Page 42 of Long Gone

“Will do,” I said, meaning it. Carl Edmonds could prove to be a valuable source. He’d already helped more than I could have hoped.

After my lunch with Anton, I planned to pay a visit to Skip Martin.

When I walked into the café, I didn’t see a younger man in blue scrubs, but it was busy, with only one table left. Thankfully, a waitress greeted me in passing and told me to take a seat.

A couple of minutes later another waitress, a woman who couldn’t have been older than twenty, walked over and handed me a menu, then took my drink order: a water with lemon.

I had just started to open the map when I saw a man in navy blue scrubs standing in the doorway. He looked remarkably like the photos I’d seen of Hugo—same dark hair, same nose and mouth.

I waved to catch his attention, and he nodded in acknowledgment, then headed over as I stood and offered my hand. “Anton?”

He took my hand with a firm grip. “That’s me.”

“I’m Harper Adams. Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.”

He released my hand and took the seat opposite me. “Yeah, of course. Anything I can do to help find my dad.”

His gaze lowered to the partially opened map.

I sat back down and folded it. “I was hoping you could tell me about your father’s properties.”

“Sunny Point and Martindale?”

“Martindale?” I asked.

“That’s what Dad called the property that he was trying to develop for the Japanese auto manufacturer.”

I nodded. “No one I’ve talked to has called it that.”

He shrugged with a sheepish look. “I’m not surprised. I think that was kind of an inside name between my dad and me.”

“Where did the name come from?”

“We saw a purple martin out there.” When I gave him a blank look, he grinned. “It’s a bird. So I started calling it Martindale. Dad did too, but I guess he didn’t with everyone else.” His eyes misted and a soft smile played on his lips.

“I’m sure you miss your dad,” I said softly. “I’ve heard you were really close.”

“We were,” he said, his eyes filling with tears. “That’s why I’ll never, ever believe he left of his own free will. He would never have left me and Mary Ann.”

“But he would have left your mother?”

His face paled. “You caught that?” When I didn’t respond, he said, “Mom and Dad weren’t getting along all that great when he disappeared. They fought a lot over money.”

Definitely not the impression Clarice had given me, although it fit with what Detective Jones had told me. “Do you think they were heading for a divorce?”

“I don’t know,’ he admitted. “I think they loved each other, but Mom didn’t understand the way his business worked. She was upset that Sunny Point kept running into problems, but she got downright pissed when he started working on Martindale.”

“She didn’t approve of him purchasing that property?”

He snorted. “Not only no, but hell no. She said he needed to focus on selling lots in Sunny Point and getting some homes built before moving on, but Dad tried to convince her the property needed more development before he could even think about letting contractors build houses. He told her that Martindale would help fund Sunny Point. He planned to make money with Phase One, but Phase Two was when he and the investors would rake in the money.”

“Do you think it would have funded Sunny Point?”

He made a face as he considered it. “I was a senior in high school. I didn’t know shit about investing and land development. I took my dad at his word.” He shrugged. “Sure, Dad took me to see the place, but the part I liked was driving the utility vehicle around. The business end of it didn’t interest me.”

I gestured to his scrubs. “I see you didn’t follow in his footsteps.”

He laughed. “No, I had no interest in it. At all. Not even before he disappeared. I was always more interested in biology and life sciences. Then after he left, I really didn’t want anything to do with it.”

---