Page 116 of The Daddy P.I. Casefiles: The Second Collection
“I think we’ve got her, don’t you? I still want to try to track down the kid who’s birthday it was, but I think we’ve got her.”
“We’ve got her, Maxie, come home.”
“Give me three more days. See if I can track down this Pete Clarke.” That still gets me back a week before my bumble’s gala. Plenty of time to polish up my dance moves.
“Three days,” Logan agrees. “No more. I fucking hate how exposed you are.”
“No sign of a tail today,” De Leon grunts, loudly enough for Logan to hear him.
“Put me on speaker for a tick, okay?” Logan asks.
I set the phone on the nightstand between the beds where we’re eating and tap on the speaker. De Leon mutes the news program he was pretending to watch.
“Myles, in your professional opinion, is Max safe staying another three days?” Logan asks.
De Leon grunts.
We both wait him out.
“He’s as safe as I can make him,” De Leon finally says. “I think we shook them off in Tiverton. There are a lotta little b-and-bs and small holiday lets between here and there. I made reservations all the fuck over the place, under all sorts of names. It’ll take them a while to work their way here, particularly if they’re checking each place visually. Would I rather leave tomorrow? Yeah. But I think we’re okay here for seventy-two hours.”
“Thank you, Myles,” Logan says. “I appreciate everything you’ve done.”
De Leon grunts again and goes back to his chips.
I pick up the phone and tap off the speaker, grimacing at the greasy fingerprint that leaves behind. Fucking fried everything in this country.
“Any questions I should’ve asked and didn’t?” I ask as I tuck the phone into my neck.
“I’ll listen to it again and let you know. Nothing that immediately jumped out at me. Amazing job, Max. I know you like to stay in the background, but you have a real gift for interviews, mate.”
“No way. I’m straight back to the backroom after this. I barely finished that interview with Fred Evans without choking up. Fuck, she’s done a number on that guy.”
Logan sighs. “It was me he saw with her.”
“Yeah, I know. His problems are not on you, man.”
“I know that. He just looked ... fucking awful, Maxie.”
I chew my lips, still feeling as though I kicked the man when he was down. “He’s got two more months on one of those electronic anklet things for breaching a restraining order Miranda got on him. I told him once he gets it off to take the first flight to Spain and find his daughter. Get free of Miranda and her toxicity. If he does or not, that’s his choice. But there’s something out there for him. He doesn’t have to rot away in that hole, pining away for her. That’s some fucking Wuthering Heights shit he was selling himself. Nothing to do with you, Lo.”
“Yeah.” Logan takes a deep breath and lets it out, awhooshin my ear. “Stay safe, Maxie. Promise me if you haven’t found birthday boy by tea-time day after tomorrow you’re on De Leon’s plane.”
“Promise. I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to be. This whole country is a mold factory. My laptop’s mildewing.”
Logan laughs. “See you soon, mate.”
He hangs up so I don’t have to. I let the phone slither down onto the bed beside me.
De Leon cracks open a can of diet cola and offers it to me.
“Kind of defeats the purpose,” I say, taking the soda. “Why are you getting diet coke if you’re eating fish and potatoes that have been fried in freaking lard?”
“I like the taste,” De Leon answers. “How do you find someone named Peter Clarke in a country where every other bugger is named Peter or Clarke?”
Telling him the truth—now that I have access to the NHS database, the easiest way to find the right Peter Clarke is through his medical records—would land me in jail for a long time if De Leon decided to whisper it in the wrong ear. Instead, I shrug. “Known associates, just like the cops. No reason to reinvent the wheel.”
“D’you know you take a breath on every eighth word when you’re telling the truth and every fifth word when you lie?” De Leon asks.
