I couldn’t find Victor anywhere; not at his apartment and not at the school. The only other place he could be was the club. I checked the clock on my dashboard. It could be that he was having his nightclub lunch break. I decided to go to Petra first, pick her up and drive to the strip club to meet with Victor. Andreaa had been right: we had gladly jumped through the hoops the murderer had left for us. We had to take action now; there was no way we could afford to jump through more hoops. Wasting more time would be the death of this girl for sure; he had planned it that way and now we had to beat him at the game he had laid down for us.
Petra was behind her desk and looking at her screen. She waved a pencil between her fingers; it meant she was working on something. I took the seat across the desk from her. “What are you doing?” I asked.
“I am placing the city onto a new raster so that we can check off grids where we have looked,” she replied as she placed the pen in her mouth and looked at me. “And what are you doing here today, Tara?” she asked, sounding a little annoyed. “I was hoping that I could persuade you to come along with me and pick up Victor to do some searching.”
“You two do that, and you can let me do my job,” she replied as she turned back to the map and mumbled as she drew on it.
I shook my head and got up; she clearly wasn’t going to help me much anymore. It didn’t matter; I would keep her updated as I did my own research. Although she had access to police resources, I had something that might be even more valuable than that damn map she was working on. I had the city, and knew some of the more shady characters …, and who knows; maybe Risi could prove to be helpful.  

Next Chapter: Lunch at the club