Flashback (Kendra Michaels #11)

“Imagine that.” He smiled. “So are you going to try again, or are you going to let me help?”

“You know what I want to do.” She turned toward him. “But that’s not fair to you. So I’m going to tell you everything that he said to me and we’re going to work on it together.”

“Amazing,” he said.

“And you will not try to shut me out. Or protect me.”

“That I won’t promise. That might be self-destructive,” he added. “We’ll see how it goes. But we’ll work on this together and I’ll do my best to keep you firmly in the loop.” He shot her a glance. “I’ll find a way to get Williams to tell us what he’s been hiding. I have a few ideas in that direction. Is that a good start?”

“It’s a good start,” she said. He knew it was and he wasn’t trying to make it difficult for her. Nothing he’d done today had been anything but helpful. “Do you want me to begin telling you what Williams said now?”

He shook his head. “It will wait until tonight. Relax and take care of the pup.”

She suddenly chuckled and reached to pet Harley in the backseat. “That’s what Williams said. He told me taking care of the pup and you was all that was necessary.”

“Then he’s even smarter than I thought. But I still think we can go back and lean on him,” Lynch said. “I can be extremely persuasive when the situation demands it.”

“He’s a retired police detective, not some thug you can threaten within an inch of his life.”

“I know several police detectives who are thugs. And a few heads of state who fall into that category, too.”

“I’m sure you do, but I have a more civilized idea.”

“It won’t be nearly as fun.”

“Reserve that fun for third-world dictatorships. Right now, I need to know if you still have Chloe Morgan’s phone location map for the last couple of weeks.”

“I do. And not just a photograph of it.”

“What do you mean?”

Lynch shrugged. “The police sent a copy of her phone map data to the FBI in Washington.”

“Ah. And once it went there, of course it was just a hop, skip, and a jump back to you.”

“Is it so bad that I have friends in high places?”

“In this case, no. Because I’d like you to use it to see if she visited Todd Williams in the past couple of weeks. I’m still suspicious of the fact that there isn’t an updated file for him when she created one for everyone else she and her sister were recently in touch with.”

Lynch pulled over, parked his car, and picked up his phone. “Let’s see what this can tell us.” His fingers glided over the phone screen. “Just a matter of superimposing the tracked locations over the map again…” He concentrated on the screen. “Okay, it looks like Chloe may have made a stop in Todd Williams’ neighborhood three days before her disappearance.”

“At his house?”

Lynch looked at the phone screen a moment longer. “Afraid not. A couple blocks away.”

“Where?”

“Looks like a commercial building. I’ll look it up.” Lynch transposed the image over a map app and held up his phone to show Kendra. “Zeke’s Coffee. I’ve never heard of it.”

She squinted at the map. “Off the beaten track for Chloe. Not really her beat, if these other map stops are any indication. But this place does happen to be a favorite of Todd Williams.”

Lynch stared at her. “How do you figure that?”

“We walked past his car on the way up his driveway. There were at least six empty Zeke’s coffee cups in the cupholders and on the floor. I’d say it’s a place he visits fairly often.”

Lynch nodded. “And a place he might feel comfortable setting up a meeting.” He put down his phone and shifted his car into gear. “Let’s go.”

“Wait. I don’t think this is enough to start working your powers of persuasion on him.”