Two Days Gone (Ryan DeMarco Mystery #1)(71)

A minute later, he started the engine and sat in the idling vehicle, anxiously tapping his thumb against the steering wheel. He needed movement, but which way to go? He had no idea where Huston might be. He had last been seen near Lake Wilhelm, so DeMarco eased away from the curb and headed for Interstate 79. He wanted to flatten the accelerator to the floor but kept the speedometer needle at forty. He did not want to go too far in the wrong direction and have to reverse himself.

Just over fourteen minutes later, his cell phone jangled. “The call was placed from a public phone at the Qwik Stop convenience store in Conneaut, Ohio.”

“Ohio? Shit.” Then, “Wait a minute. Conneaut is straight up seven, due north of Pierpont, am I right? I’m coming up on seven now.”

“Yes, sir.”

“He did go to Whispers.”

“Sir?”

“I need a street address.”

“The store is along Route 198 on the west end of town. Corner of Franklin Avenue.”

DeMarco swung his car onto the entrance ramp. Conneaut was a full hour away. The speedometer reached seventy and kept climbing. “Okay, alert the Conneaut Police Department to send a car to the store. Huston’s probably long gone by now, but he might still be hanging around somewhere. And no fucking sirens or he’ll head for the woods again. And get the Ohio boys from the nearest barracks in the vicinity too. Have them checking out any abandoned buildings, warehouses, anyplace he might have holed up for the night. And I’m going to be flying low, so inform any of our guys who might be on traffic control on the interstate. I’m driving a light-brown Bonneville.”

“Ten-four, Sergeant.”

“Anything yet from the search of the strip club?”

“I’ll check on that and get back to you, sir.”

DeMarco hung up the radio, grabbed his dash light off the passenger seat, stuck it on the dashboard, and turned it on. The strobing light pulsed through the gloaming, punching softly into the gathering dark.

? ? ?

A local black-and-white was parked along the side of the convenience store lot, parking lights on, a young officer behind the wheel, a paper cup of coffee on the dash. DeMarco spotted the car while he waited for the light to change so he could turn into the lot. He had turned off his dash light upon entering town and stowed it on the floor, but here was a townie in plain view, as conspicuous as a one-ton, glowing wart. DeMarco knew that if Huston had been lingering anywhere near the store, he was long gone by now.

DeMarco backed his vehicle into a space facing the street, climbed out, and crossed to the police car. The young officer behind the wheel rolled down his window, and DeMarco showed him his ID.

“The clerk never saw your man,” the officer said. “Phone is there on the outside of the building. Probably the only pay phone left in town.”

“Huston didn’t go inside to get change for the phone?”

“Clerk says no. Says he never saw the guy.”

“So Huston was either carrying a few dollars in change or he bought a phone card somewhere.”

The officer nodded and reached for his coffee. “Every gas station and grocery store sells them. We could ask around, I suppose.”

“Doesn’t matter where he bought it,” DeMarco told him. “He’s not there now. Not here either.”

“What would bring him up this way anyway?”

DeMarco gazed out past the gas pumps. The lights threw a cold white illumination onto the concrete. A teenage girl was pumping gas into her Toyota, laughing loudly into a cell phone.

“I was surprised to even see a pay phone here,” the officer said. “They’re like relics.”

DeMarco watched the girl awhile longer. She was very pretty—long brown hair, long legs, and a thin, well-defined profile. He wondered if she was the kind of girl his son would have been attracted to. Ryan would still be just a boy, more or less the same age as Huston’s oldest son, but old enough to be sneaking glances at every girl who passed by, old enough to be wondering what it would be like to hold her and touch her, what it would be like to be wanted and loved.

When the girl climbed into her car, DeMarco took a step away from the officer’s. “You pulling second shift tonight?” he asked.

“Overtime,” the young man said. “Just waiting for you actually. We’ve only got a three-man force here.”

“Well, thanks for hanging around.” He glanced at the officer’s left hand. “I guess I kept you from your dinner, right?”

The officer shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time I had to eat cold meatloaf.”

“Give your wife my apologies.”

“No problem. Comes with the territory.”

DeMarco leaned down to look at him. “Nah, really, tell her I’m sorry. Tell her you’re sorry too. Tell her how much you missed her. How much you love her meatloaf.”

“Okay,” the officer said and smiled crookedly.

“It’s important,” DeMarco told him. “Don’t wait till you’re my age to learn that.”

But he recognized that look in the young man’s eyes, the smile that was almost a smirk. Okay, pops, the look said. Whatever you say.

The look lingered with him even after the officer was gone, as DeMarco sat in his own vehicle again, watching past the gas pumps as car after car moved through the intersection, the light changing ceaselessly from red to green to yellow to red. He knew he was accomplishing nothing by remaining there, that Huston could be miles away by now. He was out by the lake somewhere, somewhere along those miles of ragged coast. Maybe already with his Claire. With his family again, if that kind of thing were possible. DeMarco had no idea what was possible and what wasn’t. He was only sure that in this lifetime, at least, he never would know.