Hard Times (A Sam Harlan Novel Book 2) (4 page)

I wanted to argue, but my mind kept returning to the ammunition. I kept thinking about what she said about how hard it was to make silver bullets. We would eventually need more silver ammunition, and she
was
a gun dealer. She could help us with lead ammunition for target practice, too. Plus, if I needed a pistol or rifle replaced, she could probably provide that, too, and maybe with no questions asked.

“What’s the girl’s name?” I finally asked.

“Elena Mendoza,” she said.

“And your nephew?”

“Colden. Colden Glick.”

“How are you related?” Callie asked.

“Colden’s father is my husband’s brother.”

“You’re married?” I asked.

Mary Kate bit her lower lip. “I was. Robert died twenty years ago, right after he opened this shop. Left me with this place, drowning in debt, and just enough insurance money to keep it afloat. I managed, but it was hard. Colden used to help with the shop.” She pursed her lips. “He’s a
good
boy. He doesn’t deserve this.
They
don’t deserve this. I just
know
you can help.”

“It couldn’t
hurt
to ask around,” I said to Callie.

“This isn’t your responsibility,” Callie countered.

“Please,” Mary Kate said. “They need your help.”

Callie was frowning, but I nodded my head as I put the silver bullet back in the box with the rest. “We’ll look into it.”

* * *

The house was a one-story on a dead-end street off of Hughes. The shingles were curling like potato chips, the siding was stained with moss, and the driveway was a checkerboard of cracks. The grass was high and brownish white. A red lawnmower sat abandoned, as if someone had been in the middle of mowing the lawn and suddenly wandered off. A single pumpkin leaned against the dilapidated white balusters on the front porch.

I eased the Chevy to the side of the street and turned off the engine, squinting at the house. “Looks like it’s seen better days.”

Callie snorted. “What hasn’t?”

“Coming?” I asked.

She sighed and got out. I followed suit and we soon found ourselves on the front porch, ringing the doorbell. The girl who answered couldn’t have been more than sixteen. She was cute, if you were into raven colored hair, nose studs, and black eyeliner, all of which the girl had in spades. She was short, shorter than Callie, and she wore the weary been-there-done-that of a youth who hadn’t actually seen anything outside their narrow slice of life. “Yeah?” she asked.

I almost laughed at her rough and gravelly voice, a kid desperate to make herself sound older and wiser. “Are you Colden’s sister?”

She grimaced. “Uh-huh. What do you want?”

“We’d like to speak to Colden,” Callie said politely. “Your aunt Mary Kate sent us.”

The girl shrugged. “Whatever.” She turned her back to us and yelled, “Colden! Someone’s here for you!” She turned back to us and I saw the first hint of curiosity. “Why are you here?”

“Your aunt sent us,” I repeated.

“That old busybody can’t keep her mouth shut,” the girl muttered, right before her brother came around the corner.

Colden was a tall young man in his early twenties, with shaggy brown hair and a miserable failure of a goatee on his lean face. He was dressed in faded blue jeans and wore a long-sleeved black T-shirt with the Marshalltown Bobcat logo that looked two sizes too big.

I looked at the boy, not much younger than myself, and felt empty inside. I tried to relate to where the boy was in life, but I’d seen so much I couldn’t imagine what his life was like. Then I remembered he was terrified that something had happened to his fiancée and vowed to offer what assistance I could.

The young man eyed us suspiciously. “
You’re
the ones my aunt was talking about?”

“We are,” I said.

Colden’s sister was watching us intently. Colden turned to her, his voice rising half an octave, and said, “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“Not anywhere as interesting as here,” the girl replied with a smirk.

“Find something else to do,” Colden growled, “and do it now.”

Carrie gave him a long, hateful glance, then turned away. “Screw you,” she said over her shoulder. “I don’t care what you’re doing.”

She stormed off, slamming doors inside the bowels of the house, and soon we heard the muted thump-thump of a stereo playing a type of music I could only describe as Goth.

“Nice sister you got,” I said. “Is she always like that?”

Colden nodded. “In another six months, I’ll be moving out. I won’t have to put up with her anymore.”

“Is she your only sister?” Callie asked.

Colden nodded again. “She’s such a pain in the—”

“You’ll miss her when she’s gone,” Callie interrupted before he could finish his thought. “I promise. Don’t be so quick to cut her out of your life.”

Colden gave her a quizzical look, then turned to me. “
How
can you help me?”

“Tell me about your fiancée,” I said.

“What do you want to know?”

I glanced around the living room. It was decorated in farmer chic. Hand embroidered throw pillows decorated the worn flower-print couch. An old butter churn with an idyllic farm scene painted on the side rested in the corner, like a farmer might step in and churn butter at any moment. A console television was pressed against the front wall in front of the bay windows, a small LCD television on top.

“Are your parents around?” I asked.

“Dad’s at work and Mom’s at her friend’s house working on her thimble collection.”

“Thimble collection?” Callie asked.

Colden pointed toward the wall. The wooden display case held a collection of painted ceramic thimbles, carefully placed between childhood pictures of the family, taken when Colden couldn’t have been more than eight or nine.

Colden’s father was a big, burly man, with a thick mustache that hadn’t been in style since the seventies. Colden’s mother was a fresh-faced woman with frosted blond hair in a bobbed haircut.

“Have a seat,” I said, pointing to the sofa.

Colden sat, his hands balling into fists, while Callie and I took seats in the chairs across from him. “Can you help me or not?” he asked. His voice cracked at the end and his eyes stared through us.

“What’s her name?” I asked.

“Elena,” Colden said. “Elena Mendoza.”

“How long have you known her?”

Colden stared off into space. “Since our junior year in high school.”

“You dated the entire time?”

“Yes,” Colden said. “We’ve been serious since the first couple of weeks. I knew she was the girl for me. It was like we had an instant connection, you know? Like we were soul mates.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “Tell me about her family.”

“She’s got two brothers and a sister,” Colden said. “They all work at their parents’ restaurant.”

“When did she go missing?” Callie asked.

“Two days ago,” Colden said. “It’s not like her to take off. She
wouldn’t
have left without telling me where she was going.”

“How does her family feel about you?” I asked.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, voice indignant. “Is it because she’s Mexican?”

“I may not know much,” I said dryly, “but I
think
the term is Latina. Look, I’m just trying to get a sense for what’s going on. How does her family feel about you?”

Colden sank back into the sofa, avoiding my gaze. “At first they weren’t too happy,” he said. “They didn’t like that she was dating a … gringo.”

I noticed his hesitation. “Is that what they called you? The gringo?”

“I heard Franco say it one time, when he thought I couldn’t hear. That was when we first started dating. Like, years ago.”

“Who is Franco?” I asked.

“Her older brother. I used to catch him giving me dirty looks. He … didn’t think much of me.”

“And that changed?” Callie asked.

“Like I said, that was years ago.”

“What about the rest of her family?” I asked. “Her mom and dad?”

“
They
like me.”

I thought back to what Mary Kate told me. “Her other brother or sister give you any grief?” I asked.

He shook his head. “The only one who ever seemed to have a problem with me was Franco.”

It just doesn’t add up. How could this girl go missing and her family not care?
“No one seems concerned that she’s missing?”

Callie asked, “Why isn’t her family worried?”

“Well,” Colden said slowly, wiping at his pitiful attempt at a goatee, “Elena
did
have a wild streak, but she’s not like that anymore.”

“A wild streak?” I asked. “You mean like smoking? Drinking? Dating guys? Or do you mean like hard drugs and disappearing for days on end?”

Colden’s eyes met mine, then quickly shifted away. “A little drinking,” he admitted, “and she smoked a little pot. It wasn’t something she did all the time.”

I saw Callie’s eyes narrow. She was picking up on the same thing I was. There was more to this story than Colden let on. I needed to apply pressure, just enough to get him to open up. “This isn’t the first time she’s gone missing for a day or two, is it?”

“It was
one
time,” Colden said, continuing to ball up his fists. “She took off for one day and nobody knew where she went.”

“Do
you
know where she went?” I asked.

He hunched forward, staring at the pressed-wood coffee table between us. “She never told me.”

He’s angry. Sullen.
“You thought about it a lot, didn’t you?”

There was a long pause before he answered, still staring at the coffee table. “Yes, I thought about it. It was last year, before I proposed. I don’t know if it was booze, or pot, or a guy. I mean, I couldn’t stop worrying that it was another guy. The things that she might have done with him. I didn’t—I don’t
think
she could have been with a guy. She said she
loved
me. I kept accusing her, pushing her, trying to figure out if she’d cheated on me. Part of me kept picturing her doing those things, but another part of me believes she would
never
do something like that.”

“She’s probably just hanging out with friends,” I said, even though I didn’t believe it. “She’ll come home any time.”

Colden’s brown puppy-dog eyes met mine, and I saw the tears streaming down his face. “She doesn’t
have
any friends,” he said. “All she does is work, and when she’s not working she spends her time with
me
. Where else could she go?”

I didn’t have answers for the young man. There was something definitely going on, but I wasn’t a private investigator. Or a cop. But, I had promised Mary Kate I would poke around. “We’re going to talk to her family,” I said.

Callie raised an eyebrow, but she stood and said, “Don’t worry, she’s probably safe and sound. Somewhere.”

Colden glanced up and brushed the tears from his cheek with the sleeve of his T-shirt. “You think?”

“This is Iowa,” I said as reassuringly as I could. “There’s not a lot of crime. She’ll be home soon enough.”

We headed for the door, Colden following us, but before I left I said, “Don’t worry. We’ll find her.”

* * *

“Do you believe the girl is safe?” Callie asked.

I turned left and headed back toward the center of town. The houses were remarkably similar to the houses back in Arcanum. Almost all of them were fifty years old or older, and many of them exhibited wear or neglect. The asphalt roads were cracked, a crazy patchwork of zigzags covered in oil sealant, a sign the city was desperate to get more use out of them before replacing or resurfacing them.

“No,” I said. “I don’t. The boy may be rattled, but I think he has good reason. Who knows what could’ve happened to her? Could be drugs, could be a guy, could be she hooked up with the wrong crowd. Could be she’s been raped and murdered and is dead in a ditch.”

As I drove, I noticed the Halloween decorations. Several houses had fake tombstones in the front lawn, next to bales of hay. Some had inflatable giant pumpkins lying in pools of fabric on the lawn, waiting for night to spring to life. Many of the houses had carved pumpkins on the front porch, and sometimes a cardboard cutout of a witch visible through the front window.

I used to love Halloween. Stacie and I would dress Lilly up, always the same Dora the Explorer costume, and parade her up and down the neighborhood knocking on our neighbors’ doors. She would squeal with delight at a piece of hard candy, a Hershey’s kiss, or a tiny candy bar. We would clomp up and down the streets, eager to show off our little girl with her short black wig. Stacie spent hours making sure Lilly’s costume was perfect. In the end, we gathered at our house, Lilly dumping her spoils of war on the hardwood floor. She would point out each piece of candy and tell us which neighbor put it in her candy bag, so proud of herself for remembering.

I missed those times. I missed my wife and daughter. I missed the safety and comfort that let us walk after dark.

Now I knew what kind of evil lurked in the shadows. I knew just how bad the world was.

I shook my head. “I know I’m supposed to be hunting vampires,” I said, “but if there’s a way I can help get the girl back, I’ve got to try.”

Callie studied my face, then she nodded her head. “We will do what we can. I just pray it’s enough.”

* * *

Fiesta Cancun was located just two blocks south of Hawkeye Gun & Pawn. I parked the truck across the street, and Callie and I watched the entrance.

The front of the building was covered in dozens of layers of paint. The topcoat, brilliant shades of yellow and blue, had cracked and peeled in places and now showed darker colors underneath. Large windows stretched across the front, all painted on the inside with murals depicting crabs and shellfish swimming amid a light blue sea.

I nodded at the restaurant. “How are we going to do this?”

“Can we tell them the truth?” she asked.

“The truth?”

“Yes. Tell them that Colden’s aunt asked you to look into Elena, and why she’s missing.”

I grunted. “I see this ending badly.”

I got out, hesitated, then made my way to the back of the truck. I opened the tailgate, glanced around to make sure no one was looking, then took off my trench coat and removed the Colt and its shoulder holster and placed them inside the heavy metal toolbox in the bed of the truck. I didn’t want to spook anyone, and I wasn’t comfortable carrying a concealed weapon in public, let alone into a restaurant.