My mind raced. “How fast can you get to Lawrence Jones’s apartment?”

“Fast.”

“I’m in that part of town. I could meet you out front. I’ll be in one of those Virtue hybrid cars. It’s silver.”

“Ten minutes.”

“Okay.” I paused to catch my breath. “I appreciate this.”

“Ten minutes,” he said again, and hung up.

I pulled up behind Lawrence’s old Buick. I was hoping the cops, during their investigation of the attack on Lawrence, wouldn’t have bothered to search this car. After all, it had bogus plates on it. There was a chance that if they’d rooted through any car, it would have been Lawrence’s Jag, whose plates were legit.

I popped the Virtue trunk, left the engine running, walked around back and lifted up the cover I’d looked under only a few minutes earlier. I grasped the tire iron, walked over to the passenger side of the Buick, and smashed in the window.

I pulled up the lock button, opened the door, and reached for the handle to the glove box. It was locked. Using the thin end of the tire iron, I wedged open the glove box door.

I reached into the back, past the ownership manuals and tattered maps, and found the gun Lawrence had used to fire at the Annihilator two nights earlier. I took it out, and a roll of masking tape that was tucked in there. I knelt down next to the car and rolled up my right pant leg as far as my knee and taped the gun around my leg. I didn’t much care what Bertrand Magnuson might think of this.

And if it hadn’t been for Angie’s suggestion that I go for ample-fit khakis, I wouldn’t have been able to roll the pant leg back down over the gun so easily.

Chapter 29

29

I waited around front, on the sidewalk, by the door to Lawrence Jones’s apartment. I’d driven the Virtue around, left it running. Its excellent fuel economy was a major blessing now that I was afraid to turn the damn thing off.

Five minutes later, Trimble arrived in the same unmarked four-door Ford he’d shown up in the night before at this same location.

He put down his window, motioned me over. “Have they called yet?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Any moment now, I’m guessing.”

“You said these people are the same ones who tried to kill Lawrence,” Trimble said, his eyes narrowing.

“Yeah. I think that’s how they got to me, they found my address on a check in Lawrence’s apartment, maybe in his office or his wallet, I don’t know. All this time, I’ve been worried about some kid following my daughter around, not knowing there was someone else out there a whole lot more dangerous.”

Trimble got out of the car. “Are you going to be okay?”