Operation Blind Date (11 page)

Chapter 17

“I
was supposed to only use the phone for those texts,” the boy said, sounding miserable. “But it’s so much cooler and better than my phone.”

“So you couldn’t resist using it for your personal stuff.”

Laney watched the boy carefully. He looked as distraught as he sounded. She wasn’t surprised. There were three of them and only one of him. And Detective Dunbar was towering over the kid as he sat on the hard plastic chair in the office they’d borrowed from the head of terminal operations, a man Dunbar had apparently dealt with before.

She’d been a little surprised when Hayley and Quinn had exited, but she supposed it spoke to their faith in the detective, and in Teague, who in turn said Laney should be present in case the kid said something about Amber only she might catch. She was grateful to him for that; she didn’t think she could stand being shut out right now. And he was clearly able to put the tension that had sparked between them aside for the sake of the case.

Dunbar himself was a tall, rangy man who moved with an ease that spoke of solid strength. Laney guessed he was as tough as he needed to be, when he needed to be. The touch of gray at his temples seemed at odds with a young face, but matched the shadows in his eyes. She didn’t like thinking about the things he must have seen to put them there. Just as she didn’t like thinking about what Teague had been through. His sister vanishing while he was halfway around the world, his best friend dying in his arms while he watched helplessly. She couldn’t imagine.

Sometimes she wondered why anyone would want to be a cop. Or in the military, she thought, with a glance at Teague. She didn’t have an ounce of that kind of nobility in her, to sacrifice what they did to serve.

Hayley had told her Dunbar wasn’t just a good cop, he was a good man. “I don’t know his whole story,” she’d said as they headed toward the port building, “but he’s a man who understands pain, and a man who listens.”

“Maybe I should have gone to him first,” Laney said, her willingness to forgive overworked city cops a bit singed now that she knew Amber was truly in trouble.

“He would have heard you out. But based on what you had...”

“I know,” she said. “I had nothing. Nothing but a bad feeling.”

“And years of knowledge of your friend,” Teague had pointed out. She’d liked him for that. And for not staying mad. As if she needed more reasons.

“So,” Detective Dunbar was saying now, “you want us to believe this man you’d never seen before just hands you this phone—”

“I never said I’d never seen him before, just that I didn’t know him.”

The kid sounded scared now. He was small for his age, a little skinny yet, and something about that fear in his voice made Laney see him as a person, not just someone who had something to do with Amber’s disappearance.

As if he’d done the same, Dunbar suddenly shifted tacks. He pulled another chair over, reversed it and sat with his arms crossed on the back. Giving the kid a visual barrier between them, she realized. A tactic, just as bringing him inside had been; less likely to try to run, Quinn had said. Outside, people, especially kids, always seemed to think they could get away.

“Okay, Pinch,” he said, using the nickname the kid had given them, “why don’t you just tell us the whole story? Get your side out.”

“I didn’t steal it,” the boy insisted.

“So you said. Start at the beginning. When and where did this man approach you?”

“At the wireless store at the shopping center near my house. He was, like, hanging outside. A couple of weeks ago.”

A couple of weeks, Laney thought. Amber had vanished three weeks ago. Had the first texts she’d gotten truly been from her? It was all she could do to stay quiet and let this man Foxworth trusted handle it.

“And what exactly did he tell you?”

“That he’d pay me five hundred dollars to take the phone and send this list of texts he had written down, at the times it said on the list.”

“You didn’t find that odd?”

The boy shrugged, as if at the oddities of adults. He seemed a little more at ease now; Dunbar’s change in tactics had apparently worked.

“And did he say why he needed you to do this so much it was worth five hundred bucks to him?”

“He said he and his girlfriend were taking off together, but her folks didn’t like him and he wanted to hold them off. I get that. This girl I like, her parents hate me.”

“You didn’t think it a little strange that a grown man would be worried about that?”

The kid shrugged again. “I figure parents keep hassling you as long as you live.”

That answer was almost profound. And from the slight smile that flashed on Dunbar’s face, she guessed he felt the same way.

“You still have that list?”

“Yeah. It’s on the phone, in the notebook app.”

Teague spoke for the first time. “Did he tell you when you could stop?”

Again the shrug. “When I got to the end of the list. Like, in about a week.”

That made it a month, Laney thought. A total of a month since Amber had disappeared.

“If you want me to believe this, believe you didn’t just steal this phone—which could be worth enough to make it grand theft and land you in jail for a good long time—you’re going to have to help me here.”

The mention of grand theft and jail made the already light-complexioned kid go even paler. “I’m a juvenile,” he protested.

“You’re seventeen,” Dunbar said. “Close enough that my recommendation could probably get you tried as an adult. So help me out. What did this guy look like?”

“He was just a guy. An old guy. Not as old as you, but older than her,” he said, pointing at Laney.

That fit, Laney supposed, even as she questioned the wisdom of calling the cop questioning you old. But she figured to a seventeen-year-old, the forty she guessed Dunbar might be or be pushing would seem just that—old.

“Tall? Short? Dark hair, light hair, bald, what?”

“I don’t know, he was just a guy!” The kid’s voice nearly squeaked. He was genuinely scared now.

“Close your eyes, Pinch,” Dunbar said.

“What?”

“Close your eyes. Picture that day he came up to you. What was he wearing when he handed you the phone?”

“Oh. Uh...”

Pinch complied, seeming relieved that Dunbar wasn’t still hammering at him. Which, Laney guessed, was part of the tactic. The man really was good.

“A jacket,” Pinch said. “Black. It was, you know, that slick stuff, that makes all the noise, like a windbreaker.”

“Right hand or left?”

“Right.”

“Any rings on that hand?”

“No.”

“Other hand?”

“No.”

“Shirt.”

“Blue. Like one of those golf-type shirts. And jeans.” The kid’s eyes snapped open. “And he had the phone in a baggie. You know, like you put sandwiches in and stuff.”

Dunbar drew back slightly. It didn’t take much to guess why. The man had probably wiped it clean before handing it over to the kid.

“Hey. I remembered.” He sounded pleased with himself.

“Yeah. You’re doing fine,” Dunbar reassured him. “Now try it with his face.”

The boy gave them a description that could have fit any five people who had just walked off that ferry, and probably every other guy over thirty they found on the street. Dunbar looked at Teague and lifted an eyebrow. Teague nodded and pulled out his phone.

“Look at these. Is he one of them?” Teague asked, holding the phone out as a slow slide show of four images rotated. All similar, yet different. The third one, she saw, was the driver’s license image of Edward.

“Maybe,” Pinch said, “but he could be any of them. I was looking more at the phone, you know?”

And in the end, that was all they got, that “maybe.” It could have been Edward, but maybe not. The money had been cash and already spent, and any suspect fingerprints on the phone had apparently been wiped. But it was more than they’d had.

“If he’s only had the phone two weeks, then those first text messages weren’t ones he sent,” Laney said as she and Teague headed back to Foxworth in his car.

“No.”

“So maybe they were really Amber, trying to send a message with the odd references and syntax, trying to signal something was wrong.”

“Could be.”

He sounded so oddly neutral she knew he had to be making an effort at it. And it hit her quickly.

“Or they were odd because they were sent by Edward, before he gave the phone to Pinch.”

“Yes.”

“But how would he have even known her cat’s name?”

“She might have told him. Innocently, the kind of thing you tell someone you’re getting to know. He might have pumped her for information, intending to use it that way.”

Laney suppressed a shudder. The thought that Edward might have planned this all along, that he might have worked Amber for details just so he could use them to fend off her friends and family, made this all seem even more horrific.

“Detective Dunbar believes something’s wrong,” she said.

“Yes. And he’ll get the wheels turning.”

She should be happier. All she’d wanted was for her worry to be taken seriously, for someone in authority to believe that she wasn’t just imagining things, that Amber could really be in trouble. But in fact, she’d been happier when they hadn’t taken it seriously. Because if the police didn’t believe anything was wrong, it was always a possibility they were right, and Amber was fine.

And now she’d lost that. Now she had to admit that Amber was truly gone, and that she could be in very serious trouble. That she might never be found.

And suddenly she understood Teague’s oddly neutral tone.

He suspected Amber was already dead.

Chapter 18

C
utter, who had apparently been wandering the field in back, spotted them instantly. He was headed for them before Teague could even park.

“Probably not happy he got left behind,” he said as he got out of the car.

“I still worry there’s no fence here,” Laney said.

It was the first thing she’d said since they’d left the ferry landing, so Teague went with it.

“We all did, at first. Liam says no dog’s one hundred percent reliable on recall. Give ’em a squirrel or a deer to chase, and they’re gone, tunnel vision turned on, running as if they couldn’t hear you calling them at all. But Cutter’s as close as you’ll get. And he really doesn’t like getting too far from his people.”

“Which is all of you.”

“He has kind of adopted all of us. Some more than others,” he said, thinking of Rafe and the different sort of bond that had grown between the dog and the man who had the darkest past of them all. “And he goes kind of nuts if he stays cooped up too much.”

“They’re a high-energy sort of dog,” she said.

Teague watched as Cutter slowed his run just long enough to alter his course. He headed directly for Laney. As if he sensed she was the one who needed his attention.

“And right now, that family includes you, especially,” he said.

She’d held up until now. He hadn’t pushed her to talk, hadn’t known what to say, hadn’t known just how much she’d processed what Pinch had told them. Hadn’t known if she realized all the ramifications. But now, as she crouched to hug the dog, burying her face in his thick fur, he realized she’d understood it all.

Cutter whined, a soft, worried sound he rarely made unless someone he loved was in distress. Which said it all, Teague thought. His own stomach was knotting up at the sight of the tiny shivers that went through her, at the way she was gulping in air as if trying to keep from crying.

He wished Hayley would hurry up and get here. He was no good with crying women. Hell, that was what had started this. All the more reason to avoid them.

But if he’d walked away that day, where would she be now? Alone, and still frantic about her friend. And from what he’d seen of her so far, she wouldn’t be able to let go of that. Which meant she might well keep poking at it and end up in hot water herself. End up in the same boat as Amber apparently had, in the hands of a man whose motives, while unknown yet, were clearly less than aboveboard. And quite possibly dangerous.

Or deadly.

And that thought made his knotted stomach a little queasy.

He heard her take another strangled gulp as she fought to steady herself. And couldn’t stop himself. He knelt beside her. Cutter, for all his focus on her, spared him a glance that so clearly said “Fix it!” that he grimaced.

I wish I knew how, buddy,
he muttered inwardly. Then said the only thing he could think of.

“Laney, if you want to go home—”

“No. No, I can’t. I need to know something’s being done.”

He got that. Completely.

Laney stood up. Teague followed.

“And I need to feel like I’m doing something.” Her mouth tightened and he saw the wetness on her cheeks. She hadn’t quite succeeded in stopping the tears. But she’d certainly given it a valiant try. “Even if it’s worthless.”

“It’s not worthless, Laney,” he said.

She looked up at him then. The pain he saw in her eyes jabbed at him, dug deep. Instinctively he reached for her, put his arms around her at the same moment Cutter nudged him in that direction.

She felt better than he’d ever imagined. And, he admitted to himself, he’d been imagining quite a lot.

But even he realized this was not the moment to be indulging in errant thoughts; comfort was what she needed now, and what it was his job to provide. Even Cutter knew that, the way he’d nudged him toward her.

Comfort. Right. That’s it. That’s what he was here for.

Even if he wasn’t very good at it.

He didn’t know what to say, so said nothing. If nothing else, he’d learned that sometimes silence was the best option. Cutter, after all, didn’t need words, and he was the best antidote to worry and stress that Teague had ever seen. And managed to communicate perfectly, in ways that were unique but unmistakable. The least he, stupid human, could do was learn from the clever animal.

So he simply held her.

And she let him. She didn’t pull away, didn’t insist she was fine, didn’t ask him what the hell he thought he was doing. Instead she rested her head against his shoulder, leaned into him with that lithe yet curved body he’d admired, and after a moment, slipped her arms around him in a move that surprised him. Not so much because she’d done it—it was, after all, a natural response, to return a hug—but because of the effect it had on him.

Warning bells went off in his head, but they had to fight to be heard over the sudden racing of his heart.

Let go,
his brain shouted.

Hang on,
his body countered.

It was a battle he’d not fought in a long time, and for the first time in even longer, he wasn’t sure which side he wanted to win. And no amount of telling himself she was a client, this was wrong, and Quinn would have his head seemed to help matters. His body had raged to life, more quickly than he could ever remember. He tightened his hold, needing her even closer. When she hugged him closer in turn, the ache of need became nearly unbearable.

Cutter’s sudden happy bark jerked him out of dangerous territory. And made Laney jump back.

“Hayley,” he said. His voice sounded thick, harsh. He cleared his throat and tried again. “They must be here.”

“I know that bark,” Laney said, not looking at him. “I’ve heard it when she comes to pick him up. I didn’t realize it was just for her.”

She sounded like a woman glad of the distraction. Or maybe that was just his own guilt speaking.

The sound of tires on gravel proved the dog right. Quinn’s big, dark blue SUV came out of the trees and pulled up beside them. Cutter raced over, danced with eager anticipation outside the passenger door until Hayley emerged and he greeted her joyously. Then he darted to Quinn, who leaned down to scratch his right ear thoroughly, earning a sigh of happiness.

“Thanks for guarding, boy,” Quinn said.

Cutter yipped then sat, looking up expectantly. Like a marine waiting for orders, Teague thought.

“Stand down,” Quinn said. “Relax.”

With another short, expressive bark, Cutter stood, wheeled around and trotted back to Laney. For a moment he just stood there, looking up at her.

“I’m all right now,” she said, stroking his head. “Thank you, my furry friend.”

The dog looked at Teague then, and no matter how ridiculous it seemed, he would have sworn there was approval in the dog’s steady gaze. And it warmed him.

Okay, you’re over the edge. Basking in the approval of a dog?

Well, not just a dog. Cutter. That made it different.

“You were a wizard or something in another life, weren’t you?” he muttered as he scratched that right ear.

Cutter gave a soft woof, then trotted toward the green building. Teague straightened, saw Laney looking at him. Saw she was smiling, probably at his silly words. He knew they were silly, but sometimes...

More importantly, they’d made her smile. That was worth something. In fact, right now it was worth a lot.

“What’s Dunbar going to do with Pinch?” Teague asked as, once inside, they settled around the meeting table. Quinn had stayed to talk to the man after he and Laney had gone.

“The kid was just a dupe, that’s pretty obvious. He’s going to turn him over to his parents. And when they arrive to get him, he’ll run the photo by them, just in case.”

Teague nodded.

“Laney? Can we see your phone?” Hayley asked, so gently Teague knew she’d somehow sensed Laney’s emotional state.

“Of course.”

She pulled it out of her purse, a worn leather satchel Teague knew held, among many other things, dog treats. And yet Cutter had shown no interest in them, not since this had begun.
No treats while you’re working,
Teague thought with an inward smile. Cutter’s code. He didn’t doubt for a minute the dog had one. And that he was working. He had been since Laney had started crying in the grooming room of her shop.

“We want to compare the texts you got right after Amber vanished to the ones when we now know Pinch started sending them,” Hayley said.

Laney nodded, but with a furrowed brow. “But we don’t really know if she sent any of them.”

“No,” Quinn agreed. “So why don’t you go back to that last one you’re certain came from her, and we’ll work forward from there.”

She’d shown them that point in the long string of texts before, but willingly went back to it again. “I’m glad I didn’t clear these out,” she said as she called it up and set the phone down and slid it across the table to Hayley and Quinn. “I know this was her, because we talked about it the next day.”

Teague remembered the text had been something about a hard-to-please client.

“Do you know the name of that client?” Teague asked.

Laney shook her head. “She just called them Their Highnesses. I know they were semilocal. Greater Seattle area, anyway.”

“We’ll get Ty on that,” Quinn said. “Give him a chance to break in his new toys before he heads back. Which reminds me, he just found some evidence that North Country’s in trouble. Maybe even headed for bankruptcy.”

“Figures,” Teague muttered.

“If Edward knew that,” Laney began.

“He could be desperate,” Quinn finished for her.

“Or maybe he’s been stealing from them, too, and is afraid he’s going to be found out in a bankruptcy audit,” Teague said.

“Also possible,” Quinn said. He turned back to the phone and the text messages. “Now, which one first sounded off to you?”

“There were a couple that were...not odd, but very short. Amber’s not a succinct sort of person. She tends to ramble a bit. But she will do short if she’s jammed for time, so I can’t say it doesn’t happen. So the first one that was really off was the one about Pepper.”

“The dog. Which was actually a cat,” Teague said.

“Yes.”

“Other than the obvious mistakes, did it sound like Amber?” Hayley asked. “Meaning the phrasing, the abbreviations, the emoticons?”

Laney nodded. “It did. It was only the content that threw me.”

Teague exchanged a glance with Quinn.

“So it could have been her,” Hayley said. “Trying to send a message.”

“To maybe the only person who would immediately know something was wrong with it,” Teague said.

Laney shivered visibly. Teague reached over and laid a hand over hers. Her fingers curled, clasping his, as if she welcomed the contact. It had been automatic, this need to again comfort, and only after he’d done it did he realize how it might look from across the table.

But then there was little room for such concerns. The same jolt at the contact shot through him again, as if he’d grabbed a live wire. Which, in a way, he had. But he hadn’t been able to resist; the pull was as certain as a magnet’s.

Cutter woofed from his spot at their feet, as if he’d somehow felt the electric charge that had surged between them.

He searched her face, looked for some clue, but she was looking down at their hands and he couldn’t read her. But she didn’t let go, didn’t pull back. He had to be satisfied with that, for the moment.

And for the moment, he’d damned well better shove the images that shot through his mind at the word
satisfied
back into their cave.

The warning bells rang again. But they were even more distant this time.