Steve Cook lived in the heart of the Mission, in a dilapidated Victorian apartment building with flaking blue paint and faded white trim. He had told Colleen to park in the driveway, which she did, nosing her red Torino up to a garage door built before there were cars. She was partially blocking the sidewalk but that was the way it was done in the Mission, where little parking was to be had.
She got out, locked up the car, the wet evening mist cooling her face. She still wore her jeans, white T-shirt, and brown bomber jacket, but had run a brush through her hair. Steve’s phone message had been brief but anxious and the sense of urgency was unmistakable.
Trotting up the wooden stairs to the porch to three doors, she found Steve’s first-floor flat on the left. A tarp served as a curtain over the bay window. The pounding of a hammer came from within. Upstairs, Cheap Trick blasted on a stereo.
“You must be Colleen.”
He was of medium height, around thirty, well built, no extra weight. He wore work clothes. A hammer dangled from his right hand. A burnt-down cigarette stuck out of the corner of his mouth. He had short dark hair that needed combing, square features, and a nose that might have been broken at one time. He needed a shave about three days ago, which is when he had probably last slept, judging by the rings around his dark, drowsy eyes that still bore a hint of smolder despite the fact that he looked like fifty miles of bad road. The way he carried himself said he was weathering a missing daughter better than the average male would have.
Because he was not the average male.
Colleen realized, with a start, why the voice on the phone had sounded so familiar, along with the name. She was immediately taken back to the year before her disastrous marriage ended with the death of her husband, when a certain English rock ‘n’ roll band spent the summer of ’66 on her turntable in West Denver. She had willingly escaped into an album that spoke to her in her bleaker moments, with its brooding, moody, soulful singer who stood before her now.
At that time, he had been a teenager, dressed in the height of Carnaby Street fashion, with a fluffy mod haircut, ruffled shirt, and a jacket made of a Union Jack. He had sold millions of records. Even now, he still had that way of standing to one side, and he had a lot of what most men didn’t. He had plenty to spare.
She did her best to contain her surprise.
“Yeah,” he said with a wry look that said he read what she was thinking, “I used to be that bloke—for all of fifteen minutes. But that was a million years ago. Thanks for coming, yeah?”
She collected herself, handed him a business card. “It sounded important.”
He took the card, hammer in his free hand. Working on the house while his daughter was missing. There were worse ways to cope.
She followed him into an old flat, resembling a construction zone. The front room was a skeleton of aged redwood studs and joists, lit by a single bare bulb that cast broken shadows up to the floor above. A few sheets of new wallboard had been hung. Another sheet sat on two sawhorses in the middle of the room, with the rectangle of a light switch cut out. A ladder leaned up against a wall, a box of tools was out, and a radio murmured with oldies on the bare subfloor. The only other furniture in the former living room was a sofa covered with a sheet of plastic and a folded-up cot in the corner, which had a small backpack and a sleeping bag next to it. Colleen wondered who the cot was for. His daughter?
Steve went over to the radio, turned it off, set his hammer on top. He took the cigarette out of his mouth, held it between thumb and forefinger.
“Sorry about the mess. Trying to get this place ready to sell.”
He was stalling. Upstairs, “Surrender” throbbed.
“Your eleven-year-old daughter is missing,” Colleen said.
He nodded, stubbed out his cigarette in a tuna can on a section of blocking between two studs. He picked up a can of Foster’s lager from another block and took a long pull.
“Have you done this kind of work before?” he asked.
Colleen took a calming breath. This again. “You knew I was a woman when you called me.”
“Sorry, love. But it’s not the norm, is it? Women private detectives, I mean.”
She had left a bottle of Dom Perignon for this.
“If you want to look elsewhere,” she said, “go ahead. Call back if you feel like moving forward.” She turned to go.
He put his free hand up to stop her. “Sorry, love. I can see you’re the real deal. I just had to make sure. We are talking about my daughter, yeah.”
She stopped, nodded. “Who gave you my home number?”
“Al Lennox.”
Al Lennox. A shady bail bondsman Colleen had used to connect her with someone who could get her an illegal peek at some case evidence in police storage once.
“If you know Al,” she said, “then you must be in trouble.”
There was a pause while Steve gulped beer, his Adam’s apple bouncing. Under pressure. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“l don’t want the police involved,” he said.
“If the police don’t need to be involved, that’s fine. But if you’ve committed a crime, I can’t work for you.”
“Everything we talk about is just between you and me, right?”
“Hayes Confidential,” she said.
“Do you carry a gun?”
“Not if I can help it. What is the situation with your daughter?”
The skin tightened around his eyes. “Mel’s been taken,” he said with a small gasp.
A bolt of alarm shot up Colleen’s back. “Your daughter’s been kidnapped?”
Steve gave a single nod.
“Why didn’t you tell me this when you called?” Colleen said.
“I had to be sure. And I can’t have you going to the police.”
She understood, for the most part. “How long has she been gone?”
“Two days now.”
“Two days?”
“I didn’t get the call until last night. I wasn’t sure if she’d run off again. She’s done that before.”
“The call last night being from someone who claimed they took her?”
He confirmed with a nod.
“Did they let you talk to your daughter?”
Shook his head no.
Problem. “And you haven’t notified the police?”
“Only when she first went missing. Two days ago. Not since.”
“I’m not generally a big fan of the cops,” she said, “but they really need to be brought in.”
“No.” He drained his beer, set the empty can on the sheetrock on the sawhorses. “They said no cops.”
“The kidnappers?”
“Right. So, if you want the police in on this, I don’t need you.”
“Got it.” She’d circle back on that. Right now, time was critical. “Tell me about your daughter. Do you have a recent photo?”
Steve had one pinned to a stud. He plucked it, handed it over. “Mel. Melanie.”
Colleen studied the Polaroid of a prepubescent girl on a horse in full riding gear. Her helmet hid most of what looked like a mousy bob. She was a young version of her father, with a firm face, but she had a mean streak. You could see it in her eyes. The lack of a smile when sitting on a horse, something most girls her age dreamt of.
“Where’s her mother?” Colleen asked.
“We’re divorced. Lynda lives in town. She knows the situation with Mel.” He dug a pack of Lucky Strikes out of his shirt pocket, shook one out, stuck it between his lips. “She’s not going to like you working for me, by the way.”
“It’s not confirmed I’m working for you yet.” Colleen placed the photo on the wallboard, took another look at the cot. Things made more sense now. “Your daughter was staying with you when she disappeared?”
He lit up his smoke, nodded in acknowledgment as he shook out a match. “Lynda had to go out of town for work. She’s a record producer for NewMedia and they don’t always get much notice when things come up. Mel had to stay with me. Lynda wasn’t happy about that either, but she had nowhere else to put her. I’m not allowed custody. But Lynda’s au pair had just quit. Mel can be a handful.”
A difficult kid. Two parents who didn’t get along, one holding her position over the other. Steve didn’t look like he could afford horses and riding lessons. He wasn’t the parent with custody. So he probably wasn’t the parent who won many arguments.
She asked about possible friends and family Melanie might be with. They were few and Steve had already checked. No luck.
“How did Melanie disappear?”
“I was playing a gig. Nearby. I wasn’t supposed to take Mel to any more gigs. I promised Lynda. But Deena’d already booked it—it’s her band, yeah?—and was set to lose her residency if I didn’t show. So, against Lynda’s wishes, I took Mel. I had our roadie keeping an eye on her while we performed, but the venue was packed, and things got out of hand. Mel went to the restroom, disappeared. I called the cops, and they went through the motions, but, like I said, Mel has run off before, so it was wait and see. And then last night, I got the phone call.”
“Was the caller male? Female?”
Steve smoked. He was looking brittle, his neck tight. He was hanging on; she could see that now that she knew him a little better. “The voice on the other end of the phone was distorted, electronic, like something out of a film. Couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman.”
“What did he or she say? As close as you can remember.”
“‘Don’t talk. Listen,’ it said. ‘I’m going to say this once. Do exactly as I say. No police. Otherwise she dies.’”
An involuntary shiver ran down Colleen’s back. It was quickly replaced by anger at the monster—or monsters—who would take an eleven-year-old girl. And what she must be going through. Colleen just prayed that Melanie was still alive.