18th Abduction (Women's Murder Club) Read Online Free PDF Page B

spiky hair. The female had turned to look at the male. Her face was in profile. Yellow lines on the asphalt marked parking spots. I could see one side of a dark SUV and almost make out a building at the edge of the frame.
    “Okay. What am I looking at?”
    “It was sent to me by a confidential source,” Cindy said. “A guy who reads my blog. The attached note said, ‘CarlyMyers and friend. She’s one of your missing teachers, right?’”
    I looked closer. I’d seen only a formal head shot of Carly Myers. This snapshot was not in sharp focus and showed only the woman’s profile. But it
could
be her.
    I asked Cindy, “Who’s the guy?”
    “Don’t know. Yet.”
    “Where’s this parking lot? Is this the Bridge?”
    “That’s all I have. This picture. My source was taking a shot of his girlfriend and her dog. Later he looks at the picture and recognizes Carly Myers. He’s seen her before.”
    “Cin. Don’t publish this until we have Carly, okay? Let’s not get her killed. And you have to hook me up with your source. We need the name of this guy walking with the woman.”
    “I get it, but he won’t talk to you. He’s got outstanding warrants.”
    “Okay, okay. I’ll talk to him on the phone. That’ll be fine.” For now.
    “Let me see what I can do.”
    “You can do anything, Girl Reporter.”
    She laughed.
    She took back her phone and sent the photo to me and a text to her source. My lunch came, and while making the daily special disappear, I looked again at the picture Cindy had sent to me.
    The shot had been taken at night. Fuzzy focus no matter what I did. Maybe it was Carly Myers. Who was the guy? Had he been the last person to see Carly when she left the Bridge? Had she told him where she was going? Had he abducted her?
    I told Cindy what assistant dean Karin Slaughter had told me about the three missing women and about Carly Myers in particular.
    “Carly’s a sports fan and a history buff. She lives alone. Her parents …” I sighed, thinking about them. “They said as far as they knew, she wasn’t seeing anyone right now.”
    I forwarded the photos of the three teachers to Cindy. She’d get them into the
Chronicle
today with a request to the public for help. This posting would bring out the kooks, flood our tip lines with 99 percent nonsense. But 1 percent might pay off. Maybe there was still time to bring the women home—alive.
    Cindy said, “Hang on.”
    She showed me a text she’d just gotten. The sender’s name was Kev32 and the message read,
I should have the boyfriend’s name in 1 hr.
    We had apple pie with our coffee, and I insisted on paying for lunch. It was fast ’n good and, for a real lead, damned cheap.

CHAPTER 13
    Joe watched Anna start up her car and head up Fulton and take a left on Steiner.
    Only after she’d turned the corner did he drive to his office.
    Joe believed everything Anna had told him about the brutalization, the terror, the repeated gang rapes, the murder of her family and nearly all of the men in Djoba.
    He had only one question: Was the man coming down the front steps of a fancy house on Fell Street Slobodan Petrović, or had Anna superimposed her searing memories onto a person who resembled the monster she would never forget?
    Joe didn’t have enough information. But he would get it.
    He parked his car on Golden Gate, walked two blocks to the FBI’s office building, and entered through the glass doors. He passed through security and took the elevator to his floor, preoccupied with Anna’s story, his mind on his computer.
    Joe thumbed in the code to his office, flipped on the lights, hung up his coat behind the door.
    His office was functional, no pictures or knickknacks, nothing personal about it. He had a standard wooden desk, a high-tech computer on the desk’s return, a TV affixed to the facing wall, one side chair, a flag standing in the corner, and a window to his right with a thirteenth-floor view of the city.
    He booted up his PC,