Chapter 15: Parking Structure

Mitch's POV

Willa turned her phone off at eight that night.

I sat in my car outside Marge's house until Marge came out and knocked on the glass.

"She's asleep," Marge said. "She cried for an hour and then she slept. Go home, Mr. Callow."

"I'd like to find who did it."

"Good." She looked at me through the gap in the window. "Do it quietly, and do it before she wakes up."

I drove back to the hotel and called my head of security.

By midnight he had the name of the account.

It belonged to a woman who ran a gossip page out of her apartment.

Her last four posts had all come with the same note: sent by a friend.

I called her myself at six in the morning.

She picked up on the second ring and tried to hang up when I said my name.

"Don't," I said. "I'm not going to sue you. I'm going to ask you one question and then you'll never hear from me again."

"What?"

"Who is the friend?"

"I can't tell you that."

"Then tell me what he wants for it."

A long pause.

"He doesn't want money from me," she said. "Someone else is paying him."

"For what?"

"He has to hand over the backup drive today at noon. That's why he rushed to get it out."

"Where?"

"A parking garage on Third. Level four."

I was there at eleven-thirty.

Level four was nearly empty, and the concrete smelled of cold oil.

At noon a gray hatchback came up the ramp and parked in the far corner.

A man in a Whiting Home fleece got out with a laptop bag.