taking the same flight. You’ll do everything fifty feet ahead of me. Once they spot you, they’ll stop looking elsewhere.”
I conceded the point to him. We weren’t talking about a trained Special Forces guy on lookout. Whoever would be waiting would be antsy. “That’ll work, I suppose. Unless they’re just watching the manifests.”
Sam shrugged. “I got ways around that.”
“Mr. NSA?”
“Miss.” He winked. The water was becoming less murky.
“So how long’s this been going on?” I asked.
Sam raised an eyebrow and changed his tone. “Hey, why don’t we stop by your mom’s place and surprise Ella?”
“Changing the subject?”
“It’s only about ten minutes away.” He picked up his phone and swiped away the lock screen. “I’ll give her a call so she’s got the coffee ready when we get there.”
“All right, all right,” I said. “I’ll stop talking about Miss NSA if you put that phone down. You know how much trouble I’ll be in if they find out I’ve been in town all day?”
“Who’ll give it to you worse?”
“Ella, no doubt.” At one time I would’ve said Momma, but the little girl had grown into her own recently and had a forked tongue, just like her grandmother.
“Wanna crash at my place?”
Sam’s house was closer than mine. But something was tugging at me. Pulling me back to Savannah.
“Let’s get to the airport and redeye our way down.”
Sam sighed while rubbing his temples. “Tomorrow’s gonna be a long day.”
“I don’t doubt that.”
Neither of us knew how right we were.