A cry for help? Whatever it was, it was layered and false, which Julia had never before been. I sipped my coke, noticing that it had no power to take the edge off the pain of how I’d let her down.
“Caleigh was into it more than anybody else. And now she’s disappeared. And I think something’s happened to her. And I want you to help me find her.” She turned towards me with urgency. “You made up everything Jinx Magruder did. You’d know how to do it, if you try.”
“Honey, those were stories. Pretend people. I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to find someone in real life. You need real help.”
“I know! That’s why I’m here.”
“Not from me, from someone who knows what they’re doing. Ask Jonathan.”
“I can’t.”
“A teacher then, or a guidance counselor. Someone at school.”
“No. There isn’t anybody else.”
In the distance, white sails dotted the horizon. The air was still with only the sound of the breakers lapping softly in a gentle rhythm. I wanted so much to be able to help her, to make up for all the times I’d let her down, but I knew, even if she didn’t, that I was not someone who could do anyone any good.
A runner, bare-chested, loped along the shoreline leaving footprints in the wet sand. Gerry’s house was on the exclusive Broad Beach Road, and his neighbors were among the elite of the business. The exquisitely sculpted body of this beautiful runner belonged to Campbell McCauley, one of Gerry’s movie star neighbors. I was starting to point this out to Julia, when I noticed the desperation in her eyes.
“Please?” she asked.
“Hold on. I have an idea.”
When I was doing the show, I’d been referred to an ex-cop turned private eye whom I could call for research. He’d been so helpful, we’d put him on retainer. I’d liked him. He’d always had an air of competence I admired. I hadn’t spoken to him since I left the show, but I thought maybe he could help Julia now.
“I know this guy; he was the tech advisor on the show. He’s a private investigator. I’ll bet he could help you. Maybe I’ve still got his number. Hold on.”
I went back in the house to look for my phone. I found it in the bedroom, but I’d gotten it too recently to have his number in it. We’d have to Google him. I went back to report to Julia.
She was gone.
“Julia...” A moment before, her presence was so unexpected; suddenly, her absence was desolating.
I looked up and down the beach, as she had done a moment ago. The beach was empty. The runner’s footprints by the water’s edge were already washed away; he was nowhere in sight.
I walked through the house and opened the front door, hoping to see her car, but saw only the garbage bins lining the block waiting to be collected. Other than that, the street was empty.
CHAPTER 5
After Julia left, I thought about what she had told me and decided to try to find Mike Drummond anyway. I’d always enjoyed talking to Mike. When he was our tech advisor, I had often called him frantic, staring down a deadline that loomed like an oncoming truck. I knew I could count on him, not only for ideas, but also for his comforting presence. He walked through life with confidence that he’d have what he’d need when he needed it. It wasn’t arrogance; it was, well, faith. I thought I could probably use a shot of that now, and it would be great if I could help Julia out, a feeble stab at recompense for the times I’d let her down. I found his number, called him, and arranged to come down to see him.
It was only as I was driving Gerry’s Range Rover down to the address he’d given me in Playa del Sol that I remembered something else about Mike that he’d made no secret of at the time: He was a drunk and junkie who was sober now. There was nothing anonymous about Mike’s alcoholism.
Mike was in his garage as I drove up, working on the engine of a car up on blocks. Mike was a big gruff bear of a man, a fifty-year-old surfer, strong and lean, with powerful arms and shoulders. I remembered that Mike’s passion for surfing was equaled only by his enthusiasm for restoring old “woodies”—the cars from the 40s that hauled surfboards in the 60s, and it was one of those he was working on now. A beat-up jalopy that looked like I felt was parked on the street. A 1948 Ford Station Wagon, its paint was faded, its wood panels chipped, springs and stuffing burst from what used to be upholstery. It had been stripped of its V-8 engine, which was up on Mike’s worktable, its parts spread out before him. He put down the piston he was oiling when he saw me walk towards him, grinning broadly.
“Hey, kiddo. I was wondering when I’d ever see you again. What’s it been, a couple of years?” He apologized for not hugging me, gesturing to his hands, dirty with oil and grease.
I was fine skipping the hug. He wore a t-shirt, cut-offs, and old sneakers. The top of his head was balding, sunburned, and freckled, fringed by hair bleached white by the sun. His face was craggy, with a deep furrow between his bushy brows, but the lines extending from his eyes and the ridges of his cheeks showed how often and easily he laughed.
“I had to go back to real work when the show was cancelled,” he said. “It was no fun after you left anyway.” The show had gone on for two years without me and had been off the air a year.
“So, what’s this about a missing kid?” He fitted the piston into the cylinder bore and began tapping it gently with a rubber mallet, listening to the sound it made with careful attention, then picking up the oil can and giving a gentle squirt before tapping gently again.
I told him about Julia coming to see me and her concern that she couldn’t find Caleigh. I’d promised Julia not to tell Jonathan, but it didn’t seem to violate that promise to talk to Mike.
“They’ve been fooling around with some dangerous stuff. They’ve kind of been playing hooker.”
Mike looked up, startled. He put down the oil can; I had his attention.
“Going out with older men and getting paid to do it. Supposed to be a fad in Japan called ‘enjo kosai.’”
“Nussbaum’s kid?” He’d worked for Poseidon too. He seemed as incredulous as I’d been.
“Anybody go to the cops?”
“No. Caleigh’s parents are denying anything’s wrong, and Julia hasn’t told her parents because they both work for Caleigh’s father.”
He wiped his hands clean on a rag. His garage smelled of oil and grease, mixed with freshly varnished maple, mingled with the breeze from the ocean just a block away. The music that came out of his speakers was an eclectic mix of surfer music, reggae, blues, and songs that might have played on the radio when the car he was restoring was new.
“The first thing I’d do is talk to her friends. Kids know everything. They’d know where she was if she’d run away, or what kind of trouble she was in. That’s where I’d start.”
He picked up the piston rod and fit it into the crankshaft. “Hand me that torque wrench, would you?” He gestured to some tools on the table.
As I
