“What are you doing?”
Instead of answering her, he followed the fence until he found a latch and opened a gate, disappearing into the backyard. She sighed and headed over, trying to stay on her toes so her heels didn’t sink into the grass.
“Isn’t this unlawful trespassing or something?” she hissed as she joined him, the gate closing behind them. “What are we doing? If you wanted to see the pool we could have just asked.”
He didn’t respond, just continued traipsing through the property, past the tennis court and swimming pool, stopping when he reached the door to the pool house. She’d only reached his side when he grabbed the handle and pushed it open.
A flurry of sound followed as whoever was on the other side reacted to their unexpected arrival.
Chapter Four
“Why are we hiding out here, Bryce?” Travis asked the guy lying on the couch, noticing the faint smell of sweat and mildew hanging in the air. Shit. This place could stand to be aired out. The kid didn’t look much better.
Meredith stepped in behind him in time to see the teenager bolt upright.
“Mrs. Sanders?” he said, blinking at the blinding light from the doorway she’d left open behind her. “What are you—how did you know I was here?”
Before Meredith could interject, Travis took the lead. It was one thing to let Meredith humor the old man up at the house—who had been more interested in staring at her assets than discovering the fate of her daughter—but it was another thing to let her control a key interview in his investigation. “On a hunch, I guessed the sporty yellow SUV parked in the garage next to the Mercedes was yours.”
He leaned over and, with a push of his hand, shut the door. Her shoulders jerked at the unexpected sound and she leveled a glare at him that he ignored as he continued, “I saw movement through the window when your dad tried calling you a moment ago. I’m guessing you’re keeping a low profile?”
Whatever energy Bryce had at their initial appearance seemed to leave him as he visibly deflated, sinking back again onto the couch. “Yeah. You could say that.”
“Well, if you could humor us for a few minutes, we’ll be glad to leave you to your wallowing without giving your old man any idea where you are.” Bryce barely nodded. “We’re looking for Darcy. We understand that the two of you had plans to get together last night.”
“You could say that,” he spit out bitterly. “But apparently Darcy had other ideas.”
Meredith moved to take a step toward him, but Travis placed his hand on her arm and shook his head. She narrowed her eyes again but didn’t say anything.
“It’s important that you tell us everything you know, Bryce. Because it looks like Darcy didn’t come home last night, and she hasn’t been seen since she left a babysitting job yesterday. Did you actually see Darcy last night, yes or no?”
He sat up a little more, blinking his eyes a few times as what Travis said sank in through his haze of self-pity. “Yeah. I saw Darcy. We were supposed to meet up at this thing. But when I got there, she was all over some creep. When I went to go buy her a Coke, they gave me the slip. I haven’t seen her since.”
“Did you know the guy she was hanging out with?” Travis continued.
“Yeah. Think he went to our school a couple of years ago. Not sure if he was kicked out or dropped out, but he left in the middle of the year. Matt something or other.”
Real helpful.
“Anyhow,” Bryce continued, “we’ve seen him at these things before. Usually with a different girl each night. Darcy never gave him a second look before. Made a joke that the guy had likely bred some new kind of VD from all the action he appeared to be getting. So when I saw them together…it was like a sucker punch. I mean, she wanted to wait and all—” His eyes widened when he realized what he’d said, and he glanced nervously over at Meredith. “I just didn’t expect she’d go with a guy like that.”
“And you’re sure she left with him?” Travis asked, his voiced measured and patient. “What about her car? Did you notice if she left in it?”
“It was still parked outside, down the block. Which was why when I saw it, I went back in to see if I’d missed her. I found a couple guys inside I knew, and they mentioned seeing Darcy leave with a guy. Looked pretty wasted to them, too,” he added with disgust.
“Well, the problem we have, Bryce,” he said lazily and leaned forward to rest his arms on the back of a chair, flexing his biceps for additional intimidation, “is that Darcy hasn’t been seen or heard from since. And her mother here”—he looked back in time to catch Meredith staring at his muscles before she could turn away. He suppressed a smile and turned back to Bryce—“has already contacted the police, because she’s worried. I need to know, when you saw Darcy, how was she acting?”
“Plastered. And she kept leaning into the kid, letting him touch her, smiling at him—” His voice broke off.
“Did Darcy usually drink to such excess when she was out with you?”
Bryce looked up at Meredith and then turned his gaze to Travis. “We—we’ve been drunk together before. I’ve had a few parties here in the pool house, but it’s summer and we were just having some fun. It was harmless—we didn’t drive or anything. But when we went to parties, especially these raves, we didn’t like to drink. We usually just had a Coke or something. Wanted to be clearheaded.”
“I’m going to need the address of where the party was. Is this a club?”
“No. There’s this kind of underground thing…we don’t know where the next party will be until we’re sent the text about an hour before. Twenty bucks gets you in and a cup for whatever you’re drinking. This last one was at an abandoned warehouse west of the city.” He grabbed his cell phone from the couch and scanned through it before reading Travis the address.
“Can you give us a description of this Matt kid? What does he look like? What kind of car does he drive?”