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 A woman's foot. Sleep came again. Josie didn’t fight it. At least she wasn’t alone.
     
    Peter Siddon’s Home, California’s High Desert
     
    Peter Siddon pulled into his garage, turned off the ignition, and let his hands fall to his sides. He didn’t move when the door closed behind him. He didn’t look at his wife when she poked her head out of the door that led to the kitchen. He didn’t acknowledge his five-year-old son pounding on the car door, calling for him to play.
    Play wasn’t what he felt like doing. What he felt like doing was sinful and he felt like doing it to Josie Bates. His mind was always on Josie Bates, and he wished he could get her out of there. She was the one who caused all this misery, and all he wanted her to do was admit it.
    He rested his head on the back of the seat. He loved this crappy car and now he would lose it even though he only had two more payments to make. He loved his wife, but he’d probably lose her too now that he’d screwed up her life. He didn’t know what to do. He sniffed. Tears were coming again. He didn’t want his kid to see his dad cry, and he didn’t want to endure his wife’s defeated silence. He needed to talk to someone.
    Picking up his cell, he dialed a number.
    “I need help. I need to talk,” he said.
    In the next minute, his wife picked up their boy to keep him from running after his dad. The garage door was raised again, and Peter Siddon was speeding away from them. His wife looked after him and then went back to the kitchen, weary of his demons and his obsession with that other woman, the one who he would kill if he ever got his hands on her. Well, maybe not kill, but he would do something really bad if he got the chance.
     
    The Pier, Redondo Beach
     
    Archer pulled into the parking lot of the Blue Fin Grill and stopped on the far side of the black and white.  The driver side door was open and there were two cops inside. It was the guy behind the wheel who got out and greeted Archer.
    “Sorry we couldn’t do anything,” he shrugged along with his apology. “Hermosa squawked for us to keep a look out, but we didn’t want to own it.”
    “No worries. I appreciate the effort.” Archer cast a look at Josie’s Jeep. “Is this the way you found it? No other cars around, nothing on the ground.”
    “What you see is what you get.”
    When the uniforms took their leave, Archer leaned against his screaming-yellow Hummer, cast an objective eye on Josie’s Jeep, and resisted the urge to tear it apart looking for clues as to her whereabouts.
    The black vehicle was parked in the third row, second slot from the south entrance to the restaurant lot and one space over from the steps that led down to the lower level of the old pier complex.  Down there, working boats were moored to a horse-shoe shaped dock that was flanked by an outdoor restaurant, a sad excuse for an arcade, and a bunch of shops that sold kites and whoopee cushions to the tourists who managed to find their way down.  Quality Seafood, the outdoor restaurant, served up lunches on Styrofoam plates, had ice beds for the catch of the day and bubbling tanks where lobsters crawled all over each other, their rubber-banded claws useless in their fight to survive.
    To Archer’s right was a complex designed to look like a New England fishing village. It housed the now boarded up courthouse and still functioning professional offices. More right of that were the new Redondo Beach pier, the breakwater and a stretch of beach that wasn’t the nicest. A lot of rough people went to that beach after hours: drunks from pier bars, inner city types looking to cool off, gang members and drug dealers. Josie could have run into a bunch of problems down there.
     Behind him was the Blue Fin Grill.  Drinks were expensive, the menu predictable and the waiters distracted. Josie might have met someone there, but it wouldn’t have been a friend. Friends went to Burt’s or Scotty’s or the Mermaid.  There