“I don’t care how you do it. The main thing is, if we want to figure out where this opposition is ultimately coming from, we need to know what Hamilton knows. That’ll work best if she’s alive and not disappeared by whoever took Schrader. Now head over there double time. I’m doing the same, and I’ll see if K. can confirm a cellphone location, too. If Hamilton’s not at the hotel, I’ll call you back.”
He clicked off and looked at Labee. “You got a nav system in that Jeep of yours? I don’t know how to get to the hotel.”
“I’ll drive you.”
“No, I don’t think that’s—”
“I’ll drive you.”
If there’s one thing he’d learned about Labee, it was the futility of arguing. “Can Alondra stay here?”
Diaz said, “I’m coming, too.”
Labee shook her head. “Bad idea.”
“I’m the only one Hamilton knows,” Diaz said. “She won’t listen to you. Or go anywhere with you.”
Dox said, “How about if you just call her at the hotel? See if you can reach her in her room and tell her to stay put and not answer the door.”
“Even if I reach her, if you go without me, she won’t know who you are.”
Dox stood and called Kanezaki. “Well, whoever’s going, let’s make it quick. I got a bad feeling about Hamilton, and we might be too late already.”
chapter
thirty-two
DOX
Labee drove and Dox rode shotgun. Diaz, in the back, used Dox’s burner to call the Four Seasons. She asked for Hamilton’s room, waited, then shook her head and clicked off. “Not in the room,” she said.
Dox had already tried Kanezaki but hadn’t been able to reach him. And no one in Hamilton’s office had been willing to share the cellphone number. “Damn,” he said. “If she’s not at the hotel, and someone else is geolocating her cellphone, we’re wasting our time. Alondra, you said you have the number in your cellphone. You left it in a library? Where?”
“Near the courthouse,” Diaz said. “Just a few blocks from the hotel. Livia, swing by. I’ll use it just to call Hamilton. I can ditch it again afterward.”
Labee glanced at Dox, obviously not liking it.
“It’s a small risk,” he said. “Remember, it’s not just that we need Hamilton’s intel. If whatever she knows falls into the wrong hands, that’s doubly bad.”
Five minutes later, they pulled up in front of the public library. There were people marching past with signs—SAVE THE CHILDREN and THE STORM IS COMING and DEEP STATE PROTECTS PEDOPHILES. Schrader’s bizarre prison release was in the news, and it was stirring up the QAnoners.
Diaz moved as though to get out. “No, ma’am,” Dox said, scoping the area. “Tell me where the phone is and you stay put. Just in case there are any unfriendlies in the area.”
“Behind a book called Recursion, by Blake Crouch. Level three. Fiction.”
Dox went in while Labee circled the block. He found the phone no problem and made it back to the Jeep without incident. “Haven’t turned it on yet,” he said. “Let’s wait until we’re moving.”
They pulled away and Diaz called Hamilton. Dox eyed the sideview. He didn’t see anyone tailing them, but there was too much traffic to be sure.
“Sharon,” Diaz said. “This is Alondra Diaz. I—no, I didn’t have my cellphone with me, I just picked it up. Listen—no, I don’t know where Schrader is. I had nothing to do with—listen to me, this is important. It’s critical that I meet you right away. Where are you?”