The Same Place (The Lamb and the Lion #2) - Gregory Ashe Page 0,26
to process this. “This is a missing-person investigation? Who’s missing?”
“Her name is Joy Erickson.”
It sounded vaguely familiar, but Tean shook his head. “I don’t know who that is.”
“Well, she was close to Hannah at one point. Some people have suggested that Hannah might know where Joy is.”
“Who?”
“I can’t tell you that. Please don’t be mad at me; I really can’t.”
Tean forgot what he had been about to say. He’d never heard that note of desperate pleading in Ammon’s voice before. He’d never heard Ammon beg him not to be angry before. He glanced at Ammon’s face and saw unshed tears shining in the detective’s eyes.
“Maybe you could talk to Hannah,” Ammon said. “See if she’ll tell you anything. We’ve called her, and she hangs up. We’ve tried to meet with her, and she avoids us. She’s a brick wall. She knows something, and if you could get it out of her, it would mean a lot to me. I know I don’t have any right to ask you—”
“I knew the homicide unit handled missing-person cases, but I thought they were pretty low priority.”
“Unfortunately, that’s true, especially with transient populations. A lot of people go missing, but it’s hard to tell if they left town, if they just found a different crew, or if something really happened to them. In a case like this, with Joy, it’s different. She’s got a history of disappearing, which makes it more complicated, but she’s been living in a stable situation for a long time. She’s been missing for a few weeks. We found her phone in her condo, and there’s been no activity on her financials.” Ammon let out a breath. “It’s possible that it’s not a missing-person case anymore, honestly.”
“And someone really thinks Hannah is involved?”
“She might know something—where Joy was last seen, if she was meeting with someone, if she had last-minute travel plans. That kind of thing. And she might be holding back because she doesn’t want to get Joy in trouble; Joy has a colorful history. So maybe you could . . .”
“She’s convinced someone has been stalking her. Is it you?”
“She might have seen us. Or it might be tied up with this Joy thing.” A tentative smile crossed Ammon’s lips. “Look at us. We’re already a good team.”
Off in the darkness, a poorwill was whistling its two-note song. Just two notes. Just two. Over and over again. And Ammon was singing his two-note song again. And Tean was singing his own too.
“I should get back to Jem.”
“Let’s get dinner,” Ammon said. “To talk about what you learn from Hannah.”
“If I learn something from Hannah.”
“You will. You’re the smartest, most determined person I know. The best person I know.”
Tean’s face was hot again; he took a step back. “If she shares something relevant, I’ll pass it along.”
“Great.” Ammon grinned, and suddenly he was that same beautiful, sixteen-year-old boy Tean had fallen in love with over the cafeteria table. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you.”
“Good night, Ammon.”
“It’s really good to see you again, Tean. I want you to know I’m figuring myself out. And I’ll always be waiting for you.”
Tean didn’t answer. He backed away, in case Ammon made another move, but Ammon just stood there in his cheap suit, his face washed out by the sodium lights, like an echo or a ghost or a lost soul. The poorwill was still whistling its two notes. Over and over again. The same two notes. Forever.
The touch of a hand startled him, and he whipped around. Jem had come up behind him, his face unreadable.
“Well?” Jem said.
Tean shook his head.
“What’d he say?”
In a few disconnected sentences, Tean managed to convey the basics about Hannah and the woman named Joy Erickson. He couldn’t seem to put the pieces into a coherent order. As he stammered through the details, Jem’s face darkened, a flush moving into his cheeks, his eyes cutting past Tean to fix on Ammon.
Tean finally trailed off. The poorwill had gone silent.
“Shake him off,” Jem said. “Don’t let him get in your head like that.”
“It’s not—that’s not what happened.”
“Yeah, it is. But you can just shake him off. I know—tell me something really horrifying. Like ants eating people alive or heat death or how the Electric Slide went out of style when kids started doing meth and dressing like Britney Spears in grade school. I ate a bunch of processed food today. Tell me about the evils of enriched flour.”