Brett Battles - Little Girl Gone

“You know, they show up every once in a while, walk around a little, then just leave,” Joan said. “Kenny tried talking to them once, but they just ignored him.”

“The same guys every time?”

The two girls looked at each other, thinking, then Joan said, “There are four of them, I think.”

“Yeah, but never more than two around at the same time,” Maria added.

“That’s true,” Joan said.

“Describe them for me.”

“There was one black guy, and the rest were white,” she said.

When she didn’t add any more, Logan asked, “Age?”

“I don’t know. In their thirties, maybe.”

“Anything else? Height? Weight?”

“Around your height, I guess,” Maria told him. “And in good shape. Other than that, nothing stands out.”

Interestingly, it was pretty much the same general way he would have described the guy who’d attacked Tooney that morning. He filed that thought away for later.

Tearing a few pages out of his notebook, he gave each of them his number. “If any of you hear from Elyse, or think of something that might help me, please give me a call right away.”

He then had them each write down their number.

“Thanks,” he said as he stood up. “Sorry to have interrupted your evening.”

“Shouldn’t we call the police?” Joan asked.

Logan couldn’t miss the instant karma of having the same thing he’d said to his father and Tooney thrown back at him. “We don’t even know if there’s anything wrong yet. If there is, I’ll be the first to make the call.”

8

Pacific Avenue was just two blocks from the beach. Logan located Aaron Hughes’ place in a walled-off compound on the east side of the street. The wall was about six feet high, with a red wooden door right smack in the center, locked by a deadbolt. Judging from the addresses listed out front, there were five units inside. There was no intercom, though, so he guessed people had to call ahead to be let in.

Logan tried the cell number Joan had given him.

One ring, then, “Hi, this is Aaron. Leave a message and I’ll—”

He hung up, then put his ear right next to the gate, listening for any sound from the other side. Dead quiet, but not surprising for near midnight on a Tuesday. Undoubtedly, everyone on the other side of the wall was asleep. But if Aaron was home, Logan didn’t want to wait until the kid woke up in the morning to talk to him. He wanted to do it now.

He checked both ways down the street, making sure no one was around, then grabbed the top of the wall, and swung his legs up and over. He found himself in a dim courtyard. To his left was a square standalone building that seemed to be a single unit. Since one of its sides made up part of the compound’s outside wall, it had been the only building he’d been able to see from the street. There were a couple of other structures on the property, too, but from Joan’s description the front one would be Aaron’s place.

Logan confirmed this a moment later when he saw the number 4A mounted on the wall beside the jamb, the same number Joan had given him.

The place appeared dark, so he guessed Aaron was probably already asleep. Not for long, though.

Logan rapped lightly on the door, so as not to wake up any of the neighbors. Receiving no response, he chanced a louder knock.

This time he did hear something. Only it wasn’t tired footsteps shuffling toward the door. It was the clear and unmistakable echo of his own knock.

Immediately, he moved over to the window on the right, and pulled out his keys, turning on the small flashlight attached to the ring. What he saw on the other side was exactly what the knock had made it sound like, an empty room.

Moving to the window left of the door, he peeked in again. The room on the other side was a small kitchen. While the appliances were all there, the counters were completely bare. At the side of the house, he found a third window that looked into what was probably a bedroom, and found only bare floors.

What the hell?

He returned to the front door and tried the knob. It was unlocked, so he pushed it open. Even before he stepped over the threshold, he noticed the smell.

Clean.

Disinfectant, bleach, cleanser clean.

Slowly he walked through the small building, checking each room, but the place was as empty from the inside as it had appeared from the out.

Aaron, if he indeed had been living there, was gone now, and the place had been scrubbed down. There wasn’t a speck of dust or a scrap of paper anywhere. And by the strength of the smell, Logan figured the cleaning had occurred within the last day and a half at most.

He pulled out his phone and called Joan.

“Hello?”

He couldn’t hear a TV in the background, so he guessed she’d gone home. “It’s Logan Harper. The friend of Elyse’s grandfather.”

“Oh. Hi.” He could tell by her tone she hadn’t expected to hear from him again so soon.

He read off the address she’d given him, then said, “I just wanted to confirm that’s the same one you gave me.”

There was a few seconds delay while she checked. “Yeah, that’s it.”

“You mentioned you’d been to his place before.”

“Once.”

“How long ago was that?”

“I don’t know. Three or four weeks ago, I guess.”

“Just to be sure, is it an apartment or a house?” he asked.

“I already told you that. A bungalow, you know, a little square house. Tiny. I think Maria and I have more room in our apartment.”

“Can you describe how you get into the property?”

“Umm, yeah, I guess so. There’s a wall out front. You’ve got to go through this wooden gate. And—”

“What about furniture?”

She paused. “I don’t know. The usual stuff. Why are you asking me all this?”

“Did he ever say he might be moving?”

“Moving? He never said anything to me, but I haven’t talked to him since about the time I was there. Why?”

“Okay. Thanks. I’ll—”

“What are you doing in here?”

Logan whirled around. Outlined in the doorway was the dark shape of a woman.

To Joan, he said, “I’ll call you if I need anything else,” then hung up, and headed toward the door. “I’m sorry. I was looking for the person who lived here.”

“Does it look like someone lives here?”

He could see her better now. She was wearing sweats and a baseball cap, and was a good ten years older than he was.

“When did Aaron move out?” he asked as he stepped outside.

The use of the name had the desired softening effect. “You’re a friend of his?”

Logan paused. “Not really a friend. He…does some work for me on and off. Supposed to come over earlier this evening but didn’t show up. Couldn’t get him on his cell, so thought I’d come over and check.”

“Sorry. I think you’re out of luck. He moved out this morning.”

“This morning?”

“Gone by nine.”

Logan glanced back inside. “You got the cleaning crew in there fast.”

“Aaron arranged that himself. Said he didn’t want to leave a mess for someone else to clean up. Wish everyone was like him.” She paused. “He must have gotten his dates with you mixed up, though. He told us a week ago he was moving back East today.”

As Logan climbed back into his car a few minutes later, he felt numb. There was no way to deny it. Something odd was definitely going on.

He stuck the keys in the ignition, but instead of turning them, he called his father. It took five rings before it was picked up.

“Hello?”

“Dad?”

“No. It’s Jerry.”

Jerry? Apparently his dad was hosting a slumber party.

“You want me to get him?” Jerry asked.

“Please.”

A few seconds later, Harp came on the line. “Did you find her?”

“Not yet. Did you check the hospitals again?” Before Logan had left his father’s house, he’d suggested they call around one more time.

“Yeah. She’s not at any of them. I also did another check with Highway Patrol. No major accidents on the 101 tonight.”

Logan paused. “Dad, I think it’s time we talk about calling the authorities, and telling them what’s really going on.”

Harp was silent for a moment. “What happened?”

Logan told him what he’d learned so far.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean she’s missing.”

“The definition of a missing person is someone you can’t find,” Logan told him. “I’ve checked the places she should be, and she’s not at either of them.”

“We…we can’t go to the police.”

“Why not?”

“We just can’t.”

“That’s not good enough anymore.”

“It has to be good enough!” his father yelled.

“How can I know that? You guys obviously aren’t telling me everything. If you did maybe I’d understand.”

His dad hesitated, then said, “I can’t tell you. I made a promise. But I can guarantee you that involving the police would be exactly the wrong thing to do. Please, Logan. You need to trust me on this.”

Logan shook his head in disbelief. “What do you want me to do? Ignore what I’ve learned?”

“Of course not,” he said. “I want you to find her.”

9

Logan had met Carl Stone in the Army while in the middle of a three-year, post-high-school stint. Carl had already been in for four at that point. It was one of those situations where their personalities clicked the moment they met. Even after Logan left the Army for college, their friendship didn’t falter, and they stayed in constant touch. It was as if they had grown up together. Nothing could ever separate them.

The summer after Carl got out of the Army, he took Logan—a junior at Fresno State by that point—to visit his family in Scottsdale, Arizona. That’s when Logan met Carl’s sister, Trish. In many ways, Carl was even happier than she and Logan were when they got married.

“Now you’re legally my brother,” he had said.

By the time Logan finished college, Carl was working at Forbus Systems International in Washington, D.C. They were a defense contractor involved in a ton of different things. Carl’s job was training and assessing the company’s private security forces. These forces were mainly tasked with guarding warzone bases so that military personnel didn’t have to.

“Don’t even bother looking for a job,” Carl told Logan a month before graduation. “I’ll take care of it.”

Logan was never exactly sure who Carl talked to, but within two weeks of getting his diploma, he was offered a job working with his best friend at a salary he couldn’t refuse.

In retrospect, he knew it would have been a hell of a lot better if he had. Carl might have still been alive. Which would have meant Trish wouldn’t have blamed Logan and walked out on him.

But Logan had taken the job. And Carl had died. And Trish had left.

It wasn’t the dream that woke him that morning in L.A. It was the cruel memory of his wife lying quietly beside him. He could see her hair on the pillow, the curve of her body under the blanket. He could almost smell her, too, the faint odor of almonds and wildflowers and…

As his eyes parted, the illusion faded. Trish was three thousand miles away, not lying next to him. That would never happen again.

He threw back the covers and sat on the edge of the bed, knowing he needed to go on a run so he could drive the memories from his mind. But in his haste to leave Cambria, he’d left his running gear behind. The only choice he had was to take a vigorous walk up Sepulveda Boulevard where his motel was located, and hope that would do the trick.