Chapter 11: Now, Kent
Kent takes some risks getting information
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WILD GIRL
Chapter 11: NOW, Kent
Kent slipped quietly inside the Abalo house, highly aware of the pregnant woman sitting in his truck. The Ford waited, engine idling, to make the strenuous drive back out of the Waimalia Valley once Kent picked up Ella Abalo’s hospital bag.
The door from the garage opened directly into the kitchen, and Kent glanced around the small, neat home. Maybe there was a photo of Koa somewhere? He took a moment to scan the refrigerator, but its surface was bare, not even a souvenir magnet.
He filled a glass with water at the sink and, with his hunter’s stride, rolled toe-to-heel silent across the linoleum-floored kitchen and living room toward the bathroom, where the baby bag was stored. Two bedroom doors opened off of the short hall that ended at the bathroom. Both were ajar, but only one emitted sputtering snores.
Kent pushed that door open further, widening the gap a bit more into a space rendered dim by closed blackout drapes. Light from the doorway illuminated Manuel Abalo, sleeping on his back atop the coverlet on the bed, covered by the crinkly silver emergency blanket.
The man was out cold; the pain meds the EMT had given him had kicked in with perfect timing. Hopefully he’d be asleep long enough to give Kent a good head start in getting his wife to the women’s shelter.
Kent narrowed his eyes, spotting a narrow filing cabinet holding up one side of a makeshift desk and chair combo across from the bed.
Maybe info on Koa was stashed there. Or medical bills from Ella’s abuse. Something tangible for his cases. He couldn’t take anything outright, but if such existed, he could use the info to track down other copies, or in his search for the wild girl.
Kent padded into the room and set the note, still folded, on the bedside table beneath the glass of water.
Keeping an ear cocked to the breathing of the sleeping man, he opened the file cabinet’s top drawer. It slid out quietly, but there wasn’t enough light to read the labels on the files. Kent dug his phone out of his back pocket and thumbed the flashlight app on.
He scanned the tabs quickly and stopped at one labeled MEDICAL in neat block print. He took the folder out, flipped it open across the rest of the files. A stack of statements, records and bills appeared. He used his camera app to photograph them quickly. Maybe three minutes—and he had the contents of the slim folder back in place.
Kent glanced over at the bed. No change. But he couldn’t take too long or Ella would return to check on the miserable bastard, or lose her nerve to leave entirely.
Kent pulled open the second file drawer. The lettering on the tabs changed to more artistic handwriting; this was Ella’s storage space. He flicked through files labeled Recipes, Collage Art, Baby Room, Crafts, Fun Stuff.
Where would she hide something about Koa? She wouldn’t want Abalo to see anything about her friend and he didn’t have time to search each file.
He went to the furthest folder back and opened it.
Nothing there but image clippings from magazines. A quick glance at the others revealed more of the same.
Kent shoved the files together into a bunch toward the back of the drawer, and shone the light on the bottom of the space.
An unmarked manila file lay beneath all the other hanging folders. Kent pulled it out, flipped it open. Newspaper clippings, yellowed with age. A couple of photos, including a Polaroid he didn’t have time to examine.
A hitch in the man’s snores brought Kent’s head up in alarm.
A moan followed. The survival blanket crinkled, way too loud.
Sweat burst out of Kent’s skin as adrenaline zapped him. He shoved the entire folder into the waistband of his jeans and closed the file drawer.
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