The VW Bug came onto the concrete pad of the driveway and stopped. Lee could see Sully now, outside his own vehicle, and he motioned for the girl to park inside, as well. There was a slight hesitation, then the VW pulled up beside Sully’s Camry. The garage door closed.

  “We’re here,” Lee announced to Diane over the phone link. “Model home at the far end. Try to come in with your lights out, then pull up behind the pickup. If anyone wonders what we’re doing here, like a resident or security guard, we can be a couple shopping for a home site after work.”

  “I’ll have Andrea come up via the back route, then find a place out of sight of the model home to stand by. If we need to make a move, we can use backup.”

  Lee acknowledged the plan, then hung up. A single light had gone on inside the model home. He decided to wait outside the vehicle for Diane.

  She arrived two minutes later, moving slowly with her lights out so she wouldn’t run off the road. There were no streetlights yet in this area, and except for a few porch and low-wattage yard lamps, the stars and moon provided the only illumination.

  Diane climbed out of the SUV. She’d kept the dome light off, so no one except a vampire could have recognized her until she stepped into point-blank range. The forest was still in transition here, mostly junipers and piñon pines, but the vegetation managed to turn the entire area dark and quiet, since it absorbed sound quite well. The click of her door closing couldn’t have been heard a hundred feet away.

  “Time to do a little window peeping and eavesdropping, huh?” she said in a low voice. “But if Timothy Klein is in there, we’re going in, Glover or not, right?”

  Lee nodded. “We still might be able to link him to whatever is going on in there. After all, he undoubtedly gave Sully access to this model home.”

  “Which suggests what we already suspected, that Glover has some kind of tie, and maybe leverage, too, over the developers.”

  “With one of them, at least, or maybe an employee who has the keys to this office. We still need more background on this project. That’ll give us a possible link. Now let’s go snooping.”

  “What about a security guard? I haven’t seen one yet, but with the model home and all the sites still under construction …”

  “Didn’t consider that. Maybe Andrea can keep a lookout and tie him up for a while, if necessary,” Lee said. “Not literally, of course.”

  “She may have seen plenty of that while working vice,” she joked. “I’ll give her a quick call.”

  Two minutes later, Diane put her phone away. “She’s already on it. They have a roving patrol, probably a service that does regular checks. A security vehicle came into the development at the east end, and she’s going to intercept them and ask for directions. When they come this way, she’ll have already given us some lead time.”

  They hurried, hoping to avoid the guards altogether. There were no sidewalks, and the undeveloped lots still contained their original vegetation, plus standard real-estate signs. Lee and Diane moved through the edge of the tree line. The model home was bordered on three sides by field fencing held up by posts nearly railroad tie size, but the front was open to the street.

  They circled around the right side of the structure, checking for interior lights in a back room. If Sully was going to actually film something, he’d need light, and even the blinds weren’t light tight.

  The back of the house retained its mostly natural landscape, had a deck, a flagstone walk to a flower garden, and a few taller pine trees scattered about. At the opposite back corner of the house, they detected an interior light. Lee noted that the light was coming from windows with closed shutters—half shutters, open at the top. You’d have to be eight feet tall or on a ladder to see in.

  He turned around and eyed the back porch.

  “You going for a climb?” she whispered.

  “Yeah. If I’m quiet, I can see from the roof without them knowing. The window might be open a crack, too, so maybe you can hear something. Or you could climb that tree and look right in.”

  He pointed to a twenty-foot-high ponderosa pine in the center of the yard.

  “Too far away, and I’m a terrible tree climber. I’ll check the window up close.”

  Lee nodded, then walked over to the deck and found a spot where the rain gutters didn’t extend. Jumping up, he grabbed the edge of the roof and pulled himself slowly and gently onto the terra-cotta tile. The building itself appeared to be less than two years old, so he was hoping none of the tiles were loose. If they were, he’d make one hell of a racket.

  Moments later he was able to lower himself to his belly and inch toward the window with the light. He couldn’t see Diane, which meant she was close to the wall, but now Lee could hear a voice. The window was open at least four inches. That meant Diane would be able to hear from below, too.

  Sully was making an awkward, mostly one-sided conversation with the young woman. He mentioned lighting, camera positions, depth of field, sound levels, and other terms Lee recognized, but nothing about sex, boys, or porno.

  Judging from the light shining out onto the yard that he was right above the window, Lee inched downward, headfirst, intending on looking inside like he had at Glover’s a few days earlier.

  “You want me to strip for the camera, Brian? Or I can just get naked and … whatever. You wanna film having sex with me, right?” The hooker certainly sounded young. If Sully went for children, she was about as close as he could get to legal, assuming, of course, that the woman wasn’t fifteen or younger. Diane had already run the plate while on the way here, and the vehicle was registered to a fifty-five-year-old woman. The girl’s madam? Lee hoped it wasn’t her mother, though situations like that weren’t uncommon.

  “I want you to be the naïve, innocent, little girl, Katie. So while I’m getting everything set up, you need to change into these clothes.”

  Lee had taken his cap off and now he could look over the edge. He scooted a little farther, making sure none of the clay shingles would slip or break off, and then took a look. Sully was attaching a camera to a tripod and there were two big lights on stands in front of a children’s-size bed. The decor in the room, even upside down, indicated to Lee that this was a decorator’s idea of a children’s room. From the pinks and pastels, the stereotype side of his brain said a girl’s room. It figured.

  “I was expecting a cheerleader’s outfit, but hey, this is like what I wore in sixth grade,” Katie said. “Oh, now I get it.”

  Lee stretched out as far as he could, trying to see if there was anyone else in the room, like Timothy Klein. If he was around he’d have to be under the bed or pushed against an outside corner. The closet was open enough to reveal it was empty. Sully had clamped some kind of light on the door, aimed up to give some indirect lighting, he supposed.

  After about ten minutes, Lee realized that Sully was more interested in filming someone posing as a child doing … well, things he suspected perverts liked to watch. Lee didn’t watch for long, except to confirm that Katie was being instructed to pretend she was a youngster involved in self-discovery, and when Katie was encouraged to vocalize her phony excitement, Lee was tempted not to listen, either. But he remained there for a half hour more, hoping to hear anything that would tell him more about Sully, Glover, and the possibility that they knew something about Timothy Klein.

  Finally, Sully announced they were done.

  Katie sounded surprised. “That’s it? You don’t want to do it with me? Or me do you? Price is still the same, you know.”

  “No, everything’s fine, child, and here’s your money. Are you going to be available tomorrow night? Same time, here? Next time I want you to play around and have sex with someone I bring. I’ll film you two.”

  “Another porno film?” Seeing him nod, she added. “Okay, but here’s the deal. Girls, okay. Men, duh. But no sickos who are into pain. You try anything like that, my boyfriend is going to cut off your balls.”

  “Relax, Katie. You’ll be in control the whole time. You’ll be the older one. And if you decide something isn’t for you, just say so. You’ll still get half your fee.”

  “Plus twenty more for gas. Or thirty.”

  “Twenty-five for gas.”

  The bargaining annoyed Lee, more so because he hadn’t heard or seen any direct evidence that Sully knew about the missing boy. The only mystery was the identity of the “someone else,” the one who was younger than Katie that Sully was planning on bringing tomorrow. Hopefully, if their suspicions were right, they’d be there to rescue Timothy Klein.

  Lee looked down and saw that Katie was putting her clothes back on and Sully was watching. “Change your mind?” she teased, cocking her head.

  “No, no. Just thinking about how exciting tomorrow is going to be. I’d better get this gear put away. The salespeople are going to be here at eight A.M. and I still have to straighten things up. Here’s my cell number. Call by seven P.M. only if you can’t make it. I have to pick up the other … actor, so I’ll need to know.”

  “Whatever. Well, I’m out of here,” Katie said, and he heard footsteps fade away on the hardwood floor.

  Lee began to move away now, picking his way carefully across the hard, uneven surface, which was a little dusty. If it had rained recently, the roof would be hell, but fortunately the clay, fiberglass, or whatever was dry. He’d want to discuss strategy with Diane and decide what to do about Katie.

  Suddenly, as he heard the garage door open, then the sound of the VW leaving, an idea came to him and he grabbed his cell phone. He text messaged Diane and she answered immediately. After ending the call, he worked his way to the deck and lowered himself down beside Diane, who was crouched low, keeping watch for Sully.

  The garage door sounded again, and from the thud, he knew it was coming back down. No second engine noise told him that Sully was still inside the house, or at least his car was. Lee looked over and noted the bedroom light was still on.

  “That was a good idea you had, Lee. Andrea is going to tail Katie home, then stake her out. We’ll have to decide how to handle tomorrow, and if we want her around when we bust Sully—if he brings the boy.” She whispered very softly, knowing Lee could also read her lips. “And, by the way, I got a text message from Rodriguez. Glover went straight home.”

  He grabbed her hand. “Good. Now let’s haul ass while Sully is busy loading his gear and restoring the model home.”

  They moved quickly, Diane trusting his eyes and letting him lead her around the house. Once they were out front, the few remaining lights still on at the houses down the street made it a lot easier for her. They picked up the pace, and in two minutes were inside their vehicles.

  Following his lead, Diane drove away, lights off, until they were nearing the first occupied house. He turned on his headlights then, and she trailed behind a little farther, then turned on her own.

  He’d put on his cell phone mike just a few seconds before she called. “Sully? Do we follow him?”

  “I think he’s going home when he’s done here. We’ll have Felix pick him up when he passes Quail Run, and we’ll cover Glover again.”

  “Okay. And we need to follow up our queries about this FAC company and find out whether it’s Glover or Sully who has the connections that gave him access tonight.”

  “Now that I think about it, the object I saw Glover hand Sully out at the highway was probably the garage remote. So that suggests Glover’s the one who has juice with FAC,” Lee said.

  “No surprise, Lee. Let’s see what dirt Logan and your people have dug up on the developers—or the real-estate agents who operate from the model home.”

  “Hopefully it’ll give us more to hang on Glover. We need someone to be able to stand up in court and testify against the man—several people, really. Sully might do, if we can protect him from Glover. Especially if he ends up as a party to kidnapping and hopes to cop a plea.”

  “That’s something that’s bugging me, Lee,” Diane replied. “We’d hoped to find Timothy Klein tonight. Are we way off track, or do you think Glover’s really going to deliver him tomorrow for Sully’s kiddie porn production?”

  “Maybe we’ve been looking in the wrong direction, Diane. We wanted to believe that we’re really on to something and that the Klein boy is still alive and relatively safe, and that skewed our perspective. This could turn out to be a dead end.”

  “Waiting’s always the hardest part, Lee. If I thought we’d get answers, I’d be perfectly willing to grab Glover and start shooting off body parts until he decided to talk.”

  “Yeah, but neither one of us has slid down to his level yet, and, besides, the guy is a black bag professional. He’d die before giving himself up. Then we’d have squat, and our own futures would be in the outhouse.”

  They decided to wait until they got home to make any more plans, so the call ended. Lee drove on, spotting rabbits by the highway and, once, a deer off in a small orchard. Diane had passed him, going home first. Lee followed, intending on stopping by the mailboxes at the end of the lane and waiting for fifteen minutes or more before going that last mile.

  Out of habit, Lee checked the mail, even though it was unlikely that his or Diane’s cover identities would get mail. Inside were several fliers for businesses and car dealers in Moriarity and Tijeras, one of those “Have you seen this kid?” notices, and a letter, hand addressed to Lee Begay. Inside was a color photo of Diane, standing on the porch, keys in hand. In red, crosshairs had been drawn, centered on her head. Judging from what she was wearing, the photograph had been taken their first morning at the place.

  “Screw waiting. I’m going now,” Lee said, half aloud. He stepped back to the pickup, then drove up the lane, his lights off.

  When Lee arrived, everything seemed normal enough. Glover’s living room light was on and there was a glow from the area where his large-screen TV was located. There was light coming from their own front room, and as he pulled up behind the SUV, he caught a glimpse of Diane beside the curtain.

  He had one eye on Glover’s place as he walked to the door. They had a rule to keep the doors locked, always, so he had his key ready. A moment later, he stepped inside, locking the deadbolt behind him.

  Diane held up one hand for him to wait. Her other hand held her cell phone to her ear. From the look on her face, he knew something was going on, but she was listening, not talking. She brought out her pen, then started walking around the room, looking for something. Lee brought out the small notebook he carried in his shirt pocket and held it up, revealing a blank page. She nodded and took it from his hand.

  Setting the notebook down on the dining table, she wrote a quick sentence. They’ve called off the search for Timothy Klein.

  “Dead?” he couldn’t help but mouth.

  She shook her head and wrote some more: They’re waiting for some new leads. The manpower is needed elsewhere. God forgive me for saying this, but I hope Glover does have Timothy Klein.

  Lee grabbed the pen: I understand. At least that’ll mean we’ve got a chance to find him.

  CHAPTER 17

  Diane hung up the phone a minute later. Lee had occupied his time starting a pot of coffee. “What else?” he asked as soon as she sat down the phone.

  “Not much. All the leads have evaporated, and all the ground within miles has been covered. At least the parents are together again. They’ve pooled their resources and have hired a tracker with bloodhounds.”

  “Didn’t the search teams do that already? I thought they’d lost the trail beside the highway, above where the bike was found,” Lee said.

  “The dogs are going to be taken to some of Timothy’s favorite places, in case he’s hiding out, angry with his parents for fighting over him, and money.”

  “Divorce is rough on kids. They’ll try anything to get their parents back together, Diane.”

  “Well, that’s already happened, at least for now. But we have to find a way to get to Glover, Lee. What’s going on with him and Sully? Why would he pay Glover thousands of dollars, apparently, for pimping legal-age young people who look younger? He’s got to have the kid.”

  “Well, that’s the likely explanation, of course, unless it’s all coincidental and Glover intends on providing Sully with somebody else’s boy, someone we don’t know about, or …”

  “Or Glover is using the disappearance as an opportunity to scam Sully, making him think that he has young Klein. As long as the boy is still missing, Glover can make excuses and stall, milking Sully for money as long as he can,” Diane pointed out. “But if Glover is forced to offer a much older male—not the Klein boy or, heaven forbid, another minor—we’re not the only ones in for a big disappointment. How’s Sully going to react, paying for something he could have obtained for a hundred dollars or so?”

  “Nailing Glover as a pimp—which is something we’d have difficulty proving with neither of us even in the room—puts us back to zero. Besides, Diane, we want to nail Glover for something that’ll put him away for a long, long time. Kidnapping would have worked, but arresting Glover for conning a child molester out of ten thousand dollars? Hell, most of the parents in the community would be on his side. The DA wouldn’t even consider pressing charges.”

  “At least Sully might be vulnerable, if Katie’s under age, or we can tie him to someone who is. I still wonder what’s really going to happen tomorrow? Is Glover going to offer another excuse, then deliver someone new, maybe another young prostitute, or continue to string Sully along? Or does he really have Timothy Klein for sale?”

  “We need to be there, either way,” Lee added. “I’m just concerned, now that the search has officially ended, that we’re going to lose some of our backup and nailing Glover is going to get tougher.”

  “Without more evidence against Glover, all we have is his implied connection to the child out there somewhere. But if we can confirm Katie’s status as a minor by getting her real age, that’ll help. Let me make a call to Officer Moore. I sent her a query, so maybe they’ve got something for us already.”