I’d clean up later.
I dropped back into the chair, grabbed the receiver and called the police. Not the emergency number, but the line for the office Kip Jennings worked out of. A fellow detective said she was off duty. I explained that it was urgent and asked whether he could relay a message and have her call me.
He said he’d see what he could do.
I hung up and turned back to the computer to look up flights. I nearly booked a 1:59 p.m. US Airways flight out of LaGuardia, then just before confirming my arrangements noticed that I had to switch planes in Philadelphia.
“Fuck that,” I said.
Then I found a Jet Blue flight that departed the same time, and was $300 more, that went nonstop to Seattle. It was a six-hour flight, which would put me into Seattle around 5 p.m. local time. Assuming it took me an hour to get into the city, I could be looking for Yolanda Mills, and my daughter, by early evening.
I didn’t know when to book a return ticket for, so I didn’t book one at all. I confirmed my choice, provided all my credit card info, then waited for the ticket to be emailed to me and printed it out.
The phone rang. I had the receiver in my hand before the first ring had ended.
“Mr. Blake? Detective Jennings here.” She sounded nasal.
“Hi, thanks, listen, I have a lead on Sydney.”
“Really,” she said, with less enthusiasm than I might have expected. “She’s been in contact with you?”
“No.”
“What’s this lead?”
“A woman who works at a drop-in for teenage runaways read about Syd on the Net. She got in touch. She’s seen Syd. I’ve already booked a flight out at two tomorrow.”
“Mr. Blake, I’m not sure that’s wise.”
In the background, I could hear a kid shouting, “Mom! I’m ready!”
“It’s all I’ve got right now. I can’t sit around here in Milford.”
“The thing is, it could be someone trying to scam you.”
“She didn’t ask for anything,” I said. “She said it wouldn’t be Christian.”
Kip Jennings made a snorting noise. “This woman may not be asking now, not yet. But once you’ve flown all the way out there—Cassie! I’m on the phone! I’ll be up in a minute!” A sigh. “Once you get out there, that’s when she’ll suddenly come up with a reason why you need to pay her. Or she’ll be asking about a reward. You’ll think, you’ve come so far, you’ll give her whatever she wants. I’ve seen this kind of thing before.”
“I don’t think it’s like that. It doesn’t feel like that.” I didn’t want to believe this was a shakedown. “A few hours ago, when we went up to see my daughter’s car, I started thinking, maybe things aren’t looking so good. Syd’s car abandoned… the blood. But this, this is good news. This is solid.”
“How?” Jennings said. “You’ve got the word of a woman you don’t know who… How did she even connect up with you?”
“She checks websites about missing kids, sees if they match up with any of the kids in her shelter.”
“It sounds fishy,” Jennings said.
I refused to let her defeat me. “What would you do,” I asked, “if it were Cassie?”
A long pause at the other end of the line. “Mr. Blake, did you call just to tell me you’re heading out there, or is there something specific you want me to do?”
“Call the Seattle police. Have them put out an APB or whatever it is on her.”
“I’ll call them, but I have to be honest. A runaway teen isn’t going to be a high priority for them. I’ll tell them about finding the car, that this may be more than a simple runaway, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up that they’re going to jump all over this.”
“That blood,” I said. “That was on Syd’s car. Did you find out whose it is?”
“That’ll take a while, Mr. Blake. Maybe, by the time you get back from Seattle, we’ll know something. And if your daughter ends up coming home with you, maybe it won’t matter.”
*
I WENT DOWN TO THE KITCHEN, cleaned a container’s worth of chow mein off the floor. The boxes Kate hadn’t dumped contained some breaded shrimps, beef with broccoli, and some plain rice.
I ate it cold.
Then I went back upstairs and packed a small over-the-shoulder case. Something I could carry straight onto the plane. I didn’t want to be waiting around for checked luggage.