“What?” Hayes asked. “You found him?”

“At Whitaker College.” He glanced at Fernando. “Seems he didn’t want to miss his seven o’clock.”

Fernando gave a tug and Bentz reciprocated, his fingers digging deep into muscles and tendons.

“Shit, man!” the kid whispered, but he quit trying to break free.

“I’m already on my way,” Hayes said. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Fifteen, tops.”

“Just get here,” Bentz said. “I’m armed, but I don’t want to have to hurt him.”

Bentz felt the younger man tense, heard him swear under his breath in Spanish. The kid was finally scared, too.

“Meet us at the west parking lot,” Bentz said. “Near the guard booth.”

“Got it.”

Bentz ended the call. As he tucked his phone back onto his belt, the kid tried once more to break away, and Bentz felt the strain on his sore leg. He growled, wincing. Strain caused beads of sweat to form on his brow.

“I didn’t break any laws,” Valdez insisted. The curl of his lip suggested he was glad to cause Bentz some pain.

“I can’t help you until you help me,” Bentz said. “If you’ve got a brain in your head, you’ll start talking about the girl you loaned your car to. The one you set up to pretend to be my wife.”

“You’re crazy. Loco. I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about!” Fernando insisted, but there was a hint of fear in his dark eyes, a second of hesitation, as if he, too, felt the night and justice closing in.

“It’ll go a whole lot easier if you give it up before you’re arrested.”

“Arrested? Are you out of your mind?”

“You tell me.” They reached the edge of the parking lot. From here he couldn’t see the campus security guard who had been patrolling the area on foot earlier. Where are they when you need them? Bentz wondered, scanning the parking lot as he warned Fernando, “You’ve got about three minutes to talk before Detective Hayes shows up,” Bentz said, wishing he could squeeze the words out of this kid. The truth…the answers…the location where he’d find Olivia. “If I were you, I’d want to go on record as being cooperative. Right now the LAPD wants you behind bars.”

“Let them arrest me,” Fernando said. “I got nothin’ to hide.” He glowered at Bentz with a dark gaze of pure hatred. “But you…look at you, sweating like the pig that you are. I hope whatever you’re going through, it stings like a bitch.”