Gary jumped in. “I’ll get the rest.” He didn’t really have the money, either, but he seldom used his one credit card and had plenty available on his account. He could always just make the minimum payment for several months until he paid this off. Besides, the sooner they got this problem taken care of, the sooner they could get back and go to the police. Whatever it cost, it was worth it.
“We’re not supposed to be here,” Stacy said in that coquettish voice that seemed so completely at odds with who she was. “If we don’t get back by dawn, we’ll be in big trouble. You don’t seem too busy tonight. Do you think you could do us a little favor and just work on it… now? We could pay you a little extra.”
The man smiled at her. “I guess I could.”
“How long do you think it’ll take?” Reyn asked, butting in.
The mechanic shrugged. “An hour, maybe. Two at the most.”
“Thank you,” Stacy said, smiling.
John went into a small storeroom at the far side of the garage.
“What the hell was that about?” Reyn whispered fiercely.
“Oh, knock it off,” Stacy whispered back. “I’m getting us out of here.”
They moved away, outside, around the edge of the building, arguing, but when they returned moments later, everything was fine between them.
Brian had already gone into the office to watch TV, and the rest of them joined him, flipping through channels before settling on a years-old Jerry Springer show about mothers who’d had sex with their sons’ teenage friends. They’d made it halfway through another show about a woman who’d fallen in love with her husband’s sister when John walked in and told them the car was ready to go.
In the end, he didn’t charge them extra, and between Gary’s credit card and Reyn’s, they had enough to take care of it.
Then they were off.
There was a surprising amount of traffic on the highway now, all of it heading toward Los Angeles—the same direction in which they were going. The sky was orange in the east, and it grew lighter and lighter as they followed the slow flow of traffic into the city.
The sun was out and it was morning by the time they pulled off the freeway onto Wilshire Boulevard. Reyn was going to head straight to the police station, but Gary asked him to stop by his dorm first so he could get the photo he’d taken from Joan’s parents’ house. The cops could use it, and he’d decided to say he’d had it in his room and forgotten it was there. If he was asked how he could have forgotten, Gary was going to say that his brain had been so rattled by Joan’s disappearance that he wasn’t thinking clearly. Besides, he saw the photo every day and it was such a commonplace part of his room furnishings that he hadn’t even thought about it.
The important thing was that the police would finally have a picture of Joan, proof that she existed, something they could work with to help them find her.
No one trusted Reyn’s car, even with the new water pump, and despite his protestations, they switched vehicles and took Gary’s Celica to the police station, where they asked the short masculine-looking woman at the front desk if they could talk to Detective Williams. In a flat, intimidating voice, she asked why they wanted to see the detective, and Gary said that they might have some information about a case he was working on. She asked Gary’s name, then picked up the handset of the phone directly in front of her and spoke into it, repeating what she’d been told. “Wait here,” she said, after hanging up. “Someone will be with you shortly.”
Gary was just glad that Williams seemed to be working this early, and he practiced in his head what he was going to say.
A few moments later, the security door to the right of the front desk opened with a buzz, and a uniformed young man about their age emerged to lead them through the station to the detectives’ desks. They went down a long corridor, up a flight of stairs and into a large, open room filled with several desks, some manned, most empty. He stopped in front of Williams’s partner, the guy with the handheld computer. The nameplate on his desk identified him as Det. Joseph Tucker.
Gary turned to the uniformed guide. “We wanted to talk to Detective Williams.”
Tucker smiled harshly. “He’s… indisposed at the moment. You can talk to me. Wondering how much your bail’s going to be set at?”
The young officer was walking away.
“We’re done,” Brian said, grabbing Gary’s arm. “Let’s go.”
Williams emerged from a restroom at the far end of the room, wiping his hands on a paper towel. “What can I do for you ladies and gentlemen?” he asked, walking up. He threw the wet paper towel at Tucker’s head as he was sitting down at an adjacent desk. Tucker ducked, swearing.
Gary handed Williams the photo of Joan, saying that he’d forgotten about it. Then he held out his cell phone, explaining that he’d gotten a call from Joan last evening, though he’d only checked his messages and heard it now. Then he played it.
“Gary! I’m—”
The call was so short, he played it again, just in case the detective hadn’t caught it.
“Gary! I’m—”
“I think someone kidnapped her, I think she escaped and I think she made that call,” he said. “Then I think she was caught again.”
Williams nodded, saying nothing.
Gary couldn’t help it. “Now do you believe me?”
“Not necessarily,” Tucker offered from the next desk over. “Maybe you recruited a friend of yours to send you that message in an effort to convince us that your story was legit.”
“Jesus!”
Williams motioned for the other detective to shut up. “I believe you,” he said. “But we still can’t dig up any proof that a Joan Daniels was ever enrolled in UCLA or lived in that dorm room… .”
“Her records have been erased,” Brian said. “School, DMV, everything.”
Tucker gave him a hard look. “And how do you know that?”
Brian stared back belligerently. “I have my ways.”
“Stand down,” Williams said tiredly.
“Is there any way you can trace this?” Gary asked.
“Short answer? No.”
Gary slammed his hand down on the desk. “She’s being held captive! This is an emergency! Can’t you subpoena the phone company records?”
“Yes, but that could take—”
“Can’t you just ask them?” Stacy suggested. “Explain the situation?”
Williams smiled thinly. “The Bush years are over. Privacy policies are back in effect.”
Gary was filled with a feeling remarkably close to panic. It was an emotional state that was becoming far too familiar, rendering him simultaneously furious, anxious and powerless, and he wanted to beat some sense into the dull, implacable head of the detective sitting before him. He forced himself to take a deep, calming breath, one of those moves that characters in film did all the time but that seemed so attention-grabbing, obvious and melodramatic in real life. “The only clue we have is this partial phone message, this attempt at contact.” He held out his phone. “How can we use it to find her?”
Williams looked at him, glanced over at Tucker, then picked up a pen and a yellow Post-it notepad, handing both to Gary. “Give me your cell phone number, your carrier and the date and time of the message. We’ll see what we can do.”
He acted as though he was doing Gary a big favor. This is your job! Gary wanted to scream at him. This is what you’re supposed to be doing! I shouldn’t have to tell you to do it! But he took the pen and paper, wrote down the information and handed it over.