by Blake Pierce
The woman seemed startled to be asked so directly. Clearly thrown, she mumbled incoherently for several seconds before finding her voice.
“We just kept partying in the suite,” she said, sounding nervous. “We had brought a bunch of liquor with us from home and we ordered some room service. At some point, people just ran out of steam. Eventually everyone passed out.”
Jessie looked at Karen and could tell the detective was thinking the same thing. The group interview wasn’t proving very fruitful. It was time to separate these women and see if they could get less cautious answers.
“Give us a moment, ladies,” Karen said as she and Jessie got up and went back into the hall.
“Who do you want to start with?” she asked after closing the door.
“Definitely Kimberly Miner,” Jessie said.
“Okay,” Karen replied, her eyebrows raised. “I get the sense that there is a bit of history between you two.”
“Just a little,” Jessie told her. “We used to be neighbors. We were friendly until I told her that her husband was cheating on her. Turned out they had an open marriage, at least on his end. She didn’t appreciate me butting in.”
“That seems like a lot of baggage,” Karen said. “Are you going to be okay conducting this interview?”
“I guess we’re about to find out.”
CHAPTER FIVE
As the rideshare pulled up to Kat’s office, Hannah felt a pang of guilt about lying.
Because guilt was such an unfamiliar emotion for her, it took a second to identify it. When she finally did, she was too far along to back out, as she was already at Kat’s building.
Deceiving Jessie was one thing, and not something that weighed her down too much. But lying directly to Ryan was a different matter. There was something about looking an invalid in the face, one who was simultaneously trying to get some semblance of his old life back and be a parental figure for her, and saying she was going to a friend’s house that felt off. It gave her a slightly hollow sensation in her chest.
But this was for a good cause, she reminded herself, and the feeling quickly faded. She knew Kat would be out of the office, working a case in the field, one involving a missing girl. That phrase—missing girl—was like catnip for Hannah.
Just a few months earlier she’d been instrumental in busting up a sex-trafficking ring by secretly posing as a potential candidate. She knew her sister had mixed emotions about it. Jessie was clearly proud of what she’d done. But she was also understandably upset that Hannah had put herself in harm’s way.
Still, even Jessie couldn’t deny that because of her actions, dozens of young women were free and a billionaire media mogul who’d been involved in the ring was facing decades behind bars. In Hannah’s mind, that outcome far outweighed the risks she’d taken.
There was also the small matter of her having lied about one of the traffickers attempting to rape her. It wasn’t true, but it was his word against hers. Realizing the allegation would make his situation even worse, the guy agreed to plead out and roll over on his higher-ups, so she considered it a reasonable trade-off. She got the sense that Jessie had some doubts about her story, though she never called her on it.
The whole experience had been such a rush that she was anxious to recreate it. Unfortunately, there hadn’t been much opportunity. Between school, sessions with her therapist, Dr. Lemmon, and helping out around the house with Ryan, she didn’t have much free time. So this seemed like fate: a missing girl, an empty office with information on her, and an unsupervised Saturday afternoon. How could she pass it up?
She hopped out of her rideshare and entered Kat’s downtown building. The place wasn’t fancy and didn’t spring for a security guard on the weekends. As a result, she was able to walk right in and take the elevator up to Kat’s third-floor office.
On the ride up, she checked herself in the elevator’s dirty mirror. She had intentionally dressed up to avoid questions or skeptical looks. Though she was only seventeen, she thought she could pass for early twenties.
At her full height, she was five foot nine, just an inch shorter than her sister. She had on tan slacks and an unfussy sweater. Her sandy blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail so it wouldn’t get in the way of what she planned to do. She wore a pair of non-prescription glasses she’d shoplifted from a drugstore because, to her mind, they added a few years and gave her a bookish vibe that minimized the impact of her typically fiery green eyes. As the elevator doors opened, she silently hoped that her efforts would help her seamlessly blend in.
Hannah knew that as a paranoid private investigator, Kat had surreptitiously set up a camera across the hall from her door, which meant that trying to hide her identity would have consequences later. So she made no attempt to do so, instead walking right up to the door and making a big display of knocking. After pretending to wait a few seconds for someone to answer, she moved in close and turned the handle. As expected, it didn’t give.
But now, with her back to the camera, she was able to use the copy of Kat’s key, which she’d “borrowed” and duplicated a few weeks ago, to open the door. Once inside, she punched in the security code for the alarm. On her last visit here, she’d used her phone to secretly record Kat entering the digits. Only when the light turned green did she take a deep breath.
If Kat was so inclined, it wouldn’t be hard to bust Hannah. She could get in and out without leaving a trace, turn the alarm back on, and lock the door. But if Kat had set up the system so that she got an alert on her phone when her office alarm was disarmed, or even if she just periodically checked her camera footage, Hannah would be found out. But by being so seemingly transparent, she hoped that she’d be able to play it off as no big deal if she got caught.
Either way, that was a matter for another time. Right now, she was here with a purpose and she needed to get to work. She sat down at Kat’s desk, which was covered in neat stacks of paper with Post-it notes on top of them, and looked for the relevant file.
She’d heard Jessie mention the name Stokes when discussing the missing girl. A quick news search revealed that a fourteen-year-old girl from the West Adams district named Mindy Stokes was abducted on Thursday. That’s the name she looked for as she rifled through the papers on Kat’s desk.
It only took a minute to realize her information wasn’t there. It wasn’t a huge shock. Whatever papers Kat hadn’t taken with her wouldn’t just be lying around. After taking a moment to think, Hannah sat down in Kat’s chair and tried to put herself in the woman’s shoes. Where would she keep her most important documents?
She opened several desk drawers, none of which contained anything of value. There was one locked drawer, but she didn’t even try looking for the key. Knowing Kat, it was unlikely that was where she’d put anything important. A locked drawer begged to be opened. It was almost an invitation. Hannah was nearly certain that Kat locked it as a diversionary tactic to throw a thief off.
Rather than waste time on it, she looked around the office. She knew from the few weeks that she and Jessie had lived at Kat’s apartment before moving into their current house that the woman had some quirks when it came to security. Maybe it was her time in Afghanistan. Maybe it was running a lockdown facility for crazy killers. Whatever the reason, Kat had a habit of hiding items of significance in unexpected places.
She had a fireproof lockbox in the apartment but it only held photos. Documents like her passport, social security card, and birth certificate were actually kept in an envelope taped inside a hardcover book about California flora and fauna, which she kept on a shelf along with several other incredibly boring-sounding books. Assuming that was representative of her security style at her office too, the relevant file would be kept somewhere so uninteresting that no one would even think to look there.
Hannah scanned the office, staying alert for anything that might make the average person’s eyes glaze over. It didn’t take long to find a likely target. On the far wall was a series of three framed
prints all in a row. Two were interesting images of rugged mountain vistas. The last one on the right was a close-up of an unremarkable, weathered fence post.
Hannah got up, walked over, and removed the frame from the wall. She knew almost immediately that she’d guessed right. The frame was oddly heavy considering how cheap it looked. Turning it over, she noticed that there was an extra layer of particle board on the back. She slid it out. Behind it were several folded-up sheets of paper.
Trying to contain her excitement, she moved back over to the desk, laid out the four pages, and, after glancing at them briefly to confirm they dealt with Mindy, took a photo of each. Then she quickly returned the pages and put the frame back on the wall. She desperately wanted to look over the documents now but knew that even being here was a risk. Kat could come back at any time.
She put the fake glasses into her purse and undid her ponytail on the elevator ride down. The doors were just opening onto the building lobby when someone stepped in. They almost collided. It was Kat, who was clearly surprised to see her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“That’s kind of rude,” Hannah replied playfully, hiding her own shock as she scrambled for an explanation. “I was looking for you. I just left a friend’s house and was passing by here so I thought I’d surprise you. I just knocked on your door. I thought maybe you’d want to get a coffee or something.”
“That’s sweet,” Kat said, clearly not totally buying her explanation. “Normally, I’d be all over that but I’m in the middle of a case and I can’t really take the time. Rain check?”
“Of course,” Hannah replied, trying to look disappointed instead of relieved.
Kat studied her with mild concern.
“How are you doing?” she asked. “Everything okay? We haven’t really talked much lately.”
“I’m good,” Hannah assured her.
“No burning desire to put yourself in harm’s way lately? You haven’t accosted any drug dealers or sex traffickers this week, have you?”
Hannah forced a chuckle.
“No,” she said. “But the week’s not over yet.”
She could tell from Kat’s skeptical frown that she wasn’t entirely convinced.
“Remember our deal, Hannah,” she said seriously. “You don’t put yourself at personal risk in order to get cheap adrenaline highs and I don’t tell your sister that you like to do exactly that.”
“I remember,” Hannah said, making sure to add a little petulance to her voice in order to mask her apprehension that she might be found out. “Don’t you trust me, Kat?”
Kat stared at her for several seconds before finally replying.
“I want to. Can I?”
Hannah’s rideshare pulled up. She waved to the guy and turned back to Kat.
“Of course you can,” she lied.
She couldn’t help but notice that the guilt she felt at deceiving Ryan earlier was entirely absent now.
CHAPTER SIX
Jessie was nervous.
She wasn’t sure if it was because she was out of practice at interrogating people or if it was just this particular witness. Either way, she took an extra couple of deep breaths before joining Karen in the small conference room where they’d moved Kimberly Miner.
Her former neighbor looked up anxiously. Despite her pert cuteness, her little button nose, her gleaming white teeth, and her perfectly Pilates-fit body, she was on edge. That somehow set Jessie at ease. She reminded herself, as she should have been doing all along, that Kimberly had far more reason to be apprehensive than she did.
After all, Kimberly was the one who’d been in the suite where her friend was murdered. She was the one being questioned. And she was the one who’d been part of an extremely unconventional marriage and a member of a yacht club that was shut down after it turned out to be a glorified escort service for local husbands. She had lots of secrets and she knew Jessie was privy to several of them.
Rather than use that advantage right away, Jessie decided to ease in.
“It’s been a while, Kimberly,” she said as warmly as she could. “How are the kids? What are they, six and four now?”
“That’s right,” Kimberly said, impressed. “You’ve got a good memory.”
“They were very cute,” Jessie said, “hard to forget.”
“Thank you.”
“Still bake brownies for new neighbors?” she asked with just a hint of an edge in her voice.
Karen gave her a sideways glance but said nothing.
“Not many new neighbors lately,” Kimberly answered, pretending not to notice the tone. “We’ve had more folks moving out than in since all the…unpleasantness.”
“I’ll bet,” Jessie said. “Well, as much as I’d love to catch up, we should probably talk some more about last night, don’t you think?”
Kimberly nodded, her already pale skin seeming to get somehow whiter.
“So you’re a lot younger than your friends. I was surprised to see you showing up at a fortieth birthday party. Aren’t you closer to thirty?”
“Thirty-three next month,” Kimberly said. “But I have lots of different friend groups and Claudia and I really hit it off when we served on the PTA board together. When she introduced me to the others, it was a natural fit. They’re a little less buttoned-up than some of the women our age.”
“Gotcha,” Jessie said, wondering if that was a dig at her. “So before we dive into the particulars of last night, what can you tell us about Claudia? What kind of person was she?”
Kimberly was quiet for a moment, seemingly trying to gather her thoughts and maintain her composure at the same time. When she finally spoke, it was in an unusually subdued voice.
“She was very sweet. She had trouble conceiving, so she was really grateful when it finally happened for her. And then it happened again. She was a super-devoted mother. She wasn’t as wild as some of us. Lauren and I can get pretty boisterous, even Veronica sometimes. We’d gossip about our personal lives, other people’s too. Claudia was always quieter about that stuff; never a bad word to say about her own relationship or anyone else’s. She knew how to have a good time but she wasn’t a big partier. We had to trick her into coming to Hollywood by telling her we’d booked dinner at a fancy restaurant. Of course, that was true. But we didn’t tell her about the rest of the evening until we got here.”
“So,” Karen pressed, joining in, “you got to the hotel, started drinking, went to dinner, went to a club, and then returned to the hotel? Am I missing anything in there?”
Kimberly hesitated before replying.
“I don’t think so,” she eventually said. “But the truth is, I don’t remember it all that well. Everything from our time at Fête on is kind of a blur. I don’t even remember Lauren getting carried out. One minute I was dancing and the next, Veronica was dragging me outside. At some point we got back to the hotel, I don’t remember when except that it was before twelve because Lauren told Claudia that the party wouldn’t end until at least midnight and her birthday was officially over.”
“Do you recall what happened when you returned to the room?” Karen asked.
Kimberly scrunched up her nose, trying to recollect.
“I know someone ordered room service because I remember chowing down on a burger at some point. We drank more, played that old high school game, ‘Never Have I Ever.’ There was some more dancing in the room. At some point we all passed out. I don’t remember who crashed first. I just know that I shared a bed with Veronica and that I woke up to her screaming from the bedroom. Lauren and I rushed in and found…well, you know what we found.”
They were all quiet for a moment. Jessie weighed Kimberly’s words, trying to glean whether the woman was playing up her drunkenness for effect. Eventually, she broke the silence.
“Veronica said that the arguments Lauren had at the club were no big deal,” she prompted. “Were there any arguments among the four of you that night? Any simmering tensions that might
have boiled over?”
Kimberly stared at her and suddenly looked very tired.
“Jessie,” she began, sounding exhausted. “I’d love to tell you ‘no way.’ But the honest answer is I just don’t remember. People could have scratched each other’s eyes out and I could have missed it. I don’t think there was any of that. We were having fun. The biggest squabble I recall was over who could have a personal trash can in case they had to throw up.”
Jessie looked over at Karen, who shrugged. It seemed that they were on the same page in thinking that Kimberly was of little use. They sent her back to the main conference room and told her to have Lauren take her place.
*
After they finished interviewing both Lauren and Veronica, Jessie and Karen stayed in the conference room, hoping to hash out what they’d learned.
“Lauren was even less helpful than Kimberly,” Karen noted, frustrated.
“Agreed,” Jessie said. “She basically acknowledged that she was completely hammered before they even left for dinner. She didn’t even remember making the midnight comment.”
“True,” Karen replied. “But she did admit that it sounded like her. Plus she seemed to think that she was the one who ordered the room service, though she couldn’t be sure. And she remembered crashing on the loveseat. She just had no idea when.”
“Hard to nail down a timeline with such hazy memories,” Jessie sighed, reviewing the notes she’d taken. “At least Veronica was slightly more accommodating. She says they went straight from Fête back to the hotel. She also thought they returned before midnight. She didn’t order the room service but recalled asking for French fries. She remembered playing ‘Never Have I Ever’ and doing shots when she lost. She remembered dancing in the living room. But she didn’t remember any major blowups, or any confrontations beyond the ones at the club. So that helps a little.”
“A little is right,” Karen muttered.