Missouri Loves Company (Rip Lane Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

handle. The passenger seat belt. The dash.
    After that I focused on areas where the intruders might have touched while searching for the orange locker key. Under the dinette table. Behind the toilet. Inside the junk drawer.
    I managed to lift some fingerprints. Anna’s, maybe. Or maybe the intruders’. The prints could have belonged to anybody who had ever entered my RV. Which meant they could not have possibly belonged to Angelina Jolie—unfortunately.
    The fingerprints would have to be run through the system. So would the pictures of Anna and the two goons.
    I knew just the man to do it.
    Joe Thomas and I had graduated together from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) in Glynco, Georgia.
    The Glynco campus is the headquarters site for the FLETC. It is where the United States Marshals Service Basic Training Academy is conducted.
    Basic training consists of seventeen and a half weeks of training that includes: building entry and search, computer training, court security, courtroom evidence and procedure, defensive tactics, driver training, firearms training, first aid, high threat trials, legal training, officer survival, physical conditioning, prisoner search and restraint, protective service training, search and seizure, and surveillance.
    Joe was still working for the United States Marshals Service, though he could have retired when I did. My guess was that he would continue to work there until he turned fifty-seven—the mandatory retirement age.
    “Joe?”
    “Where are you now, Rip? Whitewater rafting in Colorado? Gator wrestling in Florida? Sunbathing at the Playboy Mansion?”
    “No, I did all that last week. Right now I’m just sitting in my RV, talking on the phone with an old friend.”
    “ ‘Old’? I’m the same age as you.”
    “But uglier.”
    “True. How’s the novel going?”
    “Hard to get started.”
    “I’d like to read it when you’re done.”
    “It’s not going to be a picture book.”
    “Then forget it.”
    “Anything new at work, Joe?”
    “Roy’s got a new girlfriend.”
    “We’ll see how long that lasts.”
    “Already been a whole week.”
    “A new record.”
    “Yesterday she called him a prick.”
    “She knows him well.”
    “Better than he knows himself.”
    “Much better.”
    “I got your email this morning, Rip. And I already ran the prints and photos through the system.”
    “And?”
    “No matches.”
    “Not even for Angelina Jolie?”
    “Sorry.”
    “Well thanks for the favor, Joe.”
    “Uh-huh. Want me to do your laundry too?”
    “Maybe next time.”
    “Next time? How many more favors you expect from me?”
    “Okay, I know I owe you a few.”
    “A few?”
    “Okay okay—a lot.”
    “Damn straight.”
    “Your wife’s a lucky woman, Joe.”
    “Too bad she doesn’t share your sentiment.”
    “I doubt that.”
    “Where are you really, Rip?”
    “Missouri.”
    “Is everybody in Missouri going to find out what a persistent son of a bitch you can be when you’re trying to find somebody?”
    “No point in keeping it a secret.”

CHAPTER 17
     
     
    “Y OU RECOGNIZE ANYBODY in these pictures?” I said to the huge bartender.
    He stopped slicing a lemon and glared at me. His eyes did not move from mine. Not even to glance at the pictures I had placed on the bar. He was a big and beefy man. Dark stubble covered his chin and jowls. The lemon looked like a jellybean in his enormous hand. He put it on a cutting board.
    “You looking for trouble, pal?” he said.
    His voice rumbled.
    “Information,” I said. “That’s all I’m looking for.”
    The big man curled his massive hands into fists the size of boxing gloves and leaned over the bar a little to plant both fists on it.
    “I been watching you,” he said. “You hang around here, showing pictures to my customers, annoying them with your questions. Whyn’t you get the hell outta here. Nobody wants you here. Nobody. You unnerstand that?”
    “Not completely,” I said. “Can