The Doll Read Online Free PDF Page B

enforcement was better equipped to handle. He made the trip to confirm the level of interest in the broken and bloodied office, a shortcut to figuring out whom to pressure, where to start calling in favors—or, as the case may be, discover where new friends needed to be made.
    The parking area in front of Logan’s building was busy, as much a result of the morbidly curious as from city vehicles and the official personnel. The crowd was a good sign, meant crime scene techs had been called in, and if anything was worth having inside that building, he could eventually get to it.
    Bradford drove to the end of the block, parked in front of an upholstery wholesaler, and walked the slow trip back to the yellow line—just one more face in the gawking crowd—until seeing all he’d come for, he made the return trip to Capstone.
    Three blocks from the office, his phone chirped.
    On the other end, Walker, excitement in her voice, said, “I’ve got it.”
    Bradford checked his watch. If she’d truly found what they wanted, she’d done it in under two hours: fast, but not surprising. Walker wasn’t shy about utilizing sexism’s dirty flipside, casually oozing sexuality and preying on hormones and the stupidity they induced to get what she wanted. He expected that right about now, in a building somewhere along the tollway corridor, a security guard was hiding a hard-on and jumping all over himself to get the lady whatever she wanted.
    He’d never asked that behavior of her, but if that’s what she chose to do to get the job done, then like an exotic weapon used in battle, he was glad it was on his side.
    The address came by text and Bradford swung a right to accommodate it. The building wasn’t the one they’d originally targetedbut the one next door, of the same height and with access to the same garage.
    He found her exactly as he’d expected: holed up in a room the size of a large walk-in closet, surrounded by closed-circuit monitors, and with two guys in uniform trying, and failing, to avoid staring at her chest. When he stepped through the door, the room fell silent.
    She waved a cursory greeting in his direction and leaned across the desk to control one of the machines. Jeremy Justin, according to his ID, slid out of her way, just enough to avoid appearing rude but not enough to avoid her brushing against him.
    Walker, oblivious, said to Bradford, “You’ve gotta see this.”
    Her fingers flew across the machine’s controls to rewind a recording, her explanation a staccato faster than the grainy video, until she froze the process, leaving on the screen the image of a late-model Impala.
    The face of the driver was blurry and he wore sunglasses, but the license plates were clear. “I’ve been running time stamps,” she said. “Searched for ins and outs based on our estimates. We know he was holed up before ten but have no idea when he got here. Better, we know when it happened. I figure our guy would want to get out as fast as possible. He’d be an idiot to stay on foot, so for now I’ve focused on parking. For most of these buildings, free visitor parking has a time limit, and”—Walker paused, and in an instant personality shift, smiled kindly at Justin, whose face reddened at the attention—“Jeremy here tells me visitor parking is patrolled hourly and violators towed. This garage is gated and vehicles need a pass card. No cards reported lost or stolen, so …”
    She scanned backward, running the machine at high speed, and pounded the stop with a force that made Justin twitch. “There,” she said. “Tailgating into the garage. One other car did this in the same time period, so I ran through the interior cameras. There’s not a lot we can use, nothing that takes this guy up to the roof, but look by the elevators.” She hit the stop again.
    “The time stamps coordinate, the tie and pattern on the shirt match the person in the first car. Briefcase,” she said. “Check the size of that