“Really? You came back to help?” She straightened and stretched out her aching back.
“Why wouldn’t I?” He looked around the living room. All the old furniture and the piles of debris were gone. The dated seventies brass chandelier that had hung over the dining room table had been pulled down and work lights now illuminated the cavernous living and dining room spaces.
“Man. You and Cass managed all this?”
“Cass called a local company and they sent out a couple of college kids to haul away all the furniture and junk to the dump. We never could have done it without them.”
“Where’s Cass now?” he asked, looking around.
“Pizza run. We ordered from Lighthouse, but they’re slammed and we’re starved, so she went to pick it up.”
“Wish I’d known,” Trae said. “I would have brought something from town.”
She eyed him warily. “Really? Why would you do that?”
He laughed. “You mean, why would a snooty, demanding L.A. designer lower himself to actually act like a decent human being?”
“Well, yeah.”
“I’m not really an asshole in real life, Hattie. I just play one on television. We’re in this together, you know. If this project isn’t amazing in every way, and Homewreckers tanks, my career and reputation go with it. Now, tell me what you need me to do.”
She pointed at the dining room, where the carpet had already been removed. “If you’re serious, all that nasty carpet padding was so old and damp, patches of it stuck to the floor. We’ll come back and sand everything later, but first we’ve gotta scrape up the rubbery patches, plus pull up all the tack strips. You up for that?”
“Let me just grab my tool belt,” Trae said.
“You own a tool belt? For real?”
“I’m a man of many talents,” he told her.
By the time Cass returned to the house with a large pizza and a six-pack of beer, Trae was using a putty knife to pry up the last of the tack strips in the dining room.
She set the pizza box on the work table they’d dragged into the living room. “What’s he doing here?” she said, nodding in the designer’s direction.
“I came back to help,” Trae said. “Why does everyone find that so hard to believe?”
Cass popped the top on a bottle of beer, ignoring him, and handed it to Hattie. “Maybe because he’s been acting like a dick so far?”
“He’s not as bad as we thought,” Hattie said, taking a long pull from the bottle. “Plus he has his own tools.”
“I’m standing right here,” Trae protested. “Come on, ladies. Cut me some slack.”
24
Little Girl Lost
Makarowicz was sitting in his cruiser, looking over his notes when Dawna Gaines, the TPD dispatcher, radioed him. “Hey, Mak, there’s a girl been calling here all afternoon, asking to speak to you about that article in the newspaper. Her name’s Emma Ragan.”
“Give me her number, please.” He grabbed his phone and typed the number into it as she called it out. “Any other calls?”
“Just the usual assorted wingnuts,” she said cheerfully. “I left their numbers on your desk, but this girl sounds legit. And frantic.”
* * *
“Hello?” She picked up on the first ring.
“Miss Ragan? This is Detective Makarowicz, at the Tybee PD. I understand you’d like to talk to me.”
“Yes,” she said, a little breathlessly. “Only I’m at work, and I don’t get off until nine. Could we maybe meet after that?”
“I’m off at six, but yeah, tonight will work,” he said quickly.
“Could we meet downtown at the Crystal Beer Parlor?” she said. “I’ll tell my boss something important came up. Is eight okay?”
* * *
He spotted her at a two-top in the corner of the main dining room. Her hair was chopped short and silvery white with purple tips. She was studying a menu, and despite the sleeves of tattoos covering both forearms, she looked about twelve years old.
“Emma?”
She looked up. Her bright blue eyes were rimmed with black eyeliner and she had one of those little silver rings in her nose, and she was so petite he was tempted to ask the hostess for a booster seat for her. What was the word he was thinking applied to her? Waifish. Yeah. She looked like one of those waifs from a Dickens novel.
“Detective … I’m not sure how to say your last name.”
“Makarowicz, but just call me Mak.”