The Competition - [69]

Caleb, the pocket-protector nerd, and Kenny, a tall, handsome boy with shoulder-length blonde hair, were a study in contrasts. But seeing their easy body language, I got the impression they were pals.

We cut to the chase. “Do either of you know a person named Shane Dolan?” I asked.

“No,” Caleb said. “Why?”

“Kenny?”

“I know a guy named Shane,” he said. “Not sure about the last name. Maybe if you had a picture-”

Bailey held out her cell phone. The boys studied the photo.

Caleb shook his head. His expression said we may as well have asked if he’d been hanging around with Kim Jong Un.

Kenny didn’t hesitate either. “No,” he said. “The dude I know is my age. Who’s this?”

“We think he might be a friend of Logan’s,” Bailey said. “Do you remember ever hearing him mention the name?”

“No,” Caleb said. “Never.”

Kenny shook his head. I had no sense they were hiding anything. I had one last question. “Have either of you talked to Evan lately?”

Kenny said he hadn’t, but Caleb licked his lips and began to rub his palms on his pant legs.

“Caleb?” I asked.

He looked down. “He called me yesterday. Said you guys took his laptop and kept bugging him even though he told you he didn’t know anything.”

“How did he sound?” I asked.

“Stressed. Freaked.”

“And what did you tell him?” Bailey asked.

Caleb shrugged. “I told him you guys were talking to everyone. Seems like there are cops at someone’s house every day. So I told him he’s not the only one.”

That was certainly true. “What did he say to that?” I asked.

“Not much. I thought maybe hearing about how everyone was getting the same treatment would make him realize it was no big deal. But then I saw his tweets about you guys harassing him, so…”

“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe not.”

We asked how they were doing-not great, but as well as could be expected-and ended the interview.

Bailey dropped me off at the Biltmore, and I decided a hot bath might relax me enough to take a full breath. The double shot of Dalwhinnie didn’t hurt either.

Graden called around nine o’clock sounding every bit as tightly wound as I was. We tried to keep it light, but the conversation kept stalling as our minds wandered back to the case, so we gave up and said good night. For the thousandth time, I thanked the gods that I’d found someone who understood the all-consuming nature of the job.

I set out my clothes so I could jump into them in the morning, and put myself to bed by ten o’clock with a murder mystery set in London. All the descriptions of fog and damp made me slide farther and farther under the covers, till I was practically holding the book above my head. Finally, I got sleepy enough to put it down and turn off the light.

When the hotel phone rang Saturday morning, I looked at the clock. Six a.m. What the hell? I’d told Bailey I’d be downstairs waiting for her at seven thirty. I snatched up the phone. “I said I’d be on time-”

“Get dressed and get downstairs!” Bailey sounded tense. “I’ll tell you when I see you.”

I turned on the news as I got ready, expecting to hear about another shooting, but there was nothing. What could it be? The question whirred through my brain on an endless loop. When I got downstairs fifteen minutes later, Bailey was already there waiting for me. I hurried to the car and got in. It was still dark outside and icy cold.

“What? Tell me,” I said, as I pulled on my seat belt. Bailey jumped on the gas, throwing me into the dash before I could get it buckled. “If you’re trying to kill me, just use your gun, it’ll be quicker.”

“Sorry,” she muttered. She didn’t speak again until we’d merged onto the 101. “I got a call from the Topanga station. Evan’s gone.”

“Gone…how?”

“He ran away. There’s no sign of forced entry or a struggle. His dad knocked on his bedroom door to wake him up and got no answer…”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I put my head in my hands. “Maybe we should have-”

“What? Slapped an ankle monitor on him?”

Bailey was probably right. We couldn’t justify a twenty-four/seven tail on him. But that didn’t stop me from thinking we should’ve seen it coming.

Bailey grabbed my shoulder. “I know what you’re doing and you can stop it right now-”

“Caleb told us he was getting weird, he was tweeting-”

“So fucking what? Kids bitch and tweet a thousand times a day.”

True, but that didn’t make it feel any better.

Fog had blanketed the Valley by the time we pulled onto Evan’s street. The flashing blue-and-red strobe from a dozen squad cars glowed eerily through the mist, and the officers guarding the house looked almost ghostly. I saw a news truck parked at the corner. The press was here. Already. News of Evan’s flight would go nationwide within the hour.

Bailey left her car in the middle of the street and badged us through the crowd. Evan’s father was in the front room, standing nose to nose with a uniformed sergeant, poking his finger at the sergeant’s chest. “If they’d given him protection instead of haranguing him constantly, this would never have happened!”

The sergeant bore the tirade stoically. “Sir, I can understand you’re upset. But we need to process this scene for evidence. Every second I stand here is another second wasted. Now, if you’ll-”