Dream of Danger (A Brown and De Luca Novella) by MAGGIE SHAYNE Read Free Book Online Page A

also had a detective talk to Mel’s wife. She says he was home all night, from 9 p.m. on.”
    “Did they tell her why they were asking?”
    “Chief didn’t say. I didn’t ask. It doesn’t really matter to us at the moment.”
    “Amy left her place at eight-fifteen,” I said. “That’s forty-five minutes when dickhead was unaccounted for.”
    “I thought of that.”
    “And?”
    “The pickup was at the gas station at 9:36. Amy’s photo was taken at 9:43. He couldn’t have been in the truck if he was home with his wife more than an hour away at 9 p.m.”
    I nodded slowly, my brain turning in circles. “I wish I could’ve asked her myself. I’d know if she was lying.”
    “So do I. That’s why I had Chief Sub text me her number.” I blinked at him. “Think you can read a person from a phone call? Even when you’re not face-to-face?”
    Fto m"” I bl I shrugged. “One way to find out. Give me your phone.”
    He handed it over. I located the text message and started keying the number into my phone, but he dropped a hand over mine. “Use mine. Let me talk and I’ll put her on speaker. At least I have an official reason to call her. You don’t.”
    “And you’d get in trouble for giving me her number, huh?”
    “Unless you were an official police consultant.”
    I rolled my eyes. “You’re like Myrtle with a steak over this, you know that?” At mention of Myrt, I looked into the backseat. She was sitting up, snout out the back window, tongue lolling, happy as hell to be taking such a long car ride, though she was going to need a bathroom break soon.
    I tapped the keys of Mason’s phone, but before I finished dialing, it rang. I hit the speaker button and held the phone toward him.
    “This is Mason Brown,” he said.
    “Mason, they’ve got a hit on that pickup. It’s parked at a motel off the highway.”
    “Where?” Mason asked.
    “Hilltop Motor Lodge in a town called Harry’s Hill.”
    I looked up when he said it. We were driving past a sign that read Harry’s Hill, 10 Miles. We were practically there. Minutes. Minutes away from Amy. She’d damn well better be okay when we got there.
    * * *
     
    Mason floored it, and even then it was the longest eight minutes of my life. But eventually we were pulling into the motel parking lot. We were the closest, because we’d already been heading in the right direction. The troopers were still miles away. On their way, but another fifteen minutes out, Mason said. He chose an empty parking spot a good distance away from the white truck. I saw him check his gun as he got out.
    “Got a spare for me?”
    “No.” He was a liar. There was one in the glove compartment. I made note of which pocket he put his keys in, in case I needed to snatch them and head back here to grab it. He didn’t lock the car, but I knew he kept that glove box secure. It was locked. No question.
    We got out and walked carefully closer to take a look at the pickup, watching the area around us and trying not to be obvious. It had various tools in the bed. Hammer. Chains. When Mason felt the hood for heat, he dragged his hand over it real slow. It was almost 2 p.m. Checkout time, according to the big sign out front, was two-thirty. Odd checkout time, if you asked me, but it was a little hole-in-the-wall place. Not a chain. If they were still here, and they must be, they’d be coming out soon. But which room? There were three doors close enough to where the white truck was parked to qualify. And if they were trying not to be found, they might not even have parked near their own room.
    “Go to the office,” Mason said. “Ask which room is assigned to this plate number.”
    “You go,” I said. “They’re not gonna tell me anything. I don’t have a badge.”
    “You do now.” He pulled out his badge and tossed it to me. I caught it. Damn him.
    I jogged over to the motel office, went inside and hit the bell on the counter nonstop until a woman with curly white hair arrived and