Page 16

CHAPTER 16

I STOPPED AT A café in Silver Lake to do some research on Daisy and Troy Hansen while I waited for Baby’s latest tantrum to blow over. The café’s aesthetic had attracted me — indoor plants, tattooed staff, and polished concrete. Regret hit when I saw that the menu was wall-to-wall rabbit food. I opened up the app that monitored the tracking device I’d had Baby place on Troy Hansen’s truck, and checked where it was. Still in front of the house on Bonita Drive. Good. At least Troy was staying put. I opened my laptop in unison with three other people in the big sprawling room and looked up Daisy Hansen’s socials.

Troy’s wife did look like the type of woman who went to the gym right after work. In her Instagram profile picture, Daisy posed with her toned arms behind her head, a big toothy grin on display. Her blond ponytail was thick and lustrous, and a twinkle in her eyes said We’re friends! in a way that probably got people to take her advice on nutrition and forget the price tag. More prettily filtered shots in the feed: Daisy on her laptop in bed brandishing an oat-milk coffee in an ethically made mug, Daisy’s feet on early-morning grass with two similar but unmatching sneakers on with the hashtag #whoops .

I scrolled. There were no photos or mentions of Troy.

A gentle fluttering sound drew me away from the screen. I turned and saw on the wall above me a big flip clock with black-and-white flaps that fell as time passed. I watched the 2 in 5:42 fold itself into a 3 and wondered where Baby was.

Dave Summerly had suggested that the Hansens’ marriage had changed recently. I endured my depressing bowl of grains and grass and tried to catalog the number of ways a relationship dynamic could change so badly that it resulted in a disappearance. Had someone else come into the equation? Had there been a big fight in the Hansen household? Had someone been given an ultimatum? I tried to be more creative. Maybe money had come in — or gone out? Maybe Troy had an addiction? An illness? A love child? Maybe Daisy had one of those things?

In the comments section of Daisy’s online world, most people — predictably — were screaming that Troy must be having an affair. But as I scrolled, I saw that it was Daisy who had begun exhibiting the classic signs. Starting about three months ago, she’d lost a noticeable amount of weight, changed her hair, and begun posting cryptically about learning and growing and being true to herself “no matter who it upsets.” I wondered if Troy had never been shared on her feed or in her stories, or if he had, but she’d recently scrubbed all traces of him.

I searched public records for a divorce application by either of the Hansens and came up empty. I did learn that they owned their house and hadn’t defaulted on any mortgage payments, and neither one had a criminal record. Daisy’s Instagram nutritionist business was registered and solvent. I trawled a few popular dating sites for profiles that featured either Daisy or Troy, explicitly or in disguise. Nada.

My phone pinged. Hoping for Baby, I bristled when I saw the text from Dave Summerly: Stop wasting your time with Troy Hansen. I gave such a dramatic sigh, several other laptop jockeys looked over. I’d been told “Just stop!” many times in my career, almost always when I was chasing hopeless cases.

Then I noticed the video attached to Summerly’s message.

A surveillance video of a sprawling, recycled-brick driveway lined with hedges. There was a slice of road and neat houses beyond it. The yellow time stamp at the bottom of the footage gave the date: the same Wednesday that Daisy had gone missing. I watched Daisy Hansen’s little red Honda Civic, a car that presumably police had not yet recovered, cross the screen. The time was 5:37 p.m.

The video jumped to 7:40 p.m. I watched Troy Hansen’s work truck cross the screen in the same direction as the Honda. The video jumped again. Now the truck was heading in the other direction, presumably away from the Hansen house. At 10:39 p.m.

I put the phone down and held my head. The footage made two things painfully clear: Troy Hansen had lied to me about what time he’d returned home on the night of Daisy’s disappearance, and he’d lied to me about not going out again that night.

Flap. Flap. Flap. I held my head for three minutes, counting them off against the flip clock’s gentle automated sounds. Why would Troy lie about something so easily proven false?

I opened my eyes. I looked at the clock. Then I looked back at my phone, at the yellow numbers at the bottom of the video screen.

I texted Summerly back and asked him what brand of camera had captured the footage he’d sent. I waited. No answer. I texted again, asked him where the camera was located, told him I wanted to speak to the owner about the device. Still no answer.

I took a screenshot of the footage and opened a blank message to my security guy, Jamie. The kid was a local in Koreatown who had been sourcing spy gear for me and Baby ever since we’d started the agency. He had sold me the tracker that was on Troy Hansen’s truck.

Maybe I’m deliriously optimistic, I texted Jamie. But you can’t tell the brand of a security camera just by looking at the footage, can you?

Jamie wrote back right away. Tech people. They’re always online.

Sure can, he said. But not for free.

I rolled my eyes. Jamie was a student, putting himself through school to earn some kind of technology degree. He was always hustling. The one time I’d asked Baby to pay him for his services, she’d been three days late with the check. Jamie hadn’t forgotten that and never would.

Sending funds and footage now, I said.

Jamie got back to me in two minutes. That’s a Jettno, he wrote. Numbers are always yellow. Not the best res but they have a good battery life. If you’re looking to buy — don’t. I can get you better, cheaper cams.

I’m not looking to buy, I texted. I want to know HOW those cameras know what the time and date are. Do they just do it automatically, like your iPhone? Or could those numbers at the bottom of the screen be inaccurate?

Jamie sent me a link to Google. I groaned. Tech humor.

Twenty-one minutes later, I finally found an online user manual for a Jettno home-security camera. It took another three minutes of googling to discover that the camera’s time and date settings were set by the user and were not automatic. I sent a text to Dave Summerly explaining what I’d learned, and then asked:

Are you absolutely certain the date and time attached to this footage are correct?

After seven minutes — I watched them go by on the clock — he finally replied.

I’ll check, Summerly wrote.

I could feel his frustration and embarrassment in those words. That made me give a mean little chuckle, which disturbed the people around me.

Now who’s wasting time? I thought.