by Blake Pierce
“I need a janitorial uniform and access keys to the all the interior offices on the sixty-ninth, seventieth, and seventy-first floors. That’s where we believe the suspect will be this evening.”
“And you really think one of the crew is stealing things from the offices?”
“We know that a private firm is paying janitorial staff from a cleaning company to copy private material from computers in various high-profile businesses in the downtown area. We’ve narrowed it down to two cleaning companies. The one you use is one of them. We have another sting going on right now in a different downtown building for the other company. Our hope is that we can close this case tonight.”
“I really think I should call the day security manager to get permission, Detective Bird.”
“You’re free to do that. But I should warn you that if it turns out that the company cleaning this building is the culprit, prosecutors might consider your attempts to interfere in the sting as collusion with the criminals and you might face charges of conspiracy to commit theft. But it’s your call, of course, Mr. Delacruz.”
The man only needed a second to make his decision before deciding to skip the call and lead her to the women’s janitorial locker room.
As Keri followed him, she allowed herself a silent sigh of relief. She’d never used her fake ID and was beginning to wonder if Ray had been kidding when he’d suggested she get one “just in case” a year ago. He had said that sometimes it was helpful to be a cop other than yourself. She hadn’t really understood what he meant at the time but she did now.
“Here you go, Detective. Uniforms are over there. You can pick the size that best fits you. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes with the keys.”
When he left, Keri changed as quickly as she could out of her sweatshirt and jeans. It took longer than she liked because of the shoulder and rib injuries, but she took care not to visibly wince or give any hint that she was in pain.
Who knows if there are cameras in the locker room? Can’t leave any bread crumbs.
She took off the cap she’d been wearing low over her eyes, making sure not to remove the disheveled brown-haired wig she had on. She changed into a bulky janitorial uniform to hide her build and stuffed a pair of latex gloves into the pants pocket.
Even if there were none in the locker room, the rest of the building was covered in security cameras and there was no way Keri could locate all of them. So her best bet was to keep her face hidden and leave no prints. Even if she got away with this, the security staff, Cave himself, and possibly the police would be reviewing every second of footage they could find to uncover who Detective Sue Bird really was. Any mistake and she’d be found out, arrested, and likely incarcerated.
That’s why she had parked twelve blocks away, in an outdoor lot without cameras, walked to a Metro station, and ridden the train to the stop near the tower. It’s why she was wearing an old pair of black loafers she hadn’t put on in months and would toss after tonight so no shoeprints could be traced to her. It’s why she wore a pair of fake tinted eyeglasses. And it’s why she had been using a pretty lame southern accent while talking to Delacruz.
He knocked on the door. Keri gave herself one last once-over and, satisfied that she couldn’t easily be identified as herself, stepped outside to begin the next phase of her plan.
*
Keri got out of the service elevator on the seventieth floor and made her way to the door with the tube latch hole she’d stuffed the tissue into. Pretending to use the key card Mr. Delacruz had given her, she pushed on the door. It gave way and she was able to open it.
She stepped inside and readjusted the latex gloves she’d put on as she’d entered the elevator on the lobby level. She stood there silently, trying to think. Getting a key card instead of actual metal keys had messed with her plan. She’d been lucky that the tissue worked on the exterior door. But any office she opened from this point on would register on the building’s security system with a timestamp, location, and user ID.
Of course in this case, the card would register as being an all-purpose guest or staff card. But when they checked later, it wouldn’t be hard to back trace the user to the non-existent detective who had showed up in the middle of the night.
That meant that eventually Jackson Cave would know that someone other than the normal cleaning staff had entered his personal office. When he made that discovery, he’d surely move the cipher or even destroy it. So she only had this one chance to find it.
As she walked quickly down the hall toward his office, she had an idea.
I don’t have to just open Cave’s office. I can open them all and hide my true target.
Cave’s office was in the corner of the building so Keri began at one end of the long hallway, methodically unlocking each attorney’s door. After she opened Cave’s, she continued on down the other hallway until they were all open.
Even though she couldn’t see them, Keri knew there were cameras everywhere, so she went into several offices, pretending to look around, hoping her movements would throw them off her scent when they watched her later.
When she got to Cave’s office, Keri knew exactly where to go but held back for a second. A guy like Jackson Cave would certainly have additional security beyond whatever the building offered.
He likely had several electronic tripwires that would warn him if someone breached his files, his computer, or anything else he thought important. It was entirely possible that he’d call Delacruz the second one went off. Or worse, that he’d head straight to the office.
It occurred to Keri that she had no idea where Cave lived.
Downtown has become a hip residential area recently. What if he’s got a penthouse apartment somewhere nearby? He could be here in minutes.
It was too late to do anything about that now, so she stepped in and walked straight to the photo of Cave with the monsignor. When she’d commented on it during her earlier visit that afternoon, he had tensed up ever so imperceptibly. If the cipher was anywhere in his office, it was near that picture.
She lifted it off the wall and felt the slightest hint of resistance, and then it came free. Glancing at the wall behind the frame, she saw a thin electrical wire hanging down. It had obviously been connected to the back of the frame. The connection had been severed, which was almost certainly the trigger she’d been afraid Cave might have.
Oh well, at least I’m on the right track.
Keri glanced at her watch. It was 12:32 a.m. She imagined she had ten minutes tops to get out of the building if Cave was calling security. She pulled his chair out and sat down under his desk where no cameras could see what she was doing.
Then she felt around the frame’s fabric backing until her gloved fingers ran over a small bump the size of a flash drive. She peeled away the backing and pulled out the drive. After that she fished out the old Android phone she’d brought, connected it to the drive with a USB OTG cable, and started the download.
There was only one file on the drive and the whole process took less than a minute. Keri shoved the phone and cable back in her pocket, replaced the flash drive behind the frame, and started to put it back on the wall.
But realizing there was no point to that now, she tried another tack. Instead of replacing the photo, she dropped it on the ground, letting the glass shatter. Then she removed and dropped several other photos along that wall. Maybe she could convince Cave that the frames had fallen off the wall in a minor earthquake. It wasn’t a solution, but it might hold him off until he saw the video footage.
Keri ran down the hall as fast as her battered body would allow and rushed out the same side door she had entered the office through. She hurried to the service elevator and hit the down button. The doors opened immediately. She considered that a good sign. If it wasn’t there, it probably meant that Delacruz or one of his men was on the way up.
She rode down, making sure to keep her head tilted downward and her cap low, continually checking her watch. 12:37 a.m. It was hard
to imagine that Cave hadn’t gotten hold of Delacruz or another security guard by now. She wouldn’t be surprised if they were waiting for her in the lobby right now.
Keri looked up. She was on the fourth floor and moving fast. She reached out and hit the button for the second floor hard. The elevator stopped a moment later and she stepped out. She was halfway down the hall by the time she heard the ding indicating that the doors were closing again.
She got to the door for the stairs at the end of the hall and peeked through the small window. No one was there. She opened the door and made her way down to the lobby. There was no window on that door so she opened it slightly and peeked out. She couldn’t see anyone but she could hear loud voices.
“Report to me as soon as you have her,” she heard Delacruz ordering someone. She stepped out and moved quietly down the hall. A loud ding told her a guard had likely just gotten in the service elevator and was headed up to look for her. There was another security guard at the front desk with his back to her.
She rounded the corner in time to see Delacruz returning to the security office, likely to inform Cave on their progress in finding her. Once the door closed, she tiptoed down the hall back to the janitorial changing room. She didn’t have time to put on her clothes but she didn’t want to leave them there either. Delacruz would eventually remember they were there and someone would think to pull DNA off them.
She stuffed them in a trash bag, threw it over her shoulder, and left through the employee back door that allowed them to enter and exit the building without fancy suited people having to lay eyes on them.
The door led down a long hallway, which came to a narrow stairwell. She took it down and opened the door at the bottom. It opened into an underground parking garage that seemed to go on for miles.
Keri saw a security booth at the far end and walked the other way, toward a door that looked to be a pedestrian exit. She opened it and found that it was actually a long tunnel that elevated slowly. She followed it until it came to another door that opened at street level.
She stepped outside and took a deep breath. She was finally out of the tower complex. But she was far from safe yet.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
With her blood pumping hard, Keri crouched uncomfortably in the corner of the small parking lot, desperately sucking in air and ignoring the pain in her throbbing ribs. She had run here when she heard the nearby sirens and barely made it behind the lot’s four-foot-high concrete wall before a squad car tore around the corner.
She waited for the sound to fade before standing up again. She was two blocks away from the tower now, still dangerously close. She was over ten blocks away from her car and there was no way she could return the way she’d come, by Metro. It would be crawling with police looking for a woman in a janitorial uniform.
She had to find somewhere with people, somewhere crowded where she could change and then blend into the crowd so she could get away unnoticed. She hurried northwest up South Grand Avenue in the direction of her car, keeping her eyes open for someplace to duck in.
The sound of loud, pulsing house music emanated from somewhere on West 4th and she cut over that way. Near the corner of South Olive, she saw a club called The Gentry. A long line out front snaked around the corner. There was no way the bouncer would let her in the way she was dressed so she ducked into an alley behind the building.
As she reached the back door of the club, she heard more sirens very close by. She banged on the door loudly and waited, hoping someone would open it before floodlights from an LAPD squad car illuminated the alley.
After what seemed like an eternity, the door opened. A petite woman in her fifties wearing a hairnet and apron stood in front of her. The woman looked Keri up and down, then started to shut the door.
Keri put her foot in the gap to block it and pleaded.
“Please let me in.”
The woman seemed ready to force the door closed when she caught the sound of the nearby sirens. Her eyes widened and she peeked around the door to see if they were visible. The red and blue lights weren’t in sight yet but they sounded like they couldn’t be more than a block away.
“Policia?” she asked in a hushed, fearful voice.
“Sí,” Keri whispered back.
The woman stared at her for another endless moment. Then, without a word, she pulled her inside.
“Thank you,” Keri whispered.
“Sigueme,” the woman said, beckoning for Keri to follow her. She led the way down a small hallway to what appeared to be an employee changing room.
“Thanks,” Keri repeated, sitting down on the tiny bench in the middle of the small room.
“Aspera aquí,” the woman said, holding up her hand. Keri’s Spanish was limited but she got the gist. The woman wanted her to stay in the room.
When she left, Keri proceeded to change out of the cleaning uniform and back into the sweatshirt and jeans from before. About halfway through the slow, laborious process, the woman returned. She was holding clothes, which she immediately hung up on the back of the door.
Keri was surprised at what she saw. The woman had secured a loose navy skirt, a lavender tank top, and a pair of stylish black flats. She also had a black beret and a small change purse, just large enough for Keri’s fake ID and the Android phone with the data from Cave’s flash drive.
“Where did you get all this?” Keri asked, stunned.
“Lost and Found,” the woman replied in a thick accent. Then without asking, the woman came over and took the shaggy brunette wig off Keri’s head, pulled a hair tie from her pocket, and put her hair up into a tight bun. She stepped back and nodded approvingly.
Over the next few minutes, the woman helped her into the outfit and adjusted the beret so that none of Keri’s blonde hair was visible. The woman took the cleaning uniform, Keri’s clothes, and the cap and stuffed them all in a plastic bag.
“Quemar,” she said as she pulled out a lighter. Apparently she was going to burn Keri’s stuff.
“I can’t thank you enough. What’s your name?”
“Esmerelda,” the woman said, smiling. She pointedly didn’t ask for Keri’s name and Keri didn’t offer it.
“What now?”
“Ven,” Esmerelda said, beckoning for Keri to follow her. They made their way through the back of the club, past the dishwashers and the cooks, all of whom pointedly kept their heads down as she walked by.
When they reached the door leading from the kitchen to the club itself, Esmerelda pointed through the window in the direction of the club entrance. Keri nodded her understanding.
“Gracias,” she said.
Esmerelda nodded and opened the door for her without a word. Keri stepped through and made her way to the front of the club with her head down, sliding by the dancing patrons and the rowdy drinkers, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible.
When she got outside she was on Olive and followed it north all the way back to the parking lot. There were still occasional sirens but they all seemed to be centered near the tower. She hadn’t seen a single police vehicle on her walk back.
Her car was still there, sitting lonely in the mostly empty lot. The cardboard she had taped to her front and rear license plates was still in place. She got in and drove off, following every traffic law to the letter, taking surface streets instead of the freeway until she made it to a residential street.
She was in the West Adams District, the same neighborhood where Kendra Burlingame’s sister, Catherine, lived. Everything was quiet. Keri could feel her heart rate slowly returning to normal.
She pulled out the phone and turned it on. Waiting for the information to load, Keri tried to keep her expectations in check. It was possible that this file could contain everything she’d need to help her find Evie. Or it could be just another dead end.
It turned out to be something in between. When the screen loaded, Keri saw that she needed to input a password to access the cipher. The fact that whatever was on the drive was password pro
tected and had been hidden behind a picture frame suggested that it was the real deal. But she had no clue how to begin to uncover what Cave’s password was.
Damn it! How am I going to break this password?
Part of her considered just staying here and trying options until she cracked it. But she knew that was almost certainly a waste of time. Besides, she was exhausted and might make some kind of irreparable mistake. As infuriating as it was, she needed to look at it again when she had fresh eyes.
She briefly considered easing her seat back and crashing here until her interview with Catherine in the morning. But that would mess up the alibi she’d so meticulously planned out. So she shook the thought from her head and continued to her next destination.
*
Keri lay on the massage table. Her eyes were droopy with exhaustion but she tried to force herself not to fall asleep. Her goal was made a little easier by the masseuse, who was giving her a fairly intense body scrub. She had tried to explain to the woman to steer clear of her ribs and shoulder but she was still occasionally jarred by an overly firm swipe. As she tried to relax, Keri reviewed her situation.
Her alibi was in place and she thought it would hold. Before going to Cave’s office, she’d stopped in Koreatown to book a massage in one of their all-night spas. These places were some of LA’s oddest but increasingly popular hangouts. Many of them were open 24/7 and offered everything from rubdowns and saunas to onsite dining and reading rooms with complimentary Wi-Fi.
Keri had selected a smaller place known for leaving its patrons alone when they weren’t getting services. She’d gone to the locker room, where she’d left her phone and real ID in a locker along with a fresh change of clothes. That way, while Keri was in Cave’s office, the GPS on her phone said she was relaxing in a Koreatown spa.
Then she snuck out through a side door, leaving it unlocked using her patented tissue trick, got in her car, and headed downtown to violate multiple laws. When she returned, she used the same side door and returned to the locker room to undress for her 2:30 a.m. massage and body scrub.