Brett Battles - Every Precious Thing

Clausen and Markle got out of the car and disappeared into the neighborhood.

“Maybe I should go, too,” Frisk suggested.

“ You stay here.”

At the house, the two new arrivals stepped over to the door, then the younger one took a quick look around the street, obviously making sure no one was watching. Erica froze as the man’s gaze moved in her direction.

“Hold still,” she ordered Frisk.

Given the distance, the guy wouldn’t be able to discern them from the rest of the car if they remained motionless. Apparently satisfied, the man pulled something out of his back pocket-a piece of cloth or paper- and used it to cover his hand as he grabbed the doorknob.

That certainly wasn’t landlord behavior.

She watched the men step inside the house. Their visit wasn’t a long one. When they came back out, the younger one was carrying something that looked very much like the envelope Diana had left behind.

Erica called Clausen.

“Yes?” he answered, his voice low.

“Where are you?”

“In the backyard.”

“You don’t have to whisper. They’re getting into their car.”

“I thought it sounded too quiet in there.” Clausen’s voice returned to normal.

“I think they took the note. Check, then meet us back at the motel.”

“Will do.”

Erica waited until the other car left, then pulled onto the street to follow them.

Instead of making Logan and Dev go through the documents there, Hackbarth let them photocopy everything so they could walk out with their own set. Once they finished, they headed for Mary Ralston’s place.

It turned out she lived in a trailer park in the northwest corner of town. Surprisingly, it was the most well-maintained neighborhood Logan had seen in Braden, the trailers showing little sign of the wear and tear the nearby permanent homes displayed.

Mary Ralston’s place was a white double-wide right in the middle of the park. Since there was no car in the driveway, Logan thought she might not be home, but as Dev turned off the engine, the trailer door opened, and a woman around Dev’s age stuck her head out.

“So are we going all Sopranos again?” Dev asked. “Or trying something different?”

“I guess that depends on whether or not our friend Mark Hackbarth has called and told her about us.”

It turned out that Hackbarth had called, but hadn’t said anything about Logan and Dev, just that Diana had left town.

“I figured it was going to happen someday,” Mary said. She was sitting in a cloth-covered recliner, while Logan and Dev sat on the couch. “Diana’s always been kind of the restless sort.”

“How long had she been in Braden?” Logan asked.

“About two years now. She and I, we’ve had our differences on occasion, but she’s a hell of a bartender.”

“Did she work for you the whole time she was here?”

“Yep. I ran an ad in the local paper. She called me up, I tried her out, and that was that.”

“So she was here before she got the job,” Logan said, thinking the woman had misunderstood him.

Mary shook her head. “No. She called me from somewhere in Arizona, I think. Can’t remember exactly. Think she said she found the ad on the paper’s website.”

“She have any friends here you know of?”

“A few different people. Lately she’d been hanging around with Tessie Carter, I think.”

Logan typed the name into a note on his phone, then accessed the picture of Sara. “Have you ever seen this woman before?”

Mary looked at the picture for a second, then glanced around until she spotted a pair of glasses on the coffee table. “Can you hand me those?” she asked Dev.

Dev passed them to her. “Here you go.”

“Thank you. My close-up vision is shot. Growing old sucks sometimes.”

“Tell me about it,” Dev agreed.

She gave him a smile, and looked back at the picture.

“You might have seen her with Diana about two years ago or so,” Logan suggested.

“She is familiar.” She continued to examine the photo. “Wait, wait. There was this…friend who visited her from out of town. What was her name?” She stared at the floor for a moment. “Sandy? Sally. I don’t know. Something like that.”

“Sara?” Logan suggested.

“Maybe.” She pointed at the picture. “That could be her, but I’m not a hundred percent.”

“And you haven’t seen her since then?”

“No. Don’t think so.”

“You see anyone else with them at the time?”

She thought for a moment. “If I did, I don’t remember.”

“Is there anything else about Diana that might help us find her? Something she might have said? Family she might go to?”

“No family that I know of. Certainly none in Braden. She said her mom died a few years ago, but otherwise…” She shrugged. “She’s a pretty private person. Never really talked much about herself.”

Logan hesitated, then said, “If you don’t mind me saying, you don’t seem as mad as I expected, given she just quit on you.”

“Annoyed that I’ll probably have to cover a few shifts myself, yeah, but I can’t be mad at her. Diana’s a good person, but I always felt like there was something missing, you know, like she was looking for something that she would probably never find.”

As they walked to the car, Dev tossed Logan the keys. “You drive.”

Logan gave him an odd look, but said, “Okay,” thinking that maybe Dev was just tired of being behind the wheel.

But as they exited the mobile home park, Dev swiveled in his seat and stared out the rear window.

“What is it?” Logan asked.

Turning back around, Dev seemed to contemplate something. Finally he said, “I think someone might be following us.”

Logan’s gaze flicked to the rearview mirror. “Who?”

“There’s a gray sedan about a block back.”

Logan searched the street behind them. “Okay, I see it. You sure?” The car was too far back for him to see the people inside.

“No, I’m not. Have you seen how many gray sedans there are in this town?”

“Then what makes you think we’re being followed?”

“It looks like the same one I saw when we visited the real estate place, and before that, not long after we left the woman’s house. But I don’t know.”

Logan frowned. He considered making a few quick turns to see if the car was really tailing them, but decided doing that might scare the person off. If they pretended like they hadn’t noticed, and just kept tabs on the other car, there was a better chance they might learn something useful. He told Dev what he wanted to do, and the former Marine nodded as if he’d been thinking the same thing.

Mary Ralston had told them Tessie Carter was working at the Wallace Wash Mini Market out near the interstate. As Logan pulled into the store’s small lot and parked, Dev positioned himself so he could see out the back without seeming too obvious.

“There they go.”

“They?”

“There’re two people inside.”

“Did either of them look this way?” Logan asked.

“No. Kept facing straight.”

“Recognize them?”

Dev shook his head. “Never seen them before. A man and a woman, both white. Her hair’s cut short.” Dev touched his neck about halfway between his head and shoulder. “About to here. Think it’s brown. But she was driving, so harder to see. The guy’s hair was close-cropped, lighter, almost blond.”

“How old?”

“She could be anywhere from thirty to fifty. Sorry, best I can do. The guy’s younger, late twenties at most.”

“Where are they now?”

“They kept going straight through the next intersection, like they were going to get on the freeway.” Dev craned his neck. “Can’t see them anymore.”