Page 31 of Bachelor Cop Finally Caught? (Hot off the Press! 2)

“And you believe him?”

Though Dan had asked the question, Opal kept her eyes on Lindsey when she answered. “Merle wouldn’t lie to me about that, even if he’d been drinking. Even if Eddie asked him to. Merle knows I worry about my boy. He wouldn’t deliberately let me suffer this way.”

It was beginning to annoy Dan that the woman was obviously ignoring him, but he kept his voice cordial when he asked, “What about Eddie’s friends? He’s hidden out with them before.”

Opal’s sullen look deepened at the reminder that this wasn’t the first time she’d called Dan to report her son missing. “I called every one of them,” she said defiantly. “I made it real clear that I’d be calling you and that you wouldn’t be pleased if you found out they were helping him waste your time.”

That threat should have accomplished some results, Dan mused. He’d had dealings with most of Eddie’s friends in the past and they were well aware that he expected full cooperation when it came to his job. Even though Eddie was eighteen and could well be hiding out for reasons of his own, Opal Stamps was filing an official missing person report, and Dan would take it very seriously. The taxpayers would expect nothing less from him. “His friends still deny any knowledge of his whereabouts?”

Opal nodded. “In fact, they all said he’s been acting strangely toward them lately. Avoiding them. Holding them at a distance.”

Dan couldn’t have explained why Eddie’s disappearance suddenly took on a new significance to him. Why hadn’t he considered this before? Polly had found that notebook Friday, had received a strange phone call about it Saturday, and Eddie Stamps had disappeared sometime Monday. What were the odds that there was some connection between Eddie and the notebook?

He really had to stop letting himself get so distracted from his job, he thought with a sideways glance at Lindsey, who was still quietly making notes.

“Mrs. Stamps, do you mind if I take a look in Eddie’s room?”

She looked a bit startled by his request. “You think you’ll find a clue about what happened to him?”

“I have to start som

ewhere. You’re welcome to stay with me while I look around, of course.”

Twisting her fingers in her lap, Opal looked at Lindsey, as if silently seeking advice.

Lindsey gave the older woman a bracing smile. “It’s the logical place for Chief Meadows to start. Eddie could have left some hint of where he was going.”

“I’ve looked through everything,” Opal confessed. “I couldn’t find nothing helpful. But y’all are welcome to look around if you think it will help.”

“Are any of Eddie’s things missing?” Dan asked as he and Lindsey followed Opal through the small house.

Without looking back at him, Opal replied, “Not that I could tell. But he keeps clothes and stuff at his dad’s house, too.”

Eddie’s room was tucked into the back corner of the house, behind a door that was decorated with a battered stop sign. Dan sighed when he saw it, wondering why so many teenagers seemed to believe that highway signs were free for their decorating purposes. The room itself was surprisingly tidy, in contrast to the rest of the house, a bit Spartan but almost obsessively neat. “Did you clean this room when you searched for clues?” he asked Opal.

“Oh, no. Eddie cleans his own room. He’s always been kind of a neat freak. Weird for a teenage boy, huh?”

“Mmm.” Dan stepped over to a small, cheaply constructed desk pushed against one wall. It held an inexpensive desktop computer, a stack of textbooks that looked as if they’d rarely been opened, a couple of yellow wooden pencils and an empty ashtray. “Eddie’s a smoker?”

Opal scowled. “I blame his father for that. Merle smokes three packs a day.”

“Does your son keep a journal or a diary?”

“A diary? Eddie?” She shook her head, seemingly bemused by the question. “No way.”

That didn’t sound promising. Nearly every page of the notebook Polly had found had been filled. Wouldn’t Opal have known if the boy spent that much time writing? “What does Eddie do in his spare time?”

She shrugged. “Sits behind that computer a lot, playing games and—what do you call it?—swimming the Internet?”

“Surfing,” Lindsey murmured.

“That’s it. Eddie spends most of his time in this room with the door closed. I knew it wasn’t good for him, but at least I knew where he was, you know?”

So Eddie could have been in here writing in that notebook without Opal realizing it. Dan glanced at the closed drawers of the desk. “Do you have a sample of your son’s handwriting?”

“Probably in one of them drawers. You’re welcome to look and see. Eddie won’t like us going through his stuff, but I can’t worry about that now. I need to find out where he is and make sure he’s all right.”

Lindsey stepped discreetly out of the way as Dan opened the top drawer of the desk. The first thing he saw was a stack of local newspapers, the Evening Star. Glancing through them, he noticed that each edition featured a headline about the recent fires. His interest level immediately rose again.

---