Luca grinned, clearly amused by Wes’s dominance. The man hadn’t become a self-made millionaire by letting others run the show.
“You can go with me,” Wes told Baz.
Baz looked at Luca.
“Go,” Luca said. “I’m not goin’ anywhere. Take your cell phone. I’ll let you know if someone tells me anything.”
Because he knew he would feel better if he had something to do, Baz grabbed his wallet from the counter and headed for the door.
***
“Well, that went about as well ascould be expected,” Jay said as Evan clicked the button to unlock his SUV.
Evan nodded as he opened the driver’s door. “I didn’t figure they’d give us anything, but you never know until you try.”
“You think they were telling the truth? That Sonny wasn’t a patient?”
“She seemed sincere enough.” Not that Evan trusted that sort of sincerity. He understood privacy laws. He even respected them. But he would be the first to admit they did little to help in situations like this. The information that might help them to find a missing loved one was hidden behind walls of red tape, and there was nothing they could do about it.
Unfortunately, he’d encountered both sides of that coin as a law enforcement officer and as a victim’s family member. When his wife had gone missing, they’d run into roadblock after roadblock in their search for her. For the longest time, back when he’d been consumed by grief and rage, Evan had blamed those fucking privacy laws for his wife’s murder. They weren’t to blame, though. That rested on the shoulders of the serial killer who’d ended her life. The one Evan prayed he came face to face with one day so he could dish out his personal brand of vengeance.
Shaking off the thought, Evan started the car but didn’t back out of the parking space, instead choosing to dial Charlie’s number. He put the call on speaker so Jay could hear.
“Did you find out anything?” Charlie asked in greeting.
“We did not,” Evan told her. “As expected, they didn’t give us anything. But we’ve only been to one. We’ll keep trying. How’d it go with the parents?”
“I think Molly’s mother recognized the man in the sketch,” Charlie said. “Her husband cut her off before she could give us a name.”
“Slade sent Brantley a name. Sonny,” Evan explained. “Luca’s checking into it. Where are you headed now?”
“Thought we’d head back to town, see if Elana needs help talkin’ to business owners. Autumn went into town to help out. She knows pretty much everyone.”
That didn’t surprise him since Charlie’s girlfriend had grown up in the small town. Autumn Jameson was about as rooted in the community as anyone could be.
“Okay,” Evan said. “We’ll update you when we finish with the second hospital.”
Evan looked at Jay to see if he had anything he wanted to add. He shook his head.
“Talk to you in a bit. Let us know if you come up with anything.”
“Will do,” Charlie said before the call disconnected.
“She’s really good at putting people at ease,” Jay said as Evan was backing out of the parking space. “When we were in Chicago, I watched her get people to open up about everything.”
Evan didn’t doubt it. He liked Charlotte Miller a lot. She was level-headed and cool under pressure. He hadn’t had a chance to work with her often, but what he’d seen was top-notch.
“I heard about how she was caught in the middle of a homicidal-bitch catfight,” Jay noted.
“Yeah,” Evan said, recalling the first case he’d been a part of with the task force. A group of women had conspired to off their husbands, each one taking out someone else’s husband, so they all had an alibi. It worked relatively well until one of the women got cold feet and couldn’t do it.
It resulted in a standoff that Charlie got caught in the middle of. Thankfully, the standoff ended quickly, and she’d walked away without a scratch. One of the other women hadn’t been so lucky.
“Just out of curiosity, why is Brantley splitting you and Slade up? I heard he did it in New York, too.”
Evan cut his gaze to Jay as he stopped at a red light. “Since when did you become the barn gossip?”
Jay laughed. “Sorry. It does sound like that, huh? Forget I asked.”
