Gone The Next by Ben Rehder Read Free Book Online

gave a little wave. The deputy — one of the deputies from yesterday, I think — glared at me, stonefaced, and didn’t wave back. He probably recognized my minivan.
    I continued down Thomas Springs until it teed into Circle Drive, where I pulled into the empty parking lot of the Circle Country Club, a modest little beer joint I had visited once or twice in years past. It wasn’t open this early, so there wasn’t a soul around. I let the engine idle.
    What now? I hadn’t planned on this at all.
    If the cops were watching Pierce, by all means, I should leave them to it and stay out of their way. On the other hand, I wasn’t going to lay off if the deputy was in fact on traffic patrol and had no interest in Pierce. If I pulled up beside the deputy and simply asked him what he was doing, what would he say? Well, he sure wouldn’t admit that he was watching a suspect. But I could think of one good way to find out.
    I pulled out of the parking lot and went back the way I had come. But this time, instead of observing the posted speed limit of 35 miles per hour, I floored the gas and held it there. The deputy saw me coming from at least fifty yards away. Blew past him at about seventy, and then watched in my rearview, fully expecting him to come after me. Maybe I could talk my way out of a ticket by explaining what I had just done and why.
    But the cruiser didn’t budge.
    Interesting.
    I continued down Thomas Springs, hit Highway 71, and stopped at the light. Then I continued straight across the highway, onto Old Bee Cave Road, simply driving, pondering what I was going to do next.
    Should I call Ruelas? Couldn’t see how that would do much good. He wouldn’t tell me anything.
    Should I call Heidi and tell her that Pierce might be a suspect in the abduction of a child, in which case his workers’ comp claim might very soon be rendered moot? Bad idea. Heidi might be as skeptical as the cops, and she might even think I’m a little nutty, and I didn’t need my best client thinking I was a space case. Especially when I was starting to have doubts myself.
    What, then?
    I found another spot to pull over and killed the engine. Climbed into the back seat and opened my laptop. Thanks to a USB modem, I had a broadband connection nearly everywhere I went. Worth every cent.
    First, I checked CNN, just to make sure Kathleen Hanrahan hadn’t broken down and confessed in the last hour. Of course she hadn’t. I knew that.
    Then I checked Facebook. Brian Pierce hadn’t responded to Linda Peterson’s friend request yet.
    Next I opened my folder on Pierce. I had scanned all the documents Heidi had given me, so everything I needed was right at my fingertips, including the name of the restaurant where he worked.
    I checked the restaurant’s web site to see if they were open for breakfast. As luck would have it, they were.

11
     
    The name of the place was La Tolteca which, if I recall correctly, means “The Rabid Squirrel,” but I’ll admit my Spanish isn’t so great. It was in a shopping center in the posh little village of Lakeway, on the western outskirts of Austin.
    The hostess was waiting there to greet me as soon as I walked in, and she led me through the sparse breakfast crowd to a two-top against one of the walls, under a neon sign for Corona beer. It was your typical Mexican food joint — lots of pastel colors, framed bullfighting posters and velvet paintings, a large mural of a man in a sombrero taking a siesta beneath a stucco archway. Colorful woven blankets acted as curtains in the windows up front. Mexican music — with plenty of accordion, of course — played softly over the sound system.
    “Good morning.” A waitress had slipped up beside me. Not Mexican at all. Probably Scandinavian. Her ancestry, I mean. Fair-skinned. Blond hair pulled back. Cute. Very cute. Mid-twenties. “My name is Jessica and I’ll be your server today. Can I start you off with something to drink?”
    “Yes, I’ll have a 1979 Château