Against the Edge (The Raines of Wind Can - By Kat Martin Page 0,31
less than fifty minutes.
Keeping her distance all morning, Claire had been quiet most of the way. Now as Ben pulled into the parking lot of the tile-roofed, beige stucco sheriff’s station and turned off the engine, her gaze swung to his.
“I hope he knows something.”
“If he does, I promise you we’ll find out what it is.” Her eyes widened, and he knew she hadn’t missed the threat in his voice. “You ready?” he asked.
Claire nodded. His cell phone rang as they got out of the car. It was the DNA testing lab where he’d left the foam cup and the blood sample from Bridger’s sink.
“No match on Bridger’s DNA,” he told Claire when the call came to an end.
“I guess that’s good news and bad. At least he isn’t a criminal.”
“Or at least not one who’s ever been caught.” Both of them fell silent. When they reached the door, Claire held up crossed fingers. They needed a lead. Ben opened the door, held it for Claire, and they walked inside.
People milled around the visitor waiting area; a pair of sheriff’s deputies walked past.
“Give me a minute,” Ben said. Claire nodded, and he went over to talk to the officer in charge, read the name on the tag on his uniform pocket.
“Deputy Montgomery, my name’s Ben Slocum. I’m a private investigator.” He took out his P.I. badge and flipped it open, showing his ID. “I’d like to talk to one of your prisoners, a guy named Eddie Jeffries. It’s in regard to a missing kid.”
The deputy’s gray eyebrows went up. He was older, seasoned, looked like a no-bullshit kind of guy. “Nothing about a kid in Jeffries’s file.”
“He knows the suspect, the man who may have taken him. I don’t know if he was directly involved in the boy’s disappearance.” Ben tipped his head toward Claire. “The lady’s Claire Chastain. She’s the social worker. I’m the boy’s father.”
The deputy gave him a once-over, his expression going from assessing to sympathetic. “I got kids myself. Mine are grown. How old’s your boy?”
“Nine.”
“How long’s he been missing?”
“Nearly two weeks.”
Montgomery shoved a clipboard across the counter. “The lady’ll have to show ID and you both need to sign in. Leave your cell phones and empty your pockets, then you can come on back.”
“Thanks.”
They took care of protocol then went into the visiting area and waited for a deputy to bring Jeffries out. From what Ben had read on the internet, there were only eleven cells in the jail but the place could hold up to forty inmates. Most were kept in the station until their court dates.
Ben looked up as the door opened and a freckle-faced man with thinning red hair stepped out. According to the deputy, Jeffries was thirty-eight years old. He sat down on the opposite side of the metal table across from Ben and Claire.
“Hello, Eddie. My name’s Ben Slocum. This is Claire Chastain.”
Eddie eyed them darkly. “Yeah? What do you want?”
“We want to know about a friend of yours. A guy named Troy Bridger. Or is it Troy Bennett? I think you knew him as both.”
Jeffries shrugged. He was nervous but trying not to show it. “I don’t know much. I know he quit his job and left town.”
“You know he took my son, Sam, with him?”
Eddie’s complexion went pale beneath his freckles, making them stand out. “I don’t know nothin’ about that.”
“You sure, Eddie? Because if it turns out you knew he was planning to take the boy, you’re an accessory to child abduction. That’s big-time, Eddie, not a measly year in jail for drunk driving.”
Eddie came up out of his chair. “I didn’t know—I swear it! I knew he was mad at that bitch he used to live with. Laura. And some damn friend of hers. Woman convinced her to kick him out for no good reason. Troy didn’t take kindly to a woman’s scorn.”
“He thought he was smarter,” Claire pressed. “Right, Eddie? He thought he was superior to a stupid woman.”
Eddie was wise enough not to answer. He just sat back down in his chair.
“You say you didn’t know he took the boy,” Ben said. “But you don’t seem surprised.”
Eddie didn’t answer.
“Remember, my friend, you don’t help us, the cops are going to assume you were in on it. They won’t just be looking for Troy, they’ll be coming here for you.”
Eddie’s eyes darted toward the deputy at the door. His hands were shaking. “Troy said something once about the kid. How he needed a father to