until it was too late to save himself from whatever dire fate she had in mind for him.
“What do you want from me, Agent Glass?”
“First off, you’re not in any trouble. And I’m Diana, Errol.”
“Flynn. People call me Flynn.”
“Flynn? That isn’t in your file.”
“Errol Carroll? My folks had a tin ear. Flynn is a joke, as in Errol Flynn.”
She gave him as blank a look as he had seen in some time. His guess was that she’d never heard of Errol Flynn.
“Just call me Flynn without the joke.”
“We want you to help us nail the bastard whose been doing this, and we want you to start right now.”
“Sure,” he said carefully. “I’m ready to start any damn time. But why the change of heart?”
She got up and went to the door. “Tomorrow morning at eight. Be prepared to travel.”
“Travel? Where? For how long?”
She froze. She turned. “This is going to happen again, Lieutenant, and soon. With all the effort you’ve put into your investigations, the expertise you have developed, we believe you can help us prevent the next crime. So to answer your question, we’ll be going wherever we need to go, and it’s going to take however long it takes.”
She left.
He stood staring at the door. What the hell had just happened? As he walked out into the squad room, he saw her striding toward the front lobby.
Guys were being careful, pretending not to be absolutely fascinated with whatever had just gone down.
“I don’t know,” he said into the silence. “I have no idea.”
Eddie burst out of his office. His neck was pulsing, his face was crimson. This was not a man with a temper, but he was on full burn right now.
“What in goddamn hell’s the matter with you,” he snarled.
“Nothing.”
He held up a fax. “They’re telling me you’ve requested an indefinite leave. Thanks for this, ole buddy, ole pal. Next time just damn well tell me. Discuss it with me. Because we’ve been friends for years, jerkoff that you are.” As he talked, he waved the fax.
Flynn snatched it from him. And his jaw nearly sank out of sight.
“I didn’t know about this.”
“You didn’t ask for a leave?”
“’Course not. Why would I? I like to put creeps in jail. It’s my damn vocation.”
“So if I tear this up, you’re back here in the morning?”
At that moment, his phone vibrated with an incoming text. He read it. “You have a chance to catch the man who kidnapped Abby.”
Her timing was excellent, he had to say that.
“No, Eddie, actually the request is good.” He could hardly believe what he was saying, but he was doing it and as he did so, his conviction was growing. “The request is good.”
“I can’t pay you. I’d like to but I can’t.”
He didn’t spend much money, hadn’t since Abby. So he could handle the absence of a salary. “I’m sorry, Eddie. I have to do this.”
“Yeah, I get it. But clean out your locker. If the janitor has to scrape any rotted doughnuts outa there, you’re gettin’ a bill.”
Their eyes met. His friend was there for him and nothing more needed to be said. Eddie turned away and Flynn did the only thing left for him to do. He gathered up his few personal items and left the way cops always left on their last day, with a cardboard box in their arms and a few good-byes. A police force is like a lake. When you get out, you don’t leave a hole.
By the time he was unlocking his car, another guy would already have his current cases. But not the Abby Carroll case, of course. Not the Boyne case, and not any of the other missing persons cases that had gone cold.
He drove home in the quiet of the midday. This was all insane, of course. He never should have done this.
“Abby,” he said into the rattling of his old Malibu, “I’m coming, babes, I’m coming.”
CHAPTER THREE
As soon as he got home, Flynn texted Diana Glass that he was ready to go, but received no reply. He did an Internet search on her and found nothing. No Facebook page
R. K. Ryals, Melanie Bruce