Side by Side

24

Hank Trammel, Winter’s law-enforcement mentor, once told Winter that law enforcement was like a twenty-four-hour, seven-day-a-week gambling casino. The bad guys ran the house, so while there were hot streaks for the cop players, over the course of any lawman’s career the house odds prevailed. The best a lawman could do was to ride the hot streaks and grin and bear it when the deck went against you. Since you couldn’t count on luck, you used your brain, worked hard, and called upon your skills to raise your odds of success. Life-and-death cases like this one were the high-stakes table. If Lucy and her child were still alive, they wouldn’t be breathing any longer than necessary.

Winter didn’t know why Click had left the hotel, but he was sure the boy hadn’t run because he knew anybody was onto him.

The rain and the traffic acted as an effective veil. Winter used the cell phone’s earpiece so he could talk hands-free. He stayed a quarter mile behind Alexa, who remained far enough behind Click so she could keep him in sight, but far enough back so he wouldn’t notice her car.

“You think somebody spelled him at the hotel?” Alexa asked.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“If we’d been a couple of minutes later in realizing who he was, he’d have been long gone. We couldn’t have spooked him, could we?”

“No,” Winter said.

“Not like we have a lot of leads, if this doesn’t pan out,” Alexa said.

“The fact that he was tagging after the judge is more than enough evidence for me that the Smoots are involved in the abduction.”

“Clayton’s the best there is at gathering and interpreting intelligence. Far as I know, if the man says he’s sure, he’s right on target.”

“He certainly gathered a lot of information in a very short time. Does he have his own firm?”

“He’s part of a larger network, I guess you’d say.”

“They know he hacks intel systems?”

“Well, if they didn’t trust him, he couldn’t do it. Not in these troubled times. The intel community has been under so much pressure lately.”

“You’ve used him on official business?”

“I’ve used him in an advisory capacity. Brass doesn’t like agents going outside, especially when it turns out they are successful where we weren’t. I don’t have to tell you how it works.”

“Territorial imperative meets the Peter Principle,” Winter said.

“All I know is that without Clayton, we wouldn’t have been able to get our hands around this one. If he hadn’t come in, I’d have done about as well standing on a median strip with a cardboard sign that said, ‘Stop if you’ve seen any missing people.’?”

Winter laughed. “You couldn’t say which people.”

“Click might not know any of the specifics about the grab or where our people are being held,” Alexa said, sadly.

They were driving on Independence Boulevard in light traffic. Click wasn’t trying to be evasive in the least.

“What do you hear from Precious?” Winter asked.

“Why do you ask?”

Precious was Antonia Keen’s nickname. Antonia was Alexa’s younger sister, but before they had found a permanent foster home, Alexa had also been a mother to the younger girl. Antonia had been a tomboy with a capital “T.” Winter had never particularly cared for her, and perhaps that was because she had openly resented his relationship with her older sister. He understood the psychology, but he couldn’t forgive her hostility toward him.

“Why wouldn’t I ask?” he said to Alexa. “Last I heard she was burning a path to the top of the Army. That still the case?”

“You have me in sight, Massey?”

“Sure do.”

“Our boy’s turning into a shopping center,” Alexa said.

“I see him.”

Winter noted that Alexa had just avoided answering his innocent question about her younger sister. Maybe Antonia had done something to upset Alexa, but more likely Alexa had too much on her mind at the moment to make small talk.

Winter put his mind on two people being held by scary people.