Runaway. Part 16

Jan's cell phone rang and she picked it up as quickly as she could, thankful for the interruption.

"This is Anna from the Pinehurst. I'm over at the bar and just heard something that might be about that girl you're looking for."

"I'm on my way," Jan said. She hung up and grabbed her jacket.

"Wait. What's going on?"

"Someone at the bar might know something. You can stay here."

Catherine was up and at her side. "Don't be absurd. I'm coming with you."

"Why?"

"Because I'm your partner."

Jan raised her eyebrow. "Don't get any ideas. You're not my partner."

Catherine smiled and a crack formed in Jan's resolve. Every smile, every laugh out of Catherine's mouth, made the risk of being hurt so much more worth taking. She spun and went out the door, crossing the parking lot with long strides, Catherine keeping pace behind her.

Inside the bar the drinkers were down to a few. It was Sunday night, well into the evening, and the hunched figures were the hardcore regulars. The feel of a barstool below them was more comforting than any living room La-Z-Boy. Annabeth was talking to her mother at the end of the bar. As they approached, Anna discretely pointed at a man sitting by himself at one of the few tables in the tavern. He looked startled when Jan and Catherine sat down at the table with him.

"Excuse us for interrupting you," Jan said, "but we're looking for someone and we'd like to see if you can help us."

"What are you talking about?" the man said. He was middle-aged, tired, his coveralls dirty from whatever it was he worked at during the day. His hand was thick, gripping the bottle of beer in front of him. He was eating one of the tavern pizzas.

"We've been hired to find this girl," Catherine said, as Jan showed him the photo. "She's run away from home."

"And we know she's been training at the militia camp that's near here. Do you know anything about her?" Jan said.

The man turned around and looked at Anna, who just waved cheerily back. He sighed.

"I didn't know that Anna was going to call you in here. I don't want to get involved in nothing." He didn't seem hostile. He could have been saying he didn't want to buy any Girl Scout cookies. He just wasn't interested.

"If you could just tell us what you told Anna," Catherine said. He c.o.c.ked his head at her, most likely because she talked funny. "She's just a girl, you see. We need to find her."

"I don't know if I do know anything at all about her. When Anna mentioned there were people here looking for a missing girl, I told her what I heard when I was at the gas station a bit ago. A couple fellas from the training camp were there and I overheard them saying they all had to scramble out of there 'cause it turned out there was a runaway in the camp and someone had come looking for her. They thought she was part of the group of young folks who are heading out to Idaho."

Catherine and Jan looked at each other.

The man gave the photo back to Jan. "I didn't see her myself, so I don't know if that's her."

"Do you know the names of any of the people going to Idaho?"

"David Conlon is the only one I know of. I've heard him in the bar here talking about Idaho. They're crazy, if you ask me."

"Why do you say that?" Jan asked.

"Well, what the h.e.l.l are they going to do out there? There aren't any more jobs in the middle of Idaho than there are here, and they won't have their parents' homes to go to when they run out of money. And Idaho is hard country. A Michigan winter is nothing compared to what they have."

Jan had to agree with that. The winters of her childhood were endless months of freezing cold and unending snow. Every fall was spent shoring up the sorry structures in their camp in the hope they'd be st.u.r.dy enough to keep them alive until spring. Men cut wood non-stop, piling split logs into small mountains that never seemed large enough to keep them warm through the season.

"Do you have any idea where they planned to go in Idaho? Did it sound like they have a destination?"

"Conlon was boasting that they had some property they bought, with a house and some stables and who knows what else. I couldn't tell you where it was. Didn't hear him mention it."

"Do you know where we can find David Conlon?"

"He lives somewhere around here, I guess. I've seen him in here enough. I couldn't tell you what town he's in though."

"What about the men you overheard at the gas station?" Catherine asked. "Can you tell us who they were? They might know more about the girl we're looking for."

The man shrugged. "Sorry. I didn't know those fellas."

Catherine looked at Jan, who then turned for a final question.

"Can you give us your name, sir?"

"It's Fred Hansen. But I'd appreciate you not spreading it around that I talked to you. People don't much like it when you talk about them to outsiders."

"I understand. I'll leave my card with you and ask that you call me if you hear anything else about the group going to Idaho or the girl we're trying to find. Her name's Maddy Harrington."

Hansen nodded and turned back to his pizza as Jan and Catherine got up from the table. When they returned to the motel they stopped in front of their two rooms.

"What do we do now?" Catherine said. She stood facing Jan, close enough to put her arms around her neck and pull her down for a kiss, which she looked like she was about to do. Jan pulled back a step.

"I'm going to try to find David Conlon. You can do whatever you want."

She put her key in her door and left Catherine standing outside, her hands on her hips.

Maddy woke to find herself in Kristi's cot, tucked under her arm and buried under their coats and the two thin blankets they'd found in the cabin. She barely remembered waking earlier in the night, freezing, not thinking twice about climbing in with Kristi and her generous body heat. Kristi had simply grunted and moved over a bit, wrapping an arm around Maddy.

Kristi's vibrating cell phone went off. She could hear it skittering along the floor below her. Kristi slept on.

"h.e.l.lo?" she answered the phone knowing it was probably David.

"We're five minutes away," he said. "Get yourselves ready to roll. We're heading to Idaho."

"Now?"

"Yes. We have to. People are looking for you and we need to get out of here." David didn't sound like his usual easygoing self. She felt Kristi s.h.i.+ft behind her.

"Okay. We'll be ready."

"You know, Maddy, there are some who want to leave you behind. And they may be right. You shouldn't have lied to me," David said.

"Why are you taking me then?" She didn't want to go where she wasn't wanted. She'd had a lifetime of that, she felt. But she wanted to go to Idaho, more than ever before.

"I don't know. It might be stupid of me. But you and I talked so much about this together that it doesn't feel right to leave you. Let's hope I don't regret this."

"You won't. I promise."

Now Kristi was sitting up. "What's happening?"

"Can't you talk to your parents and call them off the search? I thought you said they don't care much what you do," David said.

"They don't. This is just for show. So they can tell people they did what they could. They're not going to hunt me to the ends of the earth."

"They did send this investigator to Michigan."

"Don't worry, David. The investigator will lose the scent, we'll be out of the Midwest, and that will be the end of it."

"We're heading up the road to the cabin. Meet us out front."

Maddy disconnected and handed the phone to Kristi, who looked dazed.

"Come on. We're heading out to Idaho. David's almost here."

"What? What about my stuff? Am I supposed to go to Idaho with literally the clothes on my back?"

Maddy shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe he plans for us to swing by your place. Where do you live, anyway?"

"It's not far. My brother's garage. I've got to get my stuff. It'll take me ten minutes."

They heard a truck roll up out front and scrambled into their coats and out the door. The fire was dead; whoever came to this hole next would have to fold the thin sc.r.a.ps they called blankets. David was driving his pickup and they climbed into the front with him.

"What the h.e.l.l, dude?" Kristi said. "We aren't going without me getting my stuff, are we?"

Maddy was starting to become fascinated with Kristi's stuff. When she ran away from home, the only thing she cared about bringing were her computer and a few changes of clothes. She wondered what Kristi valued.

"Don't worry, Kris. We'll swing by your brother's, then on to meet the rest of our caravan at Ed's. We're heading out from there. Maddy, I threw your things in your bag. It's all in the hold."

A few miles down the county road and another Michigan hamlet appeared, with trailer courts leading the way into the town and then popping up again on the other side. They drove beyond the last of these and then down a gravel road where actual houses were scattered about. David turned off his lights and pulled into the dirt driveway of one of them, a one-story ramshackle structure, badly in need of paint. It was a few hours before dawn, but the moonlight showed off everything most people would just as soon keep hiddenthe peeling paint, the c.o.c.keyed screen door, the falling gutters, and missing roof s.h.i.+ngles.

"Wait here. I'll be right back," Kristi said, but Maddy slipped out with her.

"I'm coming too," she whispered. "I'll help you carry."

Kristi gave her a sort of helpless look and shrugged. She led her up the driveway to the back of the property, shrouded in trees and much darker than up front. The garage wasn't what Maddy expected. Instead of a two-story structure with a cute studio apartment on top, it was simply a garage. No toilet, no kitchen. There was a mattress on the floor. The setup was so dismal that Maddy could instantly see why Kristi thought David's bas.e.m.e.nt was upscale.

Kristi's dresser was a duffle bag gaping open by the mattress. She started to throw some scattered clothes into the bag and then bent to unplug a handheld gaming device. She wrapped the cord around it and tucked it safely into her jacket pocket. There was a kit bag and a well-thumbed romance novel that went into the bag also, and that was it. She zipped it up.

"I really didn't need any help carrying," she said.

Jan spent several minutes on the Internet before locating an address for a house owned by a Frank Conlon. Google Maps pinpointed the house at about a mile away from the Pinehurst Inn. Catherine remained quiet as Jan worked. She finished off a beer and checked e-mails on her phone. Jan glanced at her repeatedly, worried Catherine would keep at her about their personal mess, worried also that she wouldn't.

"I've got something," Jan said, pulling on her jacket. She clipped her Glock back onto her belt.

"Should I be armed?" Catherine asked.

"What do you think, Secret Agent Woman?"

"Hilarious. But I'm afraid I'm without my weapon. It appears you'll have to protect me."

Jan handed her a revolver to be on the safe side.

"Take my backup."

Catherine handled the gun with ease and slid it into the back of her jeans. "Right. Are we going in Western style, guns a-blazin' and all that? Or have you considered calling the authorities?"

Jan locked the room door behind them and then opened her car door for Catherine. "I considered it, but I want to see what's out there first."

The Jeep bounced along a rutted dirt road, its gravel cover long since spit off to the side. Jan followed a blue dot on her phone's GPS until she came upon a row of dilapidated ranch houses. The address Jan found on the county a.s.sessor's site was the last in the row. There were no streetlights, but the blue glow of TV screens shone from every front window but the last one. Jan pulled up across the street and stared at the dark house. A party was rocking the house next door, the heavy ba.s.s thundering out into the street and cars lining the driveway and crowding onto the lawn.

"It doesn't appear Mr. Conlon or anyone else is at home," Catherine said.

"Let's go find out."

Jan didn't bother knocking on the door. The house was dark inside, the blinds and drapes left wide open. They circled the house, staying low. The noise from the party made Jan nervous, leaving her unable to tell if anyone was approaching.

"What I need to know," she said, "is whether Conlon's just out for the night or they've taken off for Idaho."

They were standing in the backyard, where the scrubby lawn ran right up to the wall of the house. There wasn't a sliding gla.s.s door leading to a patio. It wasn't that kind of house. The mud from the yard had coated the bas.e.m.e.nt windows, but one of them was cranked open.

"If you had a mind to break into the house, it looks like they've saved you some trouble," Catherine said.

"I have the mind, but I don't have the body. Will you fit, do you think?"

Catherine handed the revolver to Jan and quickly angled her body feet first through the window. The only thing that seemed to have a hard time making it through were her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, which flattened disturbingly against the dirty gla.s.s as she slipped through. Jan ran around to the front to meet her at the door, ready to shoot it open if she heard anything.

Catherine flung the door open with a bright smile.

"Lovely digs, and we have the place all to ourselves."

"Let's clear it, just in case."

She handed the gun back to Catherine and they worked their way through the house room by room. Jan wasn't a law enforcement officer, but she knew how to clear a room. Still, she felt a little cowed by Catherine, who stepped into a room and swept it with her gun in a way that dared anyone to pop up and try to shoot her. There was just something about the way she did it that was s.e.xy as h.e.l.l. Jan was in serious trouble with this woman. If Catherine were to stop right in the middle of the sweep and blow her nose, Jan would probably think there was something enchanting about the way she did it. It had become as bad as that.

There was no one in the house, but plenty of evidence they hadn't been gone long. The dryer was still warm in the bas.e.m.e.nt, the shower stall still wet in the bathroom. But other than the c.r.a.ppy furniture and knickknacks, the food in the kitchen, and the overflowing trashcans, there wasn't anything left in the house. The closets and bathroom had been cleaned out. They got to work on the trash.

Jan went through the bas.e.m.e.nt while Catherine started upstairs. A plastic bag from a grocery store held some garbage near a mattress on the floor. There were a couple of Tampax wrappers, an empty can of Red Bull, used Kleenex, and a receipt for a cash purchase at the Kroger. A brush had been left behind at the sink, and there was used soap in the shower. The hair in the brush looked like it could have been Maddy's. The rest of the bas.e.m.e.nt was even less promising. An ancient workbench held tools that hadn't see any work in a long time, a laundry room with rickety old machines, and a utility room with an ancient furnace and a rusty hot water heater. No secret rooms or hidden caches of weapons.

She b.u.mped into Catherine at the top of the stairs from the bas.e.m.e.nt.

"I was just coming to get you," she said. "I think I've found something."