‘She came to me - asked for her my help,’ Leighton said, as he slipped on his jacket.

‘My daughter is psychologically vulnerable at the best of times but especially so right now.’

‘I heard about your husband and -’

‘Ex-husband,’ Abigail corrected.

‘In either case, I’m sorry.’

‘Yes, clearly. Men like you disgust me. Now, please, leave my house.’

As he rose from the chair, Leighton tried momentarily to glance at the girl sleeping on the sofa, but the woman folded her slender arms, and shifted her body to ensure she blocked his view.

‘I’m sorry I gave you a fright, ma’am,’ Leighton said sincerely and walked the door.

‘You didn’t,’ Abigail called victoriously after him.

Leighton stepped out of the Reiner apartment into the bright morning sunlight and the steady sound of the waves against the shore. All around him was an explosion of colour and fragrance from the pink and orange flowers fringing the white apartment.

As he walked to his car, Leighton reflected upon Vicki’s relationship with her mother. It couldn’t have been easy for her growing up beneath the crushing weight of such a formidable personality.

Driving out of the parking area, he was passed by a rookie in a black and white cruiser - no doubt responding to the false alarm. Thankfully, he had escaped just in time.

Leighton drove home, where, after the therapeutic benefit of a long hot shower, he dressed in a pair of charcoal chinos and a white shirt and sat, barefoot, at the metal table on his tiled patio. Before him, was a breakfast of black tea and a toasted cinnamon bagel spread with apricot preserve. Lying next to this was the envelope containing the bus photographs. After taking a bite of food, Leighton slipped open the envelope, and removed a pencil and the sheet of notepaper he had scribbled on. He had drawn a number of squares around the sides of the page. Within these boxes, he had noted certain relevant details. He had also drawn joined lines connecting several of the facts to each other.

Website bookingVictim boarded bus

Phone unused Website dead

Victim’s home emptyHome undisturbed

No show for work

Bus missing

Victim still on bus?

Picking up the pencil, he tapped it on the table for a moment, then began writing. Beneath the list of facts, Leighton now wrote a list of words followed question marks:

Hostage?

Intentional entrapment?

Complicit passengers?

It was these final two words that concerned Leighton most. To break the tension, he sipped his tea, and tried to put the pieces together. It had been easy to accept Laurie may have been abducted from a truck stop restroom by some psycho, but the question of the bus remained. Why would it pretend to be bound for San Diego, but never travel beyond the Oceanside Bus Terminal? Even if there had been some problem at Oceanside that meant the bus couldn’t continue, the disgruntled passengers would all have disembarked at the depot.

Draining the bitter remnants of his tea, Leighton watched the hypnotic sway of the morning lawn sprinklers, as they spurted to life. He decided there was now enough of a case to make the whole thing official. He breathed a sigh of relief at the prospect of handing this messy burden on to somebody else. The somebody in question, was his steel-jawed former boss, Chief Roger Gretsch.

23

Mark tried to convince himself he was not deluded, as he stepped off the droning plane into the bright air of San Diego’s Lindbergh Field Airport. Shambling down the steel ramp to the bus that would transfer him to the grey terminal building, he shouldered his rucksack, and pulled down his sunglasses. The blurry heat-haze rising from the tarmac made the planes on the fringe of the black-top appear to be melting.

It was still possible, he told himself, he would arrive at the Black Cat Club, and simply find Jo with a guitar slung around her neck, singing to a mesmerized crowd. She would be shocked, and perhaps pissed off, Mark had the gall to show up. They would initially make small talk, but he would eventually ask her why she hadn’t been in touch. However, beneath the pleasantries, would be the message she was happy without him. What made the situation so bizarre was Mark simultaneously hoped this was not the case.

He stepped on to the juddering bus and moved aside as the other passengers clambered aboard. There were no seats on the vehicle, which was designed purely to shuttle passengers and their hand luggage. At the opposite end of the bus, Mark could see a group of young women, who were clearly on holiday and bristling with excitement, as they peered out of the window looking for landmarks. They nudged each other, and took photographs to share with on social networks. Mark glanced at them, envious of their freedom and vitality. He wished Jo had taken a flight down, instead of the damned bus.

The cab journey from the airport sped by in a blur as Mark tried to breathe life into the possibility Jo was alive and well. Somehow, the more real Mark could imagine the scenario, the more realistic it seemed to be.

After stopping at seemingly endless sets of traffic lights, the cab came to a stop on University Avenue, where the driver pointed out the bar on the opposite side of the street. Mark handed the driver a bundle of ten dollar bills and climbed out. Slinging his bag over one shoulder, he crossed the busy street, and found himself in front of a classical old building, with a neon silhouette of a freaked-out cat above the name.

Inside, the bar was dark, and smelled of fresh Mexican food. Some fliers advertising live music were scattered around the tables. Mark approached the bar, and was greeted by a tall, young man, with a pierced eye-brow.

‘Hey.’ He smiled at Mark. ‘What you after?’

‘A bottle of Anchor, please.’

As the barman opened a cold beer and placed in front of him, Mark pulled a scrunched bill from his pocket, and handed it to the younger man.

‘Good choice of beer, man.’

‘Cheers,’ Mark replied, and took a mouthful of the tangy cold liquid.

‘You want any food?’ the barman asked, as his hand reached for a menu.

‘No, thanks.’ Mark shook his head. ‘I’m actually here looking for a girl.’

‘Aren’t we all?’

‘No, I mean a girl who maybe sings here?’

Something shifted slightly in the younger man’s face, as if some internal doors were being shut. ‘We have a lot of acts come through here. You a private investigator?’

‘No.’ Mark smiled at the idea. ‘I’m not a psycho stalker, either. I run a small music bar up in Laughlin. The girl left on a mini-tour to come down here, only no-one’s heard from her in weeks. I just wanted to know she got here safely.’

‘Shit, that’s not cool.’

‘Her name is Jo. Can I show you a picture?’

‘Sure,’ the barman said, suddenly more sympathetic.

Mark reached into his shirt pocket and produced a photo of Jo, standing outside the RPM shop, with her guitar in hand. It was one he had taken just after one of their first lunchtime picnics. At the time, he had pretended the photo would be a good promo shot for both the shop and the bar. In truth, he had simply wanted a photograph that beautiful, enchanting girl. Perhaps he naïvely thought it would help him hold on to her. Mark had the photo printed out at a local photo booth, with the vague intention of pinning it up behind the bar. Instead, he had considered it too precious to share, and kept it secretly in his wallet instead. He handed the photo to the barman, who peered at it for long moment.

‘Sorry, man, never seen her.’

‘Maybe she came in on your night off?’