J. Daniel Sawyer - Clarke Lantham 01 by And Then She Was Gone Page A

as he cuffed me.
    The ambulance trundled up and the EMTs jumped out.
    The cop poked me in the back. “Lantham, where’s the girl?”
    “Left of the garage, through the gate, across the yard in the guest house.”
    “You, kid,” the cop said, “Stand up. Put your hands on the car.”
    “Oh, man, this is fucked up.” Rawles did what he was told.
    “You’re under arrest for aggravated assault.” Quick frisk—not a very good one. Missed at least four obvious spots, but he looked like a rookie, and he was hurrying because of me, so I didn’t hold it against him. “You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can be used against you in court.” He took one hand and pulled it behind Rawles back, then reached for the other one. “You have the right to an attorney and to speak to the attorney before any questioning.” The cop finished zip-tying his hands together. “If you cannot afford one, the court will appoint one for you. Do you understand these rights?”
    “Yeah, yeah, I got it.”
    “You know this house?”
    “Shit yeah, it’s my buddy’s place.”
    “He home?”
    “No, man, he’s in Hawaii. I’m house sitting.”
    “Lead the way.” The cop pulled Rawles off the car and shoved him in the direction of the house, then nodded to me. I followed Rawles in. The cop, whose name I still hadn’t gotten, followed us both in, leading the EMTs.
    You don’t survive as long as I have without a pretty strong nose. The minute Rawles covered for anyone else being in the house, I smelled a dead, festering, rotting rat. When we got back to the guest house, the rice-paper blinds were open.
    Someone had been in there.
    I was now officially screwed.
    The guest house was empty. No blood. No shards. Nothing out of place. No Nya. Just a slight smell of bleach, some drops on the floor. Could’ve been any abandoned living room.
    Whoever did it had changed out the fixture’s bulb. The light was barely bright enough to see the edges of the room now.
    The cop walked into the room. He squatted down and felt the floor. His eyes narrowed—either the smell and the dribbles had him suspicious, or he was trying to figure out what else he could charge me with. A quick shine under the futon couch with his flashlight did nothing to improve his expression.
    I was going down for this one, at least for a few hours. Whoever this kid Rawles had found for a playmate was fast. But what the hell was the game?
    A night in the clink while they tried to sort this out—if I was lucky and the prosecutor wasn’t up for re-election this year—and every minute, Nya was either farther away or more dead.
    The cop turned to me. I could see his name tag now in the half-light from the substandard CF that had been screwed behind the ceiling’s fixture. Officer Randolph. “Some girl you’ve got here.”
    “She was just here.” I didn’t put a lot into it. Trying to convince a cop to believe a PI’s story was about as useful as teaching a cat to play chess, at least when that cop hadn’t worked much with that PI before. I know. I used to be one—the cop, not the cat. Private snoops can be trusted to work angles and shade the truth right up to the limit of their professional obligations.
    Kind of like I was about to do.
    “Right. Lantham, step over to the bench.” He pointed past me to a little garden bench a few yards away. I backed over to it, but didn’t sit down. He said a couple low words to the EMTs, they nodded and started milling around like confused pigeons. Randolph yanked Rawles aside and interrogated him for a minute, then came over to me.
    “The kid says you got porn pics of his girlfriend on your phone. Mind if I take a look?”
    “Yeah, I mind.”
    “He says she’s seventeen, that makes it kiddie porn. You can save yourself a lot of trouble right here.”
    “Not without a warrant.”
    “All right, if that’s how you want to play it.” He clapped a hand onto my shoulder and started to pull me out toward the