A Trace of Hope

CHAPTER THREE

As Keri pulled up in front of the Venice address Susan had texted her, she forced herself to forget about the lingering pain in her chest and knee. She was entering potentially dangerous territory. And since she was not officially on the job right now, she had to be on extra high alert. No one here would give her the benefit of the doubt.

It was only mid-morning and as she crossed Pacific Avenue in this seedy stretch of Venice, her only company was tattooed surfers, oblivious to the cold and headed to the ocean just a block away, and homeless men huddled in the doorways of not-yet-open businesses.

She arrived at the rundown apartment complex, walked through the open front door, and walked up three flights of stairs to the room where Lupita was supposedly expecting her. Business didn’t usually pick up until after lunch so this was a good time to stop by.

Keri approached the door and was about to knock when she heard noise from inside. She checked and found the door unlocked and quietly opened it, peeking her head in.

On the bed in the unadorned room was a brunette girl who looked to be about fifteen. On top of her was a naked, wiry man in his thirties. Covers hid the particulars, but he was thrusting down aggressively. Every few seconds he would slap the girl in the face.

Keri fought the strong urge to march in and rip the guy off her. Even without the badge, it was her natural inclination. But she had no idea if this was a john and the activity taking place was standard operating procedure.

Sad experience had taught her that sometimes coming to the rescue was counterproductive in the long run. If this was a client and Keri interrupted, the guy might get upset and complain to Lupita’s pimp, who would take it out on her. Unless a girl was willing to leave the life for good, as Susan Granger had, stepping in, while following the law, might only make things worse for her in the big picture.

Keri stepped into the room a bit more and caught Lupita’s eye. The frail-looking girl with curly dark hair gave her a familiar look, a mix of pleading, fear, and wariness. Keri knew almost immediately what it meant. She needed help but not too much help.

This clearly was a john, maybe a new, unexpected last-minute one, because he was here when Lupita had agreed to meet Keri. But she’d been told to service him anyway. It was likely that the slapping was unexpected. But she wasn’t in a position to object in case her pimp had given permission.

Keri knew how to handle it. She stepped forward quickly and quietly, pulling a rubber baton from the inside pocket of her jacket. Lupita’s eyes got big and Keri could tell the john had noticed. He was just starting to turn his head to look behind him when the baton connected with the rear of his skull. He fell forward, collapsing on top of the girl, unconscious.

Keri held her finger to her lips, indicating for Lupita to stay quiet. She stepped around to the side of the bed to make sure the john really was out cold. He was.

“Lupita?” she asked.

The girl nodded.

“I’m Detective Locke,” she said, neglecting to say that for now, she wasn’t technically a detective. “Don’t worry. If we’re quick, this doesn’t have to be a problem. When your pimp asks, here’s what happened: a short guy in a masked hood came in, knocked out your john, and stole his wallet. You never saw his face. He threatened to kill you if you made a sound. When I leave this room, you count to twenty, then start screaming for help. There’s no way you can be blamed. Got it?”

Lupita nodded again.

“Okay,” Keri said as she rifled through the man’s jeans and pulled out his wallet. “I don’t think he’ll be out more than a minute or two so let’s cut to the chase. Susan said you overheard some guys talking about the Vista happening tomorrow night. Do you know who was talking? Was one of them your pimp?”

“Uh-uh,” Lupita whispered. “I didn’t recognize the voices. And when I looked out in the hall they were gone.”

“That’s okay. Susan told me what they said about my daughter. What I want you to focus on is the location. I know they always hold this Vista thing in the Hollywood Hills. But were they any more specific than that? Did they mention a street? Any landmarks?”

“They didn’t mention a street. But one of them was complaining that it was going to be more of a hassle than last year because it was gated. In fact, he said ‘the estate is gated.’ So I’m assuming it’s more than just a house.”

“That’s really helpful, Lupita. Anything else?”

“One of them said he was bummed because they wouldn’t be close enough to see the Hollywood sign. I guess last year, the house was right near it. But this time they’ll be too far away, in a different area. Does that help?”

“Actually it does. That means it’s probably closer to West Hollywood. It narrows it down. That’s really helpful. Anything more?”

The man on top of her groaned softly and started to stir.

“I can’t think of anything,” Lupita muttered, barely audible.

“That’s all right. This is more than I had before. You’ve been a big help. And if you ever decide you want to get out of the life, you can reach out to me through Susan.”

Lupita, despite her situation, smiled. Keri took off her cap, pulled a black hood out from her pocket, and put it on. It had small slits for her eyes and mouth.

“Now remember,” she said in a deep voice intended to hide her own, “wait twenty seconds or I’ll kill you.”

The man on top of Lupita was coming to, so Keri turned and hurried out of the room. She rushed down the hall and was halfway down the stairs when she heard the screams for help. She ignored them and made her way to the front door, where she pulled off the hood, stuffed it back in her pocket, and put on her cap.

She rifled through the guy’s wallet, and, after taking out the cash – all of twenty-three dollars – she tossed it in the corner by the door. As casually as possible, she walked back across the street to her car. As she got in, she could hear the shouts of angry men, headed toward Lupita’s room.

When she was clear of the area, she called Ray to see if he’d had any luck with his lead. He picked up after one ring and she could tell from his voice that it hadn’t gone well.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“It’s a dead end, Keri. I’ve gone back ten years and can’t find any record of a former child star who was found with her throat slit. I did find a record of a former child actress named Carly Rose who fell on hard times and went missing as a teen. She’d be about twenty now. It could easily be her. Or she could have just overdosed in a subway tunnel and never been found. Hard to know. I also found records of other girls between eleven and fourteen who meet a similar description – throats slit. Bodies just left in dumps or even on street corners. But usually they’re girls who were on the streets for a while. And they’re really spread out over time.”

“That actually makes sense to me,” Keri said. “These people probably had no compunction about dumping the bodies of girls who worked the streets or had no family. But they wouldn’t want to draw attention by leaving the bodies of girls from good homes who were recently abducted or a girl who was well known. Those might initiate real investigations. I bet those girls were burned, buried, or dumped in the ocean. It’s the ones no one would follow up on that they just dumped anywhere.”

Keri chose to ignore the fact that she’d said all of that so matter-of-factly. If she lingered on it, she’d be bothered by how inured she’d become to these kinds of atrocities.

“That fits,” Ray agreed, sounding equally unfazed. “It might also explain the gap in years. If they used a street prostitute one year, then used a few kidnapped suburban kids before returning to another teen hooker, it would be harder to establish a pattern. I mean, if a teen hooker showed up once a year with her throat slit, that might generate interest too.”

“Good point,” Keri said. “So there wasn’t anything to go on then.”

“Nah. Sorry. You have better luck?”

“A little,” she said. “Based on what Lupita said, it sounds like the location may be in West Hollywood, on a gated estate.”

“That’s promising,” Ray noted.

“I guess. There are a thousand of those up in those hills.”

“We can have Edgerton cross-reference them to see if the property titles match up to anyone we know. With dummy companies, it’s probably a long shot. But you never know what that guy will come up with.”

It was true. Detective Kevin Edgerton was a genius when it came to anything tech. If anyone could suss out a meaningful connection, it was him.

“Okay, let him have at it,” Keri said. “But have him do it under the radar. And don’t give him too many details. The fewer people who know what’s going on, the less chance someone inadvertently leaks something that tips off the wrong people.”

“Understood. What are you going to do?”

Keri thought for a moment and realized she didn’t have any new leads to follow up. That meant she had to do what she always did when she hit a brick wall – start fresh. And there was one person she realized she definitely needed a fresh start with.

“Actually,” she said, “can you ask Castillo to call me, but have her do it outside, using her cell?”

“Okay. What are you thinking?” Ray asked.

“I’m thinking it’s about time I reacquainted myself with an old friend.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Keri waited anxiously in her car, eyeing the clock as she sat outside the offices of Weekly L.A., the alternative newspaper where she had asked Officer Jamie Castillo to meet her. It was also where her friend, Margaret “Mags” Merrywether, worked as a columnist.

Time was starting to run short. It was already 12:30 on Friday, roughly thirty-six hours from when her daughter was going to be raped and ritualistically murdered for the pleasure of a group of wealthy soul-sick men.

Keri saw Jamie walking down the street and shook the dark thoughts from her head. She needed to stay focused on how to prevent her daughter’s death, not obsess on the awfulness of how it might unfold.

As she had requested, Jamie was wearing a civilian coat over her uniform to draw less notice. Keri waved at her from the driver’s seat, getting her attention. Jamie smiled and headed for the car, her dark hair blowing in the bitter wind despite being pulled back in a ponytail. She was taller than Keri by a few inches and more athletic too. She was a Parkour enthusiast and Keri had seen what she could do under duress.

Officer Jamila Cassandra Castillo wasn’t yet a detective. But Keri was sure that once she made it, she’d be a great. In addition to her physical skills, she was tough, smart, relentless, and loyal. She’d already put her own safety and even her job on the line for Keri. If she wasn’t already partners with Ray, Keri knew who her next choice would have been.

Jamie got in the car gingerly, wincing involuntarily, and Keri remembered why. While on the hunt for the suspect who gave Keri her current injuries, Jamie had been in the proximity of a bomb that went off at the guy’s apartment. It had killed one FBI agent, badly burned another, and left Ray with a chunk of glass in his right leg, something he hadn’t mentioned since. Jamie had ended up with a concussion and some serious bruises.

“Weren’t you just released from the hospital today?” Keri asked, incredulous.

“Yep,” she said with pride in her voice. “They let me go this morning. I went home, changed into my uniform, and made it in to work ten minutes late. Lieutenant Hillman cut me some slack though.”

“How are your ears?” Keri asked, referring to the hearing loss Jamie had suffered in the moments after the bomb blast.

“I can hear you fine right now. I get some intermittent ringing. The doctor says that should go away in a week or two. No permanent damage.”

“I can’t believe you’re working today,” Keri muttered, shaking her head. “And I can’t believe I’m asking you to go above and beyond on your first day back.”

“It’s no problem,” Jamie assured her. “I needed to get out for a bit. Everyone was treating me like a porcelain doll. But I do have to get right back or I’d hang out. I brought what you asked for, though.”

She pulled a file out of her bag and handed it to Keri.

“Thanks.”

“No problem. And before you ask, I used the ‘general’ username ID when I searched the database, so it won’t be tracked to me. I assume there’s a reason you didn’t want me using my own ID. And I further assume there’s a reason you didn’t volunteer anything about why you asked for this stuff?”

“You assume correctly,” Keri said, hoping Jamie would leave it at that.

“And I assume you’re not going to tell me what’s going on or let me help in any way?”

“It’s for your own good, Jamie. The less you know the better. And the less anyone knows you helped me, the better for what I’m doing.”

“Okay. I trust you. But if you find that at some point down the road you do need help, you have my number.”

“I do,” Keri said, giving Castillo’s hand a squeeze.

She waited until the officer had returned to her car and pulled out into the street before getting out of her own. Gripping the file Castillo had given her tightly to her body, Keri hurried up the steps and into the Weekly L.A. building, where Mags, and hopefully some answers, were waiting for her.

Two hours later, there was a knock on the door of the conference room where Keri had set up shop and had been poring over documents. The large table in the center of the room was covered in papers.

“Who is it?” she asked. The door opened slightly. It was Mags.

“Just checking in,” she said. “I wanted to see if you could use any help, darling.”

“Actually, I could use a little break. Come on in.”

Mags stepped inside, shut and locked the door behind her, made sure the blinds were still fully closed so no one could see in, and walked over. Once again, Keri marveled at how she had become friends with what was essentially the live-action version of Jessica Rabbit.

Margaret Merrywether was over six feet tall, even without the high heels she usually wore. Statuesque, with milky-white skin, ample curves, flaming red hair matched by her ruby red lips, and bright green eyes, she seemed like she’d stepped out of the pages of a high-fashion magazine for Amazon women.

And that was all before she opened her mouth to reveal an accent that suggested Scarlett O’Hara, only slightly undercut by a tart tongue that was more Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday. Only that mildly biting tone hinted at Margaret’s (Mags to her friends) alter ego. It turned out she also went by the pseudonym “Mary Brady,” the alternative paper’s muckraking columnist who had brought down local politicians, uncovered corporate malfeasance, and called out dirty cops.

Mags was also a happily divorced mother of two, made even wealthier after she parted ways from her banker ex-husband. Keri had met her while working a case and after some initial suspicion that her whole persona was some elaborate form of performance art, a friendship had blossomed. Keri, who didn’t have many friends outside of work, was happy to be the boring one for once.

Mags sat down in the seat beside Keri and looked at the collage of police documents and newspaper clippings spread out on the table.

“So, my dear, you asked me to collect copies of every article the paper had ever written on Jackson Cave. And I see that you asked someone in the department to do the same with everything they have on him. Then you locked yourself in here for two hours. Are you ready to tell me what’s going on?”

“I am,” Keri said. “Just give me a moment first.”

She got up, pulled a bug detector out of her bag, and proceeded to sweep the entire conference room. Mags raised her eyebrows but didn’t seem stunned.

“You know, darling,” she began, “I’m hardly one to tell you you’re being overcautious. But I have this sort of thing done professionally twice a week.”

“I have no doubt,” Keri said. “But thanks for humoring me. This was given to me by a techie friend I trust.”

“Someone in the department?” Mags asked.

“No, he’s actually a mall security guard. It’s a long story but let’s just say the guy knows his stuff and he owed me a favor, so when I asked for a recommendation for a good bug detector, he gave me this as a gift.”

“That sounds like a long story I might like to hear when we have a bit more time,” Mags said.

Keri nodded absentmindedly as she continued to sweep the room. Mags smiled and waited patiently. When Keri was done and found nothing, she sat back down.

“Okay, here it is,” she said and launched into her history with Cave, much of which Mags was already familiar with.

In fact, her friend had even recently helped her lure out information from an assassin-for-hire with a connection to Cave. He was a man known only as the Black Widower, a mystery figure who drove a black Lincoln Continental without plates.

Months earlier, Keri had watched on security camera footage as he casually killed the man who’d been holding Evie, shoved Evie into his trunk, and disappeared with her into the night, all, Keri suspected, on the orders of Cave.

Somehow, Mags had managed find a way to anonymously reach out to the Black Widower. It turned out that he was happy to pass on a lead about Evie’s whereabouts for a hefty price. He seemed to have no loyalties, which worked out well for Keri in that instance because his information ultimately led to her learning of the existence of the Vista event.

But while some of the particulars, like the Black Widower connection, were old news to her, Mags said nothing. She didn’t interrupt once, although she pulled out a notepad and took occasional notes. She listened intently, from the beginning all the way up to the call from Susan Granger this morning about Evie being the Blood Prize at the Vista.

When she was sure Keri was done, she asked a question.

“I understand your predicament, Keri. And I’m horrified for you. But I still don’t understand. Why are you staring at hundreds of papers about Mr. Cave?”

“Because I’m at my wits’ end, Mags. I have no more leads. I have no more clues. The only thing I know for certain is that Jackson Cave is somehow involved in my daughter’s case.”

“You’re certain?” Mags asked.

“Yes,” Keri said. “I don’t think he was initially. He probably had no idea that one of his abductors’ victims was my daughter. After all, I wasn’t even a detective at the time. I was a college professor. Her disappearance is the reason I became a cop. I don’t even know at what point I really attracted his interest. But at some point he must have pieced together that the kid the lady detective was searching for was abducted by someone he had commissioned.”

“And you think he sought out her location?” Mags asked. “You think he knows where she is now?”

“Those are two very different questions. I’m sure that at some point he did investigate her location. It would have been in his interest to know her circumstance. But that would have been well before I started to sniff him out. Once he suspected I was looking into him, I have no doubt he made sure that he couldn’t be connected to her. He knows that if I thought he could lead me to Evie, I’d follow him day and night. He probably worries that I’d kidnap him and torture him to get her location.”

“Would you?” Mags asked, more curiously than accusingly.

“I would. A million times over I would.”

“Me too,” Mags whispered.

“So I don’t think that Jackson Cave knows where my daughter is or who has her. But I do think he knows individuals who know individuals who know where she is. I think he could find out her current location if he was so inclined. And I think that he could direct her to be at a specific location at a particular time if he wanted. That’s what I think is going on. I think Evie is the Blood Prize because he wants her to be. And somehow, his wishes have been conveyed to the people who can make it happen.”

“So you want to follow that trail?”

“No,” Keri said. “The maze from him to her is too complicated for me to figure out, even if I had unlimited time, which I obviously don’t. That’s a rabbit hole I won’t go down. But I started to realize, all this time I’ve only been looking at Jackson Cave as an opponent, the mastermind who is keeping me from my daughter, this malevolent force out to destroy my family.”

“He’s not?” Mags asked, sounding surprised and almost offended.

“He is. But that’s not how he sees himself. And that’s not what he always was. I realized that I have to forget my preconceptions to learn who this guy is and what makes him tick.”

“Why do you care what makes him tick?”

“Because I can’t beat him if I don’t understand how he thinks, what his motives are. And if I don’t understand what’s really important to him deep down, I’ll never get leverage over him. And that’s what I really need, Mags – leverage. This guy isn’t going to volunteer any information to me. But if I can determine what matters most to him, maybe I can use that to get my daughter back.”

“How?”

“I have no idea…yet.”

CHAPTER FIVE

When Ray walked into the conference room three hours later, Keri still didn’t have leverage. But she did think she had a better sense of who Jackson Cave was.

“Lovely to see you, Detective Sands,” Mags said when he entered bearing submarine sandwiches and iced coffees.

“Good to see you too, Red,” he said as he tossed the sandwiches on the table.

“Well, I do declare,” she replied huffily.

Keri wasn’t sure when Ray had started calling Margaret Merrywether “Red” but she got a kick out of it. And despite her reaction now, Keri was pretty sure Mags didn’t mind either.

“I brought the guy’s financials and property records,” Ray said. “But I don’t think they’re going to be the answer. I reviewed them with Edgerton and he couldn’t find anything hinky. But for a guy with that kind of money and power, that alone is actually kind of hinky.”

“I agree,” Keri said. “But hinky isn’t enough to act on.”

“He wanted to bring in Patterson but I told him to hold off for now.”

Detective Garrett Patterson went by the nickname “Grunt Work,” and for good reason. He was the second best tech guy in the unit behind Edgerton, and while he lacked Edgerton’s intuitive gifts for finding unseen connections within complex information, he had another skill. He loved to pore over the minutiae of records to find that small but crucial detail that others missed.

“That was the right call,” Keri said after a moment. “He might uncover something with the property records. But I worry that he couldn’t help but tell Hillman or accidentally cast too wide a net and set off warning lights. I don’t want to involve him unless we have no other choice.”

“It may come to that,” Ray said. “That is, unless you’ve cracked the Cave code in the last few hours.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Keri admitted. “But we have uncovered some surprising stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Well, for starters,” Mags piped in, “Jackson Cave wasn’t always a complete asshole.”

“That is a surprise,” Ray said, unwrapping a sandwich and taking a big bite. “How so?”

“He used to work in the D.A.’s office,” Mags replied.

“He was a prosecutor?” Ray asked, nearly choking on his food. “The defender of rapists and child molesters?”

“It was a long time ago,” Keri said. “He joined the D.A. right out of law school at USC – worked there for two years.”

“Couldn’t hack it?” Ray wondered.

“Actually, his conviction rate was pretty amazing. He apparently didn’t like to plead down often so he took most cases to trial. He got nineteen convictions and two hung juries. Not one acquittal.”