“And when you find her, you're not going to do her any harm?”
“My job is just to find her and make sure she’s okay.”
Danielle’s mom looked Margot over for a second before saying, “Yeah, I guess I can trust you. I’ve got to warn you though, if you go up there, her dad is kind of a lowlife.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“He probably won’t let Danielle talk to you. He doesn’t think too highly of detectives.”
“I’m private, I’m not a cop.”
“He might not be bright enough to make that distinction. You might be better off waiting until next week.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Ms. Caldwell nodded and then went inside, leaving Margot on the doorstep. She came back a few minutes later with a piece of notebook paper. On it were an address and two phone numbers, one belonging to Danielle and the other belonging to Devin Dandridge.
“I doubt Devin will answer the phone. If he sees an unknown number, he tends to think it’s someone he owes money.”
“I prefer to do these things in person.”
“Good luck with that. I hope that girl and her mother are okay. I can’t say I’ve always liked either of them, but that doesn’t mean I want either of them hurt.”
“I’ll do my best to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“I’m sure you will. If you can come up for a reason to throw Devin’s ass in jail, go ahead and do it.”
“I’m not a cop.”
“I know, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.”
Chapter 10
The next morning, Margot got up, plugged Devin Dandridge’s address into her GPS, and headed for Riverside. It was about a two-hour drive from Margot’s place to the Dandridge house. Like her other visits this week, she timed it to get there mid-morning.
As she got on the freeway Doreen Gomes called.
“I hope you’re bringing some good news,” Margot told her.
“I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but I tracked down the plate you gave me. If you were hoping it belonged to a rental car then I guess it’s good.”
“That wasn’t what I was hoping for, but it is kind of what I expected. I don’t suppose you ran who was leasing it as of yesterday?”
“As of last night, no one. They turned it in around five o’clock yesterday afternoon. Before that? Still no one. This no one had a name and a driver's license, but they were both bogus.”
Margot was disappointed but not surprised. It sounded like whoever leased the blue sedan drove it straight back to the rental company and turned it in. It looked like their play in the parking lot may have backfired. Margot doubted they turned in the car and went home. They were probably still after her only now she didn’t know what they were driving.
“I don’t suppose you checked to see if your bogus name and driver’s license rented another vehicle?”
“I did. The answer is no. I flagged the license, so if they used the same one somewhere else, it would come up. This kind of thing actually falls under my job description but so far no dice.”
“Bummer.”
“Yeah, bummer. You mind telling me what you’ve gotten yourself into this time?”
“I don’t exactly know, but they’ve been tailing me the last couple days, maybe longer. When Mal and I tried to confront them, they drove off, apparently straight to the rental car company to turn it in and probably start over in a different car.”
“What do you think they want?”