Today's Reading

I was working alone at the moment—Sandra had needed the morning off and wouldn't be in for another forty-five minutes—but I left the front desk unattended and made my way past the cardio machines to where Judith sat on the press machine.

"Something wrong?" I asked.

She looked up at me. "Oh. Hey, Mac."

"Workout going okay?"

She looked at the unmoved weights. "Yeah... I'm not really into it today."

"That doesn't sound like you. Something wrong? Anything I can help with?"

She sighed. "It's nothing."

It was definitely something, but I didn't know how hard to push. If I kept at her and got her to open up, she might end up telling me about some problem that she had with Mr. Strand. As much as I wanted to keep my clients happy and coming back, I didn't want it enough to get involved in that. "You sure? It's not like you to short yourself on leg day."

She gave me a half-smile, but it seemed forced. Something was really bothering her. "Janie didn't come home last night."

"Oh...I'm really sorry." Janie was her oldest daughter—seventeen or eighteen, if I recalled correctly. "No idea where she might have gone?"

"None. This isn't like her."

I nodded. In my experience, a lot of upper middle-class parents didn't have a great handle on what was and wasn't like their kids, but I knew better than to say that. Besides, I didn't know Janie beyond the couple of times she'd come to the gym on her mom's guest pass, so who was I to say anything? But then, I was standing there, and I had to say something. It was too awkward not to.

"Anything I can do?" I regretted saying it immediately. What was I going to do?

She scrunched up her face, probably wondering the same thing: how a muscle-headed gym owner could help with a kid who stayed out overnight. "You know anybody who finds people?"

"Uh—" I mean...I did, in theory. But not the way she needed.

Finally, my brain caught up with my mouth. "Can you hire a private investigator?"

"My husband said I was overreacting and that we didn't need to hire one. Said she'd come back on her own."

Guy sounded like a dick, but maybe I didn't have all of the story. Still...probably a dick. Just playing the odds. "What are you looking for?" Another dumb question, but she seemed distraught, and I couldn't walk away.

"I don't know." She wiped her face with her towel, though she wasn't sweating. Drying her eyes. "I'm not very smart about stuff like this. I just want to know that my daughter is okay."

I took a few seconds. It really wasn't my business, and I had the whole thing with Butler's intruder to deal with. But I found that I didn't care that it wasn't my business. "I might know someone who could look into it."

"Really?" Her face lit up, and I have to admit that when it did, it warmed my cold, dead heart just a little.

"Sure. Off the books. I'll ask them to poke around and see what they find. If they find her, great. If they find that something's wrong... not that I expect that," I added quickly, "then you'll have the information, and you can decide if you want to take more drastic action."

She considered it for a few seconds. "Thanks, Mac." She looked like she wanted to hug me. I took a step backward to forestall that. "Of course. No problem." I left her to her lift and when I got back to the register, I called Butler. I'd signed up for the job, but he had the skills and contacts for this, and he owed me enough favors where I'd never run out.

"Hey boss. I need a favor."

"Of course. What is it?" He probably thought I was going to ask him something about the intruder. Surprise!

"I need help finding a girl."

"Wait...what happened to Cassie?"

"Very funny," I said. Cassie was my girlfriend, and nothing was wrong with that as far as I knew. "Another girl."

"Okay, but Cassie isn't going to like it."

"Can we cut the dad jokes for a second?"

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