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A creak from the kitchen. Her hand dropped to her gun.
Bob Brigham appeared in the kitchen doorway. He was holding a can of beer. "Back again," he muttered. "With . . ." His voice faded as he snatched the warrant away from his wife and made a pretense of reading it.
He looked at Rey Carraneo as if he were a busboy.
Dance asked, "Have you heard from Travis?" Eyes swiveling around the house.
"Nope. But you can't be blaming us for what he's up to."
Sonia snapped, "He didn't do anything!"
Dance said, "I'm afraid that the girl today who was attacked identified him."
Sonia began to protest but fell silent and futilely fought tears.
Dance and Carraneo searched the house carefully. It didn't take long. No sign the boy had been here recently.
"We know you own a pistol, Mr. Brigham. Could you check to see if it's missing?"
His eyes narrowed as if he were considering the implications of this. "It's in my glove compartment. In a lockbox."
Which California law required in a household where children under eighteen lived.
"Loaded?"
"Uh-huh." He looked defensive. "We do a lot of landscaping in Salinas. The gangs, you know."
"Could you see if it's still there?"
"He's not going to take my gun. He wouldn't dare. He'd get a whipping like he wouldn't believe."
"Could you check, please?"
The man gave her a look of disbelief. Then he stepped outside. Dance motioned Carraneo to follow him.
Dance looked at the wall and noticed a few pictures of the family. She was struck by a much happier-looking, and much younger, Sonia Brigham, standing behind the counter at a booth at the Monterey County Fairgrounds. She was thin and pretty. Maybe she'd run the concession before she'd gotten married. Maybe that's where she and Brigham had met.
The woman asked, "Is the girl all right? The one who got attacked?"
"We don't know."
Tears dotted her eyes. "He's got problems. He gets mad some. But . . . this has to be a terrible mistake. I know it!"
Denial was the most intractable of emotional responses to hardship. Tough as a walnut shell.
Travis's father, accompanied by the young agent, returned to the living room. Bob Brigham's ruddy face was troubled. "It's gone."
Dance sighed. "And you wouldn't have it anyplace else?"
He shook his head, avoided Sonia's face.
Timidly she said, "What good comes of a gun?"
He ignored her.
Dance asked, "When Travis was younger, were there places he'd go?"
"No," the father said. "He was always disappearing. But who knows where he went?"
