The Big Empty by Robert Crais

 This is the latest installment is the excellent Elvis Cole/Joe Pike series. PI Elvis gets hired by internet baking sensation Traci Beller to find her father Tommy, who disappeared 10 years ago. Another detective agency had tried to track him down 5 years earlier but had no luck. And Elvis is dubious that he will be any more successful. But Traci really wants to know what happened to her beloved father, so he reluctantly agrees to take the case and heads off to the town of Rancha, where Tommy was last seen making business calls. While his other customers mentioned Tommy's pleasant manners, his last customer that day complained that he was brusque and spent a lot of time on the phone--which raises red flags for Elvis because no such calls appeared on his phone records. When Elvis questions Tommy's business partner Phil about whether Tommy had a second phone, Phil says no, which concerns Elvis. Amazingly, after all this time, Elvis manages to dig up some new clues. But then he notices that someone is following him. And bad things start happening to the people in Rancha that he's been talking to. So he calls in the cavalry (his best friend and business partner, Joe Pike).

I figured out the ending before I got to the ending, but it's still an engrossing story--and a case that really seems to take its toll on both Elvis and Joe.