She rubbed the bedraggled kitten’s ears, and said quietly, “Your butler and his wife aren’t entitled to a private life? They have to approve every move with you or your siblings?”
“I’m not saying that. It’s the way they’ve handled these night trips away from the house that have my spider-senses tingling. They’re being evasive and secretive, and in my experience that spells trouble.”
She thought about the Colton butler and his wife, trying to come up with a logical explanation to counter Reid’s suspicions. “You know, I can’t help thinking of how much my father depends on his butler and vice versa. You have to wonder how Eldridge’s disappearance has affected the Manfreds. They’re probably grieving for him in their own way. Maybe...I don’t know...maybe they’re seeing a counselor and are embarrassed to tell you?”
He sent her a wry, skeptical glance. “I think that’s kinda reaching. They—” He stopped abruptly, his expression washing with dismay, then intensity. He slowed to a stop in the middle of the block and squeezed the steering wheel. “I’ll be damned.”
“What?”
“Pen, you’re a genius.”
She chuckled. “I am?”
He shifted into Park and turned to face her. “The Manfreds are loyal to Eldridge. And they’ve been surprisingly stoic throughout this whole ordeal. What if they know something we don’t?”
She sat taller, and her heart thrashed the way the kitten had when she’d captured it. “You think they killed him?”
He shook his head, and thumped the steering wheel with his fist. “No. They aren’t killers.”
“Then...” And then she caught his meaning. “You think they have your father stashed in that building.” She turned in the seat to look back down the city street in the direction they’d just come.
His face lit. “Worth checking out.”
Reid made a U-turn and drove back down the street to the building where he’d seen Moira climb into Aaron’s car. “Stay here and keep the doors locked.”
Pen held her breath as he approached the door to the building and tested it. The door didn’t open. Reid paced around the entrance, walked to the back and stared up at the windows to the upper floors before returning to the Range Rover.
“I’d bet my inheritance he’s here. But I don’t see a way in.” He cranked the engine again and gave the facade of the building one last look before pulling away from the curb.
“So...do you confront them? Or...what?”
He gave her a mysterious grin. “I think I’m going with ‘or what.’”
Chapter 16
The next morning, after going to the drive-through window of his favorite coffee shop for a cup of dark roast, Reid drove back to the area in downtown Dallas where he’d spotted Moira and Aaron the night before. He parked his car in the pay lot just down the street, but with a clear line of sight, from the building in question. He leaned his seat back, getting comfortable, prepared to wait. He’d been on many stakeouts in his days with the police department, but none as important to him as this one. Was Eldridge holed up in this run-down part of Dallas? If so, had he come willingly or—
A loud rapping on his window yanked Reid from his musings. A heavyset balding man, huddling against the brisk December gloom in a heavy, hooded coat, stared in the driver’s-side window.
Reid cracked open the window. “There a problem?”
“You gotta pay if you’re stayin’. Five dollars for the first 30 minutes and three for each additional hour.” Even from his distance, Reid could smell the cigarettes on the guy’s breath.
“Right.” He dug in his wallet and extracted three twenties. He lowered the window some more and handed them to the attendant. “That should cover me for a while.”
The attendant looked at the bills and grunted. “That it will.” He started to walk away, then turned back toward Reid. “You all right? When I walked up, you looked...” He hesitated as if looking for the right word.
Reid gave him a halfhearted grin. “I’m fine.” Before the attendant could walk more than a step, Reid called to him, “Can I ask ya something?” He earned a shrug in response. “What do you know about an older guy who lives in the building over there with the green awning? He’d have moved in about June? Skinny guy, short for a man. Midseventies.”
The attendant twisted his mouth as he thought and gave another shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe...”
Sighing, Reid pulled a couple more bills from his wallet. “Think harder. He might have been with another older gentleman or a petite woman with straight gray hair. Or getting in or out of a dark blue Mercedes?”
The attendant’s face brightened. “Now you’re speakin’ my language. Cars I notice.” He rubbed his face with a gloved hand. “Let’s see...I remember a blue Mercedes coming around here a couple times maybe...” He gave Reid a speculative glance. “Maybe even on a regular schedule, but...that info will cost ya another couple Jacksons.”
Reid scowled darkly at the extortionist but peeled two more twenties from his wallet. “How regular? What schedule?”
With a smug grin, the parking attendant shoved the bills in his pants pocket. “If they stick to routine, the Mercedes should be around to drop off the old guy in about an hour.”
“Drop him off? When did they leave? Where do they go?”
“How the hell should I know where they go? I’m here working the lot. But they leave about nine a.m. every Wednesday and come back around eleven thirty. The old lady sometimes helps the shorter man you mentioned to walk inside. The Mercedes will circle the block and come back to pick her up.” The attendant reached in his coat pocket and pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and tapped one out. “Why are you asking about the guy? You a cop?”
Reid gave the attendant a noncommittal shrug like he’d received. “Something like that. Thanks for the info.”
He rolled up his window, signaling an end to the conversation, and the guy shuffled back to his tiny booth.