Little Girl Gone

Logan paused. “Sein?”

“She finally called Tooney back. Yelled at him for not telling her what was going, then said she was going to go take care of it herself.”

“How did she find out?”

“We don’t know.”

“Great. Just…great.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Dad. Nothing you could do. I’ve really got to go now.”

“Okay. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Daeng was staring at Logan as he hung up. “What was that all about?”

“A complication we don’t need.”

“What complication?”

Before Logan could answer, Daeng suddenly pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at the screen. He then pushed a button, said something, then listened for several seconds. Finally, he looked over. “It’s the man I have following the guy from the meeting with Aaron.”

“What’s going on?”

“Apparently, he entered another office tower. My man followed him up to the eighteenth floor, only when he got out of the elevator he was on one of those floors where a single company uses the whole space. There was a reception area and a waiting room, but the guy he was following was gone. My man immediately came back down.”

“Did he get the name of the company?”

“Let me check.” Daeng talked into his phone again. The back and forth went on longer than Logan would have thought. Daeng then said, “Sorry. His English isn’t so good, but he knows the alphabet, so I made him spell it for me. He had to find the directory downstairs first. The place is called Lyon Exploratory Research. Mean anything to you?”

Logan shook his head. “Never heard of it.” He pulled out his notebook, and jotted down the name so he wouldn’t forget.

“The cab’s pulling over again,” Daeng announced. “They’re at…oh, crap.” He leaned forward and said something quickly to the driver.

Suddenly they were accelerating down the street, no longer trying to blend in with the traffic. They came around a corner onto a wider road, then stopped in front of a large building with hundreds of people milling around.

“Where are we?” Logan asked.

Daeng already had his door open and was starting to climb out. “Hualamphong train station,” he said. “Come on!”

Logan jumped out, and ran after Daeng through the crowd.

“I told my guy to follow the farang inside.” Daeng lifted his phone back to his ear, and had a quick conversation with his man. Without warning, he came to a sudden stop, grabbing Logan’s arm so he’d do the same. “He’s just inside. Seems to be waiting for something.”

He led Logan over to a spot against the outside wall.

“Maybe this is just another quick stop,” Logan suggested.

Daeng shook his head. “His cab’s gone.”

“So where’s he going then?”

“Trains go all over the country. He could even go all the way to Singapore if he wanted. Or he could head over to the MRT, the subway, and take it to somewhere else in the city.”

Daeng’s phone vibrated once. The conversation that followed only lasted a few seconds before he lowered his cell again.

“That was about the farang who got dropped off earlier. He said the guy just pulled up in front of the train station.”

“This train station?”

“Yes.”

That explained who Aaron was waiting for, Logan thought.

Daeng nodded toward the street. The man who had been on clean-up duty with Aaron was walking toward the station entrance. Logan was pretty sure the guy had no idea who he was. Still, he turned away as the man neared just in case.

Daeng was on his phone again, this time with the man inside the building. “As soon as the two farang found each other they were joined by a third.”

“A third?”

“Yeah. A black guy. He handed them train tickets, and now they’re all heading to the platforms.”

Logan took a step away from the building. “They’re leaving?”