Sue Grafton - P is for Peril

Anica said, "Quit with the Paulie stuff. It's pointless."

I picked up the calendar and moved over to the island where I claimed my coffee cup. "Mind if I ask about this?"

Crystal glanced over at me, distracted. "What do you need?"

I placed the calendar on the counter and tapped at the page. "I gather Leila doesn't come home every weekend."

"For the most part, she does. Lloyd and I usually alternate visits, but things do come up."

"Like what?"

Crystal glanced at the page, pointing to the second weekend in July. "This was the weekend she had an invitation to go home with her friend, Sherry, in Malibu Colony. Her father's in the movie business and he takes the girls to all the big premieres."

I pointed to the weekend of September 12, when Dow Purcell disappeared. "And this?"

"Same thing, different friend. Emily's family owns horses. They have a ranch at Point Dume. Leila loves to ride. Actually that weekend was canceled-I think Emily got sick-and Leila ended up over at Lloyd's. Why do you ask?"

I shrugged, checking back through the months. Leila's schedule seemed to vary, but it looked like she went off with her school friends on an average of once a month. "I'm thinking she might have left campus with one of her classmates from Fitch."

"I guess it's possible, but I doubt it. Most of her friends are college prep. They'd never risk expulsion." She turned to Nica. "What do you think?"

"It wouldn't hurt to check. It crossed my mind as well, so I brought along the school roster in case we needed to phone any of the other parents." She reached down into the large navy bag near her feet and removed a spiral-bound directory with the school logo on the front. "You want me to go through these and see what I come up with?"

Crystal said, "Hold on a second and let me try Lloyd again." She crossed to the planning center and picked up the phone. She punched in seven numbers and listened for a moment, and then replaced the handset. "He's still not answering. Leila's stepfather," she added by way of explanation.

"I know. I saw him at the beach house the day I met you."

"I've been calling him since Nica arrived. He's there, if I know him. He's always got collection agencies on his case so he refuses to pick up. I've left six messages so he knows this is serious. You'd think he could manage to call back."

I said, "Look, I need an excuse to talk to him, anyway. Why don't you let me go over to his place and see if Leila's there? If she's not, I can start scouring the roads."

"That's not a bad idea. Nica and I can stay here in case she decides to make an appearance." Crystal reached for a pen and scribbled down some numbers on a scratch pad, tearing off the sheet. "These are my numbers and Lloyd's address and phone."

"You have two lines?"

"That's right. This one's personal. The other's business."

I pointed to the first. "Why don't you leave this one free? You can use the other to check with some of Leila's friends."

"If you find Lloyd, you can tell him I'm tired of doing this alone. It's time he took his fair share of the load."

Walking out to my car, I had to wonder how kids of divorced parents survive all the bickering.

Lloyd lived on a street called Gramercy Lane, which looped along the foothills, one of those roads that proceeded by fits and starts. I checked my street map of Santa Teresa, looking up the coordinates. I'd have to intercept Gramercy at some point and then check house numbers to see where I was in relation to Lloyd's address. I left the map open on the passenger seat while I turned the key in the ignition. The rain was picking up again, oversized drops that popped on my hood like gravel being flung up from a roadbed. I flipped on my windshield wipers and glanced at my watch. It was currently 3:15. Between the short November days and the gloom of the rain, twilight seemed to start gathering by 4:00 in the afternoon. At the moment, I felt more like heading for home than cruising the town in search of a runaway teen.

I sailed through the stone gate that marked the front entrance to Horton Ravine and followed the road as it curved around to the right. At the first red light, I glanced at the map again, tilting my head.

Gramercy Lane, or parts of it at any rate, were within a two-mile radius of the Purcell house in the Ravine. If Leila had thumbed a ride from Malibu traveling north on the 101, she'd probably have asked to be let off at Little Pony Road, which was one off-ramp south. The light changed and I eased into the stream of southbound traffic, hugging the outside lane. Little Pony Road was less than a mile away.

The notion of Leila thumbing a ride made my stomach churn. Odds were some decent citizen would offer her a lift, but there was also that freakish chance that she'd miscalculate. Not every soul on the road had her best interests at heart. At fourteen, she still felt invincible. For her, assault, rape, mayhem, and murder were events she read about in the papers, if she read them at all. Perversion and deviance were words on a high school vocabulary list, not vicious behaviors with any relevance to her. I hoped her guardian angels were hovering.

I took the Little Pony off-ramp. At the top, I turned left and headed toward the mountains, scanning both sides of the four-lane road. My windshield wipers were thunking merrily, smearing a swipe of dirt back and forth across the glass. I passed a couple huddled under an umbrella. They were walking on my side of the road with their backs to me. I was looking for Leila on her own so I dismissed them at first. I could tell the two were young. It wasn't until I passed them, catching a second glimpse in my sideview mirror, that I identified Leila's cottony white-blond hair and her long, coltish legs. The boy at her side was tall and lean, toting a backpack with the straps arranged awkwardly across the shoulders of his black leather jacket. Both of them wore tight jeans and hiking boots, and their heads were bowed against the rain. I could have sworn the two were sharing a joint. I slowed and pulled in at the curb just ahead of them. In the sideview mirror, I saw Leila hesitate, then drop something on the ground and step on it. As they walked by my car, I leaned over and rolled down the window on the passenger side.

"Can I give you a ride?"

Leila leaned forward, looking across her companion. When she saw me, her expression registered a look of confusion that signaled recognition without context. She knew she knew me, but she didn't remember how. The kid with her leveled a gaze at me filled with hostility and disdain. I took in the smooth complexion, the rain-bedraggled lank brown hair, the plain white T-shirt visible under the open leather jacket. I was startled by the boobs, since I'd assumed the kid was a male. This had to be Paulie. I could see she was destined to be beautiful even though, at the moment, she was unkempt and had defiance written into every inch of her slender frame. She wasn't conventionally pretty, but she had a fierce, worldly air: big dark eyes, cheekbones sharpened by poor nutrition. A photographer with the right instincts could make a fortune from the image of belligerent sexuality she projected.

I focused on Leila. "Hi. I'm Kinsey Millhone. We met last Friday at the beach house. I just came from your mom's. She's worried about you. You should have let her know you were leaving school."

"I'm fine, but tell her thanks for her concern." Leila's tone was sarcastic. Her flippancy was intended to impress her friend, but the insolence was hard to sustain with rainwater dripping down her face. Two strands of hair were plastered to her cheek and the mascara on her lashes had turned to a watery ink.

"I think you should tell her yourself. She needs to know you're okay."