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At first blush, there wasn't much here.

A twenty-two-year-old male. Missing since last year. No evidence that he'd ever worked for the Fullerton Playhouse, or that he was involved in acting in any way. In fact, he was a computer salesman at Best Buy in Fullerton. His name was Gabriel Friday, and he was last seen going to work.Advertisement

Except he never made it.

That was sixteen months ago.

Again, not much there. Of course, I didn't need much. I just needed a connection to Robert Mason. As I flipped through the file, there was no surprise that Sherbet and I didn't see one here. There was nothing obvious here. Nothing that would indicate a connection of any kind.

Maybe I was wrong. After all, who trusts random balls of light?

I did.

I shoved the file into a folder, checked the time on my cell, then headed out to Best Buy. In the least, I could finally see what the hell a Nook was.

The Best Buy night manager in Fullerton was a black woman named Shelley, who was shorter than me and looked far tougher. She led me to a small office behind the help desk and showed me to a seat in front of a metal desk.

"So you're a private investigator?" she asked, easing around the desk.

"That's what it says on my tax returns."

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She smiled easily. I suspected her easy smile could turn serious fast. "I've always wanted to be a private investigator. In a way, part of my job involves in-house investigations. Missing money. Missing shipments. Missing merchandise. Last month, I caught two employees loading up a minivan with Dyson vacuums."

"They're nice vacuums," I said. "Almost worth going to jail over."

She laughed. "And that's exactly where they are now."

"You're kind of a badass."

She leveled her considerable stare at me. "I'm a lot of badass, honey," she said. "Maybe we should team up someday and fight crime together."

I grinned. I liked her. A lot. "Our first order of business could be to take down an international vacuum syndicate."

"With stakeouts?"

"Of course."

"You've got yourself a deal." She smiled. "Now, how can I help you, Ms. Moon?"

"I'm here about Gabriel Friday."

"Gabriel. Was he found?"

I shook my head. "Not yet. I'm sorry."

She was about to say something, then closed her mouth again. She nodded once, and I saw that she was, in fact, trying to control herself.

"Were you close to him?" I asked.

"I try to be close to all my workers, Ms. Moon."

"Please, call me Samantha."

She nodded. "Very well, Samantha. Yes, as close as a manager and computer geek could be. We talked as much as time would allow, which might only be a few minutes a week, but I always make the effort."

"You said 'geek'? A term of endearment?"

"A job title. He was part of the Geek Squad, our mobile support techs."

"I see," I said, and now my mind was racing.

She dried her eyes and looked at me directly. "Why do you ask about him, Samantha?"

I shifted in my seat. "I have reason to believe that his disappearance might be related to another case."

I liked Shelley. She deserved the truth, no matter how hard it was for me to tell her. When I was finished, she ran both hands through her thick hair, then just kept them there, holding her head. She seemed instantly lost.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Oh, sweet Jesus. He was such a good kid, such a good kid. He didn't deserve this. I got to know his mother through all of this. They weren't close, and had a falling out, but she loved him so much. Missed him so much. We were all looking for answers. This can't be the answer."

As she buried her face in her hands, I moved over to her side and put my arm around her shoulder as she wept quietly for a few moments. I gently patted her shoulder and thought to myself that everyone should be so lucky to have a boss who cared so much.

When she had gotten control of herself, blowing her nose on a tissue and sitting a little straighter, I moved back around the desk and asked if she still had records of Gabriel's clients.

She nodded. "I kept everything after his disappearance. Wasn't sure what would be important or not."

She had good instincts. I said, "Did the police go through the records?"

She nodded. "Cursory at best. They looked at them, but as far as I know, that's all they did."

"And what's in the files?"

"Just routine stuff. Records of various house calls. Sometimes to businesses, too."

"Businesses?"

"Yes."

"May I see his file?"

"Of course, honey."

She spun her chair around and rolled over to a big filing cabinet in the far corner of the office. There, she dug through the first drawer until she came out with a thickish folder.

"Everything's in here," she said, rolling back, setting it in front of me. "The service orders and final receipts. Not to mention his evaluations and anything else we had on him."

"Thank you," I said.

"If you need any help, Samantha Moon, you let me know. I would personally like to bring this piece of shit down, whoever he is."

"I'll keep you in mind."

She held my gaze a moment longer, and I think the two of us might have bonded. When she was gone, I cracked the file open. It took me precisely two minutes to find a service order for the Fullerton Playhouse.

Called in by Robert Mason himself. pqdm.com