As he settled into the driver’s seat he reached for his phone, but before he could dial, Sasha blasted him out of his thoughts.
“So, I know you’re not a jerk, but are you still the guy looking for no-strings sex?”
Chapter 14
“What the…?” Ryan was literally gaping at her. Sasha couldn’t blame him. She had no idea what had made her say it.
Or at least that’s what she told herself.
“Sorry. That was inappropriate, given why we’re here, unprofessional.”
“Ya’ think?” he asked wryly.
“It’s just…why did you think that was aimed at you?”
For a moment, she didn’t think he was going to answer. And she couldn’t blame him for that, either. After all, they didn’t have the kind of relationship that entitled her to an answer to a question like that. And when they had, she hadn’t asked. She’d just gotten fed up and left.
He glanced at his phone, then dropped it back onto the console between them. She noticed on the display there was no signal for his service. It wasn’t until they were back out on the main road that he finally did answer her unexpected, uncalled-for question.
“Maybe because it’s what I told myself I wanted.”
“Told yourself?”
“When I was telling myself your dumping me was for the best.”
“I didn’t dump you,” she said. “I simply said it wasn’t working for me.”
“Not much different when you’re the dumpee.”
“Ryan—”
“So, did you find someone who could live up to your requirements?”
“You make me sound like I’ve got a checklist,” she said, stung.
“Don’t you? Oh, not a written one, but in your head?”
“Of course not,” she said. “I know what things are important to me, but it’s not a checklist.”
“I’ll bet they’re prioritized, though. ‘I can live with this but not this, and this has to be there but this not so much.’”
Sasha felt herself flush as he unwittingly hit upon nearly the very words she’d once used to explain to a girlfriend what she wanted in a man.
“Of course,” she said. “Everyone does that. Are you saying you don’t?”
“Sure,” he said easily. Too easily, she thought, and her guard went up. “I look for all the usual stuff. Great body, pretty face, y’know, all the arm-candy stuff. Don’t care much if she can talk well, or make sense when she does, as long as she gushes over me. And if her eyes are sexy enough, I don’t care if she really sees anything, except me. Oh, and it would help if she’d gaze up at me adoringly most of the time.”
By the time he was done Sasha was laughing out loud. She couldn’t help herself. She’d forgotten, truly forgotten, what a wickedly sharp sense of humor he had. And how often he’d made her laugh.
She’d lived without laughter for too long. She hadn’t realized until this moment that despite the seriousness of their task, she’d laughed more today than she had in a long time.
“Touché,” she said, giving him his due. “Nicely done. I—”
She broke off as Ryan’s cell rang; obviously they’d gotten within range of a tower.
“Rand,” he said as he glanced at the display. He pulled a headset she hadn’t seen before out of a shirt pocket and slipped it over his ear and pushed a button.
“Barton.” He listened for a moment, then said, “We haven’t either, although we may have to come back in the morning to check with some regulars.” Again a pause, then, “I’ll ask her. Yeah, we’re headed there now.”
When he disconnected, he glanced over at Sasha.
“He had as much luck as we did.”
She shrugged. “It’s early yet.” She looked at her watch, then out and around. “And then again, it’s not. It just seems that way. I’ve heard it stays light until late up here in the summer, but wow.”
“Rand says we can stay with them tonight.”
He said it baldly, without preamble, as if in a rush to get it out.
“Oh? I hope he asked his wife.”
“He said his wife assumed as much, when he told her we were here and why.” Then, in that explanation that seemed all-encompassing, he added, “She’s Redstone, too.”
“I look forward to meeting her,” Sasha said. It was a generic response, but in this case it was also true; she wanted to meet the woman who could put that look on Rand Singleton’s face.
Their second destination was a small combination coffee shop and café, tucked in the middle of a bland-looking strip mall, but that was, according to the posts SadBreeze made on Trish’s page, a haven for local teens.
“If you aren’t into hiking or kayaking or any of the other outdoor crap everybody does around here, it’s the only place to go,” he’d written. “Live music on Tuesdays, and the owners are actually almost cool.”
This wasn’t Tuesday, but that didn’t seem to have slowed things much; the place was bustling. If they were markedly busier on music nights, Sasha thought as they went in, the place must be packed.
She noted the small, almost makeshift bandstand in one corner of the long, narrow room. So did Ryan.
“Good equipment,” he said. “Even a small soundboard.”
She wasn’t sure what that meant, but gathered it was a mark of a more professional operation than this looked. “Expensive?” she asked.
“Not cheap,” he answered, “but at the lower end of those things.”
She lifted a brow at him. “Do you know this just because it’s electronic and you know all?”
She was careful to keep her tone merely curious, and he responded that way. “I used to play in a band, some. Before I realized my keyboard talents should be restricted to the ones with letters on them.”
She laughed. He could really be quite charming, she thought. And he did have that great sense of humor.
And he was still the cutest thing walking, let’s not forget that, she told herself wryly.
The owners were a couple barely older than Sasha and Ryan, and they ran the place by themselves, with just a staff of two baristas for the coffee menu and two cooks for the surprisingly varied menu of sandwiches, soups and breakfast staples. They opened, the sign in the doorway had said, at 6:00 a.m., to cater to the commuter crowd on their way to the ferry to head into Seattle.
Sasha ordered a latte, but Ryan passed in favor of dragging out the photos.
The man, wearing a T-shirt from a small town in Alaska and with sandy hair long in the back and already thinning noticeably in front, shook his head.
“Check with Sandy. She pays more attention to faces than I do,” he said.
At the sound of her name the woman, a tiny, energetic-looking brunette, came over, her hair held up in a ponytail by a whimsical scrunchie adorned with a plastic killer whale. She looked at Trish’s image and shook her head as her husband had.
“He looks vaguely familiar,” she said, pointing to the picture they’d pulled from the Web page. “But I may have just seen him around if he hangs out at Point-No-Point.”
Sasha blinked. “Point what?”
She laughed. “The lighthouse. Out in Hansville.”
“Point…No-Point?”
“Yeah. Short version, old-time sailors, looking for the entrance to the sound from the strait, thought they’d found the point they’d heard of, but it was only a big sandbar.”
“Point, oops, no point,” Ryan said.
The woman grinned. “Exactly. It’s a great place. Views of Mt. Baker and Mt. Rainier, not a lot of places right here where you can get both mountains so clear.”
When they’d finished showing the photos, with the owner’s permission, to the other patrons, and netted the same results, they went back to the car.
Ryan glanced at his watch, then at the sky, which was finally showing signs that evening might get here eventually. “She said it’s not that far to that lighthouse.”
“You want to go look?”
“I�
�m not sure what good it would do.”
“That’s how this works,” Sasha said. “No stone unturned, and all that.”
The lighthouse was a bit farther out than they’d expected, requiring a long roll down a main road, then a U-turn that doubled them back the way they’d come, but on the other side of the rise and right along the water. The road narrowed as it veered left, past a small, flat camping area and down to the point itself and its lovely, sandy beach. There were three cars already parked there, apparently attached to the fishermen—and one woman—busily about their task. Ryan pulled into an empty slot, and they got out.
The lighthouse itself was small, the keeper’s quarters slightly larger. It looked shuttered and quiet, despite the chairs on the front porch. Sasha suggested they head for the lighthouse first, and Ryan simply nodded and followed.
“It’s beautiful here,” she said as they went.
“Windy,” Ryan noted. “Do you think maybe this is that ‘special place’ he kept mooning about?”
“Maybe,” Sasha said. “It would impress me, a guy who said this was his favorite place.”
He blinked. “It would?”
“More than a mall or the local skateboard park.”
“Guys only hang at malls because girls do.”
“And don’t those girls know it. Sometimes that’s the first taste of female power they get, when they realize the boys are doing something they hate just to be around them.”
Ryan gave her a startled glance, then a grin. “Should you be giving up the secrets of the sisterhood to me like that?”
“I wouldn’t,” she said solemnly, “if I thought you’d misuse them.”
The grin slowly faded, and she knew he’d gotten her intention; an acknowledgment that he indeed wasn’t a careless, thoughtless kid anymore.
“Thanks,” he finally said.
“Sorry for the late realization,” she answered.
It was an awkward moment, and when an older woman came out, dressed in khaki pants and a shirt with a logo for the United States Lighthouse Society above a name tag that said “Marty,” Sasha welcomed the interruption.
“I’m sorry, did you want to see the light? Official tours are only on weekends, but I’d be happy to—”
“No, thank you,” Sasha said with a smile that ameliorated the interruption. “But it is a lovely spot.”
“We like it. The society moved here from a high-rise in San Francisco, and I can’t tell you how exciting it is to be headquartered at an actual light.”
“It’s quite romantic, isn’t it?” Sasha asked.
“Oh, yes,” the woman said. She gestured at the light keeper’s house. “The other half of the duplex is available as a rental, if you two are interested.”
Sasha managed not to blush, but it was a near thing. “Are you here regularly?” she asked.
“Almost every morning.” She smiled. “My husband and I, we’re quite passionate about preserving this bit of history.”
Sasha got out the picture and showed it to the woman. “Do you know this boy?”
The woman slipped the reading glasses that were on a keeper around her neck up to her eyes. “No, I’m afraid not. Obviously the photo was taken right at the tip of the point, but I don’t recognize him, no.”
“We think he may be here regularly.”
“It’s possible he might come before or after my hours,” the woman said. “Lots of folks do. To some it’s restful, to some exciting, to some—” Sasha caught the glance at Ryan then “—romantic, as you said.”
If Ryan caught the subtle suggestion in the woman’s tone and look, he didn’t react. But the romantic reference did make him bring out Trish’s photo. “How about her?”
The woman looked. Looked again. And frowned.
“You’re looking for this girl?”
He nodded. He leaned in slightly, and Sasha knew he hadn’t missed the woman’s sudden shift in demeanor. “My sister. Trish. She’s been missing for a week.”
The woman sucked in a breath. “Oh, no.”
“What?” Ryan said urgently.
“I believe I saw her here. A few days ago.”
“Was she alone?” Sasha asked.
“No,” the woman said, glancing at the photo Sasha still held. “But she wasn’t with that boy, either. She was with her father.”
Ryan went very still.
“They were arguing,” the woman went on. “So loudly the other people on the beach were all turning and looking. Did she run away after that?”
“What were they arguing about?” Ryan was fairly vibrating with the intensity of the question.
“I couldn’t hear it all, and I didn’t want to eavesdrop on a family affair, so I went back inside.”
“What did he look like, this man?” Sasha asked.
The woman gave Ryan a curious glance. “But if she’s your sister—”
“Please, Marty. What did he look like?”
The woman looked at them both, her troubled expression deepening. “Oh, dear. It wasn’t her father, was it? I thought it was just the typical teenage girl arguing with a parent, but when he yanked her toward the car so hard I wondered—”
She stopped herself in the moment before Sasha sensed Ryan was going to explode, and quickly answered the question.
“He looked mid-fifties. A bit stocky. His hair was dark, but shaved short. He looked very angry. His eyes…”
Sasha didn’t have to look at Ryan for his reaction.
The woman had just described perfectly the evil-eyed man in the photos on that hideous Web site.
Trish wasn’t just in trouble, she was in danger.
Chapter 15
“There,” Sasha said, pointing at the small, carved wooden sign that said Redstone Northwest.
Ryan nodded and pulled in, wondering where the heck the place was; this winding drive curved through trees that looked as if they’d been here forever, undisturbed. He was beyond antsy; ever since they’d talked to the woman at the lighthouse he’d been on the edge of panic. Sasha had asked more questions after Marty had told them about the man, but he’d been barely able to think.
Finally they reached a cluster of buildings, smaller than he’d expected, and each clad in identical wood siding and painted in the Redstone scheme of slate gray and red. The overall impression was more of a lodge than business, and certainly not a manufacturing business. He knew they produced Ian’s revolutionary new insulin pumps here, and that the demand for them was massive, so he’d expected something more…massive. Leave it to Redstone to do the unexpected. But he had to admit the buildings blended with the surroundings, the trees masking the actual size of the complex, and with none of the individual buildings so huge they overpowered the site.
He spotted Rand leaning against a blue coupe, cell phone to his ear, and pulled to a halt beside him. As they got out of the Redstone vehicle, Rand held up a finger to indicate he’d be done in a moment. Then he snapped the phone closed.
“We should have a list of possible cars soon,” he said. “St. John is nothing if not efficient.”
Ryan nodded; the mysterious man seemed to work miracles.
“There seem to be a lot of those hybrids up here,” Sasha said. “If Marty was right about that being the car he was driving, it could be hard to narrow down.”
“But better than starting with every car in the county,” Rand said. “And better than if they were on the other side, in Seattle.”
“I’m surprised he isn’t,” Sasha said. “I’d think it would be easier to hide among more people.”
“More privacy over here, maybe.” Rand shrugged. “Whatever, we’ll find him. And Trish,” he said, shifting his gaze to Ryan.
“There has to be something we can do, now,” Ryan said. “I can’t just wait until morning, not when she’s out there with this perv.”
“There is,” Sasha said. “We can think. Go over things again. We have a tiny bit more information that we didn’t have before.”
“T
hat’s not what I meant,” Ryan muttered.
“I know. You want an enemy to confront. But we don’t have that yet.”
That was exactly what he wanted, but he hadn’t expected her to understand that.
“Follow me back to the house,” Rand said. “You’re going to need food and rest before anything else. You won’t do Trish any good if you’re stumbling around exhausted and too hungry to focus.”
Reluctantly, Ryan had to admit he was right. It had been a long and exhausting day. He pulled the driver’s door open again, glancing back the way they’d come.
“That’s quite a driveway,” he said.
Rand nodded. “As usual, Josh wanted the least obtrusive complex they could build. It makes bringing bigger supply trucks in and out a challenge, but Josh’s view is that if the driver can’t do it, he shouldn’t be driving for Redstone, and if he won’t do it, he doesn’t understand Redstone.”
Sasha smiled, but Ryan merely nodded. Redstone wasn’t one of the best places to work just because it paid well and the bennies were good. Josh expected, and got, the best from his people. His motto of “Hire the best and then get out of their way” had served him well for a long time now.
“Do you work from here?” Sasha asked.
“More from home,” Rand said. “They have their own security guy, Brian Fisher. He’s a little young yet, but he’s coming on, and they don’t need me. So I handle anything else that comes up here in the northwest, Redstone Canada, Alaska and most of our Pacific Rim stuff.”
“Sounds exciting.”
“Sometimes. But we prefer boring.” He pulled open the driver’s door on the blue coupe. “Follow me. We should make it before it’s too dark to see.”
It was a twenty-minute drive, but it seemed longer to Ryan. He told himself it was the lack of landmarks; he was used to a gas station on every corner and a strip mall or restaurant every three blocks. Here there were only trees, and more unsettling were the countless side roads with no signage at all, just posts with numbers; if you belonged there, you knew, he guessed.
His Personal Mission Page 13