Page 23 of Lost Truth
“Can you think of any other reason for his statement?” Hayden asked.
“Nope. He’s like honest and doesn’t break or even bend the law, so I doubt he was in any trouble.”
“So it couldn’t be drugs or something else illegal?” Abby asked.
“Drugs and Kai?” Ziggy gave a low grunt. “No way. Not even legal MaryJane. Or even alcohol. Guy’s into fitness for strong surfing.”
Cady finished scribbling on her notepad and looked up. “What about friends? Is he close to anyone besides my dad?”
“Everyone in town loves the dude. He’s got like celebrity status for all of his surfing awards you see on the wall.” Ziggy pointed at framed photographs and trophies on the far wall. “But close friends? I mean he was good friends with the mayor and your dad when he lived here, but otherwise I’ve never seen him with anyone in particular.”
Cady jotted down another note.
Hayden was beginning to wonder with all the notes she was taking, if she was indeed going to do a story, or if the reporter in her just had to record everything. He’d ask about it later, but for now he dug a set of keys from his pocket. “Rocco gave us keys so we could have a look around.” He splayed out the six keys on the ring. “This bronze one is for his house, but can you tell me what the others are for?”
Ziggy tapped the two largest silver ones. “Front and back door.” He poked a smaller one. “Office, and the littlest one is for the outside board and equipment storage area. Never seen the other one before.”
“I guess we’ll have to figure that one out.” Hayden took a breath and slowly let it out, so he didn’t sound eager to gain an answer to his next question. “I assume your cash register is computerized. Does that mean Kai has an office computer it connects to?”
“Hah! Kai and computers don’t mix. He doesn’t have a machine here and fights any suggestion of adding one. This register doesn’t even print receipts.” He tapped a rectangular metal box holding two-part paper receipts sitting on the countertop. “We do it all by hand. Write it out and give it to the customer.”
Abby studied the cash register. “Then what does this thing actually do then?”
“We enter the product information into it, and it records everything. At the end of the day, Kai’s bookkeeper is able to electronically poll the machine somehow to get the sales data for her records. I think she’s tried to give Kai reports, but he doesn’t even look at them.”
Not the way Hayden would run a business at all. “So he must do all the inventory by hand.”
“Yep, he just walks around and looks at what we’re running out of. I keep telling him automation would save him so much time and effort, and nothing would ever be out of stock, but he totally doesn’t trust computers. I don’t think that’ll ever change.”
With Kai’s hatred of computers, having a high-tech drive like the one they’d found at his house could mean he’d stolen it from someone. Maybe that someone had abducted him to get it back.
Could Hayden be putting Kai in more danger by taking the drive? What if Kai was being tortured, and he finally cracked and gave up the location of the drive? The abductors wouldn’t find it. Then what would they do to Kai?
“Okay, thanks for the information,” he said. “We’ll take a look at his office. Maybe while we do, you can think about anything I’ve forgotten to ask you, but might help us.”
“Yeah, sure. Sure thing.” He bobbed his head up and down like a puppet. “You’ve got me worried now too.”
Hayden didn’t want to worry this employee, but he also didn’t want to downplay the situation Kai might be in, so he left the comment alone and turned to Abby and Cady. “Follow me.”
“I wouldn’t recommend the three of you going in there,” Ziggy said. “The space is really small. I mean ti-nee! It’ll be a challenge for two people to move around in there. No way three could, unless you like to be up in each other’s business.”
Cady closed her notepad and looked at Hayden. “I want to go with you, but you guys are more experienced than me, so I’ll stay here and talk to Ziggy.”
Hayden hated to leave her behind, but he nodded and headed for the door labeled private. The key turned without a hitch, and he entered a room he put at about six feet wide and ten feet long. A desk was built into one side wall with file cabinets and a small safe beneath. A bookshelf filled with binders and stacked with papers stood against the back wall.
“Ziggy wasn’t exaggerating.” Abby went straight to the desk. “As small as this space is, it shouldn’t take us long at all.”
“You go ahead and start there, and I’ll do the bookshelf.” Hayden turned his back to Abby and riffled through binders filled with records, pausing to take stock of the financial condition of the business. “Kai might not be looking at the reports he gets, but he’s filing them. It’s everything we need and we shouldn’t need to interview the bookkeeper unless any red flags are raised. His income has steadily gone up. I’d say strong performance and solid stability.”
“Doesn’t seem like this is about money then,” Abby said.
Hayden turned to see what she was searching and leaned against the bookshelf. It moved under his hand. “What in the world?”
He spun to find it had pulled away from the wall. “There’s something behind here.”
He grabbed the back of the case and dragged it forward, revealing a door. He turned the knob. Didn’t budge. “Locked.”
“Maybe the key Ziggy couldn’t identify opens it.” Abby stood by him, her eyes ablaze with the same excitement burning through his gut.
