A MAN TO TRUST

by Justine Davis

  We can but hope, Cruz thought, then turned as the fax machine beeped and came on, dragging him out of his reflections. Fifteen minutes to spare, he thought, grabbing the pages as they were spit out. Long, he noted. Simple runaway reports were usually two to three pages. But then, he'd suspected there wasn't anything simple about this one all along.

  Going the long way around to avoid Robards, he went back to Gage's desk, scanning the pages as he walked corridors that were as familiar to him as those of his house.

  "Got it?" Gage asked, putting down the case he'd been reading.

  Cruz nodded. "Thanks for pushing them."

  "No problem. Anything more there?"

  Cruz's mouth twisted. "Yeah. And I'm afraid it's even worse than we thought."

  "Worse?"

  "She's pregnant. Report says when the parents found out, there was a big fight."

  "That's when she took off?"

  "That night. Parents didn't find out until the next morning she was gone. When they realized she'd packed a bag this time, they called the sheriff."

  Gage sighed, the sigh of a cop who's seen this so often it only makes him wearier.

  "And that isn't all of it." Cruz gestured with the last page. "According to the supplemental report, she ripped her folks off when she left. Took some of her mother's jewelry and a camera. She must have sold the stuff for traveling money."

  And that, no doubt, explained her reaction to him, Cruz thought; she knew she'd done something criminal, something that could get her in real trouble.

  "So she's really on the run."

  "Yeah. And her boyfriend, the baby's father, is a real prize. Has a long record, theft, drugs, including violent offenses. Usually carries a knife, and it says he threatened to kill her because he doesn't believe the kid's his."

  Gage winced. "Guess that answers the at-risk question."

  "Yeah," Cruz said glumly. Then, with a sideways look at Gage, he added, "It also makes this … trickier."

  He knew Gage knew what he meant; with an at-risk missing juvenile, it wasn't easy to keep things off the record. There had been too much public outcry over too many dead kids, resulting in the creation of the at-risk category, which required more stringent action. It also meant that as soon as the detective on Melissa's case found out that a copy of the report had been requested, Gage would be getting a call.

  "I'll stall as long as I can," Gage said. "Tell 'em it's just a possible sighting and I'm having witness trouble or something."

  "Thanks," Cruz said. "Do what you can without getting yourself in a jam."

  "Been there before and survived," Gage said.

  "Haven't we all?" Cruz muttered in assent.

  "Leave me a copy of the report, why don't you? Maybe I can turn something. At least I can check the pawnshops, in case she tried to dump the camera and jewelry there."

  Cruz eyed the stacks on the man's desk. "You've got enough to do. And this is…"

  "Personal? I figured that. Leave it anyway. I'll find some time. And you never know."

  Cruz studied Gage for a moment. In the beginning, he'd been thrown off by the pretty face, and perhaps, Cruz admitted ruefully, the blond California look. But now, looking at those tired eyes, he thought of the sense he'd always had that Gage was driven beyond a mere dedication to the job, beyond even a sincere dedication to what justice could be found in a system that sometimes seemed painfully distant from that goal. And what the people who'd worked with him said came back to him again.

  The man never stops. I don't know what he runs on.

  "Don't run the well dry, my friend," he said softly.

  Gage gave him a level look, and Cruz knew he wasn't the first to have said something like that to him.

  "When it starts out dry, you don't know the difference," Gage said, and his voice was so bleak it made a shiver creep up Cruz's spine.

  He was still thinking about it as he went back out to his truck. He didn't know much about Gage personally, just that he was one of so many other cops who had lost a marriage to the job, and that he didn't spend much time hanging out with the guys. Mainly because he was always working, in one way or another. Cruz had seen more than one cop on the edge in the past nine years; he hoped Gage wasn't another one.

  But he had no doubt Gage would do just what he'd said. If there was anything more to be found, he would find it. And he would do his best to stall any curious questioning from Ventura, at least for a while. The keep-it-vague ploy would work at first, but not for long, Cruz knew. He was going to have to move fast.

  The inquiry he'd made out of simple curiosity was going to have an effect he hadn't counted on, and he doubted Kelsey was going to like it much. Nor did he like the idea of Kelsey being somehow dragged into an active investigation because of something he'd done. Something she'd asked him not to do.

  He started the truck and pulled out of the lot, lifting a hand automatically to acknowledge the marked unit that was coming in as he was leaving. When he saw that the driver was Quisto Romero, the gesture became a genuine wave; he'd come to like the former member of the Marina del Mar elite. Not only had he taken his return to street cop status with good grace, despite his years of detective experience, he'd worked hard since his transfer from the upscale department to rougher, tougher Trinity West, hard enough to impress everyone with his sincerity and how quickly he was picking up the nuances of his new territory. Including Chief de los Reyes, who would no doubt be keeping Romero's record in mind when the next detective slot opened up. And everybody already knew and respected his wife, Caitlin, who ran the Neutral Zone club for street kids. Quisto was well on his way to full acceptance.

  The thought of the gutsy redhead who had taken one of the smoothest ladies' men in the state out of circulation brought his thoughts full circle, back to another woman with a touch of fire in her hair. A woman who was not going to be happy with him for setting wheels in motion that, judging from what she'd said, she was certain would grind a scared girl to bits without thought or compunction. That it had been inadvertent would not, Cruz guessed, cut much ice with Kelsey.

  Nothing would, except finding Melissa. Fast. And to do that, he was going to have to pry everything he could out of the reluctant Kelsey. Which meant he had to find her first.

  Tossing aside one of Frisbee's ubiquitous chew bones, he picked up the cell phone he'd bought mainly so that Sam could always reach him. He couldn't remember the number for the inn, so he threw fiscal caution to the wind and had information put him through.

  He hadn't expected her to be there; he remembered what she'd said, that he was her only guest until the first, a good week and a half away. The answering machine that picked up confirmed his expectation, and he hung up without leaving a message, mainly because he had no idea what to say.

  As he drove back to the large converted machine shop that had become the karate school, he wondered why the heck he was feeling so guilty. He was a cop, Melissa was a runaway—and, as he now knew, in more trouble than just that. He'd only done some checking; it wasn't his fault Kelsey had been hiding more than he realized.

  If she even knew, he thought as he pulled into the small parking area.

  Did she know the girl had stolen from her parents? He couldn't guess. But she had to know the girl was pregnant; it would explain why she was so desperate to find her that she'd run herself to near exhaustion searching. But what was her connection to the girl? He didn't believe that cousin ruse for an instant; even Kelsey had given it up before really trying to convince him.

  And then Sam was there, chattering happily about her lesson, and he turned his attention to her as she clambered into the car, tossing her small gym bag in the back seat. And as always when he heard of a story like Melissa's, he made a quiet vow to himself that his little girl would never feel as if she had to run away rather than face him, no matter what happened.

  "Who'd you call?" the observant child asked when she noticed the phone was turned on.

  "I … er, I was trying to call th
e Oak Tree Inn."

  "That place you go? Isn't that where Kelsey lives?"

  So, they'd gotten that far in their chatting this morning, Cruz thought as he pulled out into traffic. "Yes."

  "But she isn't there."

  "I know."

  "Then why did you call?"

  Sometimes, Cruz thought, her logic was inescapable. "Just in case she went home."

  "But she went to the beach."

  He blinked, and as they came to a stop at a light, he turned to look at his daughter. "She what?"

  "She went to the beach," Sam repeated in the tolerant tone she used to explain something her slower companions didn't quite understand. All too often, Cruz felt he was permanently relegated to that category; her quick, agile mind was unmistakable.

  "She told you that?"

  Sam nodded. "She said she had to go look for a friend of hers, and she thought she was at the beach."

  Bless his brilliant child. "Thanks, Sam."

  "The light's green, Dad," she pointed out patiently.

  With a rueful smile, he turned his eyes back to the road and his driving.

  It made sense, he thought. The local beaches, with their warm temperatures and big crowds, were a haven for runaways. The officers who patrolled them joked about how you could live just on the food beachgoers left behind. With public rest rooms and showers, you could get by nicely, if you were careful not to get caught out at night.

  The question was, would Kelsey—or rather, would Kelsey guess that Melissa would—head for the Marina del Mar hot spots frequented by lots of kids, or to the state beach farther south, which was more of a family gathering place?

  If he was a runaway, dodging the police, he would head for the family beach, simply because there were fewer problems and therefore less police presence. But he didn't know if Melissa was thinking that clearly. She might gravitate toward the place with kids like her. But if she did, she might later realize she would be better off somewhere else. So he would just have to look everywhere.

  He glanced at the little girl beside him. "How about a hot dog at the beach for lunch, squirt?"

  Sam looked at him consideringly, that too-wise, too-adult expression in her eyes. It worried him, that look, because he didn't know if it was just that she was so very bright, or what had happened in their lives, that had put it there.

  "So you can look for Kelsey?" she asked.

  Cruz swallowed, feeling oddly nervous. "What makes you ask that?"

  "Something's wrong. You want to help, and she doesn't want you to."

  She'd summed it up so succinctly that he couldn't help gaping at her. "How'd you figure that out?"

  "Kelsey said this morning that she was worried about her friend. I told her you could help, but she said that wouldn't work. That's what you were arguing about last night, wasn't it?"

  She should have my job, Cruz thought. He reached out and tweaked her nose. "Are you sure you're only ten?"

  "Oh, Dad," she groaned at the oft-heard jest. "I liked Kelsey. She didn't call me 'honey' or something else stupid like some grown-ups do when they don't even know me. She didn't talk to me like I was a little kid."

  "You had … quite a talk, then?"

  "She was neat. She even liked Slither."

  And that put her a few points up on me, Cruz thought glumly.

  "How about that hot dog?" he asked at last.

  "Can I have a corn dog instead?"

  "If that's what you want."

  "And a milk shake, too? Chocolate?"

  "If you can stand it," Cruz said, the sound of the combination making him feel a bit less hungry himself.

  "Okay," Sam said agreeably.

  A half hour later, when he was helping Sam wipe up the stream of ketchup she'd dripped on her shirt, he found himself smiling in near relief at the mess. She really was just a kid, it just seemed sometimes that she was old beyond her years. They'd told him since she started school that she was very bright, warned him that she would probably have to go into accelerated classes or she would be so bored she would get into trouble, but so far her animals, and learning all she could about them, had kept her occupied. He was glad. Cops' kids had it rough enough, he didn't want her singled out for other reasons any sooner than she had to be.

  He soon discovered, when he checked with the lifeguards on duty at the crowded family beach, that Kelsey had already been here.

  "Green-eyed redhead? Oh, yeah, I remember her," one of them said with a smile of pure male interest. "I hadn't seen the kid she was looking for, though." The tanned face behind the mirrored sunglasses shifted into a frown. "She didn't mention the police were looking for her, though."

  "I … don't think she knows." Yet, he added silently, ruefully.

  "She checked the beach out pretty good, was here for a couple hours, at least. She talked to a lot of people."

  And you watched her every step of the way, didn't you? Cruz thought, then gave a wry inward smile at his own unexpectedly possessive reaction.

  "I suggested she should check out the Strand, because that's where most of the kids hang out," the young man said.

  Cruz nodded and thanked him, barely managing to keep himself from asking what else the man had suggested.

  It only took them ten minutes to make the drive, but another fifteen to find a place to park amid the summer crowds. They made their way to the wide sidewalk that wound its way along the beach. On this sunny summer day, it was full of pedestrians and, in the marked lane, bike riders, enjoying one of the great perks of living in California.

  "Y'know," Sam went on, her voice as sunny as the day, "I could probably help you look better if I was up higher."

  Cruz gave her a look of mock suspicion. "Is that a tricky way to get out of walking?"

  "You said they teach you to always take the higher ground if you can."

  "Oh, great," Cruz teased. "My kid quoting tactics at me."

  But he grabbed her arms and swung her up, and with a delighted giggle Sam settled on his shoulders in her accustomed place. Although she was small for her age, she was still getting so big that soon he wouldn't able to do this. And soon, he thought sadly, she wouldn't want him to. She would be caught up in that teenage-girl thing, and he would have to work twice as hard to keep some kind of solid place in her life. But he would do it. He would do whatever it took. Sam had been deprived of too much in her life. She'd done without a mother all these years, so her father was going to do his damnedest to make up for that.

  He only prayed it would be enough.

  He listened to her chatter away as he walked toward the pier where most of the kids who frequented the area hung out, coughing slightly as a busload of tourists passed, enveloping them in diesel fumes. If this didn't work, he thought, he would put in a call to Quisto and ask him if there was anyplace else in this live-star town where runaways congregated.

  Sam was in the midst of recounting a boating escapade from camp, something about canoes and balancing, when she interrupted herself with an excited shout.

  "There she is!"

  Cruz looked in the direction the girl was pointing, but he couldn't see past the group of tourists who were pouring out of the bus that had just parked in the lot at the base of the pier.

  "Are you sure?" he asked.

  "Of course, Dad." He was back in that slightly slow category, Cruz thought, smothering a grin. "I can see her hair," Sam explained kindly.

  I'll just bet you can, Cruz thought, remembering how Kelsey's hair lit up in the sunlight, turning from a rich auburn to pure fire.

  "Okay, okay. Just tell me which way to go."

  "Go straight. She's by the ice cream stand."

  He threaded his way through the mass of people, who all seemed to have cameras and be from someplace where they only sold black socks. And then a tall, wide man in a garish flowered shirt stepped aside, and he saw her. As with Sam, the burnished sweep of hair caught his eye first, then the way she held her head, as if intently interested in whatever the teenage b
oy she was speaking to was saying.

  He didn't find it odd that it was such a thing that made him certain it was her; he'd been thinking enough about her of late to have just about every move she made committed to memory. He didn't find it particularly comforting, either, that even her tiniest habits were so engraved in his mind.

  She was wearing the same faded jeans she'd had on last night, but somewhere along the way she'd changed from the sweater she'd had on to a more-appropriate-for-the-weather sleeveless blouse, crisp white and knotted at her waist. No, there was no way anyone would ever mistake her for a boy, even at a distance, Cruz thought. No skeletal thinness for her, only a collection of curves that would make any man look twice. This was the kind of woman you wanted to come home to, the kind you wanted to snuggle up to on a cold night…

  And you'd better get your mind back to business, he told himself in the instant before Sam called out to Kelsey.

  He hadn't really planned what he would do when he found her. It was only when she looked up and saw him, when she gave a sudden start and he saw the swift calculations flitting through her mind as if they were written across her expressive face, that he realized there was every chance she would take off to avoid him.

  Then Sam called her name again. He saw Kelsey look at the little girl, saw her draw a deep breath and let it out slowly. And he saw her change her mind and decide not to dodge him after all.

  He tried to pretend it didn't sting that she'd only decided to stay because of Sam.

  * * *

  Chapter 10

  « ^ »

  "You did what?"

  Kelsey stared as he told her again what he'd done.

  "I knew you'd do something like that," Kelsey said bitterly. "I just knew it."

  "Kelsey, listen—"

  "To what? You've stirred up a hornet's nest, and Melissa's caught in the middle."

  She saw his jaw tighten, and then he reached up and lifted Samantha from his shoulders and put her down. He dug a couple of wadded-up bills out of his pocket and handed them to her. "Why don't you go get us some ice cream, squirt?"