Page 17 of Nothing Left

Juliette didn’t like the way that this was adding up. Not at all.

She was wondering if Enzo had decided to ignore the instructions of the police to stay home, and instead, he'd decided to leave town. Or even skip the country itself.

"I think he's been packing," she said, taking her face away from the smeary window glass. "That's what it looks like to me. I think we need to get Ebury onto this immediately. We must find out if he's booked a plane ticket or a train ticket out of the country."

Needing to confirm this, she hurried back downstairs. Perhaps the security guard would know more.

"The man in number 508," she asked him. "Enzo Garcia. Have you seen him today?"

She showed him a photo of Enzo's face from the case report.

His eyes narrowed in recognition. Juliette was sure he knew Enzo and that he had seen him today.

"Where did he go? Did he tell you?" she pressured. "He's supposed to be home. He's a witness in a murder case."

“I can’t recall,” the man said slyly.

Juliette stared him down. In this situation, threats were going to be more effective than diplomacy.

"We need to find out," she said. "So either you tell us here and now, or we take you to the police station and leave you in a cell overnight while you try to remember."

The man didn’t like that idea. She saw his eye twitch. Perhaps he wasn’t a stranger to a prison cell. At any rate, after a pause, he sighed, capitulating.

"I saw Enzo go out earlier, wheeling a travel bag," he said. "Don't blame me. I had no idea he was supposed to stay put!"

"How long ago did he leave?" she asked.

"Maybe half an hour," he said.

Juliette gave Wyatt and Sierra a quick glance. They looked as stressed as she felt. Their witness was making a run for it, and he had half an hour's lead.

They needed to find him before he fled the country and disappeared.

CHAPTER TEN

Wyatt felt adrenaline surge inside him as he realized the situation. They'd come out to this tumbledown apartment building with valid suspicions to ask questions. Now, Enzo’s disappearance proved that they were on a hunt for a clearly guilty man.

"Right. Where could he have gone?" He had a gift for logical thinking under pressure, and his mind focused sharply on the possibilities, triaging them, given what he knew of this European city.

"I guess we're looking at high-speed rail or the airport as the two major possibilities," he said as he, Juliette, and Sierra hustled back to the car.

"Yes. Those are the two most likely options," Juliette agreed. He could see she was as ready as he was to embark on the chase, her face intent, her mind also checking off the most common possibilities.

Wyatt was good at chess, a fact that often surprised people who thought he was all brawn and no brain. That was inevitable, given his muscular build and his Army background.

But in fact, Wyatt was a top-class chess player who'd won several championships at school and college. He thought that the ability to excel in chess might be what gave him the strategic edge when it came to chasing down a suspect.

"Okay. The airport is further away, I see. That's the same airport we flew into. The train station is actually closer. I am reading here, on this map, that the international rail station is just beyond the Gothic Quarter. So he could have gotten there faster."

It was exactly like chess. Moves and countermoves. And, of course, an element of insight into their suspect's mind.

"However," he said, "there's not that much difference time-wise. And if I were him, I'd want to get out of the country sooner. An airplane, logistically, means you're over the border quicker. In the air is a safe place to be if you're a guilty man and want to be sure you've skipped the country in time."

As they jumped into the car, he saw that Juliette was nodding, agreeing with his logic.

"So I think we should probably head to the airport immediately and ask the railway police on site at the station to check the bookings there," Wyatt said. "If he's on a train, there'll be more time to stop him. Even a high-speed train is going to run for a couple of hours before it leaves Spain."

"I agree.” Juliette sounded decisive. “Let's speak to Ebury, brief him, and then he can make the calls to the passport control agents and get his passport flagged while we drive to the airport."

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