The Guardian

mother. “She has your looks for sure.”
    “Thank you” the woman said pulling the girl close. She was putting her arm around her, putting her back to him. She recognized him as the man she felt staring at them.
    After about twenty minutes, the valet pulled up with a Toyota Camry. Jack rushed over and opened the front passenger door for the little girl. “Allow me.” he said. The valet looked at him with disgust, having been beaten to the punch.
    “Thanks” the girl said and climbed in. She immediately fastened her seatbelt.
    The mother tipped the valet, got in, fastened her belt, looked at the man, forced a smile and pulled away.
    Now Jack was getting impatient. He had to follow them to know where they lived. “Where the fuck is my car? Damn it!” He was starting to pace when the valet pulled up with the Jag. He tossed his packages into the passenger seat, jumped in and tore off. He didn’t even bother to tip the valet, say thank you or kiss my ass nothing. All he knew was that he had to catch that Camry.
    The traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard was always a nightmare. It just seemed to crawl, going nowhere very slowly. But, fortunately for Jack this was a plus. It gave him the opportunity to catch up with the Camry.
    He stayed back; following just close enough. He made sure to keep them in sight. Once he had their address he could go back at his leisure and watch and take notes of their habits and behaviors.
    They went as far as Flamingo Ave and turned right heading west. Jack made the turn, staying back and watching.
    When they got to Jones, they headed south. “Good,” Jack thought. It’s on the way home.
    They made a right onto Harmon, then a left on Silvershore. He had to slow way down. He didn’t want to be noticed. They pulled into the house on the corner lot. He drove past heading west on Harmon. He noticed the elementary school on the right just up from there. That must be where she goes to school he thought.
    The next street he made a left and worked his way back around the block to the house he had seen them pull into. Once he was back on that street, he pulled over to the curb about three houses back.
    It was an older house. White sidings with green trim. The garage was a small one car, attached. The yard was surrounded by a very green, wrought iron fence. It was almost grass green. There was landscape rock in the front with an assortment of rose and other bushes. Sadly, they were all either dead or dieing.
    Jack couldn’t see the two of them. They were already inside the house before he had gotten back over there. While he sat there, watching the house, he was rolling around in his mind how he would be able to pull this off.
    The houses were close together. The school was relatively close. It was right around the corner. He wasn’t for sure, but it was a good bet that going to or coming from school there would be several if not quite a few other kids doing the same thing. This was definitely going to take some planning. Not to worry though. He would watch for a day or two, wait for the young girl to be alone, make sure that the mother’s guard was down and then make his move.
    Well, enough for today. He was in a hurry to get home and share his presents that he bought. After the day he’d had, hell, he might just play some games with both of them together. He was feeling greedy.
    Chapter 70
    It was a long, boring dead end process. It was something that they had to do. Halloway and Griffin were checking out every address they had. Singletary and Smythe weren’t having any better luck.
    Checking off the names with a red marker, they moved down the list, one name at a time. Some of them were too elderly to think about abducting young girls. Most were housewives with kids of their own doing the usual run around taxi-mom thing they do.
    None of them had blacked out windows. Nearly all had anti glare film of some sort, but none blacked out.
    The ones that weren’t home, they left a card and asked them to call. If the person didn’t return the call within twenty four hours, by noon the following day, they would retrace their trip and revisit them.
    All they were turning up were dead ends. They wondered how they’re new silent partner was doing. Of course, there was no way of contacting him. Unless he had found something and contacted them, all they could hope to do was wait.
    As they were coming up on Desert Inn heading south on Maryland Parkway, out of habit, John was glancing the parking