Three days

Another assignment successfully completed. James sat at a table in the restaurant of the Los Angeles Country Club. Across from him sat his clients, Mr. and Mrs. Porter, accompanied by their seventeen-year-old daughter, Elena.

“We are infinitely grateful to you, Mr. Calloway,” Mrs. Porter said. “For rescuing Elena from the clutches of that man.”

Mr. Porter slid an envelope across the table. Inside was his payment in the form of a check. James drew it towards him without bothering to look inside. He generally trusted his clients and saw little point in checking whether the agreed amount was correct.

Twenty-five thousand dollars. That had been the negotiated fee, and finding Elena had taken him all of three days. By the time the Porters had approached him, the police had already spent several days searching for the missing teenager without making any progress. Unlike law enforcement, James wasn't bound by the same obligation to follow every procedure to the letter. That didn't mean he made a habit of breaking the law. He simply wasn't opposed to exploring alternative avenues when conventional methods proved ineffective.

His extensive network of contacts was one of his greatest assets. Over the years, he had established connections in all sorts of professions and walks of life, people who could provide information, access or assistance when an assignment called for it. Not everyone who sought his services could afford his usual fees, so he occasionally accepted favors in lieu of payment. It was a system that had served him remarkably well. In return, he might call in a favor when he needed a particular piece of information or someone else's expertise. One thing, however, remained non-negotiable: he never asked his contacts to do anything illegal on his behalf. That was a line he wasn't willing to cross.

The Porters, on the other hand, had no such financial constraints. They were a prominent and well-to-do family in Los Angeles. Mr. Porter was a successful real estate agent whose clientele consisted largely of the city's wealthy and influential. Twenty-five thousand dollars was hardly an obstacle for them.

In this particular case it had been his network of contacts that had made all the difference. Once he'd learned that Elena had been active on a dating website, he'd asked a former client with the necessary technical expertise to look into her account and online activities. It hadn't taken long to establish that she had been exchanging messages with a man she was supposed to meet on the evening she disappeared.

Unlike the police, his contact hadn't needed to wait for a court order to trace the man's IP address and identify his place of residence. A useful advantage, to say the least. Locating Elena herself had proved somewhat more time-consuming. The man hadn't been keeping her in his apartment. Instead, James had eventually tracked him to a secluded cabin in the mountains outside Los Angeles, where he had been holding the girl captive.

“I hope you'll be more careful from now on, Elena,” he said, turning his attention to the teenager. “There are plenty of dangers lurking behind the anonymity of the internet.”

“I will,” she replied quietly.

James hoped she had learned her lesson. The situation could easily have ended far worse. Her abductor hadn't physically harmed her, though that was hardly a mitigating circumstance. He was a mentally disturbed man whose own daughter, a girl of roughly the same age as Elena, had died in a car accident. Apparently, he had convinced himself that Elena could somehow fill the void her death had left behind.

James turned back to her parents, slipping the envelope into the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

“Thank you,” he said, briefly patting the pocket. “I wish all three of you the very best.”

He rose, offered Mr. Porter his hand, and exchanged farewells with the family before making his way out of the restaurant. As he headed towards his sports car, his phone vibrated in his pants pocket. He retrieved it and glanced at the screen. Anyone wishing to hire his services could reach him through a heavily encrypted email address. People heard about him through word of mouth — former clients recommended his services. That worked very well.

James scanned the message, taking in the essential details, before slipping into the driver's seat. He quickly typed a reply arranging a time and place to meet his prospective new clients. One job finished. Another one potentially waiting in the wings.