“Well, then,” I said to him, battling spotty reception, “let’s head to her apartment and have a word with our old friend from Detroit.”

Then my bars dwindled off and I walked toward my car in the tight-cornered, concrete cavern beneath the hospital.

64

9:02 A.M.
5 hours left

Considering the severity of the allegations against Miss Springman, DeYoung hadn’t wanted to take any chances and had sent an FBI SWAT team over to clear the apartment before Ralph and I entered it.

By the time we arrived, they were already on-site.

As the two of us waited somewhat impatiently for them to reconnoiter and breach the premises, Ralph notified me that Greer had been put on administrative leave for his actions in allowing Sasha to go out alone and not requesting backup when he should have.

I understood the administrative leave protocol all too well—I’d walked that path more than once myself—but still, it was unfortunate, especially since we could’ve really used Greer’s help right now with the case.

“And we still don’t know where Sasha’s body is?” I asked.

“No. Greer said she had a tracking device with her, but when we tried to locate it, we got nothing. Blake and his men must have found it and either disabled it or destroyed it.”

“Anything more on the people from the Matchmaker’s basement?”

“Not yet. Collins and her team are analyzing their computers, but the files are encrypted, and it’s not looking like it’ll be an easy process getting into them.”

“And the people we arrested aren’t helping?”

“Not at all.”

Last night I’d thought about contacting Marcus Rockwell, the CEO of Krazle, to find out if there was anything he could do to help us track down the Matchmaker through the use of that compromised Krazle account. Now, while we waited for SWAT to move in, felt like as good a time as any to give him a call.

It took a little work to track down his personal assistant, but when I told her who I was, she informed me that she would pass my contact information along to Mr. Rockwell and have him reach out to me “at his earliest convenience.”

“Convenient or not, I need to speak with him as soon as possible.”

“I’ll let him know,” she replied matter-of-factly and then, to my irritation, ended the call before I could reiterate how pressing this was.

I said to Ralph, “I mentioned this to DeYoung, but I want the team to focus on finding the guy who escaped from the basement before the electricity went out. He might be the actual Matchmaker.”

“Maybe we’ve gotten ahead of ourselves.”

“Yes. Maybe we have. Also, based on his limp and the interconnected nature of the rest of this case, I’m wondering if he might be the man I chased into the subway tunnel.”

“You’re not sure?”