Read 18th Abduction (Women's Murder Club) for Free Online Page B

deliberate.
    But Joe couldn’t see any cause for the FBI to bring him in for questioning.
    If Petrović had
legally
changed his name in Bosnia, gotten a passport and a visa as Branko, come to the USA and applied for a green card, and gotten a driver’s license as Branko—none of this was a crime.
    But in Joe’s opinion, people didn’t change very much.
    Petrović hadn’t left all of those bodies in Djoba and come to the US determined to live a new life as a choirboy. As Anna had asked, where was he getting his money?
    The thing to do was to let the fish run. Watch him, track him, and if he was involved in illegal activities, reel him in. Beach him.
    Joe leaned back in his chair, clasped his hands behind his neck, and stared at the acoustic-tile ceiling.
    He couldn’t stop thinking about Anna. Her story had gripped him, and he was worried for her. He wanted to put Slobodan Petrović away. If he attempted to make this case official without any reason to open a case on Branko, he’d be shut down.
    But if he didn’t help Anna, she could get herself killed.

CHAPTER 16
    Thanks to Cindy’s anonymous source, Conklin and I had a name and known hangout of a guy who may have dated Carly Myers.
    Name: Tom Barry. Favorite lunch spot: a sports bar called Casey’s on Fillmore.
    I’d never been to Casey’s before and took a good look from the doorway.
    The room was narrow, dark, and clubby, with framed photos of sports stars on the walls. A long bar ran along the length of the place, and there were some tables and armchairs front and back. Three HD TVs were positioned at intervals, and all of them were locked in on a horse race running in Saratoga Springs.
    The crowd was fervent—money was on the line.
    Conklin and I looked at the men at the bar, and one of them fit the photo. White guy in his twenties, lanky, spiky hair, drinking his lunch. To be fair, he had a bowl of peanuts beside his beer.
    We walked over and stood on either side of him, and from the look in his eyes, we were pissing him off by encroachingon his personal space.
Sorry, bud. This is police business.
We were ready to grab him if he tried to run.
    I flashed my badge, introduced my partner and myself, and asked if he was Tom Barry.
    “Why do you ask?”
    I pulled my phone and showed him the parking lot photo. I asked him if he was the man in the picture.
    “Looks like me. Yeah. That’s my leather jacket.”
    “Who’s that with you?”
    “Uh. Carly?”
    “You were with her a few nights ago,” I said.
    “Nope. I saw her last week, Tuesday. That’s when we went out. What’s going on?”
    Conklin sidestepped the question, asking Barry if he knew where we could find Carly.
    “Me? No. We’re not that close. If we’re drinking in the same bar, we sometimes go out for a bite and a roll.”
    “She’s missing,” Conklin said. “She hasn’t been seen in a few days.”
    “I don’t know anything about that,” Barry said, drawing back, showing alarm.
    The horses on the screen overhead were clearing the back turn and pounding into the stretch. The crowd in the bar broke out in yelling and rooting.
    Barry glanced up at the screen, yelled, “Oh, come onnn, Fast Talker, come onnnn.” Then he remembered we were standing beside him, and turned back to us in disgust.
    “I don’t know anything about Carly. You’re wasting my time.”
    I said, “We believe you, Mr. Barry. But if you care about Carly at all, we need your help.”
    “Christ. I don’t even have her phone number.”
    Conklin said in that nice, nonthreatening way he has, “Sometimes people know more than they think. We’d appreciate you coming with us to the station, Mr. Barry. You might be able to shine a light on this situation.”
    “Look, I have to be at work at two, okay? I manage the car wash over on Third.”
    “You’ll be back in plenty of time,” I lied.
    Barry slapped a ten down on the bar, and I noticed his knuckles were scraped up. He’d swung at someone or something