I took a breath to calm my nerves. This wasn’t me. I was cool and calculated, not some emotional basket case. At least, I had been before Tran had slithered into my life and left a trail of doubt and death.
“What aren’t you telling me, Aleisha?”
“Nothing. Stan’s fine. A bruised ego is all. But—”
“But, what?”
“The guy had a…gun.” Her voice cracked as she said the word. “There’s nothing Stan could have done. He’s just angry at himself for not protecting Emma.”
I understood. I would have been pissed as hell if Emma had been taken or harmed on my watch. Stan felt the same. It would have been a different story if the guy had tried to abduct her from the refuge. Stan kept a twelve-gauge pump action shotgun locked in a gun closet for emergencies. No violent husband, boyfriend, or pimp would have been able to take one of his charges from his home without a fight. But Emma had been taken in sleepy, privileged Bel Air.
“Where’s he now?”
“On his way to your restaurant. He wants you to come and talk to Emma’s neighbor. Says the kid ratted her out.”
A car honked below. Stan was standing in the street, straightening his back after having reached through his open window. He cupped his hand to his mouth. “Did Aleisha call you?”
I pointed at my ear. “Got her right here.”
Aleisha groaned at my shout.
“Sorry about that. Stan’s here.”
“I figured.”
“I’ll keep you informed.”
“Yes, please. And Lily—” Her voice hitched with emotion. “Give him a hug from me?” Stan was the love of her life. The idea of someone pointing a gun at him had unnerved her.
“Will do.” I tapped my Bluetooth to end the call and waved down at Stan. “Be down in ten.”
He flashed a thumbs up and got back into the car as I scrambled up to the roof. A gun pulled on Stan? Emma abducted? Ma’s list of chores would have to wait.
Chapter Eight
“That was quick,” Stan said, as I sank into the passenger seat, dropped my slim-profile cycling pack at my feet, and shut the door. His voice sounded stronger than he looked.
“So, uh…what happened?”
He shook his head and started the car.
I gave him a few blocks then tried again. “Look, whatever went down, it wasn’t your fault.”
He shook his head. “I had a simple job to do—drive Emma to her parents. That’s it. The worst I expected to happen was to have them slam the door in her face. It never occurred to me to worry about a kid.”
“What kid?”
“Her neighbor from across the street. Nice looking guy. Clean cut. White trousers, navy polo. The kind of kid who plays tennis and joins the debate team.”
I knew the type—except at my high school, they also led the Chinese Student Association and studied Cantonese on Saturdays.
“So, what happened?’
Stan shrugged. “I was waiting in the car when he comes up and asks about Emma. Said he hadn’t seen her recently and wondered if she was going to come back out so he could catch up with her. When I said she might be a while, he said, ‘Cool,’ and headed back into his own house.
“As he walked away, he took out his phone and made a call. Thirty minutes later, a Latino guy drives up in a muscle car, makes a U-turn, and parks in front of the kid’s house. I didn’t think anything of it because—why should I? Then the gates to Emma’s house swing open and out she comes looking kinda upset. I don’t think it went too well with her folks.
“Anyway, she was on her way to my car, when the guy gets out of his car and leans against the door, arms crossed, looking like God’s gift to women. She stopped and stared at him for a really long time. ‘You alright, Em?’ I asked. She just nodded. Well, I wasn’t having any of that. But when I got out of my car, the punk pulls a gun and points it in my face. A gun. In Bel Air.”
Stan shook his head and sighed. “I should have known something like this could happen. I should have been prepared.”
“How? By packing your shotgun in the back seat? Kind of illegal, not to mention dangerous.”
“No. I never would have done that. But I could have done something besides stand there and let him take her.” He hammered his fist on the steering wheel. “You would have known what to do. You would have been more aware.”
I placed a comforting hand on Stan’s arm. “Don’t beat yourself up. No one could have guessed this would happen, including me. And as for awareness?” I snorted. “Mine’s so muddled with suspicion I don’t know what I’m seeing anymore. I probably would have attacked the guy on sight.”
“See?”
“Except, with my luck, he would have turned out to be Emma’s uncle.”
We rode the rest of the way in silence, each lost in our own self-incriminations, until we hit Sunset Boulevard and followed its winding path to a residential street lined by trees. North Bentley Avenue led up a slight grade into a storybook neighborhood where the only vehicles parked on the street belonged to gardeners, plumbers, or maids.
“Emma grew up here?”
Stan nodded. “Not too shabby.”
He wasn’t kidding. The median price for these estates had to be ten or twelve million, easy.
“What did Mom and Pop do to afford all this?” I asked.
“Patty Hughes modeled in New York. Bill Hughes owns a car dealership.”
I nodded. Nothing unusual. Kids ran away from home for all sorts of reasons. Money didn’t guarantee they’d stay, and it didn’t guarantee they’d be found. Police and sheriff deputies would keep an eye out, sure, but they wouldn’t do much more than that. And if they located the runaway, they wouldn’t necessarily take them home. California had strong child protection laws. All a teenager had to do was request to be taken to a shelter and inquiries would begin. Bottom line? It wasn’t against the law to run away from home.
“What’s Emma’s story?”
Stan shrugged. “The usual, I guess—drugs, boys, bad choices.”
He pulled in front of a lovely estate with a long driveway and an iron gate. “That’s Emma’s house.” He pointed across the street. “That’s the kid’s.”
The kid lived in a modest two-story home with a big lawn, tall ironwood trees, and a two-ended driveway that curved in front. It was no where near as impressive as the estate owned by Emma’s parents, but it was still pretty dang sweet. Although, in this neighborhood, the difference between an un-gated eight-million-dollar house and a fifteen-mill estate was significant. Did the kid have it in for Emma?
“You said he acted like her friend?”
“Did when he spoke to me. But the coward was hiding in the house by the time she came out.”
I smiled. “Maybe I can coax him back into the open.” I exited the car and walked around to Stan’s open window. “Pull around to his side of the street and park behind that pickup. I’m going to pay our boy a visit.”