Runaway (18 page)

Jan pushed the photo of Maddy across the counter. “I’m wondering if you’ve seen this girl around here?”

He peered down at the photo and looked back up at her. “Why?”

“Because I’m looking for her, that’s why. Have you seen her?”

He turned back to the video game in his hands. “Maybe.”

“Is this the point where I’m supposed to slip a bill your way to get you to answer my question?” Jan asked.

He looked back at her. “That’s an idea.”

“Because I’ve got to say that having to pay for information about a missing girl, a minor let me add, seems kind of, I don’t know, insensitive?”

He shrugged. “I’m not a touchy-feely kind of guy.”

“Are you the kind of guy that kidnaps teenage girls?”

He gave her a bored looked and went back to his game. Jan was reaching into her pocket just as Catherine put a twenty on the counter and kept her hand on it. “To earn this, we want answers. Have you seen the girl or not?”

He looked at the bill. “I saw her this weekend. Yesterday morning, I think. She was in here early with another chick. Not a chick, really. A dyke.”

“Did you hear them say anything? Do you know what they were up to?”

Another shrug. “They bought some stuff and they left. That’s all I know.” He reached for the bill.

“Hold on.” Catherine showed him the photo on her phone. “Have you seen this guy?”

Jan could see his face freeze with the effort of not giving away anything, which gave away everything.

“Nope, never seen him before.”

“Are you sure about that? I think he lives around here,” Jan said.

“Never seen him.”

Catherine released the bill and he scooped it up, turning away from them immediately. Jan left a card on the counter and spoke to his back. “We’ll expect to hear from you should your memory clear up on any of this.”

Jan and Catherine got back in the car.

“He knows Drecker,” Jan said.

“Definitely,” Catherine said.

“But short of torture, I’m not sure what we can get from him. I think he’s scared of Drecker, or maybe of the whole group of them.”

“He may be one of them.”

“True. And maybe he didn’t know Maddy was heading to the training camp, or he wouldn’t have even admitted that he’d seen her. At least we know that Maddy was here. That’s something,” Jan said.

A hundred yards away was the flashing Vacancy sign of a roadside motel. Next to it was the local tavern. They were both called the Pinehurst Inn.

“Why don’t we go pick up my car and then have a drink over there?” Catherine said. “Maybe we’ll learn something new. And maybe we can just kip at the inn there.”

“Kip?”

“Sleep, I mean. Sorry.” Catherine smiled again, and it was killing Jan.

“Sure. I can’t think what else we can do now, and I’m starving. I’m hoping they have something more than beer nuts to eat.”

They went back to the campground for Catherine’s rental and met at the tavern parking lot. The bar had a smattering of people inside, mostly men sitting alone or in pairs at the bar, heads craned up to stare at
Wheel of Fortune
on the television. Jan wondered how many times they guessed the puzzle before the contestant did. Their heads swung around as she and Catherine entered to see who was walking through the door. Some eyes stayed on them as they climbed onto barstools. She imagined there weren’t that many strangers coming through the door at the Pinehurst Inn, even in hunting season.

The bartender was a skinny woman who looked to be in a long-term relationship with crystal meth. Her teeth were mostly gone and her eyes were sunken and had deep, dark circles. She was probably thirty, but looked like an unhealthy fifty.

“What d’ya have?” she said, taking a swipe at the bar in front of them with a filthy rag.

“Good evening,” Catherine said brightly. “I’d love a beer. What sort do you have?”

The bartender looked at Catherine as if she’d just spoken in Esperanto. Apparently, not many Brits made it down to this part of Michigan.

“Old Style, Bud, Miller. That’s it. Oh, yeah, Heineken.”

“Two Heinekens,” Jan said. “With glasses.”

The bartender cracked them open and put them on the bar with the glasses, waiting for her money.

“I was wondering whether you’d seen this girl at all around here,” Jan said, handing the photo of Maddy over.

The woman flicked her eyes on the photo and handed it back. “Nope.”

“You’re sure? Because the fellow at the Country Corner said he’d seen her around.”

“She looks a little young to be in a bar. I ain’t seen her.”

Jan looked at Catherine, who held her phone up to show the photo of Drecker.

“How about this guy?” Jan asked.

The bartender’s eyes shifted for a second before she shrugged. “Haven’t seen him, either. You two cops or something?”

“No, not cops. We’re looking for the girl. She’s missing and we want to find her before anything bad happens to her. Are you sure you can’t help us with that?”

“Like I said, I haven’t seen either of them.”

She moved away from them to the far end of the bar, where several of the men leaned toward her and they started whispering to each other.

“Either everyone has reason to fear Drecker or they have reason to protect him from something. No question she knew him,” Catherine said.

“Give me your phone. I’m going to ask these gentlemen what they know.”

“Do you want me with you?”

“No. I want you to watch them while I’m working the crowd.”

Jan stopped at each occupied barstool and chair, showing the photo, moving on to the next with each shake of the head. Five minutes later, she was back on her own barstool.

“One of the men placed a call while you were talking to some of the others,” Catherine said. “I wonder if he called Drecker himself.”

“Probably. But we’re not going to get anything from these guys. They’re all reading from the same script.”

“Well, we just have to regroup. I’ve ordered two lovely frozen pizzas, which Annabeth, that’s our bartender, is now cooking up in the oven. Let’s take them to the inn and check in.”

“You want to stay at the Pinehurst?”

“Where else? It’ll be fine. Besides, I’m knackered,” Catherine said.

“Knackered?”

Catherine laughed again. “Tired, I mean.”

Jan knew what knackered meant, but she wanted to hear Catherine’s laugh. She felt like a junkie who kept picking up a needle and flipping it around and around in her hands, telling herself she wasn’t going to use. It was just a matter of time before she plunged it into her veins.

Annabeth put the hot pizzas and a six-pack of beer into a bag and shoved them over the counter, evidently glad to see the back of them. When they walked the few feet over to the office of the Pinehurst Inn, they were greeted by a woman who looked like a healthier version of Annabeth, maybe fifty years old and looking like fifty years old. Her name was Anna, and Jan understood why Annabeth still had a job in the tavern.

Jan asked for two rooms and she could feel Catherine shift behind her, as if she were about to step forward to say something and then thought better of it. The office was tiny and now filled with the smell of pizza mingling with Anna’s cigarette.

“Where you girls from?” Anna asked. She ran Jan’s credit card as she talked and seemed to have the sunny side to her daughter’s surly. “You don’t look much like you’re here for hunting. And you can take that as a compliment.”

“We came up from Chicago,” Jan said. “And we’re here looking for a missing teen. Have you seen this girl around here?”

Anna studied the photo. “I haven’t, but I’ll sure keep my eyes open for her. Is she a runaway?”

“We don’t know. A runaway, or kidnapped.”

“Oh, dear.”

Catherine stepped forward. “We’re also looking for this gentleman. Do you know him?”

Anna stared at the phone, trying to get a bead on it through her trifocals. “Hank Drecker? Sure, I know him. He lives just up the road. What’s he got to do with this girl?”

“We don’t know yet,” Jan said. “But there may be some connection. Do you know how we can get hold of him?”

“Hank Drecker can’t have anything untoward to do with that girl, if that’s what you’re thinking. He’s got a wife and two kids and I think he’s a church deacon or something.”

“Well, we’d like to talk to him, anyway. Do you know where up the road he lives?”

Anna looked worried. “I don’t. There’s a bunch of little houses up about a mile from here. I just know he lives around there because I’ve heard him talking enough in the bar. Not that he drinks much. He just comes in mostly for their meetings.”

“Whose meetings?”

“That army group they all have. You know, they call themselves a militia. But they’re not dangerous or anything. And the last thing they’d do is have anything to do with a young girl like that.”

“Why do you say that?” Catherine asked.

“Well, they’re all very straight-laced, really. God-fearing. They rent the back room at the bar for their meetings, but you don’t even hear a peep from them while they’re in there. All they drink is iced tea and Cokes.”

By the time they’d finished checking in and pulled their cars in front of their rooms, Jan was wondering why Catherine hadn’t said anything about booking two rooms instead of one. Didn’t she want to sleep with her? Maybe she’d been attacked by her conscience and decided to start acting like she was committed elsewhere. Which she was, Jan reminded herself. She kept swinging wildly back and forth between being furious with Catherine and wanting her desperately. Her head was a very noisy place.

“Are we each going to take a pizza and eat in our separate rooms?” Catherine asked.

“It’s an option.”

“Good. That implies that there’s another option, that we eat together. That’s what I opt for.”

Jan pulled her bag out of the backseat. “Fine. We’ll eat in your room.” Jan liked to have an exit available to her at all times.

The room was paneled with knotty pine and decorated with hunting and fishing paintings. The lamps had heavy shades, throwing out a golden light that made the room feel warm and cozy. It felt like a cabin, but not the kind of cabin she grew up in. That was more a stark and desperate feeling, where socks were stuffed into holes in the wall and a crackling fire simply meant you wouldn’t freeze to death in the Idaho winter. This room made her want to sit in a chair and read a book.

Catherine sat at the small table in the room and opened two beers and unwrapped the pizza. “What’s our next step?” she said.

Jan remained standing. “Why don’t you tell me? You’re the boss.”

Catherine sighed. “You’re still angry that I came up here, aren’t you?”

“It’s not like I’ve had a long time to get over it,” Jan said. She sat down and drank some beer. “It feels like something someone would do who’s used to getting her way.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s obvious. At least to me. You decided I wasn’t answering your calls quickly enough to your liking, so you used your authority to call off my partner and come up here to talk to me. You weren’t thinking about what might be best for actually finding this girl, or what I may have thought of the idea.”

“Do you feel I’m a hindrance to you in working the case?”

“That’s not really the point. Peet was supposed to be here. She’s my partner.”

Jan ate some pizza as Catherine leaned back in her chair and watched her.

“You’re right that I used my position. Absolutely. But only because I could do so and not compromise your case. I know what I’m doing, though I can’t say missing teenagers were my regular beat.”

Jan stared at her hard. “No, I don’t suppose that was the sort of case you handled at MI6. It must be a hardship to be working on something so mundane.”

Catherine looked surprised. “How did you know I was with MI6? I don’t think I’ve mentioned that before.”

“That’s true.”

“So how did you know?”

Jan ate more pizza and stalled. She wasn’t sure she was ready to open the can of worms. But if not now, when? “There’s quite a bit about it on the Internet,” she said.

Catherine was still for a moment. “You looked me up on the Internet? I suppose I should be flattered.”

“Flattered?” Jan was incredulous. She stood and walked away from the table with her beer. “More like ashamed or embarrassed, or something.”

“Because I worked at MI6?” Catherine looked genuinely confused.

“Haven’t you ever Googled yourself, for Christ’s sake?”

“I haven’t, no. But apparently you’ve Googled me.”

Jan turned on her Mac. She’d saved the Web pages that showed Catherine in photos with Ellen. She handed the laptop over. “You’re quite the news item, it seems. You and your girlfriend.”

Catherine read through the first article as if she were glancing through a quarterly sales report. Her only visible reaction was the vertical line forming between her brows. She closed the computer and handed it back to Jan.

“At least now I know what you’re really mad about.”

Jan stared at her. She’d never felt jealousy before, never even cared whether a woman she’d slept with was involved elsewhere. Even when Josie left her years before for another woman, the feeling was more annoyance than pain.

“If I tell you the truth about Ellen, it’s going to sound like utter crap. But I haven’t any choice.”

“There’s no point, anyway.”

“Yes, there is a point. I don’t know what it is we have together, at least not yet. But I do know I don’t want to lose it,” Catherine said.

Catherine leaned back and ran her hands back through her hair, pulling the mass of it behind her head and letting it fall. She stared at the ceiling. Finally, she looked at Jan.

“The woman in the photo is Ellen, my partner for many years now. We live together in London. There’s no other way to put it than we are a married couple and I was a shit to sleep with you. And I won’t tell you that it’s the first time I’ve done this sort of thing. You can probably guess that it’s not.”

Jan tossed the computer on the foot of the bed and took another beer. She remained standing.

“But it is the absolute truth that I’ve never had the experience I had with you. It’s changed everything.”