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“Old girlfriend, huh?” He really didn’t like the way this sounded. “Did you get the name of the girlfriend?”
“The mother said she wasn’t sure. But get this—he’s nineteen.”
His boiling blood just spilled over into a raging fury. “And he was messing around with a fifteen-year-old?”
Joseph coughed. “It’s not his first time. He has a record.”
“For?”
“Statutory rape.”
Silence settled between them. Then Mason growled, “I hope you have someone in Florida looking for this guy.”
“You know I do. I’ve also got a BOLO on him around town here, too. Apparently, he can be quite a nasty person. His mother said she had to call the cops on him when he was thirteen. He threatened to kill her because she wouldn’t let him go out with friends.”
“Send me his picture. I want to flash his face to everyone I come into contact with. If this is the guy that snatched Bethany…”
“All right, it’s headed your way.”
In less than a minute, a good-looking young man appeared on Mason’s phone. “Got it.”
He hung up and headed for the homeless shelter. Even though Joseph had said she wasn’t there, Mason couldn’t stop himself from looking. Two blocks later, he cruised past it, eyeing two men on the corner sharing a cigarette.
Had Bethany been staying there?
He swallowed hard as he thought about his daughter staying in a shelter, his heart thudding with the knowledge that she’d been involved with someone like Austin Howard.
God? I know we haven’t talked in a while, but she’s just a kid. Please protect her.
All of the things he’d seen in his career in law enforcement played through his mind like a bad movie. Sometimes missing teenagers came home. Sometimes they didn’t.
Most often they didn’t.
Had Austin found her and grabbed her? But the print on the car didn’t match anyone in the system. And Austin was in the system.
He sighed and pulled over to the curb to watch the shelter. Picking up his phone, he scrolled through his contacts until he found his father’s number.
To call or to wait?
He dialed the number.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Dad, it’s me.”
His father’s gruff voice came through the line. “Been a while since I heard from you. You doing all right? The shoulder okay?”
Mason went along with the small talk for a few minutes, then said, “I have something I need to tell you.”
Silence.
“You remember Lacey Gibson. From high school?”
“Yeah, she was that little girl that did a number on you. I remember her.”
Mason flinched at the hardness in his father’s tone, but didn’t address it. His father may have found God, but he still had his rough edges. He sighed. “Dad, Lacey had a baby fifteen years ago. My baby.”
A swift drawn-in breath and more silence. Then his father cleared his throat. “Come again?”