room.”
“Are you kidding me?” Alison said.
“That’s ridiculous,” Anna said. “No way it was Tony.”
“Of course it wasn’t,” Wes agreed.
“Are they at least going to look for him?” Anna asked.
Wes shook his head. “The detective said he wouldn’t do anything until the morning.”
“But what if Tony’s in trouble?” Alison blurted out. “Tomorrow might be too late!”
“Unless we have evidence that something’s wrong, I don’t think they’ll do anything yet.”
“What about his cellphone?” she asked incredulously. “That’s evidence!”
“It is,” Anna said, her tone calmer than Alison’s. “But it’s really only evidence that he doesn’t have it with him.”
“So we’re just supposed to sit around and do nothing?” Alison threw her arm out in frustration, but she misjudged her position, and her fingers rapped loudly against Tony’s window.
The noise reverberated through the empty courtyard, silencing all three of them.
Alison’s shoulders dropped. “Sorry.”
“We’re all upset,” Anna said.
Wes hesitated, then said, “It probably won’t do any good, but we could look around for him ourselves.”
Alison’s face brightened. “That’s a great idea.”
As they were exiting the courtyard and heading to the parking lot, Wes’s cell rang.
Alison looked at him as he pulled it out. He knew she was hoping it was Tony, but the name on the display was DIONE. He shook his head, and tapped ACCEPT.
“Finally,” Dione said. “I’ve been trying to reach you for hours. Your phone was off.”
“Yeah, I know. Sorry.”
“Did you get the hard drive?”
“No.”
“I was afraid of that.” She paused. “Okay, I’ll get one on my way out of town. Probably means I won’t-”
“We’ve got another problem,” he interrupted her. “Tony’s missing.” He gave her a quick update.
“Jesus, Wes. Maybe I should head up there right now.”
“That’s up to you,” he said. “But I doubt there’s much more you could be doing.”
She let out a frustrated groan. “Call me the second he turns up.”
“Will do.”
He hung up and looked at the other two.
“Let’s go.”
40
Theman called to report in, but after four rings he was sent to voicemail. He hung up before the beep.
No messages. Nothing recorded. If the call was not picked up, he was to try again later.
Minutes earlier the target and two women-one identified as the target’s girlfriend, the other a coworker-had come out of the motel and walked over to their SUV.
It looked for a moment as if they were all going to get in, then the target had said something, and mounted the motorcycle while the women got into the Escape. When the vehicles left, the SUV headed north and the motorcycle south.
The question was, should the man follow the motorcycle, the SUV, or just stay where he was?
“Dammit,” he said.
He contemplated his choices for half a second, then started the car.
If it was the wrong decision, he’d hear about it later. But he knew he had to do something.
When in doubt, he thought, keep the target in sight.
41
Wes hopped on the triumph, not worrying about any potential ticket. With two vehicles they could cover a lot more ground. He’d braced himself for an objection from Anna, but she hadn’t said a word.
They agreed to check in with each other every fifteen minutes, then took off in opposite directions.
He stopped at bars and restaurants, and cruised around fast-food places, looking through the windows for the show’s missing crew member. But so far, nothing. The periodic check-ins with Anna revealed that she and Alison were faring no better.
Wanting to make sure they covered everything, Wes headed over to Burroughs High. The school was within the Ridgecrest city limits, but was tucked up against the base, with a chain-link fence separating it from Navy property.
The last house Wes and his family had lived in before relocating into town had been in a housing tract known as the B K-parts on the other side of the base fence. Now where there had once been lawns and homes, there was only desert and asphalt streets leading nowhere.
He tried to remember exactly where his house had stood, but even the trees that had been planted throughout the neighborhood were gone. He visualized the walk he used to take home every day, watching his imaginary self make the journey again.
The truth was, without any definitive markers he was only able to approximate its location. He felt hollow, like a part of his life had never existed.
He turned his attention to the still-standing school.
There were only two cars in the faculty parking lot, a Honda Accord and an old Dodge pickup. Both had faculty stickers in their windows, the pickup also sporting a Burroughs Burros booster bumper sticker on the tailgate.
Burroughs was basically an outdoor campus-long, rectangular buildings separated by wide areas of dirt and the occasional bit of grass. Wes drove the bike up a handicap ramp and onto the sidewalk, then slowly moved in and around the different halls. When he’d covered everything, he stopped near the administration building and called Anna.
“Anything?” he asked.
“Not a sign. How about you?”
“Same. Where are you now?”
“Just checked out a place called Lucky Liquor. Showed them a picture Alison had on her camera of Tony, but no one recognized him.”
He frowned. “Let’s give it another hour, then meet back at the motel. We should be able to cover most of the likely spots by then.”
“All right.”
Wes looked around at the school. Tony wasn’t here, had never been here. It had been a long shot at best. Anna and Alison were more likely to find a lead at Lucky Liquor than he had been riding around Burroughs.
He sped away from the high school and turned back onto China Lake Boulevard, passing the McDonald’s he’d worked at the summer before his junior year, then turned left on Ridgecrest Boulevard.
He checked the bar where he’d found Lars that morning, then two more before he ended up on the road to the fairgrounds at the eastern edge of town. These were the grounds used by traveling carnivals that, when Wes
