“You know her?” A pair of uniformed officers were already across the hall, while another one was knocking on doors down the hallway. As if the people in this neighborhood would talk. Yeah, sure. The pimp down the hall would be real eager to talk to the cops.
“Yeah, Mia. She works at the Twenty-Four Diner over on Sixth Street and there was a guy in there yesterday and the day before, staring at her for hours, like Misty. I didn’t put it together until now, but it’s got to be the same guy. I got a good look at him. But the more time we waste here, the longer he’s got her.” Jordan was well aware of the fact he sounded like a whiney pussy but couldn’t stop it.
“Can you talk to a sketch artist and give us something concrete to work with?”
“You bet your ass, but can we do it quickly?”
Detective Hollerman quirked an eyebrow at him but didn’t say anything out loud. His thoughts were loud and clear, though, and Jordan read them. Hollerman didn’t want Jordan going all cowboy and messing up the investigation, but Jordan was going to do what he could to catch the asshole who had his girl. That was a no-brainer.
“The escape vehicle? Did you get a good look at the plate or anything?” The detective’s notepad was out and he was taking notes.
Jordan toyed with the idea of letting Pierce handle this, since he had faith in himself above all else, but a rare sense of desperation made him talk more openly with Hollerman. Another set of resources wouldn’t hurt, would it?
“Yeah. I got a partial plate. Late model van, white, dirty, no windows.” He gave the plate numbers he had and added, “Evan already ran it, he said it was an address on Westlake Drive.”
Hollerman’s eyebrows slammed down above his eyes. “Listen. I know you’re invested in this case, but we have to go by the book.” Slapping his notebook shut, he continued, sitting on Jordan’s futon. Jordan didn’t want to see the man sitting, he wanted him to be up and moving around, finding Mia. “You guys have gotten involved in several investigations I’ve been doing in the past, and I’m not gonna lie. Y’all have fucked some shit up for me with my boss. In the end, you always get the bad guy, which makes the Mayor look great, but I cannot let you go all renegade on this investigation. Mia’s in danger, and we have procedures in place to convict this guy when we catch him. We have to do this by the book. Understand?”
Jordan gritted his teeth together and nodded, not intending in the least to stand by idly.
“You know we’ve been hired on Misty’s case, so I’m going to go on the assumption it’s the same guy, based on the similarities in MO.” Jordan spoke when he was able to control his emotions. “We’ll do whatever it takes to find her, and Mia, too.”
“Within the law’s parameters,” Hollerman reinforced.
“Of course. I’m sure that’s Pierce Securities’ bottom line,” Jordan lied easily. He had absolutely no intention of following the letter of the law on this one. He needed to find Mia.
But first he needed to make them think he was cooperating.
Jordan followed the detective to the station and gave a statement, as well as met with the sketch artist and together they came up with something that resembled the asshole who had stared at Mia throughout her shift.
Jordan was losing his mind the entire time he was at the station, wishing he was doing something, anything , to find Mia. His name, screamed from her lungs, echoed in his brain, ricocheting off the walls of his mind the entire time he sat in the tiny room with the affable man trying to draw. The artist was patient and understanding, but Jordan was just trying not to crawl out of his skin.
Mia had been scared plenty of times in her life. There was the time the neighbor’s mastiff had gotten loose and tried to attack her, but she’d run fast enough to get away from him. Then there was the time she’d gotten separated from Mom at the mall at
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