Her phone…
And with that, a memory clicked into place, a memory that took him back to the night he’d first met Maria. When it had been storming and he’d pulled over… she’d been skittish because of the way he’d looked after the fight… and she’d asked to borrow his phone because she’d misplaced hers. She’d been rambling a bit, but what had she said?
He’d paused at his car, trying to remember.
“I didn’t lose lose it… It’s either at the office or I left it at my parents’, but I won’t know for sure until I get to my MacBook… I use that Find My iPhone thing… I can track my phone because it’s synced with the computer.”
Which meant, of course, he could track the phone, too.
It surprised him that Margolis hadn’t thought of it. Or maybe Margolis had and he’d already checked, and it had amounted to nothing because Lester had either discarded the phone or turned it off, or the battery had gone dead. Or maybe that constituted information Margolis wasn’t allowed to share. At the same time, there’d been so much else going on, it wasn’t completely out of the question that the idea had been temporarily overlooked.
Colin didn’t want to get his hopes up – the odds were slim that it would work and he knew it – but a couple of clicks of the cursor later, his heart hammered hard when he understood what he was seeing. The phone was still on and the battery had enough juice to let him know that it was located at a house on Robins Lane in Shallotte, a small town southwest of Wilmington, near Holden Beach. Shallotte was a good forty-five minutes away, and Colin stared at the location, watching to see whether the phone was still on the move.
It wasn’t. The site allowed him to track the phone’s previous movements as well, and a couple of clicks later, he learned that the phone had been carried from the Sanchez home to the house on Robins Lane without any detours.
Interesting. Definitely interesting, but still not proof. Maybe Lester had known the phone could be tracked, and he’d tossed it into someone’s car or into the bed of a pickup as he was fleeing. Or maybe he’d dropped it and someone had happened to find it.
Or maybe Lester was too delusional to even think along those lines.
No way to know for sure, but worth checking out…
He debated whether to call Margolis before thinking that it would probably be better to be certain before he did. Shallotte wasn’t even in the same county, and he didn’t want to waste Margolis’s time if it would amount to nothing…
He felt a tap on his shoulder and flinched automatically. When he turned, Evan was standing behind him. Colin pulled out the earbuds.
“You’re not planning to do what I think you are, are you?” Evan asked.
“What are you doing here? I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I knocked, but you didn’t answer. Peeked in. Saw you with Maria’s computer. Wondered if you were planning to do something stupid. Figured I would ask, just in case you were.”
“It wasn’t stupid. I was tracking Maria’s phone,” he said.
“I know,” Evan said, motioning to the computer. “I can see the screen. When did you figure out to do that?”
“This morning. When I left Maria’s parents’ house.”
“Pretty slick,” Evan said. “Have you called Margolis yet?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you walked in. I haven’t had the chance.”
“So call him now,” Evan said. When Colin didn’t reach for his phone, Evan let out a breath. “That’s what I meant when I wondered if you were planning to do something stupid. Because you weren’t planning to call him, were you? You were going to check it out yourself, before you call him.”
“It might not be Lester.”
“So? Let Margolis check it out. At the very least, Maria’s phone is there and he’d get it back. And do I need to remind you again that this is police business? You need to let Margolis do his job. You need to call him.”
“I will. When I know one way or the other.”
“You know what I think?” Evan asked. “You’re lying.”
“I don’t lie.”
“Maybe not to me. But right now, I think you’re lying to yourself. This has nothing to do with wasting Margolis’s time. The truth is, I think you want to be front and center in this whole thing. I think you want to see Lester and put a face to a name. I think you’re pissed off and you’ve gotten used to handling things your own way. And I think you want to be the hero, like taking pictures from the roof or last night when you kicked through Maria’s parents’ door, even though the police were already there.”
Colin admitted to himself that Evan might be right. “And?”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“If I find out it’s Lester, I’ll call Margolis.”
“And how are you going to do that? Are you going to knock on the door and ask if Lester’s home? Sneak up and try to peek through the windows? Hope he comes out to wash his car? Slip a note under the door?”
“I’ll figure it out when I get there.”
“Oh, that’s a good plan,” Evan snapped. “Because when you wing things, it always turns out for the best, huh? Did you happen to remember that Lester has a gun? And that you might get sucked into some sort of situation you could have avoided? Or that you might make things even worse? And what if Lester spots you? He might sneak out the back and then it’ll be even harder to find him in the future.”