Her eyes were bloodshot and bruised with exhaustion, but they were unflinching. She looked painfully like her father in that moment. Saul had never cared much for lies—not other people’s, at least.
“He doesn’t mean for anyone to die,” Javi said. “But some people still did.”
“Who? Birdie?”
“I can’t tell you that. There are people we have to inform first. People we haven’t informed because we don’t want to scare whoever this is into running.”
For a moment he thought it was going to be too much for her. She looked brittle, as though this final blow might be the one that would make her shatter. Instead she pulled up the neck of her T-shirt, wiped her eyes on the collar, and got up to follow Billy.
“Ten years,” she said as she paused in the doorway and looked back at them. “I don’t want to wait ten years to bring Drew home.”
Javi didn’t want that either. But Hector knew they were looking for him, and if he went to ground, the investigation might be at a stalemate until he struck again. Despite being a compulsive offender, Hector had a lengthy enough refractory period between crimes that it could be another year or longer before they heard from him again.
He squelched the frustration before it could turn into anger. The chance to trap their suspect had been too good to resist, but even if it worked, the case wouldn’t have been closed. There was no way Javi could justify letting a probably delusional offender kidnap a child, even if they had Billy wired, so Drew would still have been missing. In fact it could have made finding him more difficult. A drug dealer always brought a healthy dose of their own self-interest to the table. They couldn’t depend on that with a kidnapper who thought he was “showing” something to spoiled children.
But they had other leads. They’d find Hector.
The tech agreed to stay at the house until the liaison officer—and Javi would be conveying his official irritation to Frome that they weren’t already there—arrived. While he was doing that, Javi could chase those other leads.
Outside the house, the day was just starting for the rest of the street. Commuters lingered by their cars and pretended to be occupied with anything that gave them an excuse to stand and gawk over at the Hartleys’. The few stay-at-home parents in the street had gathered on the driveway and gossiped in pajamas and yoga gear.
“There’s a homeless camp up around the Glades in north Plenty,” Cloister said as he opened the door of his car to let the dog leap in. “A lot of casual and seasonal laborers live up there.”
Javi’s phone buzzed against his hip.
“I’ll send some uniforms up to search,” he said as he pulled it out. “But even if Hector is up there, Drew won’t be.”
The text was from Sean. “Found B. Sobering her up.”
“Go back to the station,” Javi told Cloister without looking up from his phone as he tapped out an answer. “See if anyone has gotten in touch with Luna or the dead boy’s father. The ex-firefighter.”
He waited for some dry snark, or at least for a question about what he was doing. Instead Cloister just grunted his agreement and slid into the car. “I’ll do that. If I find anything out, I’ll let you know.”
The “Special Agent Merlo” loitered on the end of the sentence, unsaid but pointedly there. It was professional. It was even pleasant. Javi was mildly disgusted to realize he’d have preferred the drawled “fuck you” he expected.
“Cloister,” he said as he grabbed the edge of the car door before it could slam, “I—”
“What?”
It was a good question. Javi just didn’t have the answer. That was what he needed—polite distance and occasional fucking. It was what he had the time and inclination to cope with. Anything else would get messy, and he couldn’t afford that. He just wanted to get what he needed without losing what he wanted.
That wasn’t fair. It probably wouldn’t have stopped him if he could work out a way to pull it off.
“Don’t let them go too easy on the fireman,” he said instead. “He’s grieving, but he hasn’t got clean hands in this. You don’t need to mollycoddle him.”
Cloister nodded. “I’ll pass it on.” After a second he quirked his mouth in a half smile. “Besides, despite what you think, I’m more of a glowering brooder than a hand holder.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
THE BLACKlettering on the frosted-glass window read Stokes Investigations, Inc. It was the punch line to the joke that had been Plenty PD. What do you call a retired crooked cop? A successful private investigator.
Javi opened the door and stepped into a ripe fog of ethanol sweat and lavender air freshener. The cloud of chemical scent had been so freshly sprayed that it still hung in the air.
“Sorry,” the man behind the reception desk said. He dropped the canister of air freshener into a filing cabinet and shoved it shut with his foot. “We don’t take walk-in clients. Referrals only.”
Javi reached into his pocket for his badge and flipped open the leather wallet to flash the shield and ID.
“My referral,” he said.
