Little Girl Gone by Brett Battles Read Free Book Online Page A

refuse.
    In retrospect, he knew it would have been a hell of a lot better if he had. Carl might have still been alive. Which would have meant Trish wouldn’t have blamed Logan and walked out on him.
    But Logan had taken the job. And Carl had died. And Trish had left.
    It wasn’t the dream that woke him that morning in L.A. It was the cruel memory of his wife lying quietly beside him. He could see her hair on the pillow, the curve of her body under the blanket. He could almost smell her, too, the faint odor of almonds and wildflowers and…
    As his eyes parted, the illusion faded. Trish was three thousand miles away, not lying next to him. That would never happen again.
    He threw back the covers and sat on the edge of the bed, knowing he needed to go on a run so he could drive the memories from his mind. But in his haste to leave Cambria, he’d left his running gear behind. The only choice he had was to take a vigorous walk up Sepulveda Boulevard where his motel was located, and hope that would do the trick.
    It was only partially successful. While he was able to put Trish and Carl back into their respective boxes, he was unable to let his mind go completely blank. The void he’d hoped to create was quickly filled by thoughts of Tooney and Elyse.
    It was obvious to Logan that there was a lot more going on than he’d been led to believe. Part of him wanted to jump in his El Camino and drive back to Cambria to find out from his father and Tooney what was really going on. But what about Elyse? If something had really happened to her, Logan couldn’t afford the time the trip would take. As it was, he’d had to force himself to find a place to sleep only because it had been too late to get anything else done.
    Now the world would soon be up again, and he could get back to looking for her. As much as he wanted his other questions answered, they would have to wait.
    He figured his best bet was to find out more about Aaron Hughes. Logan wasn’t buying the coincidence of Aaron moving out of his place the same time Elyse disappeared.
    He stopped at a coffee shop near the motel and had a light breakfast. When it got close to seven, he grabbed his bag from his room, then went down to the El Camino and made a call.
    “Hello?” By the way Angie grunted the greeting, he could tell he’d woken her.
    “It’s Logan Harper.”
    “Who?”
    “From last night. About your roommate?”
    “Oh.” She paused. “What do you want?”
    “Just a couple questions. Aaron Hughes. Did he go to Otis, too?”
    When she answered, her tone had turned guarded. “I, uh, think he was out of school. Had a real job.”
    “Doing what?”
    “How should I know?”
    “You didn’t talk about these kind of things?”
    “Elyse and I are just roommates. We don’t hang out. Now, if you don’t mind. I’d like to go back to sleep. I’m on vacation .”
    She clicked off.
    Logan stared out the window for a moment. He wasn’t sure if she was just socially awkward or trying to hide something. Better to err on the side of the latter, he thought, then added a stop at her apartment to his list of things to do. It was a lot harder to hang up on someone if they were standing right in front of you.
    He called Joan next. Though he’d woken her up, too, her demeanor was considerably less annoyed than Angie’s.
    “Did you find her?” she asked.
    “Not yet.”
    “Oh, God. Maybe something really did happen to her.”
    “I’m not willing to say that just yet, but I do have a question or two, if you don’t mind.”
    “Sure. Whatever I can do to help.”
    “I get the impression you and Elyse are friends. Is that right?”
    “Yeah, I guess. I mean, we don’t go and do a lot of things together. But when we’re both here, we’ll hang out, watch some TV, talk.”
    “Other than this boyfriend, Aaron, who—”
    “I gotta tell you, I don’t think she was dating him. I know that’s what Angie said, but I’m sure Elyse would have told me that.”
    “Well, I