Kat chuckled out loud. Frosted Tips took this as an invitation. “Something funny?”
“Yeah, your face.”
Pete frowned at the lameness of the retort. Kat shrugged. He had a point, but it worked. Frosty took a hike. She drank some more, trying to give off a leave-me-be vibe. It worked for the most part. She did an image search on Brandon Phelps, and yes, he was indeed the skinny, stringy-haired kid who had visited her. Damn. It would have been easier if he’d just been lying about his identity or something.
Kat was starting to feel tipsy, the kind of tipsy when you drunk-text an old boyfriend, except, of course, she had no idea what Jeff’s phone number was. She chose instead to do the next best thing ex-lovers do—cyber-stalk him. She put his name into several search engines, but there was nothing on him. Absolutely nothing. She knew that was going to happen—this wasn’t her first time drunk-Googling him—but it still surprised her. A few Internet advertisements popped up and offered to find Jeff or, better yet, see if he had a criminal record.
Pass.
She decided to head back to Jeff’s profile page on YouAreJustMy Type.com. It was probably closed down now, what with his jetting off to some exotic locale with a statuesque blonde. They were probably walking the beach right now, hand in hand, Dana wearing a silver bikini, the moon reflecting on the water.
Bitch.
Kat clicked on Jeff’s profile page. It was still there. She checked the status. It still read: Actively Looking. Hmm. No big deal. He had probably not remembered to turn it off. He’d probably been so excited about getting High Society Blonde in the sackola that he couldn’t be bothered with niceties like clicking a button to let other potential suitors know he was off the market. Or maybe handsome Jeff had a backup plan, a Plan B, in case Dana didn’t pan out (or put out) in the way he hoped. Yeah, ol’ Jeff could have a bunch of women waiting with baited breath, just in case he needed a substitute or . . .
Her cell phone mercifully knocked her out of her stupor. She answered it without checking the caller ID.
“There’s nothing.”
It sounded like Brandon.
“What?”
“On Jeff Raynes. There is absolutely nothing.”
“Oh, I could have told you that.”
“You’ve searched?”
“Drunk-Googled.”
“What?”
She was slurring her words. “What do you want, Brandon?”
“There’s nothing on Jeff Raynes.”
“Yes, I know. Didn’t we cover this already?”
“How can that be? There is something on everyone.”
“Maybe he keeps a low profile.”
“I checked through all the databases. There’s three Jeff Raynes in the United States. One in North Carolina. One in Texas. One in California. None of them are our Jeff Raynes.”
“What do you want me to say, Brandon? There are plenty of people who keep a low profile.”
“Not anymore. I mean, seriously. No one is this low profile. Don’t you see? Something isn’t right.”
The jukebox started playing “Oh Very Young” by Cat Stevens. The song depressed her. Cat—her sorta namesake—sang about how you want your father to last forever but “you know he never will,” that this man you loved would fade away like his best jeans, denim blue. Man, that lyric always hit her hard.
“I don’t know what I can do about it, Brandon.”
“I need one more favor.”
She sighed.
“I checked my mom’s credit cards. There is only one hit in the past four days. She took out money from an ATM the day she vanished.”
“She didn’t vanish. She—”
“Fine, whatever, but the ATM was in Parkchester.”
“So?”
“So we go to the airport via the Whitestone Bridge. Parkchester is at least an exit or two out of the way. Why would she go out of her way?”
“Who knows? Maybe she missed her turn. Maybe she wanted to stop at some fancy lingerie boutique you don’t know about and buy something sexy for the trip.”
“Lingerie boutique?”
Kat shook her head, tried to clear it. “Listen to me, Brandon. I have no jurisdiction anyway. You need to go to that cop you spoke to in Greenwich. What’s his name . . .”
“Detective Schwartz.”
“Right, him.”
“Please. Can’t you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Look into the ATM charge.”
“What do you think I’ll find, Brandon?”
“Mom never uses her ATM card. I mean, like, never. I don’t even think she knows how. I always got cash for her. Can’t you, I don’t know, check the surveillance video or something?”
“It’s late,” Kat said, remembering her own rule about doing too much thinking while drinking. “Let’s talk in the morning, okay?”
She hit the END button before he could respond. With a quick nod for Pete to put it on her tab, Kat headed out into the fresh air. She loved New York. Friends tried to get her to see the joys of the woods or the beach and yeah, sure, maybe for a few days, but hiking bored her. Plants, trees, greens, fauna could be interesting, but what was more interesting than faces, outfits, headwear, shoes, storefronts, street vendors, whatever?
There was a crescent moon tonight. When she was a little girl, the moon had fascinated her. She stopped and stared and felt the tears pushing into her eyes. A memory blindsided her. When she was six years old, her father put a ladder in the yard. He led her outside and pointed to the ladder and told her that he’d just put the moon up there, especially for her. She believed him. She believed that was how the moon got up to the sky at night until she was much too old to believe such a thing.
Kat had been twenty-two when her father died—too young, for sure. But Brandon Phelps had lost his father when he was only sixteen.
Was it any wonder he clung so strongly to his mother?
It was late when Kat reached her apartment, but it wasn’t as though police stations kept hours. She looked up the phone number of the Greenwich Police Department and called, giving her NYPD title and figuring to leave a message for Detective Schwartz, but the dispatcher threw her a curve.
“Hold on. Joe is here. I’ll connect you.”
Two rings later, “This is Detective Joseph Schwartz. How may I help you?”
Polite.
Kat gave her name and rank. “A young man named Brandon Phelps came to see me today.”
“Wait, didn’t you say you were NYPD?”
“Yes.”
“So Brandon visited you in New York City?”
“Right.”
“Are you a friend of the family or something?”
“No.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He thinks his mother is missing,” Kat said.
“Yeah, I know.”
“So he wanted me to look into it.”
Schwartz sighed. “Why the hell would Brandon go to you?”
“You sound like you know him.”
“Of course I know him. You said you’re NYPD, right? Why did he go to you?”
Kat wasn’t sure how much she wanted to go into Brandon’s illegal hacking activities or the fact that she was frequenting a dating site. “I’m not sure, but he said he first asked you for help. Is that true?”
“It is.”
“I know his claim seems crazy,” Kat continued, “but I’m wondering whether we can do something to put his mind at ease.”
“Detective Donovan?”
“Call me Kat.”
“Okay, call me Joe. I’m trying to think how to put this. . . .” He took a moment. Then: “I would say that you haven’t been told the full story.”
“So why don’t you fill me in?”
“I have a better idea, if you don’t mind,” he said. “Why don’t you take a drive up to Greenwich in the morning?”
“Because it’s far.”
“It’s only forty minutes from midtown. I think it might benefit both of us. I’m here until noon.”
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