Read J. Daniel Sawyer - Clarke Lantham 01 for Free Online Page A

on a lark and didn’t think to write home. Would be an easy thousand bucks plus expenses to call Mrs. Thales and tell her that yes, Nya was probably fine, and no, she shouldn’t worry, and yes, she should call the cops if the girl didn’t turn up for school on Monday.
    It wouldn’t be the first time a teenager flew the coop on sheer impulse, and both the heroin and the pot habits were like to send her into a state where she lost track of time anyway.
    But what about Dora’s insistence that she was shy around new people? The trophy collection under her bed seemed to put that one down before it got out of the starting gate. Hard to be shy around strangers when you’re actively hunting them for conquests.
    And yet…what was it that Rawles had said?
    She gets nervous around new people. At least more than one at a time .
    Maybe sex was how she got over being nervous? Wouldn’t be the first time.
    And a girl who did that, and was playing with heroin…I couldn’t ignore the prospect that she’d come down with AIDS and run away, or decided to commit suicide. That kind of thrill seeking was almost always self-medication. Depression? Bi-polar? The girl was hiding from something.
    Maybe.
    This whole damned case was a pile of maybes.
    I took a sip of my Gordon Birsch and looked up to the top of the waterfall. Surprise surprise, Rawles was up there, talking to a security guard. The conversation ended in a handshake, and as Rawles walked away he adjusted his pants. The kid was smooth.
    He jogged down the walkway, heading to the west parking lot. When he was directly across the rotunda pond, he noticed me. “Hey, what’s up dog!” He waved and jogged around to join me at the table, tossing a warm-up jacket across my phone.
    “Evening.”
    “What you doing up here, man? You tailing me or something?” He looked at me as if to suggest he could have me killed if he didn’t think I was too cute for words.
    “Dinner. Long day.”
    “I hear ya, man.” He grabbed a chair from a neighboring half-occupied table, spun it around, and sat backwards on it, leaning cross-armed over the back rest. “Hot fucking day.”
    “Yeah.” I took another nibble on my pizza. “You might want to work on that technique,” I nodded to the spot where he’d done the deal with the guard, “I spotted it from here. What was it, about two ounces?”
    He blinked, then glared at me. “Hey, now, that’s…”
    “Not a problem. I used to be a cop, thought you could use the tip.”
    “Oh.” It took a moment for it to dawn on him that I wasn’t going to bust him. “Uh. Thanks, I guess.”
    I shifted in my chair so I could get to the two ounce Ziploc in my pocket, on the off chance that it would come in useful.
    “Found Nya yet?”
    “Hmph.” I took another bite, then talked around my food, “I wish. Hard as hell to find anyone out here on the weekends.”
    “That’s because nobody’s home. Weekend like this, they’re all out on the Delta and shit.”
    “Ah, my bad.”
    “Find anything? Like, should I be worried?”
    “Nah, I think she just skipped out for the weekend to party somewhere. I’d send the old lady a bill, but she’s convinced that something awful happened. You know how she is.”
    “What’d I tell you man? Fucking Dora wouldn’t know danger if it shot her.”
    “Exactly. So now I just gotta figure out where Nya is so I can tell her that she’s okay.”
    “That ain’t gonna be easy.”
    “You sure you haven’t seen her?”
    “Me?” He blinked again. I couldn’t tell whether he was high, or putting extra effort into playing the dunce, or he was trying to cover up from knowing something. “Nah, man, I ain’t seen her since, what, maybe Wednesday.”
    “Dora said Nya was at your place last night.”
    “Ha! Nya says that whenever she’s going out anywhere. Keeps Dora off her case.”
    “So she wasn’t with you last night.”
    “No.”
    “Where were you last night?”
    “Home. With Steph. Why do you