Body of Shadows Read Online Free PDF Page B

Denver,” he said.
    “I can’t,” she said. “It’s not my case plus I’m swamped.”
    “Whose case is it?”
    “A newbie by the name of Dale Radcliff.”
    “Did you tell him about the Denver victim?”
    “I did,” she said. “His reaction was, I knew there’d be another one. Conspicuously absent was any mention that he wanted to jump on a plane and head to where the fresh blood was.”
    “So you come then.”
    “Read my lips Drift, I’m swamped. I would if I could, you know that, but I can’t.”
    “Not even for me?”
    She laughed.
    “Especially for you.”
    “Come on, when’s your schedule going to clear up?”
    “I don’t know, when I’m sixty.”
    “That’s thirty years,” he said.
    She exhaled.
    “Nice try. Look, I’ll see if I can rearrange something, but don’t hold your breath,” she said. “In the meantime, check your emails.”
     
    He hung up just as they got outside.
    The sun was bright.
    The air was downright hot.
    It was definitely going to hit a hundred again today.
    He filled Sydney in on the serial aspect of the case as they headed for the car and said, “Hopefully there’s something in one of those files that’s going to get us pointed in the right direction. That’s not where I want to spend our time today, though. Today I want to track down that guy with the long hair.”
    “The one who saved Pantage?”
    “Right,” Drift said. “He must have gotten a pretty good look at the guy.”
    Sydney wasn’t convinced.
    “I don’t know, they were fighting at the time,” she said. “It was after dark.”
    “You might be right but he’s the best thing we have right now,” he said. “My guess is that he lives in the neighborhood somewhere.”
    They headed up the street.
    Sydney grunted.
    “Finding him won’t do any good,” she said. “He doesn’t want to get involved. If he did, he would have come forward by now of his own volition.”
    “One step at a time,” Drift said. “Let’s just find him first.”
    “Maybe he hasn’t come forward because the guy killed him.”
    “There’d be a body.”
    “Not if the guy shoved it in a trunk and dumped it in the mountains.”
    Drift looked at her sideways.
    “Whose side are you on today?”
    “I’m just being the devil’s advocate.”
    “The devil doesn’t need an advocate,” Drift said. “I do.”
    “I know,” she said. “That’s why I said I’m being your advocate.”
    He thought about it.
    Then he smiled.
    “Good one.”
    “I didn’t think you’d get it.”
    “I’m smarter than I look,” he said. “In fact, between me and my brother, we can answer every single question in the world. Go one, ask me one, anything you want.”
    “Okay, what the square root of 534?”
    “That’s one my brother knows,” he said. “Go on, ask me another one.”
    She punched him on the arm.
    “Like I said, double time.”

     
    12
    Day One
    July 18
    Monday Afternoon
     
    En route over Vail Yardley called her boss and said, “Blank’s on board.”
    “Do you see any problems with him?”
    “Not really,” she said. “He’s hungry, he’s good with the financial part of it and he understands the risks. I called Johnnie Axil in Seattle, too. He’s a hundred percent committed. He’s going to become Johnnie Preston and move to Santa Fe. Everything’s a go from my end.”
    A pause.
    “Okay, let me call New York.”
    Yardley hung up.
    Twenty minutes later her phone rang and a woman’s voice came through.
    “New York’s good with it,” the woman said. “Blank will be going to Wells & Whitter. It’s a 300-plus firm in Manhattan. His contact is Randolph Zander. He’s expecting Blank’s call. Be sure Blank uses the name Johnnie Axil when he calls.”
    “Done.”
    Thirty minutes later Yardley touched down at DIA.
     
    In the back room of the bookstore, behind closed doors, she began the detailed-oriented process of manufacturing the basic papers for Johnnie Preston, namely a social security card, a birth