Chapter 6 rewrite

Well, at least now Edmond knew that someone interrupted her lunch yesterday. He couldn’t be sure that this individual was responsible for her disappearance, but it made sense. Of course, he didn’t know who this someone was, but it fit with his theory of a possessive boyfriend. Unfortunately, he still wasn’t any closer to finding her, and he was running out of things that he could check. He decided to go by her apartment building.
He would have liked to check for her car, but she had never told him what model car she drove. He had a pretty good idea that she didn’t drive it very much, because she was fortunate enough to be able to walk most of the time. That knowledge didn’t seem to be particularly helpful. It occurred to him to talk with the manager of the apartment complex, but there were two problems with that: they would probably think he was a nut; and they might not be there until Monday morning, anyway.
He had the driver drop him off in the parking lot. He drove his wheel chair up and down the aisles. He looked for a small car, because he figured that’s what she would drive, that looked like it had been sitting for some time. The futility of that frustrated him. He’s looking for a car, based on guesses. It was entirely possible that she walked to work so that she could save gas to burn in her Humvee after work.
He was really worried. She had been gone over 24 hours now. It was entirely possible that she was dead. He tried not to think about that. Somewhere inside of him he felt that she was still alive, but he had no way of knowing for how long... Somehow he had to find her, but he didn’t even know where to look.
“Are you okay?” a male voice asked. Edmond looked up. There was a young man standing nearby with a set of car keys in his hand. “You look sick.”
“I’m okay,” Edmond replied, “I’m just worried about a friend.” After a pause, he asked, “Do you live here?”
“Yes, I do,” the young man responded, with a quizzical look on his face.
“Maybe you know her then.” He pulled out a picture. “Her name is Lena Sandoval.”
The young man started to nod, but caught himself. “And you are?”
“My name is Edmond Randolph.”
“Oh, yeah, she told me about you. I like your ‘Wounded Statesman’ blog. I thought you were in Chicago, though.”
“I live in Chicago, yes. I came out here because of her, and now I can’t find her. I’m afraid something has happened to her.”
“I think she’s here. I saw her SUV…”
“She sometimes walks different places, though.”
“Let’s check her apartment.”
They headed to the building, and got on the elevator. On the way up, Ed asked the young man his name. “Oh, I’m sorry, my name is Jay.”
They got off on the eighth floor. Jay walked him to apartment 806, and they knocked on the door. “Man, I can’t believe she would just leave you hanging like that, man.”
“I don’t think it was her fault.”
They waited a few minutes for her to come to the door, and then knocked again. After a few minutes, Jay decided she wasn’t home. “I’m sure that was her vehicle in the parking lot, though.”
“Do you know if she has any friends in the building she might be visiting?”
“I’m sure she does, but I don’t know who they are.”
“Can you show me her car?”
Jay nodded. “Yeah, sure.”
Her car was a black 2005 Range Rover with a noticeable layer of dust on it, confirming one of Ed’s theories, but blowing the other one completely out of the water.
Jay said, “You can see why she walks so much.”
Edmond shot a puzzled look at Jay. “I thought she had a good paying job.”
Jay laughed. “Not that good. If she drove this to work every day, she wouldn’t be able to afford to drive it on weekends. As it is, I think she only drives it one or two weekends a month.”
There was no way of telling when she had driven it last, and nothing to indicate who else might have been in it. It was possible that the dust had accumulated since last weekend. Even if it was two weeks worth of dust, that may not be out of the ordinary; Edmond had no way of knowing. Basically, seeing the car didn’t help; it was just another dead end.
“Let me try calling her.” Jay pulled out a cell phone, and punched a few buttons. After a couple of seconds, he frowned. “That’s strange; it went straight to voice mail. I’ve never known Lena to turn off her phone. As a matter of fact, the people she works for don’t like for her to turn off her phone, she's supposed to be on 24 hour call, in case something happens to one of the websites that she maintains.” It occurred to Ed that the battery might be dead, or whoever had Lena had turned off the phone, but he didn’t want to voice either of those ideas. Now what?