Xo

stepped into Madigan’s office, where both the chief detective and Stanning, next to her boss, were on their phones.
    Madigan looked up. He disconnected his mobile and ignored his desk phone when it rang, after a glance at caller ID. He looked too at a half-empty ice cream cup and pitched it. Rocky Road.
    “Where’s Kayleigh?” Harutyun asked.
    Dance said, “She and the crew are at the convention center. Darthur Morgan’s with her, and the deputy you sent is outside. Alicia’s the only one not accounted for. I called her on the way here and left a message. I haven’t heard back.”
    The detective glanced toward his phone. “That was Fuentes. Edwin’s still watching his movie.”
    Harutyun asked, “Any way he could’ve called from the theater, either the landline or another mobile, and routed the call through the phone at the college?”
    Good question. But Madigan had a good answer: “No, we checked with the Bell folks, or whoever the hell they are nowadays. The call was made from the phone at the school, direct to Kayleigh’s.”
    Dance had to ask, “And there’s no way he could’ve gotten out of the theater?”
    “No. Fuentes is in a restaurant on Olive. He’s watching the front entrance. The back doors’re alarmed. He checked.”
    Dance supposed that Edwin was just what he seemed to be: a sad lump of a young man without a life, drawn to a woman who existed in an entirely different universe from his.
    A common and boring story, once you took the violence out of the equation.
    And yet she couldn’t help but recall his icy demeanor, his calm attitude, his laser-like focus on Kayleigh, that phony smile.
    And his intelligence.
    Which prompted her to ask, “Basements?”
    “What?” Madigan asked.
    “In that block are there connecting basements?”
    “I don’t know.” Madigan said this slowly and hit a button on the landline. A tone filled the room, then the rapid eleven digits of a phone number being dialed.
    “Fuentes.”
    Without identifying himself, Madigan barked, “We’re thinking he might’ve snuck out through the basement. The hardware store next door? They share a basement?”
    A pause. “Let me check. I’ll get right back.”
    Three minutes later they got the news that Dance suspected they would. “Yep, Chief. I went down there. There’s a door. It’s unlocked.”
    “Evacuate the theater,” Dance said. “We need to be sure.”
    “Evacuate?” Fuentes asked.
    Madigan was staring at her. Then he said firmly, “You heard Agent Dance, Gabe. Get the lights on and evacuate.”
    “The theater isn’t really going to want to …” His voice faded and he realized this wasn’t the time to be worried about business relations in economically challenged Fresno. “I’ll get on it.”
    Ten minutes later, Fuentes came back on the line. Dance knew from the first word, “Chief,” what the story was going to be.
    Madigan sighed. “You’re sure he’s gone?”
    “There weren’t that many people inside, it being early. Yeah, I’m sure.”
    “Damn,” Stanning muttered.
    But the limp in Fuentes’s voice came from another source as well. “And I have to tell you…. While I was keeping an eye on the theater? I was in the restaurant?”
    “I know, you told me. What?” Madigan growled.
    “Somebody broke into my cruiser.”
    “Go on.”
    “I wasn’t thinking, I had a Glock in the backseat. It was in a box and under my jacket. I don’t know how anybody could’ve seen it or thought it was there.”
    Dance knew from the way he volunteered the information that the gun hadn’t been hidden at all.
    “Goddamn it!” Madigan shouted.
    “I’m sorry. It should’ve been in the trunk. But it was completely hid.”
    “It shoulda been home. That’s your personal weapon. It shoulda been at home.”
    “I was going to the range tonight,” the deputy said miserably.
    “You know what I gotta do, Gabe. Don’t have any options.”
    “I know. You want my service piece and shield?”
    “Need ’em. Yeah. I’ll get the paperwork done today. We’ll have the inquiry as fast as we can but it’ll be three or four days. You’re out of commission till then.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Bring your stuff in.” He stabbed the speakerphone button.
    Harutyun said in his low, stress-free voice, “It could be one of the gangs.”
    “It’s not one of the gangs,” Madigan snapped. “It’s our fucking stalker. At least if we find it on him, he’ll go to jail for a long, long time. Hell,