Page 14

CHAPTER 14

AFTER BABY LEFT, I stayed and talked to Troy a little longer, but he didn’t reveal much more. Baby’s sudden absence felt like the elephant in the room.

When I passed the police checkpoint, I felt dozens of eyes watching. I wasn’t terribly surprised when I was pulled over barely two streets away from Bonita Drive. Squad car with flashing lights, sirens. I recognized the officer in the vehicle and put my forehead on the steering wheel. He took his time striding over to my car and leaned his huge forearm on the window frame when he got there.

“Dave.” I gave him a smile that was so fake, it actually hurt my cheeks. I hadn’t seen David Summerly since I’d stopped answering his calls after our last date.

“Rhonda.”

“You’re assigned to the Daisy Hansen thing?”

“I’m one of the officers working the case.” The tall, sandy-blond, square-jawed police officer glanced around the inside of my car. RIP to my beloved leopard-print ’72 Buick Skylark, but this new-to-me ’58 Chevy Impala was a classic. It had been three months or so since Summerly was in it. I’d driven us to a movie, then dropped him off at his apartment after midnight. “I’d just love to know what you were doing over there,” he said.

“Troy Hansen may or may not have engaged me in a private matter.” I took my sunglasses from the holder and slipped them on, driven by the instinct to hide. “I really don’t want to get into it right now, okay? It’s ... you know. It’s complicated.”

“It’s complicated?” Summerly raised his eyebrows. “Now, that sounds familiar. Isn’t that one of the tired, vague old lines you fed me after you ghosted me?”

“I didn’t ghost you. I drifted away.”

“That’s what ghosts do. They drift. They’re kind of known for it.”

I swallowed. “I’d really hate for you to make my work with Troy Hansen difficult just because our relationship didn’t turn out the way you wanted it to.”

“So you admit that you are working with him? What has he hired you to do?”

“No comment.”

Summerly smiled and looked away. I remembered the dimples. I glanced out the front window. Sunny Glendale sprawled around us: Gardeners tending manicured lawns. Bored dogs barking in yards. I thought about the cardboard box sitting in the trunk of my car.

Though I hadn’t technically agreed to take Troy’s case, I was willing to hold on to the box for a day or so until I worked out the right thing to do. Before I left, Troy had led me to the crawl space under the floorboards, which was accessed through the linen cupboard, and I’d looked at the bare dirt under the house and seen nothing out of the ordinary beyond the disturbed earth. But now, with Summerly standing only feet away from my car, the box in my trunk seemed to be humming with evil energy.

“I know you like to root for the underdog, Rhonda,” Summerly said. “From what you’ve told me about your cases back in Colorado, Troy Hansen is exactly the type of person you like to defend. Misunderstood. Victimized. Vulnerable. Alone.”

I nodded, conceding that was true.

“Let me deromanticize this for you,” Summerly said. “That seems to be your theme lately, right?”

I sighed.

“Troy Hansen is none of those things,” Summerly said. “He’s a killer, and in a day or two we’ll have enough cause to arrest him. We know he’s lying about when he arrived home from work the night Daisy went missing.”

“How do you know that?”

“We have footage.”

“What footage?”

“He’s lying about the state of their marriage too,” Summerly went on, ignoring my question. “The dynamic had changed recently. Big-time. If you heard more lies from Troy just now, you have a responsibility to pass them on to me.”

I bit my tongue, pictured the box in the trunk.

“Think about your detective agency’s reputation. If you throw your lot in with Troy, the internet wack jobs already crawling all over this are going to come for you too. That can’t be good for business.”

“Thanks so much for your concern.” I gave him an icy smile. “I’m so lucky to have you looking out for me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Maybe if you gave me access to Troy’s and Daisy’s data, I’d see reason a lot faster,” I ventured.

“No comment,” he said, enjoying it.

“At least tell me if you’ve found her car.”

Summerly laughed humorlessly. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“Hey, you’re telling me I’m hanging out with a wolf in sheep’s clothing, so prove it. You guys are the ones with all the Hansen household phones and computers. Maybe you know where her car is too. Don’t just tell me that I’m wrong here, Dave. Show me. Help me see it for myself.”

“I don’t have to help you, Rhonda.” Summerly stepped back from my car. “In fact, I don’t have to talk to you at all.”

He went. I forced myself not to check out his ass as he walked away.

“My number’s the same if you change your mind!” I called after him.