Clean Burn by Karen Sandler Read Free Book Online Page B

Lopezes in the Sacramento area.”
    Talk about chasing wild geese through haystacks. It would likely be fruitless, but I could have Sheri start down the Lopez listings, making calls in between legitimate work. It would serve her right for roping me into the search for James.
    Hoping to narrow down the legions of Lopezes, I asked, “Would the Stuarts’s daughter know Mrs Lopez’s first name?”
    “I can call and ask her.” He flipped open a Greenville County phone book, then punched out a number on his desk phone. “Hey, Trish. It’s Sheriff Heinz.”
    I only half-listened to the conversation as I took a closer look at the photos on his wall. Somewhere between that eleven year-old picture and the most recent, something had taken the smile off Ken’s niece’s face.
    Ken hung up. “Trish never knew the woman. She’ll ask her folks next time she calls them.”
    I nudged the soccer photo straighter. “Is that really Cassie? How’d she get so grown up?”
    “She lives with me now.”
    “What happened to your sister?” For the life of me, I couldn’t remember her name.
    “Cassie got diagnosed with diabetes two years ago. Melinda... she’s just not equipped. She asked me to take Cassie for a couple of months, then never came back to get her.”
    “Where’s Melinda now?”
    “LA, last I heard. She doesn’t keep in touch.”
    That explained the anger in the thirteen year-old’s eyes. Moms that didn’t hang around. We had that in common.
    Reading from the phone book, Ken scribbled on a piece of paper. “The Stuart place is out on Black Oak Road. Trish said you can drop by later today, but she doesn’t think she’ll be much help.”
    “I might be able to cross-correlate the former address. Use it to narrow down the Lopezes.” That is, if Mrs Lopez used the address on another rental application. If she was running from someone or something, she might lie about a former residence to cover her tracks. “What about local sex offenders?”
    With more and more laws in place preventing molesters from living near schools and parks, the sickos got forced out of congested urban areas and into rural towns like Greenville. Offenders could live on the fringes, out of sight. More insulated from the kind of degenerate worms that populated big cities, small town kids tended to be less wary, more vulnerable when a molester crept out of hiding to make contact.
    “You already checked the Megan’s database for local offenders?” Ken asked.
    “Yeah. Are all four still in the area?”
    “Two of them moved. I can take you out to talk to the other two.” He typed at his keyboard and the printer spit out a sheet of paper.
    “I can handle it.” I tried to grab the paper.
    He held it out of my reach. “My jurisdiction. You go with me.”
    “I already looked those names up on my own computer. No reason I can’t go out on my own.”
    “But you won’t. Because I’ll be with you.”
    He didn’t seem in a mood to argue. He walked out of his office without so much as a look over his shoulder to see if I was following. When he did check on me as he reached the end of the hall, he took in my slow progress as my leg refused to unknot and waited until I caught up.
    “Need anything from your car?” he asked as we headed for the Explorer.
    “Let me grab my computer bag.”
    After a trip to my Escort, I settled in the front seat of the Explorer with my laptop balanced on my knees. I hadn’t entered my notes yet from my conversation with Emma at the Golden Arches. I could type what I knew into my database and keep my hands busy while we drove.
    “Who first?” I asked. “Paul Beck or Chuck Pickford?”
    Ken gunned out of the parking lot. “Paul Beck. He’s farthest out, at the Pine Hill Mobile Home Park.”
    As I pulled out the laptop, I found a stash of matches in a side pocket. Figuring it was fate that had put them there, I fished one out and tucked it into the corner of my mouth.
    Ken glanced at the matchstick then glued