The Never Game. Джеффри Дивер

road was free of traffic—he’d slammed into the back of her bike. She’d have tumbled to the ground and he’d have been on her in an instant, taping her mouth and hands and feet. Into the trunk with her bike and backpack.

      Some brush had been trampled near the plastic shard. He stepped off the shoulder and peered down the hill. He could see a line of disturbed grass leading directly from where he was standing to the bottom of a small ravine. Maybe the plan hadn’t gone quite as X had hoped. Maybe he’d struck Sophie’s bike too hard, knocking her over the edge, and she’d tumbled down the forty-five-degree slope.

      Shaw strode down one path to the place where she would have landed. He crouched. Broken and bent grass, and gouges in the dirt that might have come from a scuffle. Then he spotted a rock the size of a grapefruit. There with a smear on it: brown, the shade of dried blood.

      Shaw pulled out his phone and dialed a number he’d programmed in several hours ago. He hit CALL. About ten feet up the hill came a soft sound, repeated every few seconds. It was the Samsung whistling ringtone.

      The phone number he’d dialed was Sophie’s.

       11.

      Now, time for the experts.

      Shaw called Frank Mulliner and told him what he’d found.

      The man greeted the news with a gasp.

      “Those sons of bitches!”

      Shaw didn’t understand at first. Then he realized Mulliner was referring to the police.

      “If they’d gotten on board when they should have … I’m calling them now!”

      Shaw foresaw disaster: a rampaging parent. He’d seen this before. “Let me handle it.”

      “But—”

      “Let me handle it.”

      Mulliner was silent for a moment. Shaw imagined the man’s mobile was gripped in white, trembling fingers. “All right,” Sophie’s father said. “I’m heading home.”

      Shaw got the names of the detectives whom Mulliner had first spoken to about Sophie’s disappearance: Wiley and Standish of the Joint Major Crimes Task Force, based in nearby Santa Clara.

      After disconnecting with Mulliner, Shaw called the JMCTF’s main number and asked for either of them. The prim-voiced desk officer, if that was her job title, said they were both out. Shaw said it was an emergency.

      “You should call nine-one-one.”

      “This is a development in a case Detectives Standish and Wiley are involved in.”

      “Which case?”

      Of course, there was none.

      “Can you give me your address?” Shaw asked.

      Ten minutes later he was headed for the JMCTF headquarters.

      There’s no shortage of law enforcement in California. Growing up in the eastern wilderness of the state, the Shaw family had contact with park rangers—the Compound abutted tens of thousands of acres of state and federal forest. The family was no stranger to other agencies either: state police, the California Bureau of Investigation and, on rare occasion, the FBI. Not to mention Sheriff Roy Blanche.

      The JMCTF was new to Colter Shaw. In a brief online search he’d found that it was charged with investigating homicides, kidnappings, sexual assaults and larcenies in which an injury occurred. It had a small drug enforcement group.

      He was now approaching the headquarters: a large, low ’50s-style building on West Hedding Street, not far from the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office. He steered the Chevy into the lot and walked along the curving sidewalk bordered with succulents and red flowers, hearing the persistent rush of traffic on the Nimitz Freeway. At the front desk, he walked up to the window behind which a blond uniformed officer sat.

      “Yessir?”

      He knew the voice. It was the same young woman who’d fielded his earlier call. She was calm and stodgy. Her face was pert.

      He asked again for either Detective Wiley or Detective Standish.

      “Detective Standish is still out. I’ll see if Detective Wiley is available.”

      Shaw sat in an orange-vinyl-and-aluminum chair. The waiting room was like a doctor’s office, without the magazines … and with bulletproof glass protecting the receptionist.

      Shaw opened his computer bag, extracted his bound notebook and began to write. When he was done, he walked to the desk officer. The woman looked up.

      “Could you please make me a copy of this? It’s for an investigation Detective Wiley’s running.”

      Or, is soon to be running.

      Another pause. She took the notebook, did as he’d requested and returned the notebook and copies to him.

      “Many thanks.”

      As soon as Shaw sat down, the door clicked open and a large man in his mid-forties stepped into the waiting area.

      The plainclothes officer was an inverted pyramid: broad shoulders and a solid chest, testing the buttons of his shirt, tapering to narrow hips. Had to have played football in school. His salt-and-pepper hair was thick and swept back from a high forehead. The proportioned bulk, hair, along with the eagle’s beak nose and solid jaw, could have landed him a role as a detective in a thriller movie. Not the lead but the dependable—and often expendable—sidekick. His weapon was a Glock and it rode high on the hip.

      His eyes, muddy brown, looked Shaw up and down. “You wanted to see me?”

      “Detective Wiley?”

      “Yes.”

      “Colter Shaw.” He rose and extended his arm, forcing a handshake. “You got a call from Frank Mulliner about his daughter, Sophie. She disappeared on Wednesday. I’m helping him find her. I’ve found some things that make it clear she was kidnapped.”

      Another pause. “‘Helping him find her.’ You’re a friend of the family?”

      “Mulliner offered a reward. That’s why I’m here.”

      “Reward?”

      Wiley was going to be a problem.

      “You’re a PI?” the detective asked.

      “No.”

      “BEA?”

      “Not that either.” Bond enforcement agents are highly regulated. One reason not to go down that road. Also, Shaw had no desire to chase Failure to Appears in Piggly Wiggly parking lots, cuff them and haul their sweaty bodies to the grim receiving docks of sheriffs’ departments.

      Shaw continued: “This is urgent, Detective.”

      Another scan. Wiley waited a moment and said, “You’re not armed?”

      “No.”

      “Come on back to the office. We’ll just have a look in that bag first.”

      Shaw opened it. Wiley prodded and then turned and walked through the security doorway. Shaw followed him along the functional corridors, past offices and cubicles populated with about fifteen men and women—slightly more of the former than latter. Uniforms—all gray—prevailed. There were suits too, as well as the scruffy casual garb of those working undercover.

      Wiley directed him into a large, austere office. Minimal décor. On the open door were two signs: DET. D. WILEY and DET. L. STANDISH. The desks were in the corners of the rooms, facing each other.

      Wiley sat behind his,