Primary Valor by Jack Mars (booksvooks TXT) 📗

like a wounded animal. She shrieked in despair. But in the realworld, she did not utter a sound. She wanted to be quiet, so as not to bringattention to herself.

She hadto stay strong. But deep down, she knew she was weak. She wanted to go to thedoor, and bang on it.

“Let meout! Let me into the sunlight!”

Darwincould take her. He could have her, whatever he wanted, if they would just lether out of this horrible place.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

6:45 p.m. Eastern Standard Time

Las Olas Boulevard

Fort Lauderdale, Florida

 

 

“The beautiful people are loose onthe streets,” Luke said.

“Beautiful is a word,” Ed said.

Luke shrugged. “What’s anotherword?”

Ed smiled. “Stupid.”

Luke nearly laughed. That wassomething like the Ed that he knew.

Luke and Ed were among the earlyevening throngs in the fabulous shopper’s paradise of Las Olas Boulevard, justas the sun began to set.

During the last thirty minutes,the street had begun to fill with glittering, well-dressed specimens ofhumanity, almost as if a nearby dam had burst, and instead of water, these hipand lovely people had gushed forth. The restaurants and sidewalk cafes werefilling up. Car traffic on the street tightened and slowed.

Luke and Ed had flown down in thejet they had taken to Myrtle Beach. Trudy had couriered them both dossiers ofthe missing girl. Luke took the opportunity to look through it during the planeride. He realized that up until now, he had known very little about her.

He looked at the photos first, ofcourse. There were half a dozen of them, provided to the FBI by the girl’smother. One photo was of the girl and her mom. The mom was a young middle age,attractive but starting to get tired. The girl was wearing a blue and goldcheerleading uniform. She was very pretty, with straight blond hair, and wore acheerleading uniform in most of the other photos as well. It seemed that shehad been a cheerleader since about the age of eleven.

Luke glanced through the rest ofthe documents. Father deceased. Mother a lawyer. Charlotte was a decentstudent, not exceptional. A’s and B’s. They used to have a thing called “thegentleman’s C.” If you really belonged, you didn’t want to get grades that weretoo good. Maybe this was the cheerleader’s B-plus.

In addition to cheerleading,Charlotte spent two years on the dance squad, whatever that was. She had playedlacrosse in junior high school, but apparently gave it up. She was on thestudent council her sophomore year in high school, and was on the activitiescommittee. She made the morning announcements over the school intercom one dayeach week.

So she was a joiner. Her mother’stestimony suggested she was a happy child and teen, and very popular among herpeers. She was resilient, and had seemed to recover from both the divorce andher father’s death quickly.

How did this happen? Why did ithappen?

Why would someone target thisparticular girl?

The mother’s boyfriend came upagain. Jeff Zorn. The local cops had checked out his computers, his phones, andhis cars. They had swept the cars for DNA and hair fibers. They had restoreddeleted files from the computers, and gone back through years of emails. Theyhad subpoenaed years of phone calls and text messages.

Nothing. The man had barelymentioned the girl at all.

Zorn was supposedly a publicist,but he had very few, if any, actual clients. Yes, his father had been a WallStreeter. Was he living off an inheritance? Or was he doing something else formoney? The dossier didn’t say.

“What do you think of thisboyfriend?” Luke said to Ed on the plane. Ed was thumbing through his owndossier, which contained all the same files.

He shrugged. “I think it’s onething to surrender all these devices to the cops with no trouble. But they weregoing to take them anyway. And just because he gives up two phones, doesn’tmean there isn’t a third. Just because he gives up two computers, doesn’t meanthere isn’t another one somewhere. It’s fine, but it doesn’t prove anything.”

That’s what it was. The guy wasclean. He was too clean. He had handed everything over because he knew therewas nothing incriminating to discover.

“I’d consider picking him up,shaking his tree a little.”

Luke pointed at him. “Good idea.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Edsaid. “I’m full of good ideas.”

Luke called Trudy as soon as theywere on the ground.

“If we can get a tail on theboyfriend, Jeff Zorn, I think we should do it.”

There was a pause over the line. “TheWilmington PD talked to him for six hours,” Trudy said.

“After we finish down here, Ed andI will bring him in for an hour, maybe two. I don’t think we’ll need any morethan that.”

“It’s official FBI business now,”Trudy said. “And he’s not a convicted felon out on parole like Louis Clare. Youcan’t treat him the same way.”

“That’s fine,” Luke said. “We’llbe gentle. I just want someone to keep an eye on him until we get back upthere. See what he does, see where he goes, see who else is around when he getsthere.”

“All right,” Trudy said. “I’lltalk to Don.”

Now, Luke gazed out at the glowingnight. If anything, the crowds had gotten even thicker in the last ten minutes.The lights seemed to put a haze around everything.

A large man walked up the street. Hewas tall, nearly Ed’s height, big shoulders, wearing a well-tailored sportsjacket and slacks. He had dark hair closely cropped, and a three-day growth ofbeard and mustache. He seemed very fit, like a guy who had just given upplaying tight end for a professional football team. His eyes were sharp, likean eagle’s eyes, and dark.

He came right up to them as if hehad them memorized.

“Gentlemen,” he said. “I’m SpecialAgent Bowles.”

Ed reached out to shake the man’shand. “Ed Newsam. You’re our partner from the Bureau proper, eh?”

“Call me Henry,” the man said ashe shook Ed’s hand. “Partner’s a little strong, I think. I prefer the termbabysitter.”

Luke smiled. Just what theyneeded, a wiseass. He shook the man’s hand. “Luke Stone. I guess I wasexpecting someone a little… older.”

Henry Bowles shook his head. “Yourreputation precedes you. Both of you. And to be honest, I’m the only one whowould take this job. Guys with seniority in the Bureau don’t like to stay outall night.”

The