“That does sound strange. Did you get into the phone? Find anything?”
“She’d deleted everything—almost everything.” Lana filled her in on the last text, the pocket dial, and her brief conversation with the man on the other end. “All I know is that she told her ex-boyfriend she had a secret that could tear lives apart, but I have no idea what that is.”
“Where’s this phone now? I can see what our techs can find.”
“We ditched it. I can give you the man’s number though.” Lana pulled it up on her phone and the detective scribbled it in a corner of her notebook.
“So, these people who chased you—did they get anything? You tell them anything?”
“What could I tell them? I don’t know anything. You went to her house, right? Did you find her laptop?”
“I found nothing that would explain her disappearance. I concluded she’d up and left.” The detective seemed reluctant to meet Lana’s eye.
Griffin leaned forward to get a better view of the woman’s face. There was something she wasn’t sharing. “Why did you go to her house, detective—if you’d written her off as a flake?”
Wincing, the detective pressed a palm to the underside of her belly, puffing out several breaths. “Okay, so my team deals with…” She paused for a puff. “Among other things…”Puff. “Way too many other things, high-profiles—celebrities. Someone—I can’t tell you who—put out a restraining order on her, though it’s since been rescinded.”
“Someone famous?” Lana said.
“Like I say, can’t tell you who—privacy, you understand. There are certain confidences that aren’t mine to break. Kinda stuff we deal with every day, but when she walked in, the restraining order flagged in the system and I got a call, so I went down to check her out. After she went missing, I popped in for a welfare check—all my calls were going straight to voicemail, though now we know why, if she ditched her phone.”
“How did you know her address?” Griffin said.
“Routine to get someone’s details, when they come in like that.”
“These ‘crazy ideas.’ Is this related to the restraining order?”
“I can’t say without breaching privacy.” The detective gripped her belly. “Oh, lordy, here we go again.”
“You sure you want to do this now?” Lana said.
“All part of the service. Hon, I know you’re worried, and I wish I could tell you more, but I got the sense that the only person who was a danger to your sister was herself. She’s not coming up in the system as having been hospitalized or sectioned. My feeling is that she left town of her own accord. She told me she needed to clear her head—which I fully agreed with.”
“If she’s not in danger, why are people chasing us, looking for her?”
“That’s a good question. Maybe she owes them money?”
“It’s a lot of effort and expense to go to, to collect on a debt from someone with no money,” Griffin said. “They wrote off two cars to avoid getting identified.”
“Let me look into it. I agree that it doesn’t add up.” The detective brushed crumbs off the top of her bump. She started reaching for the glove compartment and then thought better of it. “Could you…?” She indicated that Lana should open it. “Fresh notebook.” Lana found it and handed it to her. “Second thought.” She grimaced, shoving the notebook at Lana. “You write it.”
“What should I write?”
“Anything that could identify these guys chasing you. Description, vehicle, plates, the route they followed you along… We might be able to pull footage.”
Lana scribbled some notes, and then showed the pad to Griffin. “Anything else?”
“That about does it,” he said flatly.
“Look, I gotta get on,” the detective said. “Leave it with me, okay? In the meantime, do me a favor and lie low. Don’t go getting any more involved. Last thing I need is to be responsible for something happening to a Hollywood star. And let me know if you think of anything else, or anything else happens, no matter how small.”
As they got out, the detective began panting. Lana leaned back in. “You want us to drop you somewhere—like, a hospital?”
“They’ll just send me home and tell me to go on bed rest.”
“You don’t think that might be a good idea?”
“I need work to keep me distracted. Besides, hubby’s working the weekend too, so at least at work there’s people around to catch the baby if it finally figures out a way out of this iron womb.” She waved them away. “Promise me you’ll sit tight!”
