dangerous. Hotels remember longterm guests. There's a high risk he'd randomly run into somebody he knew. And he couldn't pay the bill without attracting notice—either by leaving a paper trail with a credit card or being conspicuous by using cash. No. More likely he'd pick somebody he trusted to put him up for a while. A best friend."
"Les has forty thousand of those."
"But people he'd trust to hide him?"
"Julie Kearnes," Allison decided. "Or the Danielses."
"The Danielses?"
She nodded, stretching out her legs and crossing them at the ankles. She stared down at her feet, now bare and white and wrinkled from the lake.
"Les started out treating them like pets or something. You know—simple folk. They needed to be groomed and cared for. Eventually he started liking their company. Willis is a sweet old fart most of the time, and Miranda's an angel. And Brent's a good listener, a little selfdestructive like Les. Les became attached to him pretty quick."
"But you and Brent—"
Allison shrugged. "For the last month or so. I'm not sure Les knew and I'm not sure he would've cared if he did. With me and Brent it's just—it's not love or anything, sweetie."
She sounded like she was trying to reassure me, trying to explain away a minor illness she'd been fighting off. j
"That the way Brent sees it?"
Allison laughed for the first time since we'd entered Les' cabin. "I imagine Brent sees me as some kind of trial to get past. I guess you haven't spent much time around him, Tres. He's sweet. He's also sensitive as a raw blister with all the stuff that's happened to him, tries to punish himself every time he thinks he might be enjoying life again.
Been in his rut so long he's scared to come out, I guess. Sometimes I can't stand him.
Sometimes it feels good to be with him."
"That's disturbing," I said.
"That I've slept with him?"
"No. Your assessment of who Les trusts enough to hide with."
"Because?"
"Julie Kearnes was killed. And the Danielses—is this phone number what I think it is?"
I read her the number on my hand, the last number that had been dialled from Les'
cabin.
Allison stared out the side window. It was a quarter mile or so before she said, "The Danielses' ranch."
"Of course it may have been dialled months ago," I said, "before Les disappeared. It may have been an ordinary call to a client."
"Mmm."
We drove along, both of us trying to get comfortable with that idea.
We turned past the Plum Creek Dairy Queen.
The boat storage facility was uphill, a good fifty yards from the water. It was a gravel clearing fenced off with chain link and barbed wire with a large drivethrough gate.
Inside were storage sheds of corrugated metal and plywood, each just big enough to house a boat on a trailer. When I drove up, the gate was open and a family was hitching up their outboard to a Subaru fourwheeler. Or Mom was doing it anyway. The two kids were making like a trampoline in the backseat and the dad was studying a Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition in the driver's seat. Allison and I got out and helped Mom get the hitch in place and connect the brake lights. Mom gave us a nice smile and asked if she should just leave the gate open. We said sure.
Les' boat shed was A12.
The chain and padlock on Les' shed door were new. Fortunately the back wall of the shed was not. The metal peeled up easily on the bottom, giving us just enough space to crawl underneath.
The walls of the shed didn't go all the way to the roof. There was about a foot of space at the top to let in light, enough to see by. Les' boat was just like Kelly Arguello had said, a twentyfivefooter with a collapsed mast and the deck covered with a blue tarp.
The tarp was tied on haphazardly but with a lot of knots and enthusiasm. We finally had to cut our way through.
I climbed onto the aft deck, then gave Allison a hand up.
The bench seats on board were white rubbery material embedded with silver glitter.
There was a small empty cabin below, a closet really. No way more than one person could fit down there.
"Okay," Allison said. "So it's a boat. So what?"
"Hold on."
I went below and searched. Nothing. On the tank of a tiny toilet was a copy of Time, August three years ago. Not encouraging.
When I came back topside Allison was prodding the deck floor with her foot.