If he didn’t already.
Javi parked next to the unmarked cars in the small lot. There was no one around as Javi strode to the main office. From the empty parking spaces and open doors, he guessed half the guests had left—either because their reservations ran out or because they were scared of fire or kidnappers—and the remainder, along with staff and volunteers, were out searching for Drew. He could hear the search parties in the distance, their calls of “Drew” stretched out and attenuated by the wind. The hall they’d been using as a base was closed up and padlocked. They must have moved down to the road.
The office building was also closed up when he got to it. Javi tried the door, but it was locked, and the dusty blinds were pulled down over the main windows. Some atavistic compulsion made Javi cup his hand against the glass and try to peer through the slats. It was gritty against the side of his hand, and the dust smeared where he touched it.
Wood creaked under someone’s weight. Javi shifted back onto his heels and reached down. His hand wasn’t on his gun, but it was close.
“You looking for someone, sir?” a low, raspy voice asked politely. “Everyone is out lookin’ for that little boy.”
Javi turned and saw the groundsman he’d spoken to before on the porch. Matthew. The man wiped his hands on a dirty bit of cloth and squinted into the wind.
“Reed,” he said. “I need to talk to him. Is he out with the search party?”
Matthew scratched at his neck nervously and picked at a scab on his throat. “No,” he said. “He’s at the bank.”
That made more sense. Spending all that time as a hippy could not have been easy for Tranquil Reed.
“What about our officers?”
Matthew squinted and reached up to tug on the bill of his cap to protect his eyes from the dust. The shadow shifted down his nose to cover the scruff of stubble on his upper lip. “They went with the search party. I can let you into reception,” he said. “If you want to wait inside, out of the wind?”
Javi nodded his agreement and stepped back to give him room.
“Have you had any luck?” Matthew asked. He bent over the handle as he rattled the key into the lock. “With finding who took the boy?”
“We’re confident that he’ll be in custody soon,” Javi said. “And Drew will be back home with his family.”
“You’ve been trying real hard,” Matthew said. He pushed the door open and went through ahead of Javi to kick the doorstop into place. “Try that hard, and you gotta find him.”
“We try.” Javi ducked in out of the wind. He straightened his tangled tie and brushed the clinging dirt off his sleeves.
“I can call Mr. Reed,” Matthew said. “Let him know you’re here?”
The phone Matthew pulled out of his pocket was old and battered, the screen spider-web cracked from a chip in the corner. He muttered an apology and shuffled outside to make the call. Javi watched him through the window as he talked on the phone, his body language almost aggressively subservient. He paced along the porch as he talked. He bobbed his head in a series of nods, and he scratched nervously at the back of his head. There was a scar under the hair—a stripe of uneven texture that looked like candlewax.
After a minute he came back. His face, under the tan and the dirt, was flushed with embarrassment and anger. His voice was still low and uncomfortable.
“Mr. Reed said he was coming right back. He said to make you comfortable. Do you want some coffee or tea?”
He wiped his hands on the thighs of his grubby jeans as he asked. Javi pinned a grimace between his teeth and shook his head.
“Just water will do,” he said. He nodded to the cooler in the corner of the room.
“I’ll get you a glass,” Matthew said. He looked up and smirked a little. “Mr. Reed doesn’t believe in plastic cups.”
He crossed the room, circled the mat with his dirty boots, and disappeared into what Javi assumed was a small kitchen. Glasses clinked, the tap turned on and off, and Matthew came back out with a sparkling glass of ice water and clean hands.
“He won’t be long,” he said as he sat a glass down in front of Javi. “You’ll see.”
Matthew set the glass down and slipped out the propped-open door, presumably to go and do some chores.
It was the head-scratching that clicked it into place for Javi. When his father turned fifty, he’d gone away for a week and come back with a tan, a new hairline, and a scar on the back of his head. It was a lot neater than Matthew’s, but then, his father had paid a very good plastic surgeon. Better than they had at Plenty General to repair a teenager whose scalp had been peeled off by a bottle.
By the time he put the pieces together, Javi had already drunk half the glass of water in an attempt to wash the dust out of his throat. He cursed, scrambled to his feet, and braced one hand on the back of the chair as he doubled over and shoved his finger down his throat.
Bile and water splattered his shoes, and his nose stung with sour-water puke.
“I don’t think that will help,” Matthew—or Hector—said.
