Where the Lost Girls Go

by R. J. Noonan

  Franny had been a rookie cop once, too.

  With a nod to the midnight shift sergeant, he headed into the locker room to call it a day.

  5

  The next morning, I woke with a head full of Lucy Jameson. Her face, her teen memorabilia, her journal entries—she was dancing through my psyche like a Nickelodeon tween star on a sugar high. All things Lucy had fermented during the night, and now they tugged me awake the way our little dog Pooh tugged on her leash. I rolled over in bed, my hands flopping against the white duvet cover until I located my cell phone.

  One e-mail from Dr. Viloria:

  Preliminary results show the victim had sexual intercourse in the hours before the accident. Appears to be consensual. Immunoassay screen is positive for drugs in the system. We are doing a ten-panel test to determine the type of drug. Look for DNA match results later today.

  Propping myself up on my elbow, I forwarded the message to Lt. Omak, although he’d been copied on the coroner’s e-mail. Just to be sure.

  I fell back against my pillow and held my phone to my chest. So Jane Doe had engaged in intercourse before the accident. Somewhere out there was a man who’d had intimate contact with her in that crucial window of time. Had she been running to or from something?

  I opened up the photos on my phone and swiped the pages. Before I’d left the precinct last night, I had snapped a few photos of the Lucy evidence—mostly pages of the journal—so that I could mull them over at home. A good thing, since Lucy’s writing was tough to decipher, particularly the capital A, which she wrote like half a star.

  I am so in love with A! it read. He’s the first guy who’s ever really loved me for who I am. I know he’s older—he keeps reminding me of that—but it doesn’t matter. Yeah, we’re gonna get a lot of grief when we go public. But we have a thing. That’s the thing people don’t get. When you connect with someone on a really deep level, age and experience and past mistakes don’t matter. Those things just melt away in the light of love.

  Sweet. Idealistic. Not so practical, though I wasn’t vastly experienced in these matters. I’m still crushing on a boy from high school, still living in my girlhood bedroom, still under my parents’ jabbing thumbs.

  “How much is the age difference?” I asked aloud. When you’re seventeen, any guy over twenty could be considered old. And where had A been last night, when Lucy spun out of control alone in her father’s car?

  I swiped my phone to a different page in the journal. The sex page. Sex with A is awesome! He makes the other guys I’ve been with look like stupid little boys. Awesome A. This man has magic hands, and my body knows exactly how to respond. A really loves giving me multiple orgasms. He’s so proud of that! And I just lap it up. I wish we could be together, doing it, all the time.

  “Whoo.” I let out a breath. Hot stuff. Was she bragging or telling the truth? My sense was that this was the real deal, meant for Lucy’s eyes only. In that sense, I felt a little creepy reading the girl’s journal, but it was a legitimate part of the investigation, and I felt somehow that it was fortunate that I was on the case instead of someone like Cranston, who would have had juicy excerpts of Lucy’s diary posted on Twitter by now.

  There’d been no talk of suicide, at least in the last twenty or so days of her journal. The center of Lucy’s life had been A, the older man who’d made her laugh and cry and come repeatedly. Who was this guy?

  There might have been a quick answer for this. Under different circumstances, I could call and ask Kent and Martha Jameson, and they might respond, “That’s Austin Tremaine, guard on the Trailblazers” or “It’s Lucy’s gentleman friend Alden Fisk, our personal banker.” On the other hand, if Lucy hadn’t “gone public” yet, her father and stepmother probably knew nothing of this relationship. And what were the chances that A was a man her parents would approve of? Apparently, he had some past transgressions to “melt away in the light of love.” That was why people wrote in diaries, right? Because it was a place to spill things other people would have judged you for.

  I closed my phone screen, threw back the covers, and stretched. Lt. Omak had authorized overtime, but he’d also sent me home last night. It wasn’t yet seven AM. How early could I come in and get to work? I didn’t want to seem overly eager, but I was.

  A glance out the window revealed a sea of white. The marine layer of clouds was low today, sealing off a view of the lake but providing a puffy white platform that looked like it would make a great trampoline. An illusion, of course. Ready to start the day, I decided to brave the family and hit the kitchen. Coffee makes everything clearer.

  * * *

  Downstairs, I quickly buttered two slices of toast and brewed a single cup of coffee. My father would be off at the restaurant where he and my mother worked, but Mom didn’t go in until later so that she could hover over my sister and me. With the plate stacked on my mug, I thought I might make a clean getaway back to my room when I heard my mother’s voice.

  “Laura.” The ponderous tone of trouble. The click of paws on the wood floor as the dogs trailed her into the kitchen. “What time did you get in last night?”

  “It was late.” I set the plate aside and took a sip of coffee. “I got overtime.”

  “I was worried. You didn’t call.”

  “You don’t need to worry about me, Mom. Really.” Pooh’s muzzle pressed to my calf, and I leaned down to stroke the side of her chin. Tigger plopped down in a warm spot near the heating vent, his furry tail fluttering in the jet of air. “The job requires me to be available when people need help, and when that happens, I can’t stop and call home.”

  “Not even for a minute to tell your mother that you’ll be late?”

  Weary of this familiar back-and-forth, I turned toward the counter and took a bite of toast.

  “What kept you so busy that you couldn’t lift your phone?”

  “We were called to the scene of a car crash, and after that I didn’t have a minute to myself.”

  “A car crash.” The refrigerator door thunked shut in disapproval. “A terrible thing. Bad things happen in the world, and as a police officer, those are the things you will be invited to. Always the bad. Never the good.” As she spoke, she removed eggs from a carton and cracked them into a bowl.

  “I’m good with toast,” I said.

  “Scrambled eggs are for your sister. She has a long day. Golf team after school and SAT prep class tonight. She’s working hard to get into Stanford.” The eggs got a vigorous whisking.

  “So this week she thinks she’s going to Stanford?” I asked.

  “Mommy’s choice,” came the voice of my sister Hannah from behind me. Her name, derived from the Japanese word for “flower,” couldn’t be further from the truth. Hannah was hard edges, scary brilliance, black hair and white skin, muscle and bone, and bold nerve. On a good day, she made me laugh. On a bad day, her acid eyes and sharp tongue rivaled a mythical beast. “My new first choice school is Columbia.” Hannah squeezed in beside me to make coffee, adding under her breath, “It’s farther from home.”

  “I heard that. You want to fly the coop, that’s okay. We’ll have your sister here in the roost.”

  “I’m going to get a place of my own soon,” I said. Another familiar mantra. “I’m saving for it now.”

  “You need to stay home until you get married or get a good job.”

  “I have a good job.”

  “A lawyer like Koko,” Mom went on, referring to my saintly older sister who practiced in the Bay Area, “or a doctor like Alex.”

  “He’s just in med school. Not a doctor yet,” Hannah said as she stirred sugar into her coffee.

  “He’ll be a doctor in a few years. Dr. Mori.” The gleam in our mother’s eyes was a little eerie.

  I shoved in a large triangle of toast and ruminated on my substandard reputation within the Mori family. I used to blame my lack of scholastic überachievement on my poor math skills. I had hated math in high school, when long hours of tutoring and tears had
earned me a low B. A failure by family standards. Sure that something was wrong, my parents sent me to an educational specialist for a three-day battery of tests. The results? I was normal. Not a special needs student and not a high flyer. Just normal, with strong verbal skills but weak math skills.

  And therefore a failure and a disappointment.

  Not that I dwell on it. My Achilles’ heel saved me from a boring life of litigation or writing code, but it also prevented me from going into the profession I thought I was best suited for: psychology.

  My penchant for listening and guiding people through problems earned me a reputation as the family shrink from an early age. Whenever I worked in the restaurant, my father used to brag about my special gifts. “My daughter, she’s a problem solver. You have a problem, you tell Laura and she make it go away, one, two, three! Just like that. She will be a great psychologist, help people with problems.”

  When I was in junior high, we all believed this, and my father took great pride in my gentle way with customers and employees at the restaurant. Customers adored talking with Koji Mori’s middle daughter, who remembered their stories and followed up with each visit. People were always inviting me to sit with them and hear their tales of woe about a toddler who was biting kids in daycare, a college daughter who was flunking her classes, an elderly parent who was a danger on the road but refused to give up driving.

  I also had a way with the employees, everyone from the guys who parked cars to the chef, who sometimes went overboard with spices in his rendition of “Asian fusion cuisine.” My father would ask me to “talk to the chef about the basil explosion” or “tell Sally no more vacations without notice,” and I would handle the situation, making everyone happy with the resolution. On the outside, I’m a peacemaker. But in my heart, I’m drawn to the edge, the chaos, the moment when one choice will change the trajectory of a life. I did not encounter that adrenaline rush in the family restaurant, unless you count the time when I performed the Heimlich maneuver and knocked a piece of flank steak from a diner’s throat. When my grades and dismal SAT scores made it clear that I would never become a psychologist, I opted for a more exciting version of the job, helping complete strangers with immediate dangers.

  So far, police work seemed to match my skills and interests. Unfortunately, law enforcement was not a profession that ranked on my parents’ short list. Doctor, lawyer, or engineer for a dot com. If none of those worked, they preferred that I stick with the family restaurant. My career choice only further disappointed my parents—one of the reasons I tried to avoid my mother at home.

  “Mommy, can I have toast, too?” Hannah asked as she took a seat at the table. Pooh nestled at her feet, looking up for love and attention. “Do you have any fruit?”

  “Yes, yes. Blueberries. Brain food.” My mother fluttered through the kitchen, catering to Hannah’s desires while my younger sister sat in a chair cradling her mug, milking her role as baby of the family.

  Chewing my toast, I sopped up the tenor of the scene. Even in her most childish role, being doted on by “Mommy,” Hannah seemed miles beyond the level of maturity I’d observed in Lucy Jameson’s room. If you sifted through Hannah’s drawers, you might find some concert ticket stubs, paraphernalia for e-cigs, and maybe worse things—though marijuana use was now legal in Oregon, it was still against the law for seventeen-year-olds, and it would never be permitted in this house. But there would be no trace of glitter or eraser hearts or friendship bracelets.

  On the other hand, Lucy’s diary revealed a girl who was sexually advanced. Multiple orgasms didn’t really match up with unicorn posters and stuffed animals. But then, maybe the room wasn’t really a reflection of Lucy. Or maybe she just didn’t care that the décor hadn’t changed since she was ten years old.

  “Actually, can I have some eggs, too?” I asked, thinking of the long day ahead.

  “After your sister. She has to get to school. You have all day.”

  “I’m going in to work this morning. More overtime.” I tried to keep the pride out of my voice, knowing they’d pounce on it like a cat on a mouse. “I have my first case.”

  Our mother didn’t lift her glance from the fry pan. “First case of what? Chicken pox?”

  Hannah snorted. “First case of chlamydia?”

  They laughed together, genuinely amused.

  When I was seventeen, I would not have dared to make a crack like that in front of our mother. Although our mother, Keiko, was raised here in the States, she’d spent most of her life in the bubble of a Japanese neighborhood in San Francisco and held fast to Japanese culture. That included a deep and abiding respect for elders. I honored Japanese traditions in my parents’ house, but my younger sister, not so much.

  “A case of beer?” Hannah could sling them faster than a grill chef at McDonald’s, and our mother always seemed to enjoy being in on the joke.

  “A case of eggs?” Mom went on, pushing it too far.

  “An investigation.” I met my sister’s dark eyes, hoping to get through. “A woman was killed in a car crash. I’m investigating to see why it happened and who the driver was. She hasn’t been identified yet.”

  “Interesting.” Hannah’s flat tone made it clear that it was not interesting at all.

  “You’re working with dead bodies now?” My mother shuddered as she slid the plate in front of Hannah. “That’s never good.”

  “I’m not working with the body, Mom. Would you please watch a detective show and get an idea of what I do at work?” A glamorized portrayal of a police officer might dispel my mother’s fears of the bad spirits lurking in the world of law enforcement.

  “You work around such terrible people. Let me wash your uniform. Bad dust flies from dead people.”

  “I have enough clean uniforms for now.”

  “I need to do the wash.” With that, she hurried out of the kitchen to go off and gather dirty laundry.

  “What about my eggs?” I called after her, tipping the empty fry pan.

  Hannah popped a berry in her mouth and gave me a bland look. “Sucks to be you.”

  * * *

  With a second cup of coffee in hand, I went upstairs and locked my bedroom door behind me, more of a gesture of privacy than an actual guarantee. A copy of the incident report sat on the white princess desk where I’d sweated my way through high school and college, algebra and trig. One more look and then I would shower and get to work. The report was long—five printed pages—and I sifted through it with my refreshed morning eyes. The witness statements from the crash scene seemed solid. That made it a single-car crash. Possible intox. Possible mechanical malfunction. I would start culling information from our forensic experts the minute I got it.

  The official timeline on the report began at 19:45 when the emergency dispatcher received a call about the crash from Dr. Sullivan, but now I penciled in the last time Lucy had been seen at home, just after 19:00. Forty-five minutes between the argument and the crash. In that window of time, it was unlikely that Lucy left her parents’ house, consumed drugs, and had sex before crashing the car. However, there was no telling what she had done before 19:00. She might have had sex and consumed drugs before she argued with her father. In fact, the argument might have been exacerbated by Lucy’s state of sobriety. My fingers rumbled on the desktop as I considered those forty-five minutes. What had transpired during that time?

  Looking at the long list of inventory from Lucy’s room, I regretted not asking more questions last night. At the time, I didn’t want to badger the Jamesons, but I could have asked about the other girls in the photos, maybe gotten a few names, some contact information. I should have asked about Lucy’s activities yesterday, her recent trips, her medical history. I would do that today. What time was appropriate to pay a call on a couple in a miserable waiting game? Any time after nine? Would they be angry if I came over with a hundred questions and not a stitch of information on the identity of the driver? If only I could turn the gears of this investigation a little f
aster.

  Leafing through the last pages of the report, I came across the names of people who had access to the Jameson cars. Juana Lopez and Talitha Rahimi. Carlos Flores. Andy Greenleaf.

  A is for Andy, the ranch manager.

  How old was the guy? I imagined a muscular cowboy spooning petite Lucy on a bareback horse. I would definitely pay attention when I met with Andy Greenleaf today. My plan was to speak with the Jamesons again and then interview everyone on their staff. In this phase of the investigation, I wanted to gather as much information about Lucy and the other Jamesons as possible.

  When I walked into the precinct an hour later, I was a little surprised to find Lt. Omak pacing the aisles between desks, looking crisp and sharp and, once again, a bit intimidating.

  “Mori. It’s good that you’re here. We’re arranging for a press conference on the Stafford crash. The chief wants to have it here to divert attention from the Jameson ranch. Give them some peace.”

  “Sounds like a good idea.”

  “Yeah. Only we’ve got those Lost Girls advocates coming through at the same time, and the chief’s been dodging them.” The Lost Girls were every parent’s worst nightmare and every Portland cop’s guilty frustration. At last count there were six of them, runaway teens who had vanished from the Portland area. The advocates were going from station to station asking police for help on behalf of families of the missing girls. “Could be a shitshow.”

  “I’ll say.” Zion Frazier smirked as he came up the aisle. “Good thing we’ve got bulletproof vests.”

  Omak made a sour face. “What’s the latest on the Stafford crash?”

  “The driver was under the influence of drugs,” I reported, “and she had sexual intercourse sometime before the crash. Consensual, it seems.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I saw the coroner’s note.” Omak widened his stance. “I was hoping you had something more. I’ve been fielding calls from the media and the mayor throughout the night. Apparently there are two news vans camped out in the woods just beyond the Jamesons’ property, but they know they can’t go in there without permission.”