Kemp hesitated. Shaw knew the request was over the line. But he just looked back into the man’s dark eyes.
One of the massive hands slid it forward.
He opened the file and flipped through the contents, which included the investigation and disposition of the aggravated battery from last year. He didn’t think there would be anything helpful in his search for the woman and girl now. He just wanted to see what had happened in the attack.
Colter Shaw was no stranger to violence. He had witnessed it, experienced it and caused it. But the pictures taken of Allison Parker’s face were tough to see. The skin had been cleaned of blood,but there were many dark brown stains on her collar and, if you looked closely, her hair. Most troubling was the damaged symmetry of her face. Merritt had slammed his service pistol into her cheek and cracked it, altering the tectonic plate of the bone.
Equally troubling were the tears, distorting the perfect lenses of her eyes.
He closed the file and pushed it back. He fished a card from his jeans pocket and handed it to the detective. It went not into a drawer but on a spot beside his computer keyboard.
He thanked Kemp again and rose, leaving him to his massive array of files.
Had the meeting been helpful or not?
His answer was: only twenty percent.
Still, sometimes the least likely approaches worked to sterling advantage. So you pursued them anyway.
Fact is.
24
No bus.
That hadn’t happened.
Jon Merritt was at a McDonald’s, the intersection of Cross County and Route 55, absently watching customers come and go.
No bus. His ex had rented a car. He was ninety-five percent positive.
Detroit, St. Louis...
Neither.
She was just like the tweaker he’d killed, coming up with a plan meant to fool everybody.
She’d bought tickets—he knew that from the clerk’s expression—and left the Toyota sort of but not really hidden, and then hiked away from the terminal to one of the nearby car rental agencies. He debated going inside but he decided he’d pushed his fake cop stuff too far. The bus clerk already might have called someone at FPD.
He had parked the truck butt-in, to have a good view of any approaching threat. This was habit. Jon Merritt had made plenty of enemies in his prior life, all the way from those in crack houses to the county building—and beyond. Enemies who would want himdead out of vengeance or, perhaps, for some other reason. Ironic, he now thought. From the early days of their marriage he’d warned Allison to be vigilant and defensive. She surely would be assuming that same attitude to evadehimnow.
A bite of burger, a sip of soda. Okay, think...
She’s driving. First, how far tonight, and how far tomorrow? And which direction?
It was getting late. He guessed the perimeter would be about a hundred miles from home. She’d stop somewhere in that circle.
As for direction, she’d started north; he assumed she’d keep going that way and Route 55 was the most efficient choice.
Something was in that direction, something that offered protection.
What was it?
Where would a fleeing wife flee to?
Some options came to mind.
Her friends. Likelihood? Not much. He knew most of the people she was close to. Knew too their addresses, or could easily find them. She wouldn’t put them at risk.