called me this morning, and I filled her in. I thought you were going to call her. You said you would.”
Another broken promise. I’d left a trail of those recently. But the fact was, my job was the reason Rose and I were no longer together. Calling my wife when I was in the middle of a job would only exacerbate the problem, so I hadn’t called. I said, “I know this is going to sound like a lie, but I haven’t had a moment free.”
“Are you still looking for Sara?” my daughter asked.
“Yes. It’s consuming every minute of my day.”
“Some kids are going around campus saying that if the police don’t find a missing person within forty-eight hours, they almost never do. Is that true?”
“No, honey, it’s not.”
Jessie went silent. Normally, she had more words in her than a dictionary. I guessed the loss of her friend and teammate was starting to sink in.
“I want to help,” my daughter finally said.
“What about your classes?”
“I’m done for the day.”
I hesitated. I normally didn’t get my family involved in cases, only Jessie had already helped me link Mouse and Lonnie to three other abductions.
“You’re on,” I said.
“Great. What do you want me to do?”
“There was a mental health facility in Broward called Daybreak that got shut down. I want you to go online, and see what information you can find about the place. I’m interested in finding a list of patient names.”
“Are these the guys who kidnapped Sara?”
“Yes. Their first names are Lonnie and Mouse. If I can find out their last names, I can contact social security, and learn where they’re originally from. It’s a slim lead, but I need to have it run down.”
“I’ll get on it right away.”
“Thanks. Please don’t tell anyone about this, okay?”
“I won’t tell a soul,” my daughter said.
I spent the rest of the morning and a few hours into the afternoon pouring over the Daybreak file on my computer. The majority of what I read was medical mumbo jumbo that didn’t have any bearing on my search. Whenever I did run across something that felt promising, I was met with the black line from a Magic Marker.
By the time I reached the last page, my brain was fried and I didn’t know any more than when I’d started. I needed to take my frustration out on something, and chose the plastic garbage pail beside my desk. My kick sent it clear across the office, where it bounced off the wall and left an ugly bruise. I should have felt better, only I didn’t.
My cell phone rang. It was Jessie. Perhaps my daughter had found the information that had so far eluded me, and I excitedly flipped open my phone.
“I hope your morning was more productive than mine,” I said.
“I’m pulling my hair out,” Jessie said. “I Googled Daybreak, and found over ten thousand places where it’s referenced. I went to a few hundred of those places, and tried to find your information. Every time I thought I’d found what you were looking for, the site told me that the information had been deleted.”
More bad news. Buster had retrieved the garbage pail and brought it back to me. I pulled open my desk drawer and tossed him a dog treat.
“I did find one thing that looked promising,” she said.
I sat up straight in my chair. “What’s that?”
“I found a website called browardoddities. com. It’s got all sorts of crazy stuff about Broward County posted on it, including some information about Daybreak. I did another search, and discovered that a guy named Ray Hinst runs the site. I searched his name, got his number, and called him. Hinst lives in Broward, and sounds like a decent guy. He told me that he worked as an orderly at Daybreak. He offered to give you a tour of the place, if you’re interested.”
“Hinst gives tours?”
“Yeah. He said a lot of thrill-seekers like to go into the buildings, but don’t like to go alone. I guessed you’d want to hear what Hinst had to say, so I arranged a tour for you. Hinst agreed to meet you at Daybreak’s front gates at three o’clock.”
I checked the time. I was going to have to move fast if I was going to make it.
“This is really great,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Maybe I can be your assistant one day.”
Jessie’s words sent an icy finger down my spine. Nothing would have made me happier than to have my daughter working by my side. But not at this. I had seen too many bad things to want my only child to follow in these footsteps. Anything but this.
“We’ll have to talk about that sometime,” I said.
“Is that a promise?”
“Yes, it’s a promise.”
“Good-bye, Daddy.”
CHAPTER 40
I got onto 595 and punched the gas. My Legend was old but the engine still had some kick. I pushed the speedometer up to seventy, and kept it there.
It occurred to me that I hadn’t asked Jessie how much Ray Hinst was going to charge me for a tour of the Daybreak facility. Not that it really mattered; I would give him every bill in my wallet to hear what he had to say.
I weighed calling Rose. She deserved to hear what was going on, especially my two visits to the hospital. Those things mattered to her. But something told me that I shouldn’t. We got along great when I wasn’t working, but right now I was working. Better to wait until the case was done before we hooked up again.
Soon I was in the western part of the county. Fewer buildings, more farmland and pastures, lots of dirty pickup trucks on the road. It reminded me of growing up, which didn’t seem so long ago.
Highway 27 appeared. I headed north on it. A mile up the road I spotted a dead possum on the side. My daddy used to think that road-kill was a sign of a healthy forest.
To me, it just meant that people drove too damn fast.
I found the entrance to Daybreak and turned. The road was unpaved, and my car lurched violently every few yards. Buster was leaning out the open passenger window, and I grabbed him by the collar to make sure he didn’t fall out.
Reaching the entrance, I hit my brakes. The guardhouse was boarded up, and had “No Trespassing” signs plastered on its sides. I looked around but didn’t see Hinst.
I drove into the facility. The buildings looked more ominous at ground level than they had from the chopper. Vandals had knocked out all the windows and spray-painted black graffiti on the walls. It gave the place a ghostly feel and made me understand why thrill-seekers would come here. I parked in the courtyard, leashed my dog, and got out.
“Are you Jack?” a gravelly voice asked.
I turned around. A man in his early sixties wearing battle camouflage and a safari hat had materialized behind me. Buster curled his upper lip and let out a menacing growl. Hinst was good. I hadn’t heard him approach.
“That’s me,” I said. “This is my dog, Buster.”
“I’m Ray. I’m not particularly fond of dogs. Your daughter said you were interested in a tour. My going rate is fifty bucks an hour, paid up front.”
I gave Hinst a hundred-dollar bill, hoping it would soften him up. He stuffed the money into his pants pocket while giving me a hard look.
“Something wrong?” I asked.
