If Mannie had used the elevator, he could have exited onto any floor in the building. Since I had no way to tell if that’s what he’d done, I turned my attention to the stairwell.

I took the steps two at a time, crossed a short hallway, and found an exit door that was now lying on the pavement outside, either kicked down or torn free.

Busting down the door would’ve set off an alarm, but since one was already sounding, nobody would’ve necessarily noticed the difference or paid specific attention to it.

Not a bad strategy for getting out.

I scanned the street.

You’d think that someone Mannie’s size would be visible a mile away, but I saw no sign of him outside the building. Even when I ran down the street to the corner, I came up with nothing.

He was gone.

But then another thought: Or maybe he isn’t. Just because the door is broken down doesn’t mean he went through it.

It was true, he could still be in the building somewhere.

When Ralph and I were working on a case in Detroit last summer, we’d found it necessary at one point to disable the GPS tracking on our phones. I wasn’t sure if Mannie would know how to do that. Right now, our fugitive had five phones that we knew of. Certainly, we would be able to track one of them to locate him.

Even with the remote data wipe that I’d asked DeYoung to order, the GPS should still be traceable.

Back in the building, I flagged down an agent from a security team sweeping the hallway, told her to guard the doorway and make sure no one went in or out, then ran upstairs to our computer forensics suite on the third level to Agent Vanessa Collins, the woman who’d enhanced the footage of Jon Murray’s suicide video for me. “I need you to track some phones,” I said.

“Whose?”

“Everyone’s.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Ping the phones of any employees on the surrounding streets or in any vehicles leaving the area. Start with DeYoung’s, Thurman’s, and mine. Then, find out the name of the lawyer and the attending agent who were stationed in interview room 422 across the street until about five minutes ago. Move out from there.”

“I’m on it.”

++++

“What are you doing, sweetie?” the escort asked him.

“Just getting everything ready,” Blake replied.

He unfolded the plastic tarp in the middle of the room and began to meticulously spread it out across the carpet.

“Ready for what?”

“A chat.”

He’d enjoyed Sasha so much Friday night that he’d brought her back now, during the day. A lesson he’d learned a long time ago: all of the pleasures of the evening do not need to wait for darkness to be enjoyed.