The Night Monster_ A Novel of Suspense - James Swain [81]
“No, honey, it’s not.”
Jessie went silent. Normally, she had more words in her than a dictionary. I guessed the loss of her friend and teammate was starting to sink in.
“I want to help,” my daughter finally said.
“What about your classes?”
“I’m done for the day.”
I hesitated. I normally didn’t get my family involved in cases, only Jessie had already helped me link Mouse and Lonnie to three other abductions.
“You’re on,” I said.
“Great. What do you want me to do?”
“There was a mental health facility in Broward called Daybreak that got shut down. I want you to go online, and see what information you can find about the place. I’m interested in finding a list of patient names.”
“Are these the guys who kidnapped Sara?”
“Yes. Their first names are Lonnie and Mouse. If I can find out their last names, I can contact social security, and learn where they’re originally from. It’s a slim lead, but I need to have it run down.”
“I’ll get on it right away.”
“Thanks. Please don’t tell anyone about this, okay?”
“I won’t tell a soul,” my daughter said.
I spent the rest of the morning and a few hours into the afternoon pouring over the Daybreak file on my computer. The majority of what I read was medical mumbo jumbo that didn’t have any bearing on my search. Whenever I did run across something that felt promising, I was met with the black line from a Magic Marker.
By the time I reached the last page, my brain was fried and I didn’t know any more than when I’d started. I needed to take my frustration out on something, and chose the plastic garbage pail beside my desk. My kick sent it clear across the office, where it bounced off the wall and left an ugly bruise. I should have felt better, only I didn’t.
My cell phone rang. It was Jessie. Perhaps my daughter had found the information that had so far eluded me, and I excitedly flipped open my phone.
“I hope your morning was more productive than mine,” I said.
“I’m pulling my hair out,” Jessie said. “I Googled Daybreak, and found over ten thousand places where it’s referenced. I went to a few hundred of those places, and tried to find your information. Every time I thought I’d found what you were looking for, the site told me that the information had been deleted.”
More bad news. Buster had retrieved the garbage pail and brought it back to me. I pulled open my desk drawer and tossed him a dog treat.
“I did find one thing that looked promising,” she said.
I sat up straight in my chair. “What’s that?”
“I found a website called browardoddities.com. It’s got all sorts of crazy stuff about Broward County posted on it, including some information about Daybreak. I did another search, and discovered that a guy named Ray Hinst runs the site. I searched his name, got his number, and called him. Hinst lives in Broward, and sounds like a decent guy. He told me that he worked as an orderly at Daybreak. He offered to give you a tour of the place, if you’re interested.”
“Hinst gives tours?”
“Yeah. He said a lot of thrill-seekers like to go into the buildings, but don’t like to go alone. I guessed you’d want to hear what Hinst had to say, so I arranged a tour for you. Hinst agreed to meet you at Daybreak’s front gates at three o’clock.”
I checked the time. I was going to have to move fast if I was going to make it.
“This is really great,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Maybe I can be your assistant one day.”
Jessie’s words sent an icy finger down my spine. Nothing would have made me happier than to have my daughter working by my side. But not at this. I had seen too many bad things to want my only child to follow in these footsteps. Anything but this.
“We’ll have to talk about that sometime,” I said.
“Is that a promise?”
“Yes, it’s a promise.”
“Good-bye, Daddy.”
CHAPTER 40
got onto 595 and punched the gas. My Legend was old but the engine still had some kick. I pushed the speedometer up to seventy, and kept it there.
It occurred to me that I hadn’t asked Jessie how much Ray Hinst was going to charge me for a tour of the Daybreak facility. Not that it really mattered;