Five
Troy Bridger lived in a run-down neighborhood not far from LAX. The apartment building had cracks in the plaster—probably earthquake damage—and the blue paint had faded to a washed-out gray. Unit four sat on the bottom floor, the curtains partially open. There was no on-site manager and no one around.
The sun was moving west, the afternoon waning as they walked up on the porch and looked through the windows. The apartment was cheaply furnished, but Ben could see no one was living there.
“I’m going to take a look inside,” he said. “Why don’t you wait for me in the car?”
“If you’re going in, so am I. I might find something you miss.”
“Breaking and entering’s a crime, angel. You’d be smarter to stay out of it.”
Her chin went up. “I’m going.”
Ben just shook his head. “I’ll go round back and find a way in, come back and open the door. Whistle if someone’s coming.”
Her pretty green eyes widened. “I don’t know how to whistle.”
Amusement slid through him. At least Claire Chastain was keeping him entertained. “You’ll think of something.”
He headed around the corner to the rear of the building. Behind the apartment, each ground-level unit had a small fenced yard. Bridger’s had enough dog crap to tell him that Pepper had definitely been in residence.
Using a credit card, he opened the cheesy lock on the back door into the kitchen. The good news was, the place hadn’t been cleaned. He made his way into the living room, past a worn tweed sofa with a couple of springs sticking out, and opened the front door for Claire.
As she walked inside, her nose wrinkled at the musty, unpleasant smell. “It looks like he’s been gone awhile. Thank God the cleaning crew hasn’t been in.”
Smart lady. “Doesn’t look like the cops have been here, either. Maybe the landlord wouldn’t let them in without a warrant.”
“The Robersons convinced the police Sam ran away, so they probably didn’t try to get one.”
He made a quick sweep of the living room and bedroom. “I don’t see any sign of a kid being here. Sam disappeared eleven days ago. If Bridger took him, they must have headed straight out of town.”
“Let’s make sure,” Claire said.
He nodded. “I’ll look in here. You take another look in the bedroom.”
Claire disappeared into the other room while Ben made a slow sweep of the living room, looking for anything that might have information they could use. All he saw were old movie-ticket stubs, dirty Kleenex, candy wrappers and empty foam cups. Nothing of any value.
Reaching into the pocket of his jeans, he took out one of the small brown paper bags he carried for evidence collection, tucked the cup inside for a DNA sample.
He wandered into the kitchen, found an overdue electric bill on the counter. The wet garbage had been carried out, but a lot of paper trash remained. He used a pen to poke through litter here and there, looking for any scrap that might lead to Bridger.
His eye caught a haphazardly stacked pile of what looked like opened, discarded mail. Bridger’s name was on the envelopes and flyers, most of which were advertisements. All but one. A VISA credit card statement. The card had recently been canceled. This was the closing statement. No charges. No money owed.
It had been mailed to unit four but the name on the envelope wasn’t Troy Bridger. It was Troy Bennett.
Bingo.
He refolded the piece of paper, stuck it back in the envelope and shoved it into his hip pocket. Looking up, he saw Claire walking back into the living room, her eyes wide, her face as pale as cotton.
Ben started toward her, caught her shoulders to steady her. “Claire, what is it?”
She looked up at him, moistened her lips. “Blood...”
He urged her over to the sofa, sat her down on one of the sagging cushions. “Stay here.”
Blood. It didn’t mean anything. It could be anyone’s blood. There was no reason to think it was Sam’s. Still, a knot formed in his stomach as he rushed into the bedroom.
Nothing in there. But in the bathroom, the sink was covered with a dried, dark brown substance that could only be blood.
Using his pocket knife, he scraped enough blood off the porcelain into another bag for a sample. There was a fine spatter on the walls, but nothing else in the room besides dirt, mold and rust around the bathtub.
He spotted pieces of a broken glass in the corner and felt a hint of relief.
The color was back in Claire’s face when he returned to the living room.
“I’m sorry,” she said as she stood up. “Was it really—”
“It’s blood, but there’s no reason to think it’s Sam’s.”
“No, of course not. I was just... It scared me.”
“I found pieces of a broken glass. Looks like that’s what happened. Someone cut himself and bled into the sink. Doesn’t look like enough to be fatal. I took a sample. We’ll see what it shows.”
“Maybe the police can match the DNA or something, find out Bridger’s real name.”
“They have to have something to match the DNA to. Bridger would have to be in the system. Can take a while to find out.” He rested a hand at the small of her back as they started for the door. “The good news is I found an old VISA bill in the name of Troy Bennett.”
She stopped so suddenly, the curve of her bottom came up against his groin. “Oh, my God, that must be his real name.” Ben stepped back, the firm roundness feeling way too good.
“Not necessarily. Sometimes a guy like that uses half a dozen aliases.”
“Oh. Are you giving the card number to the police?”
“I’m giving the number to a friend in Houston. The card’s been canceled, but with any luck, he can tell us where it was used last.”
“What about the police?”
“Not yet. If Bridger’s got my son, I don’t want the police accidentally tipping him before we can get to him. We don’t know anything about this guy. We don’t know what he might do.”
“I didn’t think of that.”
“Come on. Let’s get out of here.” There were things he needed to do. More pieces of the puzzle to find and fit together. More information he needed in order to find his son.
* * *
On the way back to her apartment, Claire sat quietly as Ben phoned Tyler Brodie and got the name of a private lab he and John Riggs occasionally used when they were working a case. She waited in the car while Ben went in to drop off the blood sample he had scraped out of the sink, fidgeting, wondering if they would be able to get a result before the end of the day.
A few minutes later, Ben climbed back into the car.
“How long will it take them to get the DNA?” she asked as he started the engine.
“They’ll have the blood type by tomorrow morning at the latest. Getting the DNA and running it through CODIS will take a couple more days.”
“CODIS...that’s the criminal offender database. I’ve dealt with it in my work.” Social Services had to know as much as possible about the people they were trying to help. The system gave them badly needed information.
“It only works if the DNA from the blood belongs to someone in the system. If that’s the case, they’ll be able to tell us who it is.”
She glanced out the window, saw the sun sitting low on the horizon, the afternoon slipping away. “Sam’s blood type is O-negative. He took a fall off a skateboard, cut his arm and had to have stitches. I went with Laura to the emergency room.”
“O-negative. Same as mine.” Something flashed in his eyes. Not relief that the boy was his. Something a father might feel when he spoke of his son. “They would probably have taken a sample of his DNA when he went into the foster care program.”
“Yes, that’s right.” Claire didn’t say more. She didn’t want to think that the blood belonged to Sam, that he might have been seriously injured. There had been no sign of a child, she reminded herself. Chances were the blood was Troy’s.
As soon as they got back to her apartment, Ben went to work on his laptop, trying to find something on the name Troy Bennett. He also called his friend in Houston, a guy named Sol Greenway, he had told her, a computer expert, and put him to work, as well.
Now Ben was pacing, waiting to hear back from his friend. Clearly, Ben wasn’t a patient man.
His iPhone rang. He picked it up from where it sat next to his laptop and pressed it against his ear, looked at her and shook his head. Not the lab or Sol Greenway.
“Brodie. What’s up?”
She couldn’t hear what Tyler Brodie was saying on the other end of the line but Ben’s face looked grim when he hung up the phone.
“What is it?”
“Brodie talked to the cops.” Ben stuck the phone in his pocket. “They said Sam’s teachers knew he was unhappy. The police are sticking to their theory that Sam’s a runaway. They’re checking local hangouts, places where kids congregate who’ve left home.”
“I could talk to them again, try to convince them. I know it’s Bridger. Laura said he promised he would find a way to pay her back for what she did to him.” She glanced away. “And he wanted to hurt me, as well.” She looked back at him. “Maybe this time the police will listen.”
“Look, Brodie’s going to check the runaway angle, too. He says he knows some of the lowlifes who lure these kids into working for them. They use them for drug mules, get them to steal. Traffic them. He’ll find out if any of these guys have seen Sam.”
Claire’s heart jerked. “Traffic them? Oh, God, Ben.” Her eyes filled and she started shaking. She had blocked that kind of possibility out of her mind. She couldn’t stand to think of Sam being sexually abused, suffering in some terrible way.
She felt Ben’s arms go around her, drawing her against his powerful chest. “It’s all right. We don’t know that’s happened. From the start you’ve been convinced Sam didn’t run away, that it was Bridger who took him.”
She looked up at him, into his strong, handsome face. “What if I’m wrong?”
“Are you?”
She swallowed. She was risking Sam’s life. Claire shook her head. “No.” She eased away from him, felt the loss of his warmth.
“Then we keep looking for Bridger. My instincts say you’re right. Bridger wanted revenge against Laura. With her dead, he wants payback from you. He went to see Sam on at least two different occasions. Sam was desperate to escape and Troy used that desperation to convince the kid to go with him. We just have to figure out where he’s gone.”
His cell rang again. Claire watched his expression, read his determination to find his son. She thought of the way he had tried to comfort her. She hadn’t expected his sympathy. Ben Slocum didn’t strike her as a sympathetic man. But he had surprised her at Bridger’s apartment. Surprised her here. There was no mistaking his concern.
He ended the call. “That was Sol. Troy Bennett worked as a crane operator in Vegas. He lived with a woman, an exotic dancer named Sadie Summers. His old VISA bills show he left town about six months ago and came to L.A.”
“How does your friend Sol know all that?”
Ben’s mouth edged up. “Sol doesn’t say and I don’t ask. But I need to talk to Sadie Summers.”
He started for the bedroom, but Claire caught his arm. “I’m going with you, Ben. We’re in this together. I promised Laura.”
“Fine, get on the phone and charter us a plane out of Santa Monica. It’s only a little over an hour flight. If we get going, we can be back late tonight.”
Claire didn’t argue. She had money in the bank, enough to rent the plane. She got on the internet and found a charter company, arranged for a flight from the Santa Monica airport to McCarran Field.
“We’re all set,” she called out as she walked down the hall. “The plane’ll be ready to leave in an hour.” Ben’s door stood open. She stopped in the opening. He stood beside the bed, naked to the waist, a yellow oxford-cloth shirt lying on the bedspread ready to be put on.
Claire just stared. Her heart was pounding, the blood rushing to her head. It was impossible to look away from all those perfect muscles. Impossible to keep from thinking of sex, which she hadn’t had since her breakup with her former boyfriend, Michael Sullivan, five months ago.
Rarely before that, since he was gone so much.
“Keep looking at me like that, angel, and we’re going to have to add a couple hours to our departure.”
She stared into those ice-blue eyes that were anything but cold and felt light-headed. “A couple of hours?”
“I’d prefer to take the rest of the day, but we have things to do.”
Her face heated up. “Oh. Oh, my God.” Turning, she hurried back down the hall, embarrassment washing through her. She couldn’t believe she had gawked at him that way. It wasn’t like her to let a man’s appearance affect her. She was interested in brains, not brawn. Well, usually.
In her bedroom, she grabbed a small overnight bag out of her closet, tossed in a change of underwear, a clean T-shirt, a sweater, her makeup bag and travel kit. By the time she walked into the living room, her composure had returned.
Ben was unplugging his laptop, putting it in its case.
Claire lifted her chin. “If you didn’t want to be stared at, you shouldn’t have left your door open.”
Ben’s mouth edged up. “Actually, I didn’t mind at all. In fact, I’m hoping you’ll return the favor.”
Heat slid through her as she thought of those amazing eyes running over her half-naked body. She wondered if he found her attractive. What kind of woman appealed to a hard man like Ben?
“As you rightly pointed out,” she said, staring at him down the length of her nose, “we don’t have time for those kinds of distractions.”
“Yeah, unfortunately.” He grabbed his laptop case and the black canvas duffel he’d brought with him, though clearly he’d only packed enough for the night. “I doubt we’ll be staying, but you never know what might turn up.”
She grabbed her overnight bag and they headed out the door.
Less than two hours later, she climbed down off the wing of their chartered Cessna 310 and crossed the tarmac next to Ben, toward the rental car she had arranged. The sun had set, but the lights of the casinos were so bright it didn’t seem dark in Las Vegas.
“Since you insisted on paying for the plane,” she said, “I used my card for the car.”
Ben flicked her a glance. “A liberated woman. I figured.”
But she wasn’t sure he liked it. The guy had macho stamped in invisible letters on his forehead. Macho men weren’t usually attracted to independent women. She told herself it didn’t bother her.
They climbed into the Toyota Corolla she had rented from Hertz. Ben plugged the address he had for Sadie Summers into the GPS and started the car. It occurred to her that if the meeting went anything like it had at Warner Construction, Ben would probably make more progress with the stripper if he went alone.
Claire didn’t suggest it.