by R. H. Herron
There was no guarantee Jojo was actually right, but it sure made more sense, and if Laurie had learned anything in twenty years at the PD, it was that the likeliest answer was usually the correct one. “We need to get info on that phone number.”
“Don’t call dispatch,” said Jojo.
Her daughter was right, so right that it ached. “Yeah. I’ll go run it myself. Put on your shoes.”
Jojo shook her head. “No. Just take the number with you. I’m staying here.”
“You’re going with me.”
“I am not.”
“I’m not leaving you here.”
“You left me here all night. What’s changed?”
“There are more of them now.” Seven of the men Laurie worked with. And at least one . . .
Jojo folded her arms over her chest and crossed her legs. “That’s why I’m not going. If I see one of them in the hall, I’ll lose it.”
That was fair. “Then you’ll stay in the car.”
“Do you think I’m safer in the police department parking lot in a metal box surrounded by glass, or here? With all of Daddy’s dead bolts?”
Fuck. “Fine. I’ll be back in an hour. Less.”
“Mom.” Jojo clasped her elbows, her shoulders hunched forward. “I’m scared.”
Laurie was terrified. Her head dropped, heavy.
But she was the ex-cop. And the dispatcher. And most important of all, she was the mom. She lifted her head again. “It’s all going to be fine, Joshi.”
Sometimes mothers had to lie.
THIRTY-NINE
LAURIE PARKED IN front of the station and tried to take a deep breath. She had to get this right. She needed to steady herself before she went in.
Before she saw any of them.
If this all came out, if it hit the media . . .
All the men involved would lose their jobs. Including Omid. And the way this kind of thing went, she wouldn’t keep her job, either. Wife of the ousted chief would be ousted. They wouldn’t be able to get other jobs in the industry. They’d lose the house. Their savings.
But if Laurie found Harper first—then what? Harper was on the local news. She’d made national press on Fox, maybe other networks. Blond and white and pretty—she was the kind of story the press drooled over.
When Harper was found, all of it would definitely come out. There was no way it wouldn’t. If Omid had just done the right thing in the first place, the very first time Harper had contacted him, then his position would still be secure. The cops all would have lost their jobs, but he could have stood up for his department—he would have been the decent face, the outraged one, the one who separated the wheat from the chaff.
On second thought, no matter what he’d done, he would have gone down, too. The person at the top was always a scandal away from being booted. That came with the job.
But he wouldn’t have been disgraced, as he would be now. He would have gotten a golden handshake, a wad of money, and a good reference if he needed it to start over at some new department. Laurie could have kept working.
Now it would all go to hell.
Unless they could find Harper and somehow convince her not to talk about the men. If she and Omid sold the house, they’d make at least seven hundred thousand. Would that be enough? Would she accept that?
No, no, no. This—right here—this was how it started.
Laurie smacked her hand against the steering wheel. Pain shot up her wrist.
No. She wouldn’t cover up a damn thing. What was she even thinking? No matter what Harper had done, or how Omid was somehow complicit, someone else in her department was crazy enough to harm people. Laurie had to find Harper before whoever had her did anything worse, before he hurt or raped or killed again.
Then, when Harper was safe, Laurie would figure out what to do, and she’d do it right. Truly right. She had to, or Laurie wouldn’t be the kind of mother that Jojo deserved.
Omid, how could you?
* * *
* * *
DISPATCH was busy—Dina and Rita were working what sounded like a failure-to-yield, and Maury was tied up talking to Jocko Smith.
“Jocko!” Maury yelled. “I’m glad you’re okay, buddy, but my boss says I have to get off the phone! I don’t want to get in trouble!” Maury was the boss. It was a line they all used when drunks were safe in their own houses and didn’t want anything but to talk.
Laurie slipped into the open seat and logged in. She ran out the phone number even though she knew it was a cell phone, on the remote chance it was a VOIP cell with a physical address.
It wasn’t.
She pulled up the records management system. Maybe they’d had contact with a person with this cell number—her heart beat faster. If it was one of their guys, then for sure his cell would be on file, and it would hit—
But nothing came back. UNKNOWN.
Futile. She’d have to turn the number and the verbiage of the text over to Investigations. She could call the wireless companies, of course—start the ball rolling to see who owned the phone. It was something they often did in dispatch, usually with suicidal callers who refused to say where they were.
But it took ages, and Maury would be off the phone soon enough with questions about what the hell she was doing.
She ran through the names on the list.
Ben Bradcoe. She’d seen his honest reaction when she sat with him in his car. He couldn’t be behind it. He wasn’t smart enough to dissemble that fast. Was he?
Heinz Tollis. He was married, with four kids and a tiny house and a wife he appeared to be in love with. He laughed all the time. He wouldn’t kidnap someone. Would he?
He’d slept with Harper.
Sherm Naumann. He was too stupid to try to pull off something huge. He literally couldn’t parallel park.
But he’d had paid sex with a minor.
Dan Toomey and Peter Marberry, both too young and too neurotic. They both got nervous in lineup when they had to distribute the hot sheets.
But they were grown men, abusing a child.
Frank Shepherd. She just couldn’t see him being involved at all. He’d once painted bike lanes in his neighborhood with a paintbrush because he was worried about the local kids. It wasn’t him.
But they’d all fucked Harper for money.
The only one left was Will Yarwood, the bantam rooster.
He was single. He dated a lot but kept no girlfriend more than a couple of weeks, though he professed that he couldn’t wait to start a family. He’d been friends with the ex-cop Darren Dixon and had actually liked the racist Facebook post. (He’d unliked it before anyone thought to screenshot it, so he had deniability. Then he’d carefully commented favorably on the department’s post, supporting Omid. Backstabber.) The women he brought as dates to department parties were always very short and very thin, with huge breasts. They never spoke.
Yarwood lived alone in a big, sterile house full of generic white furniture. She’d been there once for a pool party during a period in which Yarwood was briefly friendly to her and Omid. There’d been a huge old garage in the back, the kind with barn doors. Yarwood had said it was full of spiders and that he was going to get around to doing something with it someday.
Someday.
She glanced at the screen. Yarwood was in the station.
“Hey! Whatcha doing?” Maury slid his chair into her pod.
“I don’t want to talk.”
Maury adjusted the mic on his headset. “Sorry, kiddo. Too bad. Tell me what’s going on. We’re all going crazy here.”
“You think you are?”
“Don’t worry. With Colson working lead, they’ll get to the bottom of this sooner rather than later. But, shit, I think he’s on the way to your house right now.”
Laurie shook her head. “No. I saw him at th
e drink-up. He’s off duty.”
Maury glanced at the terminal. “No, he came back in after that. Still working. He just left to go see you and Jojo a couple of minutes ago.”
Fear was a jolt of ice water. “Why? Why would he do that?”
Maury shook his head. “To check on you both. Because we’re worried. You know that.”
No. What if he was in on it? “I’m sorry. I’ve got to go.” Maybe she could beat Colson home. She and Jojo could show him the text info—Laurie could watch his face, see if any flicker gave him away.
Maury started to say something else, but she moved too fast for him to even finish the sentence. The door to dispatch slammed behind her, and she took the stairs upward two at a time. She came around the corner and ran full speed into Will Yarwood.
The rooster himself.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, hating the fact that she’d felt his gun belt against her stomach. Now she needed a shower. And he needed to move out of her way.
Yarwood shifted back and forth on the balls of his feet so that he was blocking the entire hall. “How’s Jojo?” His voice was too loud.
Too thick.
Laurie shook her head. “I’ve got to go.” She took a step forward, but he blocked her again.
“We’re all worried, you know.” Yarwood’s eyebrows rose. “We’re learning things about her little friend. Seems like she was a liar, huh? Not the best person for Jojo to hang around.”
Had Bradcoe already spilled the info that Laurie knew about what they’d been doing? Laurie screwed her hands into fists and leaned forward. “Yeah, so I’ve heard you know her pretty well.”
Yarwood glanced over his shoulder. Montgomery was making his way out of the sergeant’s office, lumbering toward them.
Then Yarwood leaned forward, too. Their faces were less than a foot apart. Laurie smelled his deodorant and caught a whiff of old sweat.
“I bet she’s never found,” he whispered in her ear. “You wait and see if I’m right.”
The blast of white heat swamped Laurie’s vision.
She punched him right in the jaw, a sharp blow that came out of nowhere, as if she were channeling lightning. One moment she was fine, the next she was cradling her hand as Yarwood bleated like a goat from down on the floor.
She swayed above him. “Where is she? Where do you have her?”
He scrambled to his feet. “Fuck! Sergeant! Sergeant, did you see that? She hit me!”
Sergeant Shane Montgomery sped up to a trot. “What in the ever-loving hell, Laurie?”
Some rookie whose name she couldn’t even remember had jumped out of the woodwork and was pulling her back.
“You fucking piece of shit, Yarwood! Tell me where Harper is!”
“You crazy bitch! She hit me!” He sounded like a whining child. His jaw was already beginning to swell.
The sergeant rounded on her, his mouth open, but she didn’t let him speak.
“Sarge, he’s got her. I know he does. He practically just admitted it.”
“I did not!”
She could barely breathe around the heat in her throat. “You need to send units to check his house. And his old garage.”
The sergeant looked incredulous, his eyebrows sky-high. “Who the fuck are you talking about?”
Laurie went on, her breath hitching in her chest, “I’m pretty sure he’s hiding Harper Cunningham at his house. You need to go! Go now!”
The color in Yarwood’s face reached a deep plum. “You’re insane!”
“Now!” screamed Laurie, pulling against the multiple arms that now held her back. And it was probably good they were—if she could get to him, she’d rip the information right out of his throat.
Montgomery, who was generally known for being the most relaxed of the lower brass, stomped his boot hard into the wooden floor. The hallway shook. Laurie jumped. So did the three other officers who’d gathered behind him.
“Laurie, do you have any idea what the hell you’re suggesting right now? Are you actually saying that Officer Yarwood kidnapped a girl and is keeping her at his house? The girl who is missing from a murder scene? Are you out of your goddamned mind?”
Pain from the tension in her head bloomed red behind Laurie’s eyes. “I know it doesn’t make any sense, but you have to check!”
“No!”
Goddamn it, Laurie knew she looked deranged. And every minute they waited was a minute that could mean life or death.
Yarwood jabbed a finger toward her face. “I know you’re just a dispatcher, and it’s been a long time since you were on the street, thank God, but you might be aware that battery on a police officer with grave bodily injury is a felony, right?”
“Bodily injury, my ass!” It was just his jaw. “When they let me go, I swear to God I’ll show you—”
Yarwood puffed out his chest. “I want her arrested.”
Laurie squawked a laugh. As if he would.
But Montgomery said, “You sure?”
“Seriously?” Laurie jerked her head back. “Are you kidding me right now? You know he’s fucking her, right? Yarwood has been fucking Harper Cunningham!”
Yarwood’s face drained of color. “Sarge, she’s crazy. Or she’s cracked out on something. I swear to you—she’s lying.”
Montgomery said, “Come on now. Laurie?”
“Are you fucking her, too?”
Montgomery raised his arms and dropped them fast. “I want this bullshit out of my hallway! Yarwood, you actually serious about pressing charges?”
“More serious than I’ve ever been about anything.”
She was right about this. Yarwood had Harper. He wanted her locked up. Out of the way.
And the fucker managed to look smug even while he was still breathing hard. He crossed his arms. “If you don’t put her under arrest, I’ll arrest her myself.”
“I’ve got to get home to my daughter.” Jojo was alone. Colson was going over. There was no way she’d allow herself to be arrested by her own co-workers.
Sergeant Montgomery stared hard at Yarwood. “It’s a dick move, Will. You sure you want to press charges against the chief’s wife?”
Yarwood pressed a hand against his chest. “Currently my chief is Brent Stanley, not that useless sack she’s married to who can’t even take care of simple problems. And her sick fantasy is just that, something they cooked up together!”
Laurie lunged at him, almost reaching him before the rookie twisted her arm back behind her. “Fuck! Get off!” Her shoulder would hurt later, but she felt nothing now except rage and desperate fear. They were going to be too late. Why couldn’t they see that?
“Get him out of here!” Montgomery yelled at two nearby lookie-loo officers who dragged Yarwood into the sergeant’s office. The door slammed shut.
“Just look, Shane. Look in his house.” Laurie spoke hurriedly, not sure how much time she had left. “Promise me you’ll look.”
The sergeant closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “You seem fucking insane right now, you know that. And I’ve got to take you into the jail.”
“You know me, Shane. You know I’m not crazy. Just do me this favor. Look through his house. Promise me. Don’t be like Antioch.” Just a forty-five-minute drive from here, cops had missed the girl being held in a shed behind a house for eighteen years. Antioch was code in the department for “don’t fuck it up like the Jaycee Dugard case.”
Montgomery leveled his gaze at Laurie. “You’ll promise to walk into the jail with me without losing it again?”
Laurie’s knees shook. The most important thing was getting them onto Yarwood’s property. She stopped trying to wrench out of the rookie’s grab and met the sergeant’s gaze. “If you screw this up and don’t search those premises, when Harper Cunningham is found, I’ll tell the media that it was you who refused to investigate.”
“Goddamn it, Laurie.”
“You can arrest me. But promise me you’ll search.”
Montgomery shot a look down the hallway. Yarwood was still yelling from behind the closed door. “We’ll look. Come into the jail with me, though, okay? Won’t take long.”
“Fine.” It wasn’t fine, none of this was fine. But maybe Harper would be found, and then—Jesus, they were putting Laurie in a cell when any number of people who worked in this very building were the ones who deserved to be getting slung in there. Yarwood had committed a felony. He should be the one getting hooked up, not her. Anyone who’d hurt Harper deserved this, not Laurie, who was taking Harper’s disappearance seriously when no one else was.
Oh, God, Jojo was going to be so scared when Laurie didn’t come home.
When Colson showed up instead.
FORTY
MOM STILL WASN’T home, and Jojo still hadn’t eaten anything. She was starving. Cereal would be better than nothing.
As she grabbed a bowl out of the cupboard, she heard the number “406.” The scanner was always on in the living room, but she couldn’t remember the last time she’d paid any attention to it. Every once in a while, a traffic pursuit would happen and she’d try to figure out which officer was screaming bloody murder while he went seventy miles an hour in a residential zone, though most of the time she heard nothing. But dispatch had clearly said “Copy, 406 in custody.” She turned the radio up and listened more intently.
Because 406 was Mom’s dispatch badge.
What the hell did that mean? Would they actually arrest one of their own? Wasn’t that against all of the professional courtesy whatever they were supposed to have?
What would Mom have to do to get arrested?
Someone banged on the front door, and Jojo almost screamed.
Through the peephole she saw Lieutenant Mark Colson, someone Jojo had always liked. He and her mom had dated before she got with Dad, but it never seemed to be weird with them—when she was little, she’d called him Unca Mark.