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He’s kind of cute, he asked me out, so I said yes. Not a big deal.”
    Maria couldn’t hide her distaste. “You went out with him?”
    “Just a couple times. You spend all your time at Kenny’s. I get bored.”
    “Where does he live?” Logan asked, trying to get her back on track.
    “Over in Venice Beach, right on Pacific Avenue. He’s got a little bungalow kind of thing. Tan with a flat roof. You can’t miss it. It’s about a minute’s walk north of Washington Boulevard.”
    “Do you know the address?”
    “Hold on.” She pulled out her phone. After a moment, she smiled and nodded. “Yeah, I guess I do.” She read it off, and Logan jotted it down in his notebook. He then asked if she had Aaron’s phone number, and she gave him that, too.
    “Thanks,” he said, then turned back to Angie. “Her grandfather said she has three roommates. Where are the other two?”
    “Laura and Carrie?” Angie said. “They went home for the break.”
    “Thanks,” he told her, then looked at Ryan. “See how easy that was. All you had to do was be nice from the beginning, and you’d still have your pride.”
    “Whatever,” Ryan replied.
    “I’m sure he didn’t mean anything personal,” Maria said. “There’ve been some strange men hanging around the building lately. The guys have taken to watching out for us because of it.”
    That would certainly explain why Ryan tried to shut him down so quickly. “What do you mean strange?”
    “You know, they show up every once in a while, walk around a little, then just leave,” Joan said. “Kenny tried talking to them once, but they just ignored him.”
    “The same guys every time?”
    The two girls looked at each other, thinking, then Joan said, “There are four of them, I think.”
    “Yeah, but never more than two around at the same time,” Maria added.
    “That’s true,” Joan said.
     “Describe them for me.”
    “There was one black guy, and the rest were white,” she said.
    When she didn’t add any more, Logan asked, “Age?”
    “I don’t know. In their thirties, maybe.”
    “Anything else? Height? Weight?”
    “Around your height, I guess,” Maria told him. “And in good shape. Other than that, nothing stands out.”
    Interestingly, it was pretty much the same general way he would have described the guy who’d attacked Tooney that morning. He filed that thought away for later.
    Tearing a few pages out of his notebook, he gave each of them his number. “If any of you hear from Elyse, or think of something that might help me, please give me a call right away.”
    He then had them each write down their number.
    “Thanks,” he said as he stood up. “Sorry to have interrupted your evening.”
    “Shouldn’t we call the police?” Joan asked.
    Logan couldn’t miss the instant karma of having the same thing he’d said to his father and Tooney thrown back at him. “We don’t even know if there’s anything wrong yet. If there is, I’ll be the first to make the call.”
     

 
     
    8
     
    Pacific Avenue was just two blocks from the beach. Logan located Aaron Hughes’ place in a walled-off compound on the east side of the street. The wall was about six feet high, with a red wooden door right smack in the center, locked by a deadbolt. Judging from the addresses listed out front, there were five units inside. There was no intercom, though, so he guessed people had to call ahead to be let in.
    Logan tried the cell number Joan had given him.
    One ring, then, “Hi, this is Aaron. Leave a message and I’ll—”
    He hung up, then put his ear right next to the gate, listening for any sound from the other side. Dead quiet, but not surprising for near midnight on a Tuesday. Undoubtedly, everyone on the other side of the wall was asleep. But if Aaron was home, Logan didn’t want to wait until the kid woke up in the morning to talk to him. He wanted to do it now.
    He checked both ways down the street, making sure no one was around, then grabbed the