“Mood? Uh, fine, I think,” she said. “She was looking forward to getting out of town.”
“Any clue that she might have been thinking about going some place else?”
“Not that I can remember.”
“Any problems with her boyfriend?”
“Boyfriend?”
“Aaron Hughes.”
She snorted a laugh. “Aaron’s not her boyfriend. Who told you that?”
“Angie.”
Her laugh this time was even louder than the first. “I don’t think Elyse would ever talk to Angie about her love life. She and Aaron went out once, I think, but that was it. She thinks he’s kind of odd, and not in a good, Jesse Eisenberg kind of way. Elyse does sometimes spend the night here. Maybe that’s what Angie was thinking.”
That pretty much confirmed what Logan already suspected. Aaron was not Elyse’s boyfriend, and Angie was not trustworthy. “How long have you known Elyse?”
“Three years this coming summer. We started school together.”
He looked around the room. “You live here alone?”
“Why?” she asked, her guard coming back up.
“Sorry,” Logan said quickly. “Just curious. That’s all. You don’t have to tell me.”
She allowed herself to relax a little. “My sister. We share this place. She’s a CPA.”
He smiled. “I was wondering how you could afford to furnish your place like this on a student salary. It’s certainly nothing like Ryan’s apartment.”
She gave him an odd look. “Ryan?”
“Elyse’s neighbor?” he said. “That’s where Angie was when I went by last night.”
She shook her head and shrugged. “I guess I’ve never met him, but we don’t really hang out much over there. Not since Angie showed up, anyway.”
“How long has she been there?”
“She moved in over winter break. Three months now, I guess.”
Only three months?
“Thanks,” he said, feeling the sudden need to have his talk with Angie as soon as possible. “I appreciate you giving me a little time.”
“Hold on,” she said as he started to rise. “You haven’t told me what’s going on. Is she really missing?”
He tried to sound reassuring. “I think her grandfather’s probably being a little over cautious. I’ll bet it turns out she decided to go someplace like Vegas or San Diego on a whim.”
Lara looked less than convinced, but she didn’t argue the point.
Logan wrote his number on a page from his notebook, and gave it to her. “Please call me if you hear from her.”
“Can I use your pen?”
He handed it to her.
She tore the page in half and wrote her info on the blank piece, handing it back to him when she was done. “And you call me if you hear from her.”
“I will,” he promised. “One last thing. I understand that Elyse had another friend, a guy named Anthony? Do you know who that is?”
“Sure. Anthony Hudson. We’re all friends.” She was quiet for a moment, then her eyes brightened. “Hey, they were supposed to have dinner the night before last. He would have seen her.”
“Do you know where I can find him?”
“His apartment’s maybe a half mile from Elyse’s.”
He gave her back the piece of paper, and she added Anthony’s address and cell number to it.
“Thanks, again,” he said.
• • •
Logan found a parking spot almost directly in front of Angie and Elyse’s building, then ran into the courtyard and up the stairs to the second floor breezeway. He was almost to their apartment when he suddenly stopped, the soles of his shoe screeching against the concrete surface.
There were no curtains covering the windows of Ryan’s apartment. The ratty furniture, the television, even the pizza boxes, they were all gone. The place was as spotless as Aaron’s place had been the night before.
Logan stared inside for a moment, then sprinted the rest of the way to Elyse’s place. The curtains were closed, which he took for a good sign as he pounded on the door. When no one answered, he knocked again, then tried the doorknob. Locked.
Angie must have gone out.
He thought for a moment. Anthony’s place was only a half-mile away. Logan could see if he was home, and probably be back in less than thirty minutes. Maybe by then, Angie would have returned.
It took him longer to find a parking spot than it took to drive over. Anthony’s apartment was at the back of his building on the first floor off an interior hallway. There were no windows, so Logan couldn’t see in.
He rang the doorbell, then knocked several times. But, like at Angie’s, there was no response.
He contemplated what he should do, then decided to go around back and take a peek through Anthony’s windows, just to make sure it wasn’t another empty apartment.
He found an exit, but was surprised when he had to take a staircase down to reach the back alley. The reason for this became clear as he stepped outside. The building had been erected on the side of a small rise. The architect had used this to his advantage, and built a carport into the lower part of the slope, below the first floor. Unfortunately, this meant he couldn’t simply walk up to Anthony’s window and peer in.
He examined the back of the building. The last foot of the carport stuck out like a lip just below the first floor. If he could get on that, he could work his way over to Anthony’s windows. The question was, how to get up there?
The simplest answer turned out to be his El Camino. He drove it around, then backed it most of the way into one of the empty parking spots, leaving the hood sticking out from under the carport. Carefully, he mounted his car, then pulled himself onto the lip.
Making an educated guess as to which windows belonged to Anthony’s place, he inched his way over. There were no curtains over the nearest of the target windows, but when he looked in, he saw with relief a very lived-in looking living room.
As he moved down to the next window, he noticed that the screen covering it was hanging loose in one corner of its frame. Somebody had cut a triangle flap large enough for a person to fit through.
Logan looked inside. It was a bedroom. And unlike the living room, it was occupied. There was a man lying on the bed, his right arm flopped on the pillow beside his head. But what caught Logan’s attention was the Berretta pistol lying inches from the guy’s hand, and the impossible-to-miss hole in the side of his head.
He would have preferred it if the place had just been empty.
He thought it was a pretty good chance the dead man was Anthony. According to Lara, he’d been the last to see Elyse. Did that mean she was in the apartment, too? As much as he’d rather not, he knew he was going to have to check.
He pulled the sleeve of his jacket over his hand, then put it through the cut in the screen, and up against the window. With just the slightest of pressure he was able to slide it open. He then looked both ways down the alley to make sure no one was watching, then slipped inside.
Immediately, he started to gag.
The smell of rot and death hung in the room like a thick fog. He threw a hand over his nose, and quickly ran into the hallway.
The stench was there, too, but not quite as strong. He did a quick sweep of the rest of the apartment to see if there were any more bodies, but, with a definite sense of relief, he found none.
Returning to the bedroom, he took a couple of T-shirts out of the dresser. He used one to cover his nose and mouth, then wrapped the other around his hand so he could pat down the body.
The dead guy had a wallet in his front pocket. Logan worked it out, then carefully opened it. A driver’s license sat behind a clear window in the front. The name on it read: Anthony Hudson. Logan put the wallet back.
The position of the gun, Anthony’s hand, it all pointed to suicide, but with the way things had been going, suicide was not a conclusion Logan was ready to jump to. Besides, the unlocked window and cut screen bothered him. Could be he had a cat that used it, but, if so, where was it now?