“I don’t have time,” I told him.

“What do you want me to do, then?”

“Tell them I don’t have the thing.”

“I don’t know who they are,” Froehmer said.

“Just tell them.”

“Maybe you should give them what they want,” Mobley said.

“And maybe you’re not as smart as you think,” I said.

“Don’t judge his brains by yours,” Froehmer said. He was talking to Mobley, but Mobley was dumb enough to think Froehmer was talking to me.

“I don’t have it,” I told them both. “He’s always on me about this,” I told Froehmer, “and he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“And now someone else thinks you have it,” Froehmer said.

“Maybe Mobley knows who it is,” I said. He turned back and for a moment I thought he was going to come over the seat after me. I wish he would have.

“I didn’t even know you had a kid,” Mobley said. “All I know is you never finished that job. It all went south because of you and your partner.”

“If I had it, I’d have given it to you,” I said. “I’d have given it to you a long time ago. And you know I don’t have it; you’ve been through all my stuff.”

Mobley was going to say something but Froehmer cut him off. “This is about the girl,” he said. “This is about getting her back. Give me a couple of hours. Let me see what I can find out. That’s all I can do for now.”

I drove back to Casey’s and was happy that she wasn’t home. I tried to wait for Froehmer to call, but couldn’t just sit around. I got back in the car and drove around. Finally, Froehmer called. He didn’t have anything. “It has to be someone you know,” I told him. “How many people could connect me to that job?”

“Maybe it comes back to Frank,” he said. “Maybe he talked about it. You should work that end.” Froehmer was done working on it. I should never have called him. I only wanted to know who it was before I did what I should have done from the start.

“I have it,” I texted and attached a generic image of a trophy. All they had to do was open the image and a small piece of code would be on the phone and I could find whoever it was. There were easier ways to go about it, I know, but that’s the way Frank had taught me.

“Let’s get together,” they texted back. “Will arrange soon.”