What he tells me is pretty much a repetition of what Chief Williams told us this morning. “One interesting coincidence, though,” he adds. “The Franco’s moved from Boston about the same time as Daniel Frey. They lived in different parts of the city, though, and of course Barbara would have been too young to be one of his high school students.”

“What about a sibling? Any brothers or sisters?”

“Nope. Barbara was an only child.”

I start to thank David and sign off when he interrupts by asking quietly, “Don’t you want to know what I found out about Carolyn Delaney?”

A muscle at the corner of my jaw twitches. I don’t remember asking David run a check on Carolyn, and his tone is less than positive. I have to swallow hard to get the words out. “Sure. What?”

“She’s not going to win any Mother of the Year awards.” His voice is guarded. “In fact, she’s been in trouble with the law several times. Five years ago she was caught shoplifting, and Social Services was called because she had Trish with her when she was stopped. She’s been picked up for misdemeanor drug possession and a couple of DUI’s. But so far, none of the charges have stuck.”

He pauses as if waiting for a reaction. I don’t have one, not yet, so I prompt, “Go on.”

“This isn’t the first time Trish has been reported missing. She’s run away before. Twice in the last year. The authorities found her both times, and since she refused to say why she ran away and her mother took her back, there was only routine follow-up.”

I let this information sink in. I’m getting that same feeling of uneasiness I had when Mom first told me Carolyn Delaney was trying to get in touch with me. “Any way you can follow up on that with Social Services?” I ask after a moment. “And on the Carolyn stuff, too?”

“Will do.”

“And David, when Max and I walked in this morning, you said you’d had a call. Do we have a job?”

“Not to worry.” His breezy tone makes me imagine he’s sitting back in his desk chair, waving away my concern with a handful of paper. “Nothing I can’t handle on my own.”

“Which means what?”

“Which means just what I said. I can handle this one on my own.”

I don’t like the sound of that. “Who’s the skip?”

“Nobody who will give me trouble.”

“David, who’s the skip?”

There’s an exaggerated sigh from the other end of the line. “Jake Verdugo.”

“Jake the Snake?” As I say it, I get a chill. Maybe the name is literal.

“He’s a small-time hood. He’s been spotted in Lakeside. I figured I’d run down there this afternoon and grab him.”

“By yourself.”

“Why not? You don’t think I can handle the little shit? He’s barely five feet tall.”

“Take Max.”

I can’t believe I said that, but once it’s out, it makes sense.

Obviously, though, not to David. There’s a silence at the other end of the line so dense it’s almost palpable.

“David? Are you there?”

No answer. He must really be pissed. I’d better talk fast.

“Listen. You know Jake’s reputation. He may be small, but the .45 he carries isn’t. You’ll take him down. Just use Max for backup. Please. Or I’ll come downtown right now and we’ll go together. I can always follow Frey tomorrow. He isn’t going anywhere.”

“And what about your niece?” he snaps. “You going to risk losing a chance to find her just so you can baby-sit me on a job?”

He is pissed. I’ll have to bring out the big guns. “Baby-sit you? After what happened a few months ago, I thought we decided we wouldn’t take unnecessary chances. Call me crazy, but going alone after a guy who knows this is the third strike against him and has sworn not to be taken alive sounds like an unnecessary chance to me. If you don’t agree to let Max go with you, I’m coming.”

It’s an unfair argument. David is awash in guilt about the night we were attacked by the man who turned me into a vampire. Of course, he doesn’t know that I was turned. All he knows is that a white-collar criminal who shouldn’t have given us any trouble knocked him out and assaulted me. It was during the attack that I bit the guy and ended up drinking his blood-vampire blood.

There’s a protracted sigh. “How do you know Max will agree?”

“He’ll agree. Give me five minutes to call him.”

“Be sure he understands I’m only doing this for you, and that he’s there strictly as backup. That’s all. I can handle the rest.”

I assure David that I will make Max understand his role in the operation and hang up. When I talk to Max, he immediately agrees to help. He doesn’t question why he should or whine that David doesn’t treat him well. He simply says he’ll call David as soon as we hang up and that he’ll see me tonight.

It’s one of the reasons I like him so much.

Once that’s done, I sit back in Mom’s desk chair and digest the information about Frey, the Francos, and most disturbing of all, Trish and Carolyn. Carolyn left some salient points out of her story last night, like the drug bust and DUI’s. She also neglected to say anything about Trish having run away twice before. She led us to believe Trish’s drug problems came about because of the bad influence of some new friends. Maybe those new friends weren’t the only ones responsible.

I grab a piece of paper from a pad on Mom’s desk and scribble a hasty note. I don’t tell her where I’m going, just that I’ll be back before noon.

I think it’s time Carolyn and I have a private chat.

Carolyn and Trish live in one of the few less-than-prosperous areas of prosperous La Mesa, about three miles from the school. The neighborhood is low-income, and the address is an apartment building hidden behind a screen of scruffy junipers. The asphalt in the parking lot is cracked and buckled. Only two vehicles occupy spaces, a battered Volkswagen and a rusted Chevy sitting on blocks. Neither one looks capable of going anywhere. I pick my way around bottles and cans littering the walkway to a “security” gate that hangs open on broken hinges. Beyond it is a pool littered with decayed leaves that smell as if they’ve been there since last fall. The place has the forlorn feeling of neglect.

I know nurses are underpaid, but I can’t believe this is the best Carolyn can afford.

I enter through a courtyard strewn with plastic pool chairs yellow with age. I maneuver around them and make my way to a row of mailboxes attached to the wall under a portico of crumbling stucco. Carolyn hadn’t given us the apartment number. In fact, she hadn’t mentioned that she lived in an apartment at all. But I find the name Delaney under a handwritten slot with “2A” printed in a thick-tipped black marker. There are stairs with rusty banisters on either side of the courtyard, but no indication which apartments are to the right or left. I choose left and start up.

I’m rounding the top of the staircase when a door opens and a man with a broad back and stocky shoulders backs out of a doorway and right into me. He slams the door and then turns with a glare.

I’m not sure which of us gets the bigger shock.

It’s No-neck from Beso de la Muerte.

The glare disappears. Like a puppy given an unexpected treat, he wriggles with delight. “Wow, what are you doing here? Did you come to see me?”

But I’m looking past him to the door. “2A.” I narrow my eyes and frown. “Not in your wildest dreams. Do you live here?”

He grins. “Me? Nah. I’m just here collecting rent for the guy who owns this building. Broad inside was late paying up.”

“Then why would you think I’d be here looking for you, Einstein?”

“Don’t have to be a smart ass,” he whines. But the grin changes to a leer and he gives his crotch a tug. “Sure you don’t want a taste? I have plenty left-and you kind of cheated me before.”

I don’t know what makes me angrier. The implication that part of the “rent” he collected from Carolyn was sex or that I owed him something of the same. I grab him by the scruff of the neck and throw him against the wall. “Does Carolyn know what you do in Mexico?”