“That was my buddy at QuikCar,” he said. “His buddy at the Hollywood store thinks he has a match for the car from the CCTV. It’s in their lot right now. I said we’d go check it out.”

“Okay, let me just print off some stills.”

Pryce pulled up the footage, took some screenshots, and sent them to the printing queue. He picked up the pages from the printer tray on the way out of the squad room. Adrenaline was starting to pop in his veins.

They emerged into humidity so stifling Pryce’s shirt was stuck to his back by the time they wove their way past a dozen patrol cars and found his Dodge Charger parked close to the lot’s exit. He had no idea how Medina could stand to wear heavy leather in this suffocating heat. They needed a good storm to break the hot spell.

Inside the car, Pryce cranked the AC up to the kind of level a city morgue worker would find cold, edged out onto Wilcox, and hopped onto Santa Monica Boulevard heading west. They cruised past low-rent studios and fast food strip malls and liquor stores and eventually found QuikCar’s Hollywood premises next to a couple of burger joints.

The office was a single-story white building with a medium-size parking lot housing around a half dozen vehicles. There was no sign of a red Ford or any other red car. Pryce and Medina exchanged glances and shrugged.

The outdoor seating area of the restaurant right next door was filled with families making the most of a laid-back Sunday. There was loud chatter and babies crying and the clatter of metal cutlery being dropped onto plates. The distinct aroma of charred meat and fried onions and greasy french fries drifted on the warm breeze. Pryce could feel his cholesterol levels rising just sniffing the air.

Medina said, “If we don’t have any luck with my buddy’s buddy, at least dinner is figured out.”

“If you say so.”

Behind the counter of QuikCar, they found a fat guy in his early thirties sweating behind a desktop fan. He looked like he ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the restaurant next door seven days a week.

“Detectives?” he asked.

They nodded, and he wiped a hand on his work pants and offered it to Pryce and Medina. They all shook and introduced themselves. The guy behind the counter told them his name was Jimmy, even though it was right there on his plastic QuikCar name tag.

“I’m Ken’s buddy,” Medina said. “What you got for us, Jimmy? We couldn’t help but notice there were no red cars in the lot outside. The Ford hasn’t been rented since you spoke to Ken earlier, has it?”

“No, no, not at all. It’s in our smaller lot out back. Follow me.”