He swallowed, looked down again, took a breath. Like he was gathering strength. “One time, there was a girl working here, Chinese I think she was. Really pretty, or at least she would have been, if she ever smiled. She worked in the kitchen, and I sent somebody to get her, bring her in here. Someone else had called in sick, and this girl, she worked her ass off all day, you know, and I just wanted to tell her, if she could even fucking understand me, that she did a hell of a job and I really appreciated it. So she comes in, and she closes the door, and I start to tell her she’s done good, right? And I can tell she doesn’t get what I’m saying. But she comes around the table here, she gets down on her knees, like she’s getting ready to, you know…”

“I get it.”

“And I tell her, no, get up, I don’t want that. But she just assumed this was part of the job.”

I said nothing.

“One night, he’s picking up one of the girls from the kitchen, it’s like two in the morning, and she was so wrung out, totally fucking exhausted. And she heads out, and I see she’s forgot her jacket. So I run out to the van, and that guy’s holding her head down in his lap, you know?” He sighed. “She had to do anything he asked. She had to put up with that shit. And you know why?”

“Why?”

“Because he owned her,” Roy Chilton said. “He owned all these people. They were goddamn slaves to him. He was just renting them out like they were fishing boats.”

“Human trafficking,” I said, thinking out loud.

“Huh?”

“Human trafficking. You lure people to this country, get them to pay thousands of dollars up front with the promise of living the American dream, and once you get them here, you own them. You control them.”

“I didn’t want any part of it,” Roy said. “Told that guy the next day, no thanks. I’d find people elsewhere.”

“I’m sure he just took them to another restaurant,” I said. “Or turned them into full-time sex-trade workers.” I paused. “But why are you telling me all this?” I looked at Arnie. “Why’d you want me to hear all this?”

“You mentioned a name when I was at your place,” Arnie said. “A weird name, that’s why I remember.”

It wasn’t immediately coming back to me.

“Tripe,” he said. “Randall Tripe. But you never said another thing about him.”

I looked at Roy. He was smiling and nodding. “That’s the guy. I’d been telling Arnie all about this, happened to mention the name-”

“And I go, hey, where’d I hear that before?” Arnie said.

“I’d heard about him since then,” Roy said. “Read about him in the paper couple of weeks ago. Somebody shot him, left him in a Dumpster. You put a guy like that in the garbage, it makes the other trash look good.”

THIRTY-THREE

DRIVING AWAY FROM DALRYMPLE’S, I felt like I was nibbling around the edges. I knew Randall Tripe was involved in this somehow. His blood was on my daughter’s car. That was definitely a connection.

Had Syd somehow gotten mixed up in his little slave labor business? Had she found out about his involvement in human trafficking? And if so, how? In what circles had Syd been moving to find out about a scumbag like Tripe?

Was it possible he’d tried to make Sydney one of his workers? I could recall a TV documentary on human trafficking, how its victims weren’t just illegal immigrants, that criminals who made their living this way often preyed on people-particularly young ones-who were born right here in the United States. As long as they could find a way to control you, they didn’t care where you’d come from.

I wasn’t quite sure what to do with the information Roy Chilton had given me. I wanted to pass it along to Kip Jennings, but I felt so betrayed by her I wasn’t confident she could help me anymore.

Driving back into Milford, I decided to continue on with what I’d been about to do when Arnie Chilton had phoned. I drove to the Just Inn Time, parked close to the front doors, and went into the lobby.

Today, Veronica Harp was on the front desk with Owen. She smiled warily as I came in. Our last encounter, when she’d offered to make me forget my troubles-at least temporarily-by slipping between the sheets with her, made this meeting feel slightly awkward.

“Mr. Blake,” she said professionally, what with Owen only a couple of feet away fiddling with a fax machine, “how can I help you today?”

I explained that when I’d rented my room, I’d had Syd’s stuffed moose Milt in my bag, and now I couldn’t find it.

“When she comes home, I want it to be there for her,” I said.

Veronica nodded, understanding. “Let me just check our lost and found,” she said, and disappeared into an adjacent office.

I paced the lobby, five steps this way, five steps back. I did that three or four times before Veronica came back, empty-handed.

“Nothing’s been turned in,” she said.

“Is the room in use? Could I go up and have a look?”

Veronica consulted the computer. “Let’s have a look-see… The room’s empty at the moment, but our damn system for programming new keys is down for a minute. I’ll come up with you and let you in with my passkey.”

“Sure,” I said. “Thanks.”

She came around the counter. She had her cell phone in one hand, like she was expecting a call, the key card in the other.

We went to the elevator together. “It’s possible, if one of the maids found it,” she said, “they might not have turned it in.” She gave me a sad smile. “It happens.”

“Sure,” I said again.

“You think it’s possible you might have lost it someplace else?” she asked.

“Maybe,” I said. “But I think it was here.”

The elevator doors parted. As we started down the hall, Veronica’s phone went off. She glanced at the ID, hit the button, put the phone to her ear. “Hang on a second,” she said. She extended the passkey to me and said, “You mind? I really have to take this.”

I nodded and took the key as Veronica hit the elevator button to go back down, phone stuck to her ear.

I reached my former room, inserted the key, waited for the little light to turn green, and went inside.

The room was all made up, waiting for the next guest. Stepping into the center of the room, I didn’t see Milt anywhere. It was possible, of course, that one of the housekeeping staff found Milt and, rather than turn him in to the office, decided to keep him. Milt was pretty threadbare from years of hugging, but then again, the staff here probably didn’t make a fortune, and coming home with any stuffed toy for your daughter, even one whose antlers were nearly falling off, was better than coming home without one at all.

I walked around the room, glanced under chairs, opened the drawers of the dresser-all empty.

Then I got down on my hands and knees and peered under the bed. Clearly, vacuuming under here was not something hotel management insisted be done on a daily basis. There were dust balls the size of, well, golf balls.

I found a skin magazine, a package of cigarette papers, a paperback novel by John Grisham. Where the bed met the wall, there was a dark blob. I reached my arm under, grabbed hold of it tentatively.

It was furry.

I pulled it out. It was Milt. I picked the larger bits of dust off him and tried to blow off the rest.

“Got ya,” I said, holding Milt, looking into his goofy face, touching the right antler, which was hanging by a thread. “I thought I’d lost you.”

And then, suddenly, sitting there on the hotel bedroom floor with Milt in my hands, I felt overwhelmed.

Cried like a baby.

I allowed myself three minutes to feel bad, then got to my feet, went into the bathroom to splash some water on my face, dried off with a fresh towel, and left the room.

I WAS HEADING BACK TO THE ELEVATOR, Milt in hand, when I heard muffled screaming coming from a room at the end of the hall.