Free Heaven to Betsy (Emily #1) by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

double-checked everything imaginable. I also knew most of the information she’d given us was bogus. She’d submitted the Social Security number of a woman named Maria Delgado to her employers at the Wyndham/Ambassador. In fact, that’s the name they knew her by. The phone number she’d given them was a throwaway. The address matched a mailbox storefront. When she was arrested, she’d given the police a different address, one for a very sketchy apartment complex that didn’t have a name, in an even sketchier part of town. That’s also when she’d told them about Valentina. The police and CPS had gone to pick the girl up, but she was gone.
    That was about all we knew.
    I sighed. What now? Snowflake sighed, circled three times, and curled up in a ball under my desk. I rubbed the little ball of fluff with my toes. Jack had left for the courthouse two hours ago, so I was on my own for additional ideas. I found a notepad in the desk drawer that said Williams & Associates at the top in the same stylized text as the wall hanging behind my desk. I co-opted it and started a list.
    1. Call apartment’s office.
    2. Find the real Maria Delgado.
    3. Call CPS to find out what they know from looking for Valentina.
    I chewed on the capped end of my pen, then added
    4.  Find out more about Spike Howard.
    No phone number was listed online for the nameless apartments. I pulled up the property records for their address. A Michael Q. Scott owned them, though what possible middle name started with a Q, I couldn’t imagine. I did a white pages search. Found him and his phone number. Dialed it. When he answered, I explained why I was calling.
    His voice was high-pitched, and very loud. “Lady, I don’t give out no information on my renters without a court order. They got as much a right to privacy as anybody.”
    “But—”
    “I already told the police and that CPS fairy. Ain’t nobody named Sofia Perez rent from me. That apartment’s rented by a totally different feller. He’s all paid up through December. That’s all I care about.”
    “Could you ask him to call me, Mr. Scott?”
    “What, are you deaf? I don’t give out no information on my renters.”
    I thought hard. What did I have left? An appeal to his humanity? “I’m not asking you to give me information, just to have him call me. A little girl’s life could depend on it—a little girl that lived in that apartment.”
    “Yeah, well, I don’t know no little girl that lives there neither. So bring me a court order or leave me alone.”
    He hung up.
    Well, I knew more than I had before I’d called, but still nothing about Sofia. I would just have to visit the apartments on Monday. Not something to look forward to, so I prayed I’d find leads that would point me in a different direction. That meant back to my list. I put a star by the apartments’ address and moved on to the next item. Find Maria Delgado. Nah. That one would be hard. I skipped to the third one. Call CPS. Much easier.
    I dialed the number for the CPS investigator listed in the file: Wallace Gray. An automated voice answered and asked me to leave a message. I said my piece and ended the call. Crap. I looked at the fourth item. Find out who Spike Howard is. That was no easier than “find Maria Delgado,” so I skipped back to item two.
    I started by hunting for the Maria Delgado that matched the Social Security number Sofia had used for her job. I plugged the name and number into a couple of different databases. On the tenth one, PeopleFinders—voila—I found a phone number with an 806 area code. I dialed and someone picked up on the first ring.
    “
Hola
?”
    “Is this Maria Delgado?”
    “
Yo soy
Maria.”
    I whipped out my stumbling college Spanish on her, and I managed to glean that a) she had no idea who Sofia Perez was, b) she had no idea how Sofia Perez had gotten her Social Security number, and c) she didn’t know nothing ‘bout nobody. Not that I believed her, I just had no leverage