“Oh, Sandy,” I said, “you’re breaking my heart. I didn’t know you were so sweet.” I found an unused napkin and took the pen from Sandy’s breast pocket. I wrote the phone number down on the back of it. “Is that all you’ve got?”
“Is that all?” he repeated, laughing. “We found prints on the windowsill that matched the ones we have on file for Chesterfield, so we know this kid, Marcus, is telling the truth.”
“That’s a busy window,” I said.
“Tell me about it. They got out of there in a hurry. It looks like the father didn’t touch anything in the room, and nothing was taken: no clothes, no toys or books-nothing.”
“So, the girls have been out there for about thirty-six hours in their pajamas?”
“I guess so,” he said.
When we finished eating, I picked up the check and paid for lunch, and then I came back to the table and left a five under the saltshaker. I smiled at the waitress where she stood by the busing cart.
“Gracias,” I said.
“You’re welcome,” she said, no hint of the accent I thought I’d heard earlier.
By the time I got outside, Sandy had already tossed the manila envelope onto the passenger’s seat, and he was standing by the open driver’s-side door.
“You got anything out on the dad’s car?” I asked.
“Nothing great,” he said. “We put out a call to the highway patrol in North and South Carolina to be on the lookout for a brown car driven by a white man with two white girls inside, and we’ve got a couple of officers tooling around town here. If we pull over every car matching that description then that’s all we’ll do all day; same for the guys in South Carolina. We just don’t have that much manpower right now, especially without any real leads except for what this kid’s given us.”
“I’ll take care of it for you,” I said, smiling. “The next time we talk it’ll be about where you can find these girls.”
“Right,” he said. “I look forward to it.”
I turned onto Franklin Avenue and then took a left into Franklin Plaza, a nearly abandoned strip mall that now only housed a discount store, a beauty supply chain, and my office. I parked out front and sat looking at the big glass window that made up the front wall of my office. White curtains kept people from looking in. Safe-at-Home Security Systems was spelled out in red letters, trimmed in white, and pasted on the glass. Under that were both the local number and the national hotline: 1-800-SAF-HOME.
I unlocked the front door, turned on the lights, and walked through the reception area. I tossed my keys onto my empty desk and pulled the napkin out of my back pocket and dialed the number the kid had seen on Chesterfield’s shirt. It went right to voice mail.
“You’ve reached Kelly Renovation, LLC,” a man’s voice said. “Please leave a message and someone will return your call as soon as possible. Thanks, and have a great day.” I cleared my throat before it beeped.
“Hi, Mr. Kelly,” I said, trying to sound as unthreatening and kind as possible. “My name is Brady Weller. I’m a guardian ad litem here in Gastonia, and I’m calling about two children who may be the daughters of one of your employees. If you have a minute, give me a call back.” As I was leaving him my number I realized that I’d been staring at the picture of Jessica and me the whole time I’d been on the phone. “I hope to hear from you soon,” I said before hanging up.
I sat and looked at Jessica a little longer and tried to see the sixteen-year-old’s face in the picture, but it was hard to do. I looked to her left, where the forty-year-old version of me stood beside her, still holding on to the saddle horn.
“Hold on tight,” I whispered to the guy in the picture.
The phone rang on the desk. I picked it up and looked at the caller ID: a local number I didn’t recognize.
“Hello?” I said. “Safe-at-Home.” The other end was quiet. “Hello?” I said again.
“Is this Brady Weller?” a woman’s voice said.
“Yes,” I said. “Who’s this?”
“My name’s Cynthia Kelly,” she said. “I’m Lane Kelly’s wife. You called him a second ago.”
“Hi, Mrs. Kelly,” I said. “Is your husband around? I really need to speak with-” She cut me off.
“He can’t come to the phone,” she said. “But he wanted me to call you.”
“Okay,” I said. And then she started asking me questions; her tone was formal and nervous, and the questions she asked seemed like she may have written them down or had somebody write them down for her.
“Why are you calling my husband?”
“I’m calling about someone named Wade Chesterfield. I’m not sure if he works for your husband or not, but I’d like to ask Mr. Kelly about him.” The line was quiet, and I figured she was either whispering my response so quietly that I couldn’t hear her, or she was writing it down under the question she’d just asked. I waited.
“Are you a cop?”
“No,” I said. “I used to be, years ago, but not anymore. I install security systems, and I’m a volunteer in family court.” Another long pause.
“Is this about the money?”
“What money?” I asked, but she didn’t say anything. The air over the phone line changed, and I could tell she’d put her end on mute. She was doing something she didn’t want me to hear. Her voice came back on the line.
“My husband will meet with you,” she said. “Tonight.”
“Great. Where?”
“You know Tony’s Ice Cream?” she asked. I wanted to tell her that everyone in town knew Tony’s Ice Cream. It wasn’t even a five-minute drive down Franklin Avenue from my office.
“Yes,” I said. “What time?”
“Six,” she said.
“I’ll be there.”
CHAPTER 14
Around 5:30 P.M., I left the office and drove down Franklin to Tony’s Ice Cream and found a spot in the near-full parking lot. I’d arrived about a half hour early, but something about my conversation with his wife told me that Lane Kelly would be there early too. I rolled my windows down and listened to the music coming from the car garage that shared a parking lot with Tony’s. For a second I watched people leave the old blond-brick building, carrying white paper bags full of hamburgers and hot dogs, tall wax-coated cups with milk shakes inside.
And then my eyes scanned the parking lot until I found what I was looking for: an oversize Ford F-150 with a huge toolbox sitting in the bed. I leaned forward to get a better look, and I saw a woman sitting in the front seat. She was scanning the parking lot too. On the driver’s-side door, you could tell that someone had removed the lettering, but the paint around where the letters had been was a little faded, and you could still make out Kelly Renovation and the phone number beneath it, the same one I’d called earlier. The woman in the driver’s seat caught me staring at her truck, and she shifted her eyes and hunkered down in the seat as low as she could without lying down. I watched her window slide up until it closed. Mrs. Kelly, I thought. The truck’s windows were untinted, and I saw her eyes dart back over in my direction; I gave her a little wave, but she just hunkered down even lower. After seeing her in the parking lot, I was certain that Mr. Kelly was inside waiting for me.
The smell of frying burgers and boiled hot dogs hit me as soon as I opened the door. Tony’s had a full dinner crowd as usual, and I walked through the line in front of the order window and stopped with my back to the ice cream counter. Booths lined three walls, and my eyes hopped from table to table until I found the only man who seemed to be alone: a pretty big guy in blue jeans and a button-down shirt, which surprised me because it was so hot outside. He had short brown hair and a beard. His thick fingers were interlocked on the table in front of him and his head was turned to the right, where the cars on Franklin Avenue passed by the window.