Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 139147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
After that, she hung up on me.
I leaned forward and put my phone in the back pocket of my pants, my eyes on the house that was just right of the T at the end of the street where I was parked.
There was a light on to the right side of the front door.
He was home.
He was home, and he might be the kind of guy who grabbed little girls to do things it wasn’t mentally healthy to contemplate.
Maybe Luna was right. Maybe this was madness.
Though…
Her name was Elsie Fay. She was six years old. She had a cute-as-a-button face.
And she’d been missing for nine days.
What could happen, even if he saw me?
He wasn’t going to storm out of his house and confront a stranger who was out for an evening stroll.
I was just getting the lay of the land.
I was correct in what I said to Luna.
No biggie.
That said, better safe than sorry.
I leaned across to the glove compartment, opened it and nabbed my stun gun. I then got out, locked the doors on my bright yellow, Nissan Juke (not exactly a covert car, I needed to consider that on upcoming operations) and shoved the stun gun in my free back pocket.
I’d dressed the part. Navy-blue chinos and a navy-blue polo shirt with a yellow badge insignia at my left breast.
Sure, under the yellow badge it said Puppy Patrol, and this was my uniform when I did moonlighting gigs for an online dog walking/pet sitting service. But if you didn’t look too closely, it appeared official. If someone asked, I could say I worked for code enforcement or animal control or…something.
I’d seen in an episode of Burn Notice that the best way to do something you weren’t supposed to be doing, somewhere you weren’t supposed to be doing it, was to look like you were supposed to be there doing what you were doing.
And if a burned TV spy couldn’t guide me in a possibly, but not probably, dangerous mission, who could?
Okay, so I was seeing some of Luna’s concern.
Nevertheless, I walked up the sidewalk toward the house in question like I’d personally designed the neighborhood. I hooked a right at the T, walked down the street a ways, crossed, then walked back up on the possible perp’s side of the street.
And then across the front of his house.
Good news, his window shades were open.
More good news: I was right, he was there. And as I’d already ascertained, and this cemented it, he was sitting, watching TV, and he looked the nondescript everyman version of your not-so-friendly local kidnapper. The image of a man whose neighbors would appear on TV and say, “He gave us a bad vibe, but he was quiet and didn’t cause any trouble, so…”
I kept walking, thinking she could be in there.
In that house.
Right now.
Scared and alone and so much more that, for my mental health, I refused to contemplate.
Not many homes in Phoenix had basements, and his place was a one-story ranch. I couldn’t imagine he’d be stupid enough to keep the shades open in a room he was keeping a kidnapped little girl in, but who knew? Maybe he was.
I couldn’t call the cops and say, “Hey, listen, hear me out about this guy.”
I had to have something meaty.
At the end of the street, I turned right, then hooked another right to walk down the alley. It was dark, impossible to see the words Puppy Patrol on my shirt. I was counting the houses in my head at the same time coming up with a plausible explanation of why I was wandering down the alley should someone stop and ask.
I hit his back gate without seeing anyone and tried the latch.
Of course, locked.
If I owned a home, I might lock my back gate to deter intruders. But it’d be a pain in the ass when I took out my garbage.
If I was holding a little girl I’d snatched, I’d definitely lock it.
Hmm.
The dumpsters and huge recycling bins were just outside his gate.
Perfect.
This meant I could get into his yard to look in the back windows, though I might not be able to get out.
I’d figure that out later.
I climbed on top of the dumpster (not easy and all kinds of gross), stood and looked over the top of his fence.
Clean landing on turf.
He should xeriscape. We were in a water crisis. No one should have lawns anymore in arid climates.
Right, I totally needed to learn better focus.
I looked at the house.
Light on in the kitchen with no one in it (did this man not hear about climate change?). No lights on in the other side of the house. I couldn’t tell from that far away, but it seemed like no blinds were closed over the back windows, because I could see the light shining in from opened doorways to a hall.