“Why wouldn’t you?”
His laugh was low and humorless. “So many reasons. Mostly, I don’t trust easily, and yet despite everything I find myself wanting to trust you. It’s a bit unsettling.”
“Despite everything?”
He reached over and stroked my cheek, effectively deflecting the question. “It’s possible she left a forwarding address when she moved. She would have been paid in full, so we didn’t have to mail a check. But we try to get addresses for tax purposes. In this kind of business we rarely have a current one, but I can check for you.”
“I’d appreciate it,” I said as he adjusted his slacks, then stood and fastened his belt.
As he walked to the filing cabinet, I retrieved my panties and put them on, then followed him. He opened the D-F cabinet, which made me smile, then pulled out a file on Amy Dawson.
He flipped it open, scanned it, then handed it to me.
There wasn’t much. In addition to the usual things like phone number and social security number, the employee form listed Candy’s address in Indiana as her permanent address and a local address that had been crossed out with red pen. In the margin, someone had written, “Vegas” along with a date two weeks prior.
I looked at Tyler. “Guess you were right.”
“But you’re still not satisfied.”
“She’s not here. All that means is I need to keep looking. I need an address,” I continued. “I’ll do an Internet search on Amy Dawsons in the Vegas area and start looking there, but those are going to primarily be Amy Dawsons with traditional phone service, and my Amy wouldn’t bother with anything but her cell phone.”
“Which she isn’t answering.”
“Thus the worry,” I agreed. “She could have lost it. Run out of money to pay for it. Have run off to Mexico with a hot guy and is ignoring it. But …” I trailed off with a shrug.
“Have you talked to her old landlord?”
“No,” I admitted. “Amy is a text and email kind of girl. She never got around to sending her friends an actual mailing address.” I sighed. “And tracking her isn’t easy. She didn’t subscribe to magazines, doesn’t have health insurance. She doesn’t own a car.”
“Easy for a girl like that to fall off the grid.”
“Very,” I said. I started to once again ask for a job at Destiny—I wanted to get to know the girls who had been Amy’s friends—but Tyler spoke first.
“Well, come on, then,” he said. “Let’s go take a look at her old apartment.”
Chapter Seven
Her apartment was just a few blocks away, and Red—who must have picked Tyler up three seconds after he dropped me off—drove us there.
It was just past eleven at night now, but that didn’t give Tyler pause. The apartment was a crappy converted house, in which the original foyer had been converted to a lobby of sorts. At the end of the foyer, a new wall had been installed, and beside the single door was a small, yellow buzzer beside a speaker.
Tyler push the button. Waited. Pushed it again.
“What the fucking hell,” crackled a voice. “It’s the fucking middle of the fucking night.”
“Has Amy Dawson’s room been rented?”
“You interested?” The voice was now much more conciliatory.
“Possibly.”
The speaker went from static to dead. A moment later, the door opened and an old man with eyebrows that resembled caterpillars opened the door. He wore a ratty flannel bathrobe and gestured us inside.
“First floor. Back here.” He led us back, opened the door.
The room was about as depressing as I’d ever seen. Not much more than a converted closet with no windows. “Cheapest unit we got,” the old man said.
“Did she tell you she was moving?” I asked. “Leave a forwarding?”