Don't Lose Her Read Free Page A

your eyes on the street.”
    I was still recalling the words and involuntarily scanning the southbound lanes for a glimpse of a white van when I ran up on the tail of an SUV doing the speed limit in the left lane. I hit the brakes and the horn. No movement. I flashed my headlights. No movement.
    I turned on the side spotlight mounted on the left side of the door of my 1989 Plymouth Gran Fury and aimed the beam into the SUV’s driver’s side rearview. He finally slid over and I punched up the four-barrel police pursuit engine and leaped up to ninety miles an hour.
    The car, a classic, was a present from Billy after the resolution of a case we’d worked on a year earlier. I’d nearly destroyed my F-150 pickup truck during a chase, and Billy’s often subtle humor prompted the gift. Replete with old blackwall tires and small hubcaps, the car is anything but inconspicuous. I can’t use it on surveillances, but it’s often invaluable when getting from place to place on South Florida’s interstates and the turnpike. Back in the day, it was a standard highway patrol car across the nation. It weighs a ton and is very, very fast.
    A quarter mile from the Okeechobee exit, I flipped on my right turn signal and started working my way across four lanes of 70-mph traffic. I cut people off. I came dangerously close to back bumpers. I did the kinds of things I detest in other drivers and I apologized under my breath and kept going.
    When I got to Federal Highway, I cruised through a yellow left-turn light and headed north again. When Billy had given me the address of Diane’s abduction, I knew exactly where I was going. The spot was right next to Centennial Park at the east end of Clematis. At lunchtime, the downtown streets would have been thick with pedestrian traffic, folks walking to lunch, window-shopping, living life on a warm South Florida afternoon.
    I knew the area because the World of Beer is just around the corner. Before I could make the turn onto Datura, I saw the spinning red-and-blue police lights that sealed off the crime scene on the next block. I spent ten bucks to park in a local lot and walked the rest of the way. I was already scanning the walls of retail stores for video cameras set up by the various businesses and spotted two on the south side—none on the north. But I was encouraged by the presence of multiple cameras on the PNC banking center and one mounted on top of the traffic signal above the intersection up on North Dixie Highway. There was hope.
    â€œMax Freeman,” I said to the uniform who stopped me at the orange-and-white striped barricade blocking all pedestrians and vehicles from entering the eastside block.
    I flipped open my ID case with my private investigator license displayed. “FBI Agent Howard is expecting me.”
    The West Palm Beach cop couldn’t have been much into his twenties. He took the license and did a full-body scan of me, practically putting the photo on the ID up to my face for comparison before pulling back the barricade to let me pass. Maybe he was being careful and maybe he was doing a pre-application act for the feds. He pointed out a tall, blond-haired man in the requisite dark suit of the FBI and passed me on. I thanked him.
    Agent Howard was standing, head down, speaking into a cell phone as I approached. He was a couple of inches shorter than me, a few pounds lighter in that slim way that FBI agents are. He was wearing the standard-issue sunglasses through which I knew he would have been checking my approach, sizing me up, wondering who the hell I was from behind those dark-tinted lenses.
    He ended his phone conversation just before I got within hearing range.
    â€œAgent Howard, my name is Max Freeman,” I said, offering my hand. I could only see a slight movement of his eyes behind the glasses, impossible to read. He did not take my hand and remained silent, as though measuring his response.
    â€œYou’re the