I waited impatiently for her to find his address. My fingernails tapped on the backside of my phone. I had a bad feeling about this.

“Here’s his address. It’s only a few blocks from where you are,” she said. “But don’t meet me there. You stay where you are. I’ll let you know if anything is going on over there.”

Like that was going to happen.

I wrote down Miguel’s address. The minute I was off the phone with Patti, I ran out of the office and into the street.

“What’s going on?” Cole asked as I got back in the taxi.

“I’ll tell you on the way,” I answered as I dialed Uncle Saul’s cell phone number.

Cole raced to the address I gave him. Miguel lived in a small apartment building that was mostly covered by hanging moss from a few large live oaks. Huge, old azalea bushes obscured the front windows.

The Mercedes wasn’t there, either. There were no lights on inside.

Cole got out with me this time, grabbing a baseball bat he kept under his seat. We searched the mail slots. There were four apartments. Miguel’s was on the second floor.

I tried the buzzer over and over again. Either he wasn’t there or couldn’t answer. Both answers were bad in my mind.

“We should try to get someone else down here to open the door,” Cole said.

I reasoned with a man on the first floor who answered his buzzer. I told him that we thought Miguel could be in danger. The man, dressed only in his underwear, finally came and opened the door for us. I could hear sirens in the distance. Patti wasn’t far behind us.

We ran up to the second floor. The building was a little shabby, but you could see this had been a nice place at one time. I wondered if Miguel had lived here with Caroline, or if they’d had a house that he’d sold.

Thousands of crazy thoughts raced through my mind as we reached the door to Miguel’s apartment.

“I can knock it down with my bat,” Cole enthusiastically volunteered.

“You might break your arm before you break it in.” I held him back.

“So what do we do?”

Patti was coming up the stairs with two uniformed officers. “Zoe, didn’t I tell you to stay where you were? What part of that didn’t you understand?”

I ran and hugged her, tears in my eyes. “I’m so glad to see you. I think they did something with Miguel. I don’t think he’s here, either.”

She hugged me back, a little stiffly, but I didn’t care. I was really happy to see her.

“You’re determined to get into trouble, aren’t you? You have to leave the police work to the police. Let’s get someone to open this door for us.”

She roused the building manager. By that time, Macey Helms was up there, too. She was moving very slowly, painfully, to join us.

“Hello, Zoe.” Her arm was in a sling, and she was very pale. “I hope Miguel is all right. I understand we both came to the same conclusion about Tina and my partner.”

“I guess so,” I answered. “It occurred to me on the way home from Birmingham that Tina could’ve been setting up everything to cover Alex’s murder. She had a lot to gain.”

She nodded and winced. “I don’t think she realized that paying Miguel that money and meeting with him would throw her onto our radar. On the other hand, when Miguel looked innocent of any wrongdoing, so did she. What can I tell you? Bad guys do stupid things sometimes. I’m glad it works that way for our sake.”

“How did she and Detective Marsh get involved?”

“I don’t know yet. Right now, we’re working on the assumption that Marsh probably killed McSwain because McSwain started looking too close. He may have killed your friend, Reggie, as a decoy for what he was about to do to Alex.”

The more she talked about what Tina and Marsh were willing to do to kill Alex, the more anxious I became about Miguel.

The apartment was small. The officers who were searching it came back only a few minutes later. Miguel wasn’t there. There was no sign of a struggle.

Patti sent them over to take a look at the office. “I don’t want to make a big deal out of Miguel’s disappearance and find out he was out all night with a client and hasn’t thought about anything else.”

Helms agreed with her. “We definitely don’t want to lose Marsh and Tina.”

“I have everyone looking for the Mercedes, but if they took Miguel’s vehicle, the chances are they’ve ditched it. They could already be out of Mobile.”

“Can’t you call the FBI or something?” I asked.

“It doesn’t work like that, Zoe,” Patti said. “We have to take care of this one step at a time. We’ll find Marsh and Gerard, and we’ll figure out where Miguel is. Just take a deep breath and go on home. We’ll call if we hear anything.”

I thanked her again for her help. Ollie, Delia, and Uncle Saul were there, waiting downstairs with Cole. One of the old churches nearby was chiming midnight. The air was hot and sultry with a little hint of rain that might have been coming from Mobile Bay.

“Now what?” Cole put away his baseball bat.

“It’s Zoe’s call.” Uncle Saul hugged me. “I have a feeling we’re not going home yet.”

There was no doubt in my mind that I wasn’t waiting at home for news. I pieced together a plan that I thought might work and told them what I thought we should do.

“Uncle Saul, you have a lot of friends around the city that you could call. Ollie, let’s go back to the shelter and see if we can find anyone who will help us search. Mobile is our home. Marsh and Tina don’t know it like we do. Let’s find Miguel.”

THIRTY-TWO

Uncle Saul called all of his old buddies and gave them a description of Miguel and the Mercedes. When I told Chef Art what had happened, he volunteered all of his security guards to help us search as well. They had SUVs, which was good since none of the rest of us had cars. I didn’t want to drive the Biscuit Bowl all over town searching for Miguel if I didn’t have to.

“This is developing into a large search party,” Uncle Saul said. “Maybe the four of us should split up and go with each of the teams. We actually know what Miguel and his car look like. It might save a lot of wrong guesses.”

“That’s a good idea,” I agreed.

“Yeah!” Ollie seconded me. “I’ve always wanted to ride in a big black SUV with a bunch of security guards. Do I get a gun?”

“We’re only looking for someone,” Delia reminded him, her hand on his chest. “We’re not shooting anyone—at least not yet.”

He pouted but went along with the plan.

I stayed with Cole in the taxi. I had the feeling that he’d know Mobile better than the security people Chef Art had employed. He’d know the areas where someone might be liable to dump a car or a person. The security guards basically knew the area Chef Art needed them to know.

At least those were my thoughts at the time.

Cole had a cell phone to keep in contact, so I gave my cell phone to Ollie, who didn’t have one. Delia and Uncle Saul had their own phones. The security guards probably had phones, and radios, too, but I wanted to stay in touch with my team, not them.

“Where are we going first, Zoe?” Cole asked as everyone got into their vehicles and started their engines.

“I think we should check down by the docks. What do you think?”

He nodded. “I’m with you. Lots of places to hide bodies down there.”

I let out a little squeal even thinking that Miguel might be a “body.”

“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean just bodies. Did I say that? No, people hide all sorts of stuff down that way.” He shook his head and started the taxi. “Never mind. I’ve never been good with words.”