Sketch of a Murder

Chapter 30

Chapter 30

Nita slapped her cell phone shut. A hard lump settled in the pit of her stomach as she forced herself to her feet. This can't be. Not this. It's some kind of miscommunication. She simply took off and is so busy chasing down a story that she... That's exactly what happened. Chasing down a story. Chasing down The Avenger. It'll be all right. It has to be all right.

She hurried to the lieutenant's office.

Dr. Nelson was sitting next to him when she entered. They jumped apart like a couple of kids caught kissing out back of the high school. She might've smiled if it had been any other day. "Dawn's editor just phoned me." Her voice held a scary deadness to it. "Dawn arranged a meeting with The Avenger last night. She hasn't checked in since leaving her office at nine pm."

The skin on his face changed from bitter chocolate to ashen gray in the space of a few heartbeats. "Not Dawn," he whispered. Visibly pulling himself together, he stood. "Call in everyone, Sergeant," he ordered as he rounded the desk, headed to the Command Center.

Within thirty minutes everyone was assembled. "What do we know?" Detective Albert asked.

"Sergeant?" Lieutenant Williams barked.

She stood. Not enough, dammit! Not nearly enough.

In her dispassionate reporting voice, she said, "The Avenger invited Dawn to meet. Dawn used her newspaper column to accept the invitation. Yesterday evening, according to her editor, she received a phone call purportedly from The Avenger telling her to go to Northgate Mall. She was to buy coffee at the Barnes and Noble bookstore then sit in the window area to drink it. She would be contacted with further instructions. She told her editor she would phone back with any instructions she received. She never made that call. We believe she was snatched from the mall."

"What's the response?" Albert asked.

"Work the mall like we would in any snatching. Look for her car, look for witnesses, for the person who last saw Dawn, for anyone who saw her drive into the lot and might have noticed something. You know the drill. We have a dog team in route to the bookstore with an ETA of ten minutes. Sergeant, I want you there to meet them." Palms flat on the table, the lieutenant climbed to his feet. "Get out there and get goin'. The Avenger has upped the ante."

Nita rounded the table on her way out as the lieutenant turned to Dr. Nelson. In a gruff voice, he asked the question that ate at them both. "What's the chance of finding her alive?"

She stopped to listen to the reply.

Dr. Nelson didn't answer right away. "I believe The Avenger is getting ready for the grand finale. I fear for both Kelly Anderson and Dawn Samira."

***

Nita collapsed against the curliques of the wire-backed chair in front of the Cinnabonn stand in Northgate Mall's food court. "I can't believe this! Am I the last one in?" She unlidded her large coffee. Steam rose lazily from the black brew, bitter and hot, uncut by cream or sugar. "Did you guys get anything?" She glanced around the tables shoved together and crowded with borrowed uniformed officers, the handler/dog team, and SCaT. Only Dr. Nelson was missing.

"Last one," Lieutenant Williams replied as he pulled a sticky bun apart, setting the pieces on the paper plate in front of him. He took a long draw on his coffee.

"This is the damn mall, for Christ's sake!" Her arm swept outward. "She can't have disappeared without anyone seeing."

No one responded. They had all seen it happen before-a child, a mother, a teen. There in the busiest places they disappear to never again be seen, or to be seen as a skeleton in some shallow, woodsy grave.