Runaway. Part 3

"Let me give you the bullet points," Hoch was saying. He pushed a piece of paper across the desk. "Here's her complete physical description. Pretty nondescript, no tattoos, piercings, scars. But that's according to her parents. She may have tattoos and piercings in places they don't see anymore. We've put out a BOLO on her car. The vehicle identification information is included here. We've gotten nothing back on any of it. We put her name and description in the NCIC, so we will be contacted if she's picked up for any reason."

"I'm not familiar with all of the hangouts in Winnetka," Peet said. "Tell me where the drug activity takes place."

"That's back on your turf," Hoch said. "The kids here buy their drugs in the city. Clubs on the north side for meth and c.o.ke, West Side for heroin, though there isn't a big heroin problem around here."

Hoch stood to end the meeting.

"If you find her you can call me and I'll arrange to have her picked up. Other than that, I'm not sure our department will put much in the way of resources into this. You're right about that."

Peet drove back toward the city while Jan took out her phone and looked at the list of Maddy's friends Mrs. Harrington had given them. None of the names had phone numbers.

"This is pathetic."

"I think it's sad," Peet said. "My kids live for their friends. They're everything to them."

Jan had a few friends growing up in the camp. There was only one who Jan found interestingHolly Alvarez. She was beautiful and lively and willing to question the Colonel's authority once in a while, which Jan found thrilling. As they grew older, Jan found thoughts of Holly thrilling in an entirely different way. She squirmed in her seat and felt nervous whenever they sat close. But when Holly was sixteen, the Colonel approved a match between Holly and a boy in the camp, the son of one of his close lieutenants. The ceremony would not take place until her eighteenth birthday, as was custom, but from that moment on, Holly was lost to Jan, and so was any remaining reason for Jan to stay in camp. She remembered seeing Holly the day before she escaped. She was tempted to tell Holly of her plans and urge her to come with. But then Holly looked up from the bread she was kneading in the cook tent. She looked right through Jan, as if she weren't standing six feet in front of her, as if she didn't exist.

Jan dialed directory a.s.sistance and tracked down some numbers for families with the same last names as those on the list. By the time they'd reached the city, she'd left half a dozen messages. She was about to call Maddy's brother when Peet took the Irving Park exit off the expressway.

"I thought we were going back to the office," Jan said.

"How about we grab a bite at my house? We have to eat somewhere, and I have a sudden urge to see my kids."

Jan agreed, but reluctantly. She always felt overwhelmed by the normalcy in Peet's house. At least, it's what she supposed was normal family life. Mom and Dad still in love after twenty years of marriage, sweet teenagers, an adorable eight-year-old. A dog. They lived in Kevin's old family home, a rambling frame structure in the city's Old Irving Park neighborhood. Everything about it made her feel anxious.

They entered the huge kitchen that Kevin had remodeled the year before. Kevin and eight-year-old Lily stood at the kitchen island, decorating sugar cookies. When Jan and Peet came through the kitchen door, Lily ran over and took Jan's arm, tugging her over to the cookies. Kevin kissed Peet and then gave Jan a kiss on the cheek.

"Sorry to barge in unannounced," Jan said. "It was her idea."

"Hey, we're thrilled," Kevin said. "Can you eat something? We just finished off a pizza, but I can scramble some eggs or make a sandwich."

Peet shrugged off her jacket and sat at the kitchen table. "Eggs would be great, hon." She pulled out her phone and started texting. "Sit down, Jan. I'm just telling Sandy to come downstairs."

"It's our new version of an intercom system," Kevin said. He looked over at Peet. "Kevin Junior's out tonight."

"I know that." Peet sounded impatient and Kevin's eyebrow went up a tad.

She waved her hand in front her, like she was swatting a fly. "We just had a meeting with some parents who had no idea what their kids were up to," she said. "I don't want Jan to think we're anything like that."

"No danger there," Jan said.

Peet's daughter Sandy came into the room, phone in hand, and Jan stood to accept her hug. Sandy hugged Peet even though they'd seen each other a few hours earlier. There was an awful lot of hugging here. "I wanted to ask you something," Peet said, pulling out a chair for Sandy. "What would you think of a high school junior who doesn't have any friends?"

"Who are you talking about?" Sandy asked.

"No one you know. A runaway Jan and I are trying to find."

"A girl?" Kevin asked.

"Yeah. From Winnetka."

"That's scary," he said. "Not the Winnetka part. The girl all alone on the streets part."

"It is," Jan said.

"And she didn't have any friends?" Sandy asked. "What's wrong with her?"

"I don't know that there was anything wrong with her. She looks pretty much like everyone else, but I don't know how she acted around other people. Her parents said that she spent all her time on her computer."

"It's weird to not have any friends," Sandy said. "I wonder whether she didn't have any friends because she was on the computer all the time, or whether she was on the computer all the time because she didn't have any friends. You see what I mean?"

"I'll be her friend," Lily said. She looked so earnest that Jan couldn't help smiling. Sometimes she thought Peet's kids were from central casting. Kevin put a plate of eggs in front of her. He was also from central castinga handsome firefighter secure enough to marry a woman who looked like she could carry him out of a burning building. They probably had great s.e.x too.

They were silent for a long time as they headed back to the office. Peet snuck a look at Jan.

"There's a new firefighter at Kevin's station," Peet said, startling Jan. She'd been staring out the window, feeling bad about Gwen.

"And?"

"I've met her. She's just your type."

"How do you know what my type is? I don't even know what my type is. Is it because she's a lesbian, ergo I'll be attracted to her?"

"She's not clingy."

"How do you know whether this woman's clingy or not?"

"I asked her." Peet said this as if it were a good thing.

"Do you mean you asked her during a conversation about me?"

"Yeah. It came up. She said she hated clinginess in others so she wasn't that way herself."

"G.o.dd.a.m.nit, Peet. You know I hate this. What's the matter with you?"

"Come on. What can it hurt? You're so stubborn about this."

Jan knew exactly what it could hurtwhatever good opinion Peet might have of her. The whole scenario had a sense of inevitability to it, just as it had a few hours earlier with Gwen. If she were to sleep with the firefighter there would be greater ramifications than usual when things didn't work out between them. The firefighter would tell Kevin. Kevin would tell Peet. Peet would look at Jan in a new way and...what? Maybe it would be good for Peet to know Jan wasn't the kind of person who could have the ideal home life she and Kevin had. Maybe then she'd stop trying to set her up with people.

"No," Jan said. "I don't do blind dates. It's not like I need help, you know."

"Then why haven't I seen you with any girlfriends?" Peet was turning into the office parking lot.

"I'm telling you to back off. You have no business in my s.e.x life. Period."

Peet looked surprised by Jan's anger, but completely unfazed.

"Why are you p.i.s.sed? I'm your partner. Don't you think I want to see you happy?"

"What makes you think I'm not happy?" Jan was practically screeching. She threw open her car door and then slammed it shut behind her. She didn't miss seeing the grin on Peet's face.

She led the way into the building and past the first floor security division. It seemed a lifetime ago that she left security and moved upstairs to investigations. She started as a twenty-year-old guard on the graveyard s.h.i.+ft. Ten years later, armed with a college degree and a record of heads-up service, she got her shot in the newly formed investigations division. It didn't take long for her to outs.h.i.+ne the former detectives who trained her. Peet was the only former police officer Jan felt might be her match in private investigations.

When they reached their desks they saw Don Detmer standing by the door of the break room, holding a cup of coffee. He was also an ex-cop, but not in Peet's league. He had left the sheriff's department after putting in his twenty and seemed to view TSI as a hobby. Jan couldn't imagine what he was doing in the office after hours. He b.i.t.c.hed so loudly about working evenings that he managed to be a.s.signed only the type of work that could be done during the day or from homeskip tracing, mainly. He had a particularly hangdog look on his chubby face.

"What are you doing here?" Jan asked him.

"The only time I could talk to a witness is tonight, and I forgot the f.u.c.king file."

"You look like you're ready to kill yourself," Peet said. They went into the break room and poured themselves coffee from the fresh pot. "But since you made coffee, you must be intending to live."

Don sat at the small table and looked at them. "You guys haven't heard yet, have you?"

"Heard what?" Jan said.

"LJ and his old man sold the company."

"What?" Peet said. She went pale.

Don looked smug at having delivered the bad news. "Vivian told Collins and Collins told me."

David Collins was another TSI investigator. He'd recently started dating Vivian and apparently not yet discovered her darker side. He was going to have to answer for breaking her confidence, Jan thought.

"I don't understand," Peet said. "How could we not have heard about this? Wouldn't we have seen people poking around?"

Don sighed. "I don't know how the f.u.c.k they do these things. It's probably all Web conferences and secure websites and c.r.a.p like that. Plus, what do they need to look at? They're not really buying the building or us. They're buying the client base. They'll probably fire us and bring in all their European James Bond types."

"They're European?" Jan asked.

"I don't know. Global something something."

Jan was wondering if this didn't start having the ring of truth to it. If Collins was using a company name, it indicated a level of detail not found in the usual office rumor. She left the break room and headed to her cubicle.

"Where are you going?" Peet asked.

"Let's look it up." She fired up her computer and did searches on "Global Security Company," wading through a lot of muck before seeing a reference to a London firm called Chartered Global Security, an international security and investigations firm with offices in quite a few US cities. A news release from London announced the planned acquisition of a small Midwestern company intended to be another step toward expanded penetration of the United States market.

Peet was reading the screen with her. "G.o.d, it's true. s.h.i.+t."

Jan knew Peet would be worrying about her job. They needed it to pay for college for their kids, and TSI paid surprisingly well. Jan was worried for a different reason. She didn't know much of the work world beyond TSI. The thought of looking for a job made it a little harder to breathe.

"You gotta wonder when the h.e.l.l they were going to tell us," Don said. "If you just found it in the computer in a minute and a half, others will too."

Jan looked up at Peet. "It doesn't mean they'll be firing us. They're not going to replace everyone in the company."

Don shuffled away, looking grim at the idea of losing his job, or worse, having to work harder if he kept it.

"They'll definitely weed out some people. They always do," Peet said.

"Then let's not give them any reason to pick us. Let's do our jobs."

Jan pulled the Harringtons' list out of her pocket. It was past ten p.m. on the east coast, much too early for a college student to be in bed; she called Maddy's brother at Dartmouth. He picked up on the first ring, and Jan could hear bar noise in the background.

"Yo," he said. It was a bad sign when a white boy in a loud bar answered with "yo." She hoped Justin Harrington cared that his sister was missing. Jan started to fill him in.

"Wait, are you telling me that no one knows where Maddy is?" Justin sounded serious. The background noise grew softer. "Hang on a sec. I'm walking outside."

Jan looked at her watch again. They'd have to leave the office soon for the Wilsons' weenie watch, as Peet called it. Justin came back on the line.

"Who are you again?" he asked.

"Your parents hired me today to help track down your little sister. She's been missing for two days."

"Two days? G.o.d, they're unbelievable."

"So she's not there with you."

"No way. She wouldn't come to me. We're not that close."

"Has your sister run away before?"

"Not since she was really little. Like seven or so. The police found her late at night hiding in a big box behind the grocery store. She'd set up her things in there like she was planning to stay for a while."

Jan thought about that. Was it normal childhood adventure stuff? Or was Maddy running from something even then?

"I get the feeling that you and Maddy might both have some problems with your folks. Can you tell me about that? It might help me find her."

Jan heard Justin light a cigarette and take his time exhaling. "I don't know if you'd call it a problem. Basically, they leave us alone to do what we want to do, which is cool with me."

"How about Maddy?"

"It's hard to say with her. The main reason we're not close is that she doesn't tell me anything, and I'd be surprised if there's anyone she shares stuff with. She's a complete enigma."

"Even when she was little? She must have played games or had friends or something."

"Yeah, when she was real little. Mom would have her go to play groups and stuff. She played soccer the last few years and she was really good at that. I don't know if she hung out with those girls or not. I never saw them at the house."

"So was she a loner? Or was she unpopular with kids for some reason?"

Justin gave it some thought. "I just think she was too f.u.c.king serious about everything. It's kind of creepy, actually."

"Like how? I'm not sure I know what you mean."

Justin paused again. "It's kind of weird, but right before I left for school, Maddy and I had one of the few real conversations we've had in the last several years. We were reading the paper in the kitchen, the folks were gone, of course, and she suddenly blew her stack at some article. I asked her what the matter was and all she said at first was that she could hardly stand living in this country anymore."

"What?"