L.A.P.D. Special Investigations Series, Boxed Set: The Deceived, The Taken & The Silent

by Style, Linda

  Luke grunted. “Shit. A lot of shit.”

  “Something I can do?”

  “Where are you?”

  “On my way home.”

  “You want to stop by? I’ll buy you a beer.”

  “Sure. Any hint on what it’s about?”

  “I’ll tell you when you get here.”

  “Give me twenty.”

  Intrigued, Jordan clicked off. Since his divorce, Luke never invited anyone over. It had to be important.

  He took the exit to Highway 10 and headed west toward Luke’s place in Venice, but his thoughts veered in another direction—where they always seemed to go these days—to Laura. She was right to be upset about the car. And he was glad she’d called him. The police would put a watch on the school, but he doubted they’d put one at the shelter.

  He felt he should do something else, but he didn’t know what. It made him even more determined to find out what she was hiding. It had to be something with catastrophic effects if it was revealed—hurting her or someone she loved. Otherwise why hide it?

  The traffic congealed, a mass exodus from downtown L.A. Slowed to a halt several times, it took him longer than he figured to reach Ocean Avenue. He drove past the beach houses, funky shops and streets crowded with the usual tourists, vendors, artists and jugglers still out even though it was late. He turned onto a strip of road leading to Luke’s.

  Luke’s grandfather had willed Jordan’s buddy the old home, now hidden among the palms on one of the old Venice canals. The area had seen a rebirth since the beatnik days of the fifties and hippie days of the sixties, and now Venice boasted some of the most expensive homes in West L.A. Luke’s property was worth a bundle, but his friend couldn’t care less.

  Jordan parked, got out and filled his lungs with the salty sea air to clear his head. He strode to the door. It was late, 10:00 p.m., and he’d had a long day. The highlight being dinner with Laura and her daughter. He smiled at how much he’d enjoyed himself—despite the reason he was there.

  The door sprung open. Luke stood there, his shirt unbuttoned, his jeans wrinkled even more than usual. His sandy hair looked like a pile of hay. He motioned Jordan inside.

  “Hey, what’s up?” Jordan said. “You look like hell.”

  Luke ignored the comment.

  Jordan followed Luke into the kitchen and took the beer his friend handed him. “Nothing, I guess.”

  “Have a seat,” Luke said.

  They sat at the wooden table. The place was small, but well laid out. Everywhere Jordan looked he saw signs of Julianna—things Luke hadn’t bothered to get rid of. Some of the black-and-white photographs she’d taken were still tacked to the corkboard next to the refrigerator, most of them discolored and hanging at all angles. But no pictures of Michael. “What’s with the old stuff?” Jordan waved a hand at the pictures. “It’s been how long—four years since the divorce?”

  “Four and a half.”

  Jordan nodded. He doubted Luke had called him to talk about his broken marriage.

  “Where’ve you been? I tried calling.”

  “I had dinner at Victory House tonight.”

  Luke’s head came up. “How’d you manage that?”

  “Ms. Gianni called me.” He waited briefly for the response he knew he’d get.

  “No kidding.”

  Jordan took a swig of beer, then studied the label, drawing out the suspense. After all, they had a hundred-dollar bill riding on Jordan’s success or failure in getting information from Laura Gianni. Jordan held up the amber bottle. “Fat Tire. What kind of name is that for a beer?”

  Luke crossed his arms and gave Jordan the evil eye.

  “Actually, she called me for my law-enforcement expertise and her kid invited me to stay for dinner.”

  “What kind of expertise is she interested in?”

  Jordan lifted his beer, frowning. The whole thing still bothered him. “She thinks someone is stalking her daughter.”

  “Is it valid?”

  “I don’t know. The kid saw a car hanging around the school, and that’s enough for me.”

  “Why would someone stalk her daughter?”

  “You got me. They’ve had old boyfriends hang out before. Could be some pervert preying on her daughter or an old boyfriend of her own. Could be anything. She didn’t seem to know a whole lot.”

  “You get anything else from her on Kolnikov?”

  Jordan leaned back on two legs of the chair. “Nope.” He smiled. “But I will.” No way was he going to admit defeat.

  “Well, while you’re figuring it out, I’ve got something else for you to chew on.”

  “It must be good, or you wouldn’t have dragged me here.”

  “I found a bug under my desk, so I checked yours.” Luke arched his brows. “Someone knows everything we’re doing.”

  “Which is?”

  “The Kolnikov case and the Gianni murder, and apparently we’re ruffling some political feathers. Both cases have mob overlap, so I figure someone’s making enough noise to get the mayor involved. Which funnels down to the captain, and he isn’t too happy about it.”

  “You think DeMatta’s got the mayor under his thumb?”

  Luke shrugged. “Pressure does funny things to rational people.”

  “A bug, huh?”

  “Yeah. I left them where they were, so be careful what you talk about.”

  “Anyone else know?”

  “Not yet. And I’m thinking maybe we should keep it quiet. We can’t find the mole if he knows we know he’s there.”

  Jordan shook his head. “Whoever our mole is, he’s got major cojones.”

  ***

  “Caitlin? Is that you?” Laura thought she heard the back door open and shut, but the older girls had gone to the mall with Phoebe, and Cait had gone to Shannon’s house for a birthday party. Maybe her daughter had forgotten something.

  “Cait,” she called again, and when there was no answer, she passed it off as her imagination and went into the family room. She so rarely had time to herself that it felt eerie being alone. A house full of people generated a lot of noise, but now, in the quiet, every sound seemed magnified. The hum of the refrigerator, the fan clicking on and off, the wind rattling the windows as rain threatened again. She could almost smell the electricity in the air. A layer of thunder clouds had dropped like a thick gray blanket over the city and the charcoal sky made late afternoon seem like twilight. She hoped it wouldn’t rain before Cait came home.

  She should call Shannon’s mother and tell her she’d bring an umbrella over for Caitlin. But it was only three houses away and Cait would be mortified.

  It was hard always hiding her concern from Cait, but if she didn’t, she could make Cait afraid of her own shadow. The incongruous image made her smile. That would probably never happen. At seven, almost eight as Cait always insisted, her daughter was decidedly her own person. Laura felt a sense of achievement in that. She wanted Cait to be strong, to trust in herself and know she could accomplish anything she wanted if she worked hard enough.

  Sitting on the chocolate brown sectional, another donation, along with all the furniture at the shelter, she picked up the television remote and flipped it on. An old Seinfeld rerun was playing. She rarely watched TV, preferring a good book when she had a moment to herself—but not this afternoon. She had other things to think about, questions to be answered. And Jordan St. James was at the heart of each and every one.

  He seemed to be interested in her. But was he interested in her personally, or did he simply want to pump her for more information? She’d wanted to tell him more about Anna, but if she got into too much detail, her own tarnished past might be exposed.

  Caitlin didn’t know about Laura’s days on the streets. No one knew—except a few people in her past she’d lost track of over the years. She saw no reason to make it an issue.

  Her daughter knew Victory House was a shelter for troubled girls and the girls stayed there because they needed help and a place
to live. The first rule for the residents was no discussion of street life except in counseling sessions. The shelter had a limit on the number of beds, so anyone who couldn’t live by the rules didn’t get to stay.

  Just then, a bold headline scrolled across the bottom of the screen. Breaking News: Officer Involved Shooting, Hostage Situation In Progress. Laura perched on the edge of the couch, her heart suddenly in her throat. Did Jordan work in that part of the city?

  “We have a hostage situation in progress,” a news reporter interrupted the program. “One officer down and one inside with the suspect. SWAT teams have surrounded the small home believed to be the target of a drug sting gone bad. Stay tuned for more on this event as it unfolds. KTTV. First with the news.”

  She bolted to her feet. Stood directly in front of the TV as she clicked channels to hear more. Dammit. She didn’t want to wait. She wanted to know now. She didn’t want some sound bite to make her keep watching. Exactly why she didn’t watch news on TV. Everything that happened was entertainment, no matter how devastating.

  Hearing an officer was involved suddenly made it personal. She had to know what happened. Who was hurt and who was in that house?

  Biting her cuticle, eyes riveted on the screen, she just stood there waiting to hear more. It couldn’t be Jordan. It just couldn’t.

  A deep rumble of thunder shook the sky, then there was a blinding flash, followed by a crack of acoustical energy that rattled the house. The lights dimmed, the TV fizzled to gray then black. The lights went out. Another release of thunder was quickly followed by more lightning and rain that pelted the windows so hard she thought the glass might break.

  Laura hurried into the kitchen to call Shannon’s house and find a flashlight. As she picked up the phone, she felt a breeze and, turning, saw that the back door had blown open. Though she had enough light to see, she took out the flashlight and scanned the room. Everything looked okay. She walked to the door and pushed it shut. Nothing out of place that she could see. She was still looking around as she punched in Shannon’s number and lifted the phone to her ear.

  Dead. And if her phone lines were out, all the lines in the neighborhood were probably out. She went back to the family room and fished her cell phone from her purse to try again. She didn’t care what Cait thought. If they were in the dark over there with a half-dozen eight-year-olds, they might need some help. She punched in the number again. Surprisingly the phone rang.

  “Robin,” Laura said when a woman answered. “This is Laura. My electricity’s out and I wondered if yours is out, too?”

  “No, it’s not,” Robin responded. “We’re fine here. We’re in the middle of a game. The storm is awful but the girls aren’t paying any attention. They’re having fun.”

  Relieved, Laura said, “Can you tell me what time you’ll be done? I’ll bring an umbrella over for Cait.”

  “Don’t worry. My three older children will walk everyone home when it’s time.”

  Laura hung up and took the phone with her into the living room. Out the window, she saw lights glowing in all the houses down the block. Had her home been the only one affected? A fuse, maybe? Or had something been struck by lightning?

  Another crack of thunder shook the rafters. She jumped, then felt foolish for being so skittish. It was just rain, for God’s sake.

  Still, there was no way to know how long the power would be out, and though it wasn’t too dark to see, she went in search of some candles and a sweater. As she walked toward her bedroom she heard a loud thud, and then another. Heart racing, she eased down the hall, her back against the wall. Reaching her bedroom, she slowly opened the door. A powerful gust of wind hit her. The French windows were open and banging in the wind. Rain blew in, soaking the chest of drawers under the window and the rug underneath.

  She ran over and slammed the windows shut, getting soaked in the process. What the…? She’d secured the windows tightly last night and the locking handles were on the inside. The wind couldn’t possibly blow them open.

  Maybe Caitlin had opened the window and forgot to close it tightly…. But why would she do that? It didn’t make sense. Uneasy, Laura crossed the hall to her daughter’s room. The old oak floor creaked as she stepped inside. The window, the kind that lifted from the bottom, was open, too.

  Had Cait left it open?

  Or had someone jimmied it from the outside?

  Her heart lodged in her throat when she saw the cloisonné music box Eddie had given Cait on her second birthday scattered on the floor—in pieces. Laura knelt and picked up a shard of the delicate china. If Cait had accidentally broken it and didn’t want Laura to know, she’d have picked up the pieces.

  More important, Cait didn’t lie or deceive her mother. She would’ve told her about it. Laura was as certain of that as she was of her ability to help the kids staying at the shelter.

  Maybe the wind coming through the open window had blown it to the floor? No, it was too far from the window. Something else had happened here. But what? Quickly she picked up the pieces and dumped them into the wastebasket in the corner. Turning, she stopped cold. Her breath caught.

  The quilt, the one Eddie’s mother had painstakingly made by hand for Cait, was sliced to shreds. A sickening knot formed in her stomach. Cait cherished the quilt, almost as much as the music box from her father.

  The phone in Laura’s pocket chirped and she jumped. Nerves on edge, her hands trembled as she pulled out the cell. The numbers were lit, but she didn’t recognize them. “Hello.”

  “Hey, it’s me,” Phoebe said, sounding far away. “We’re still at the mall. I don’t want to drive back in this rain, so we’re going to wait until it lets up a bit.”

  Though she didn’t like to think it, the possibility that one of the girls had done this loomed in the back of Laura’s mind. She swallowed her concern and managed to say, “Okay. You know what’s best.”

  “I didn’t want you to worry.”

  “Thanks. Uh…I won’t.”

  “How about you? Everything okay?”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”

  But she wasn’t fine. Someone had destroyed Cait’s things. Someone had been in both of their rooms.

  “Okay,” Phoebe said. “See you when we get there.”

  Her mouth dry, Laura mumbled, “Okay. Bye.” She clicked off, then touched the torn fabric, a silky piece of taffeta that had come from one of Cait’s old dresses. As the fabric slipped through Laura’s fingers, the reality of the situation hit her square in her gut. If someone had come in while she was there, he could easily have come for her, too.

  She took a step toward the bed, and reached out to steady herself against the wall. Why? Why would anyone do something like this? Who would do something like this? She felt violated. The act was vindictive, personal. They’d destroyed keepsakes. Whoever did this had an agenda….

  She should call the police. But if it was one of the girls… No, she had to talk to them first. But what if it wasn’t? Moving like a zombie, she crossed the room, closed the window, and then took a towel from the bathroom and started wiping the wet floor. Just as she finished, she heard the front door open. Her heart stopped.

  “Mom, it’s me. I’m back.”

  Laura snatched the quilt off the bed, rolled it into a ball and held it in her arms along with the towel. She eyed the wastebasket, then grabbed it and set the quilt on top. Turning, she found Caitlin standing in the doorway, her expression bewildered.

  “How come the lights are out?”

  “The storm, I think. Maybe lightning. I don’t know. Good thing we have a couple of flashlights and candles if it gets too dark.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Well, I’m just doing some…uh, cleaning.” Laura tightened her grip on the bundle in her hands. “The quilt needs to be washed. I’ll bring you another one.”

  “You’re supposed to be relaxing.” Cait sounded like a mother reprimanding her child. “That’s what you said you were going to do.
”

  Laura forced a thready laugh. “Well, you know me. I like to keep busy.”

  “You weren’t snooping, were you?”

  The question caught Laura by surprise. “Snooping? What do you mean?”

  A strange look of defiance glittered in Caitlin’s eyes. “You know. Looking at my stuff. My private stuff.”

  The question was almost laughable. What kind of private stuff could a seven-year-old have? Laura tried to look serious. “Of course not. I wouldn’t do that anymore than you’d go looking through my things.” She studied Cait’s face for a reaction, to see if she’d gone into Laura’s room and opened the window. But Cait’s expression was innocent.

  “I am upset that you left your window open.”

  Cait looked up. “I didn’t open it. It’s too cold outside.”

  Laura felt a chill and it wasn’t coming from outside.

  “I’m going to find the candles.”

  Cait’s eyes lit up. “Can I help? Then I can tell you about the party and we can pretend we’re camping and roast marshmallows on the stove.”

  They could do it since the stove was natural gas…and it would take her mind off other things. “You bet,” Laura said, hoping her voice didn’t give away her fear.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  JORDAN SHRUGGED OFF his suit jacket and hung it on the back of the chair. He pulled out the Kolnikov case file, surreptitiously taking note of anyone looking his way.

  Tex was on a call out along with his new partner, Simon McIntyre. Jordan didn’t know Simon at all, but Tex seemed to think he was okay. Apparently Simon had a few run-ins with a couple of uniforms in his last job and had a reputation for being a troublemaker. Rico wasn’t due back for another week and Howie Ralston, who’d only been on the team for a year, was eyeing Jordan from the captain’s office. Who was the mole? One of them? Or someone who had access to the office but only came in occasionally?

  That would cover a lot of people, including the mayor and his staff.

  Rico and Luke, he’d trust with his life. Tex, too, though he didn’t know him as well as the others. The rest of the unit was fair game. Even Mary Beth, the admin assistant. Okay, now he was losing it. Mary Beth had been the one person most willing to help on every case they had. She’d helped Rico a lot in the Ray case. He crossed Mary Beth off his list.