Page 32 of Devil's Due

“No, let me talk to him first,” Lucia said, and exchanged a glance with Omar. He moved off to the side, apparently lounging, but he had a clear line of fire if necessary. Lucia walked toward the man.

He didn’t budge. Didn’t even look up until the last moment of her approach. He had a regular face, squarely middle of the dial between handsome and homely. Medium brown hair. Dark eyes, narrow, with no particular impact to them.

“Mr. Davis,” she said, and sank down into one of the leather guest chairs on the opposite side of the glass table. “You wanted to see someone from Callender & Garza?”

“Yeah, I did. I didn’t think you guys were here—”

“We’re temporarily officing elsewhere. What’s so urgent?”

He took off the ball cap in an awkward gesture of gentility, and offered his hand. She shook it. “I’m real sorry to be trouble, but I really needed—look, it’s my wife. I need to find her, and I was told you might be able to help me.”

“Do you mind if I ask who sent you?”

“A Detective, ah, Brown? I have his card somewhere …” He patted his pockets and came up with a KCPD business card. Welton Brown. Lucia recognized the name—one of Jazz’s contacts in the department. A detective with a solid reputation. “Anyway, I don’t know where else to go. I mean, I’ve been looking, but nobody seems to have seen her.”

“Slow down,” Lucia said, and kept her body language friendly and open. “Tell me what happened, from the beginning.”

He took a deep breath and put his baseball hat back on. His sweatshirt proclaimed him a fan of the Kansas City Chiefs. Nike cross-trainers on his feet. He looked athletic, and the watch on his wrist was a sturdy, waterproof sports model. No reason at all for her alarm bells to be clanging. He was nothing but vanilla, through and through.

He said, “It’s my wife, Susannah. She, ah, she’s missing. I mean, she didn’t come home from work on Thursday. I went crazy looking for her.”

“And you went to the police.” Lucia held up Welton Brown’s card.

Leonard Davis nodded. “Sure. The next morning, when I couldn’t find her at any of the usual spots.”

“And Detective Brown recommended you come to us?”

He didn’t answer.

“Leonard,” she said, and drew his eyes. “Tell meexactlywhy the police don’t think she was abducted. You know I can find out with one phone call if I have to.”

He looked down at his cross-trainers. “She might have taken some clothes.”

“Money? Did she take cash?”

His hands washed each other, slowly. “She used her ATM card twice that night. But these carjacking guys, they do that, right? They make you get money out of the ATM. That’s what happened. They made her do it.”

“Does she have a cell phone?”

“Yes. It’s off.”

“And her car? Has it been spotted at all?”

“No. What about a chop shop? Maybe they cut it up for parts.” Lucia wondered if he was thinking about the same thing happening to his missing wife.

“It’s possible,” she said. “The police have this information on file, if you gave it to them. They’ll keep it in the database, and if anything turns up, they’ll reactivate the case. It isn’t that they don’t necessarily believe you, Mr. Davis, it’s that there isn’t much to go on in this particular instance. You understand, don’t you? The police have to focus on crimes that have definitely occurred, not ones that might have happened. The facts you’ve laid out for me could involve a woman who’s gone missing, or a woman who doesn’t want to be found.”

Davis fidgeted, fingers pulling at the seams of his blue jeans. There were fading bruises on his knuckles, and she focused on them for a second before flicking her attention back to his shadowed face.

“I believe she’s missing,” he said. “I believe somebody took her and made her get that money. I want you to help me find her.”

She sat back, Considering him, Welton Brown’s card cool between her fingers. Omar was still lounging in the corner, looking as if he was paying no attention, but intent on every movement.

Something was bothering her, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. As she thought it over, trying to run it down, her cell phone rang.

“Excuse me,” she said, and stood up to walk to a far corner, her back to Davis. Omar would be watching. Not much risk involved.

“Yo.” Jazz. “Leonard Davis has two complaints against him for spousal abuse. KCPD has been to his house plenty of times. Sounds like a lively place.”

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