Stolen Daughters (Detective Amanda Steele)

Trent winced. “And how did that go over?”

“He kicked down the room’s door.” Roy hitched a thumb over his shoulder. “We got it fixed up yesterday.”

“Guessing you didn’t call the police about any of this,” she said.

“Nope. I called Kirk, that’s the owner, and he said to just let it be.”

That was interesting… But even if police had been called to the motel for property damage, the handler would have been long gone by the time they’d arrived. But there was one possible way to track him down. “Did you get a plate on this guy’s vehicle?”

There was a pregnant pause, then, “Yeah, I have it.” It felt like Roy had more to say, but he didn’t.

“We’ll get that from you in a minute,” she said. “Now can you tell us what he looked like?”

“Rather thin, dark hair, sunken cheekbones, but it was his eyes that were the real creep show.”

Amanda angled her head. “What about them?”

“The whites… They were black.”

The skin tightened on the back of her neck. She briefly glanced at Trent, whose eyebrows were raised. He was thinking the same thing. Was this the same man from Second Treasures who had been tailing Ashley Lynch? It had to be, because what were the chances that someone else in the area had these eyes? “You’re sure they were black?”

“Definitely. Guy looked like quite the freak.”

“Okay,” Amanda said. “You’re doing great. About how old?”

“Say mid-to-late thirties.”

“Has this guy been here before or since?” she asked.

“I don’t know if I should say.”

That’s a yes… “If you see him again, call the police. You can even call me directly.” She pulled her business cards from a back pocket and handed him one. She was quaking with anger. People like Roy were why sex traffickers got away with their crimes.

He took it but didn’t put it any of his pockets, and Amanda imagined it would be crumpled up and tossed into a wastebasket the first chance he got.

She mulled over what had transpired here, and there was no reason why everything couldn’t have played out much the same way with Ashley Lynch. And Roy had just confirmed that the black-eyed man had been there before. She took out her phone, brought up the photo of Ashley and showed it to Roy. “Does she look familiar to you?”

He cupped his hand over hers to steady the phone and leaned in. “Ah, no.”

“You’re positive? Sometimes it can be a little tricky to recognize people when it’s a computer-rendered graphic.” She angled her head and studied his face as he took a long, hard look.

He let go of her hand and the phone. “Nope. Never seen her.”

“All right. You can lock up here and go back to the office. My partner and I will catch up with you in a minute.”

They all shuffled outside. Roy returned to the office, and Amanda and Trent huddled.

“He was here,” she said. “That means Crime Scene needs to be called in to sweep the rooms, see if they can find anything useful. Prints, etcetera. We also need approval to collect the video footage.”

“I get that.”

“We’ll need a verbal warrant, so that can get started ASAP. You ever get one of those before? I can give you the name of a friendly judge.”

“I can figure it out.”

“Good.” Amanda pulled out her phone and shot a contact over to Trent. “That’s Judge Armstrong’s info.”

He looked at his screen and nodded. “Got it.”