Page 181 of To Die For

Hastings winced at these blunt but accurate words.

“But I’m trying to save Danny’s life. So will you take me to the place, or not?”

Hastings rose. “Come on, I’ll drive you myself.”

CHAPTER

84

CAMPBELL, SAXBY, BRADDOCK, AND WALKERrode with Devine and Hastings in his SUV. They pulled up in front of the restaurant.

Devine glanced at Hastings. “Did he pick this place?”

“Yeah. He came in and told me he wanted to go out to eat. We had to scramble. The feds and everything.”

“Didn’t he have dinner?” said Campbell. “Was there a reason he needed to eat that late?”

Hastings shrugged. “Half the time I have to remind him to eat. It’s not a priority.”

Campbell said, “Then he was meeting someone here. Andtheypicked the spot.”

“Agreed, sir,” replied Devine.

They all went inside and flashed their badges at the woman who came out to greet them. The restaurant wasn’t open yet and would not open again until the crime scene processing had been complete.

Hastings led them through the dining room to the table where they had been eating. Hastings pointed out the locations where his men and the feds had been stationed.

“Okay, when it was noticed that he was missing, what happened?” Devine asked Hastings.

“All the security, us and the feds, converged on the bathroom. Then we spread out and covered all the bases.”

They followed Devine down a hall to the rear of the building. There was a door off the kitchen. He opened it to reveal a storage closet. A short walk down the hall led to the rear exit. Devineopened the door into a wide alleyway behind the building lined with Dumpsters. It could be entered off the street to the east and led to the next block over.

“Plenty wide enough to drive through,” noted Braddock.

“Where all the delivery trucks come probably,” noted Saxby.

“Did the sentries stationed here also converge on the bathroom?” asked Devine.

“Yes, it was an all-hands-on-deck call,” replied Hastings.

“How long between everyone leaving their posts and the wall being put up around this place?”

Hastings thought for a moment. “Maybe a minute.”

Campbell opined, “So if I’m Glass, I knock out his own guy, go hide in that storage closet. The alarm sounds and he hears everyone rushing past. He steps out, exits out the rear door, and…”

“And what?” said Hastings. “Hoofs it on foot? We would’ve seen him.”

Devine walked into the kitchen. They all followed him.

He asked the same woman who had greeted them where the staff took their breaks.

“In the alley,” she replied. “Smokes and water.”

“I know they’ve been held here for questioning, and I need to talk to all of them.”

A minute later with the personnel lined up in front of him, Devine asked who had been out in the alley at the time in question. One young man, he was a busboy he told them, had been taking his smoke break. He was in his early twenties, with a small goatee, a thin frame, and he looked exhausted.

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