The Taken

by Vicki Pettersson

  Paul sighed, and shot a glance at the girls straining to hear the conversation. They immediately burst into an uncontrolled fit of giggles. “Do you really have to talk like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like that,” he said, straightening his jacket like it’d straighten Kit out as well.

  “Embarrassing you in front of your groupies?” she asked, tilting her head. “Shall I revert to syllables they can sound out?”

  “I’m talking about all of it.” He let his gaze scan her body. “Your June Cleaver dress, Bettie Page bangs. The Hayworth face paint. The stupid car.”

  Kit narrowed her eyes. “Watch your mouth, dear. That’s a Duetto.”

  He scoffed and flexed. Giggles rose around the room like startled pigeons. “See, that’s what I mean. You weren’t born mid-century, Kit. Get over it. At your age, playing dress-up should be reserved for the bedroom.”

  “This isn’t dress-up, Paul.”

  “This” was her lifestyle . . . one that clashed violently with his post-yuppie materialistic drive.

  “Makes it hard to take you seriously,” he mumbled, looking pointedly at her peep-toed heels.

  “People are going to take me seriously, all right. The whole damned country will take me seriously when I bust this case wide open, vet every name on that list, and find out who killed my best friend!”

  He shook his head and huffed out a dry laugh, no longer looking handsome. Again, the girls across from them didn’t notice. “Kit, the men on this list could own you a thousand times over.”

  Kit clenched her teeth at the dig. She came from money, a fortune Paul once thought would marry perfectly with his ambitions, and he’d married her before realizing the entire inheritance had been poured back into her family’s newspaper. He’d even encouraged her to sell once he realized newspapers were worth less in the Internet age than the paper used for printing, but there was no way she’d ever do that.

  “I’m a newsperson, Paul,” she’d told him. “It’s who I am as much as what I do.”

  “Then go down with your ship,” he’d replied. “But you’re not taking me with you.”

  And he’d taken himself right out of her life.

  “Being rich doesn’t make a person immune to the law,” she said now, another familiar argument.

  “There’s no proof that anyone on this list has broken the law,” Paul pointed out.

  She knew that. And it would take considerable resources—time, energy, favors, and yes, money—to prove otherwise. For now, Kit had her reporter’s instincts. “I saw something.”

  “Tonight?” He leaned in again when she nodded. “What?”

  “A man . . . or his silhouette, at least. He was in the room with Nic. He pulled aside the curtain that overlooked the parking lot. It was like he was looking right at me.”

  “Did you see his face?”

  Kit shook her head. “No. Only his silhouette. But he was wearing a hat—not just a hat, but a stingy brim, like Sinatra—”

  Paul leaned back, letting his hands drop. “Gimme a break.”

  “I know the style, Paul,” Kit said, irritated. “Maybe he knew I was there, or just knows of my lifestyle, and he was taunting me.”

  “Please don’t repeat that to anyone. I can see the sordid headlines now: Rockabilly Murderer Targets Street Whores.”

  “Bravo,” Kit snapped. “You just insulted my life and my profession in one breath.”

  “Voice,” Paul reminded her, gaze wandering. The girls across from him straightened, but his expression remained smooth as it traveled the rest of the room.

  Kit pulled out her gold cigarette case, mumbling, fighting not to whack it against his pretty head.

  “You can’t smoke in here.”

  Kit blew a stream of smoke directly into his face, running her tongue along her top lip when he coughed. The girls gave her a nasty look.

  “These are vintage Gauloises.”

  “Trolling eBay again?”

  She shook her head. “Some old coot was storing them in a backwoods cabin for the past fifty years.”

  Shaking his head, Paul stood. “I gotta go.”

  “Wait.” She put a hand on his arm, panicked but unable to help it. “You’re gonna help me, right?”

  His jaw clenched as he looked away. He was either considering it or posing for a profile shot. “You got anything else?” he finally asked.

  “In my notebook, but I gave that to Nic.” She cursed the impulse now. There was little chance of recovering it as it’d surely been admitted into evidence.

  Paul opened his mouth to answer, but stopped and jerked his chin at an approaching detective. “Here comes Dennis. He’ll look after you. You don’t need me tonight.”

  Kit stared up at him, wondering at what point he thought she’d have ever needed him, if not tonight.

  Glancing back down, Paul caught her expression and his jaw clenched. “Look, I’ll read the reports. Ask around, see what I hear.”

  He paused, waiting for a thank-you, but Kit merely took a drag on her stick. He was right, she didn’t need him.

  Shaking his head, he turned.

  “You know, Nicole was once your friend, too,” Kit said loudly, just as Dennis reached her side. “She was killed because someone was hiding something big.”

  Paul turned slowly, and waited, knowing there was really nothing he could do if she was determined to make a scene. It was just another thing he couldn’t control about her—like her hair and clothes, like her lifestyle. Like her emotions.

  “I’m going to find out who did it,” she told him, chin wobbling but gaze hard. “I’m going to find out what they were hiding. And I’m going to bring them to justice.”

  “Still the intrepid girl reporter,” he said, but the bite had left his voice, and his gaze had softened. It was what he’d called her in the beginning, back when she, too, had gazed at him like those girls across the room. Tears, already close to the surface, welled.

  “Give me a couple of days,” Paul finally sighed, returning, one hand outstretched for the papers. “I’ll look into it in my spare time.”

  “Thank you,” she replied, even though he’d said it like there wouldn’t be a lot of it.

  Leaning down, he gave her a dry kiss on her cheek. “Get some rest, Kit.”

  Kit didn’t say anything, but watched him go, like every other girl in the room. Then she shrugged at Dennis’s chiding look, sucked down the last of her stale tobacco, and rose to be questioned about her best friend’s murder.

  Kit spent the next few hours in a room with the cold personality of a morgue, giving a statement about the time, hours, and days, leading up to Nicole’s death. Some questions could have as easily been applied to a job application as a murder interview, and strangely, these were the ones that tripped her up. How long have you known Nicole Rockwell? What’s your relationship to the deceased? Have either of you ever been a part of a murder investigation before?

  Oh, Nic.

  The hysteria she’d felt at the murder scene was gone, and the resultant shock had dulled into a numbness to rival a visit in any dentist’s chair. The indignation at being questioned—no, doubted—by Paul had evaporated like boiling water, not too unlike their relationship, actually. All that remained was a faint ring of fatigue.

  Dennis, whom Kit had known both personally and professionally, in that order, brought her fresh tea, let her light another cigarette while they were still alone, and put a comforting hand on her shoulder, kneading slightly at her neck before letting his arm drop. Kit looked up with a watery smile, grateful for even that small touch.

  “You understand we have to ask you these things,” he said, when his partner arrived and she’d been read her rights and informed the interview would be recorded. “Not because we think you’re guilty, but because it’ll help us put together a picture of the events leading to the crime. Rarely is something like this truly random.”

  “I know that.”

  “That’s right
,” said his partner, who was so stiff he could have been pressed into his clothing. He’d introduced himself as Detective Brian Hitchens. She didn’t know him, but unfortunately he seemed to recognize her. “You’re a reporter, aren’t you? The same one who released the name and address of a gangbanger last year?”

  She could tell from the way he said it that he already knew she was, and harbored a grudge over it. Kit gave Dennis a wary glance, then answered, “He was sitting on a stash that would make a cartel blush.”

  “It got one of our men shot.”

  Her heart jumped in her chest, but she held his dark gaze. “I didn’t pull the trigger.”

  “How’s the saying go? The pen is mightier than the bullet? Or the knife.” It was sword, but he knew that. The intimation was that tonight wasn’t the first time she’d put someone in danger.

  “Damned straight,” Kit said, without apology, but inside she was cringing. She knew her work helped people . . . but did it also hurt them? Kill them? Had it killed Nic?

  “Let’s get back to the interview, shall we?” Dennis said, shooting Hitchens a hard look. “Tell us about Nicole.”

  Her favorite color was blue. She could dance for hours and never break a sweat. She was a flea market junkie, she could recite every line in Grease, and she wore beautiful lingerie just for herself . . .

  “We’ve been friends since junior high. Met on the student newspaper. She was a wiz with the camera, even then.” Kit cleared her throat, which had tightened in a painful knot, and took a sip of her cooling tea. “She could tell a story with her photos, or even alter one with a camera angle alone. She was a college dropout, but smart. Edgy, liked to push people’s buttons. And of course, she was a billy, like me.”

  “Billy?” Hitchens asked, glancing at Dennis and back to Kit.

  “Rockabilly,” Dennis answered with a small smile, and Kit flashed back on an image of desert sun glinting off the pomade in his jet hair, ciggies tucked in his shirtsleeve, and creepers crossed at the ankles as he leaned against a ’sixty Starliner. It’d been a while since she’d seen him that way, but she smiled, too.

  “I’ve heard of it.” Hitchens leaned against the wall. His forearms looked like black logs folded across his chest. “You dress up like you’re stuck in the fifties. Took ‘Let’s Do the Time Warp’ literally.”

  “It’s not just music or dress,” Kit explained, though Hitchens’s pinched expression told her she needn’t bother. She gave Dennis a look to let him know she was taking one for the team—rockabilly didn’t fit in any better with life on the force than it did in a federal courtroom. Fortunately, Kit didn’t have to worry about either, as a reporter. “It’s vintage cars, hot rods. Pinup girls. Mid-mod home décor. Cigarettes. It’s a way of living.”

  It was a celebration of the senses, and it married well with Kit’s theory that life was about the details. She was ever aware of what she put on her body, how she wore her hair, how she crafted her cocktails. Despite the effort, or because of it, Kit had only grown more fond of rockabilly after a decade-long involvement. In a world increasingly guided by touch screens, sometimes it seemed nothing touched the mainstream populace at all.

  “It’s a subculture,” Dennis added.

  “A lifestyle,” corrected Kit, again pulling out her gold cigarette case.

  “You can’t smoke in here,” said Hitchens. Dennis looked pained, but nodded. Kit returned the case to her purse, a square, red Lucite clutch that Hitchens now eyed suspiciously, like it was a piece of a puzzle he was still trying to fit.

  “Let me get this straight. Your friend was involved in a subculture that essentially lives in the past? So maybe it was one of these weirdoes who offed her.”

  Dennis stiffened, but didn’t say anything.

  Kit was careful to move nothing but her eyes. “My friends and I get off on American cars, swing music, and nautical-themed tattoos. We’re not murderers.”

  Hitchens huffed. “It still sounds weird.”

  “Probably because it demands more of you than plopping down in a La-Z-Boy, sticking your hand down your pants, and plugging into someone else’s reality.”

  “O-kay,” Dennis said loudly, straightening as quickly as Hitchens. Kit just leaned back and crossed her legs. “So we’ve defined Nicole’s lifestyle as rockabilly. Boyfriends?”

  “Plenty,” Kit answered, then looked at Hitchens. “All weirdoes.”

  “And when did you last see her alive?”

  “Twelve thirty. There’s a café attached to the motel. Just a hash house serving grease and caffeine to overtired truckers. She did a round there to attract our contact’s attention, as agreed, then crossed the gravel lot and went up the motel stairs.”

  She’d dressed in conventional hooker wear, Kit remembered—too short, too low, too tight—and had shot Kit a pained grimace as she fought the skirt for movement, hating that such a junky item of clothing would even touch her body. Not yet knowing she would die in it.

  “She didn’t take her camera with her? We didn’t find one at the scene.”

  “She left it in my car. It’s hard to fit a Nikon D3 in a tube top, and she didn’t want to scare away our source. She took my notebook instead.”

  The cops looked at each other.

  “I could use it back,” Kit tried.

  “Evidence,” Dennis replied, though there was a strange frown marring his brow.

  Hitchens propped himself on the table so that he was looming over Kit. “All right, so Nicole entered the room alone, and you stayed in the car the whole time?”

  “Didn’t take my eyes from that door.” Which meant the killer had been inside, lying in wait the whole time.

  “We’ve confirmed with the motel manager that the place was being used as an unofficial whorehouse,” Hitchens said, looking through his notes. “The rooms were booked in blocks. One woman picks up all the keys. Then they’re returned in a single envelope placed in the drop box the next morning.”

  “My research confirms the same.”

  Head still lowered, Hitchens lifted his gaze. “Your research?”

  “Well, I don’t just make up the stories that go in my newspaper, Detective Hitchens. I fact-check. Double-check. Then I find secondary confirmation and I check again. This was an ongoing operation. Truckers driving through the southern portion of the state, probably through Arizona via the new Hoover Dam bypass, would tweet about it online.”

  “So you think it was a passion kill? Some trucker snapped when he found himself being interviewed rather than undressed?”

  “No. We were supposed to be meeting a girl there, maybe a woman. And she had a list naming some of the most powerful men in this city as clients. I think one of the names on that list killed her.”

  “I’m sorry,” Hitchens said, “but what would Vegas’s most powerful leaders want with street lays in a fleabag motel off a stretch of highway best known for being forgotten?”

  Kit exhaled. “I don’t know.”

  Dennis leaned forward. “Kit, can you think of anyone who might want to harm Nicole?”

  “She was a reporter,” Hitchens remarked under his breath.

  “But well-liked,” Kit countered. “I told you. Vivacious. Happy. Full of life.” And now she was dead. “But she was also stubborn, a total pit bull when something captured her curiosity. Even I thought there was a better way to do this thing, but Nicole wanted the list. And she wanted more than just names, she wanted proof.”

  “And what did you want?”

  Kit looked at Hitchens. “To know who this girl was.”

  Why she was on the streets at such a young age. Why she’d ever consider selling her body for money. For Kit, it was always about the person more than the story. That’s why she was working for her family’s newspaper rather than running it. “I wanted to help her.”

  Dennis looked at his partner. “If she was juvie, it could’ve been a pimp.”

  “I worried about that,” Kit said, “but Nic just said I was weaving tales again.
That my imagination was getting the best of me, and that if the girl was defying a pimp by meeting with us, then she must really be desperate.”

  “But she didn’t come. And you waited a full hour before checking on Nicole?”

  “She texted me after ten minutes, told me to stay put.”

  “We’ll want to see that text,” Hitchens said.

  But Dennis looked worried. “So is it fair to assume that whoever was with Nicole knew you were waiting in the car?”

  Kit nodded, and told them about the figure that’d momentarily pushed aside the curtains.

  “I’ll have forensics do a run on those panels,” said Dennis, standing. “Is there anything else you can think of?”

  A rockabilly lifestyle, a sting involving truckers, young girls, possibly pimps. An anonymous woman who’d written the names of the city’s movers and shakers on a list that had drawn Nicole to her death. Was that all?

  Wasn’t that enough?

  Kit shook her head. “No.”

  But there was more, of course. There was Nicole’s family and friends to inform. There were visits to make and a funeral to plan.

  “Do you still have this list of names your contact gave you?”

  Kit nodded at Dennis. She could print another copy. “So you believe me?”

  “It’s an angle,” he said. “But even without that list, you girls were playing with fire.”

  It wasn’t the first time they’d done so, and maybe that was the problem. They’d thought their journalism credentials could protect them from anything. “We’re a great team.”

  And before she’d realized she’d spoken as if Nic were still alive, Hitchens said, “Then maybe you shouldn’t have left her alone in that room.”

  “Brian,” Dennis said.

  But Kit lowered her head, knowing he was right. And, somehow, she was going to have to live with that.

  Chapter Three

  In the dream, Grif was driving through the desert, waiting for Vegas to rise out of the inky darkness like a neon mirage, just as he had fifty years earlier. Evie was straining forward next to him, as if she could force the car faster with the weight and heat of her body, like she could bend the entire world to her will with her curves alone. She’d always been like that. Taken the not-inconsequential gifts God had given her—beauty, jets, guile—and parlayed them into bigger game than her Iowa roots allowed. More than what her simple family had expected of and for her. Certainly more than what Grif could give.