“Ah,” she said, dropping the chip to snag the elusive tape, “here we go.” Sloane turned around to find Piper staring at the door of her refrigerator with her hands on her hips.
“You don’t have any pictures,” the child reported.
“I didn’t have anybody to draw me one, until you.”
“No,” Piper explained. “I mean no pictures of your people.”
My people?
“You know,” the girl said, tugging at her sagging belt. “Everybody has pictures. Taped up. And also on those things that stick up there without tape.”
“Magnets,” Sloane offered, a foolish little ache crowding her throat. “Photos on magnets.”
“Yes. Those things. Family. And dogs. Friends, stuff like that.” Piper’s gaze swept over the bare front of Sloane’s refrigerator, a sad look dampening her sweet face. “But yours is all empty.”
“‘Until now,” Sloane said, lifting the princess-angel-ninja. “Now I have this. My first fridge picture.”
“Let’s put it up,” Piper said, her expression moving to happy-eager again.
They worked for a few minutes, getting it just right, and then Sloane opened the refrigerator and took out the carton of milk. She crossed to the pantry doors, knowing she’d have to open a new box of cereal. One she hadn’t yet cleansed of marshmallows.
“You could take a picture of Marty,” Piper suggested, her tone pensive as she settled onto a kitchen chair. “And tape it up there. I think Grams has an extra one of me. They took it at the end of kindergarten. Last year. It’s old, because . . .” She held up her fingers. “I’m six now. But she might let you have it.”
Sloane smiled, touched by the gesture. She opened her mouth to say she’d love that and—
“I think God has the new one. With me being six and with my lost baby teeth,” Piper told her with confidence.
“God?”
“My picture. For his fridge. In heaven.”
Sloane wasn’t sure what to say.
Piper didn’t seem to notice. “My mom read it in a book,” she explained. “She said if God has a fridge, my picture would be on it. Her picture too. And Grams’s.” She nodded with profound six-year-old certainty. Then pointed at Sloane. “And yours, too.”
Sloane decided there wasn’t anything she could say.
“God’s got my picture,” Piper reiterated, “taped right up there on his big, big, giiinormous fridge.” She smiled. “Because he’s crazy about me. And about you, too.”
“Me?” Sloane blinked against a ridiculous rush of tears. “I don’t know. . . .”
Piper tilted her head, long curls tickling the tabletop. Her innocent eyes went wide. “Don’t you believe in God?”
“Things like this,” the older PD officer told Micah, “can shake a man’s faith, for sure—leastways, his faith in mankind.” He swept stubby fingers through his silver hair, then raised his voice over the sounds of receding sirens. “What little faith he had in the first place. I don’t mind telling you, mine’s about dried up right now.” He glanced toward the clutch of evidence techs working the alley crime scene. “Scumbag left her drowning in her own blood. Never seen one still alive like that.”
Micah hadn’t either and hoped he never would again. This kind of violence was incomprehensible. A young woman, no more than a girl, found in this garbage-strewn alley with her throat sliced. He’d only caught a glimpse as the paramedics worked. Blonde, far too pale, blood . . . everywhere. The sight, coupled with the overripe stench of Dumpsters, had nearly made Micah lose it. He rarely got to a crisis call this fast, but he’d been having coffee within walking distance.
“They’re taking her to LA Hope?” Micah asked, tearing his gaze away from the bloody asphalt. “To the ER?”
“That’s what I heard.” The officer cocked his head as his radio squawked and then silenced again. “Can’t imagine surviving something like that.” A muscle bunched along his jaw. “Wife and I have a granddaughter about that same age, I’d wager.”
Micah nodded, reminding himself that even seasoned first responders weren’t immune to critical incident stress. The crisis team had been called to assist a kitchen worker from an adjacent Vietnamese restaurant, the young man who’d made the grisly discovery on a smoke break. But it wasn’t only regular citizens who were shaken by this kind of violence. Micah had seen the emotional impact before on responding firefighters, paramedics, and police.
“Ariel,” the man said, a hint of a smile on his lips. “Started college a few weeks back. In Montana. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. Perfectly good schools here. Where she could live at home and have family keep an eye on her.” His gaze moved to the evidence techs, the smile gone. “Kids. They think that it can’t happen to them.”
“Yeah.” Micah pushed down an image of his cousin. “It’s hard not to see ourselves, our own, in something like that.”
“Yep.”
Micah waited. His job was to listen, though he suspected there was little more this veteran cop would say. Toughness tended to come with the badge. The police department had chaplains. This officer mentioned faith . . .
“You’re day shift or swings?” Micah asked.
“End of watch right about now.” The man’s laugh was half groan. “After all the paperwork.”
“I hear you on that.”
The cop’s gaze swept over the crisis team logo on Micah’s jacket. “How long you been doing this, Prescott?”
“Almost six years.”
“Can’t be easy mopping up after stuff like this. All that mess of emotion. Survivors wailing and cursing.” His forehead wrinkled. “Why do you do it?”
“Because . . .” Micah thought of that night with his cousin, of his family’s unimaginable pain. “Because someone has to. And someone did it for my family once.”
The officer nodded, cuffed Micah’s shoulder. “You going to the hospital?”
“Probably.” He knew what the officer was saying. There could be a death notification to be made. “See if any family shows up.”
“Could take a while—she’s a Jane Doe.”
And somebody’s daughter.
“I’ll see what else I can do for the witness here; then I’ll go,” Micah told him.
“Well . . . I’m out of here.” The officer hiked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of his squad car.
“Paperwork?”
“Yeah. Then home. Wife’s making stuffed pork chops.” The man smiled. “Maybe we’ll Skype with Montana.”
“Sounds like a good plan.”
The officer took a few steps away, then looked back. “Hey, thanks.”
“No problem.”
Micah watched him walk away, then took a slow breath. Despite the shock factor of this grisly scene, he was glad he’d been close by when the call came in. For the restaurant worker, surrounded by his workmates now, and especially for that stoic officer. Grandfather with a badge. A man who, whether he’d admit it or not, would be dealing with his own “mess of emotions” tonight. Being here was more than worth it for that alone.
“Things like this can shake a man’s faith. . . .”
Micah closed his eyes, said a prayer. For the LAPD veteran, the first responders, witnesses . . . and for Jane Doe, the critically injured young woman who was by now lying on a trauma bed at Los Angeles Hope, where Micah would soon be headed. Not in a coat and tie this time.
He shook his head. It didn’t happen often—Micah’s volunteer persona butting up against his day job. Coop would put a Clark Kent and Superman spin on that. Thankfully, it was the reporter’s night to be on scene with his grandmother’s kitty litter drama.
“Oxygen’s still falling at 78 percent,” Sloane reported, straining to be heard over the chaotic trauma room din. “We’re suctioning like crazy, but the field crike is plugging with clots. And this hematoma’s—”
“I can see that!” the doctor shouted, leaning over the gurney again. His frustration ended in a short curse as he stared at t
he morbidly pale assault victim. Her neck was grossly swollen and distorted by an increasing accumulation of blood in the tissues. Two surgical hemostats protruded from the wound, the doctor’s desperate attempts to clamp bleeders and slow the girl’s exsanguination. He turned, yelling over his shoulder, “Is the OR ready? It’ll take too much time to trach her here.”
“Two minutes and we can roll,” the clinical coordinator told him. “Anesthesia just arrived.”
“Okay then.” The doctor whipped back around and pointed at the respiratory therapist. “Keep bagging and let’s get things ready to move.” His gaze met Sloane’s. “What are those last vitals?”
“BP 78 over 40, heart rate 138.” She grimaced, noting the monitor display. “And 74 percent on the O2 now.” Sloane looked down at her unconscious patient and saw the ominous glazed look in her half-closed eyes. The neck gash bubbled with each mechanical breath the therapist delivered and was accompanied by an awful gurgling burp. The girl’s lips grew increasingly gray-tinged. Jane Doe had suffered horrifying violence and was now dying before their eyes.
“Anybody find any ID?” a clerk asked, poking her head into the room. “Wallet or a cell phone we could use to track it down?”
“Nothing,” one of the techs reported, getting the portable monitor ready for the move to the OR. “She arrived in those pajamas; that’s all. No nothing. Except for that tat on her hip.”
The tattoo.
It was one of the first things Sloane had seen when the paramedics slid the girl onto their trauma room gurney. Those ominous rag doll–limp arms and legs, then the hip tattoo. Sloane’s heart had stalled. Bold red and black, inked diagonally across her pale flesh: PROPERTY OF V.
No double dollar sign. A black crown instead.
Sloane’s breath had escaped in a whoosh as she glimpsed the rest of the girl. Blonde, curvy . . . not Zoey.
“A tattoo doesn’t help me,” the clerk said, skillfully averting her eyes from the gurney. “Unless it’s got her Social Security number or—”
“Everybody set?” Sloane interrupted, releasing the brake on the gurney. She nodded at the respiratory therapist, double-checked that the IV’s pumps looked secure. “Okay. Let’s move!”
“The crisis team folks are here. Maybe one of them can find me something,” the clerk said, continuing to talk as she stepped aside to accommodate the ER team’s exit. “So weird to see Mr. Prescott like that.”
“Our marketing guy?” Sloane asked, hugging close to the gurney as they moved through the doorway. The oxygen monitor continued its insistent alarm. “Why is he here?”
“With the crisis team,” the clerk explained, grimacing as she caught an unwelcome glimpse of their mutilated patient. “He’s, like . . . a volunteer, I guess.”
Huh?
Before Sloane could suggest the improbability of that, they’d propelled Jane Doe into the outer corridor for the last short leg to the OR. The gurney squeaked and clattered past a detective, a uniformed female officer, and two crisis team volunteers in their familiar jackets talking with the hospital chaplain. One of the volunteers was short, Hispanic, and the other . . . Sloane’s eyes widened as he met her gaze.
The other one really was Micah.
12
“STILL NO CONCRETE MEANS of identifying that poor child,” the hospital chaplain told Micah as she sank into the chapel chair with a sigh. Probably in her early fifties, Lydia Chalmers wore her hair pulled back in dozens of tiny braids, had an infectious laugh, and scooted around LA Hope like she was on roller skates. “I imagine law enforcement will eventually release at least a sketch.”
“Or a photo of the tattoo,” Micah added, unable to block a memory of Stephen’s bloodstained personal effects. To spare his aunt and uncle, Micah had been the one to first view the body at the medical examiner’s office. The truth was, they might not have been able to identify Stephen with certainty if he hadn’t been carrying his wallet. “One of the officers said she may not be a local, or not for long enough to establish an identity here.”
The chaplain adjusted her red-framed glasses. “Which could be by intentional design. If she’s a victim of human trafficking.”
Micah knew it was more than possible. The FBI put Los Angeles in the top thirteen areas of child trafficking in the nation. The crisis team had specially trained volunteers who worked with that situation, helping victims who managed to get out of the sex trade. It struck Micah once again that his role as a crisis responder was nothing like what he did in the hospital marketing department.
Lydia met Micah’s gaze, the chapel’s subdued light reflecting in her glasses. “I can’t tell you how heartening it is to see hospital administration involved in this kind of community outreach—your efforts with the crisis team, Micah.”
“It’s far and apart from my official position,” he admitted, thinking she’d read his mind.
“Maybe so.” The chaplain offered him a small smile. “But I still like it. It says a lot about you.”
“But I’ve known about you all along. Slick, charming, with all the right words to get exactly what you want. Your agenda, your priorities. That’s all that counts. . . .”
Sloane Ferrell wouldn’t raise a finger to second Lydia’s sentiment. But she’d certainly done an impressive double take when she’d spotted him in the hallway outside the ER an hour or so ago. Something told him her spin wouldn’t involve Mr. Kent or the Man of Steel. And it didn’t matter.
“It’s important to me. Working with the crisis team,” Micah heard himself say. “I wasn’t sure I could do it at first.” He winced. “That scene in the alley today had me second-guessing myself again.”
“But you keep coming back.”
Micah nodded.
“Because it feels like the most important thing you’ve ever done.”
“Yeah,” Micah agreed, unexpected emotion thickening his voice. He thought of the woman he’d had to bring news of her husband’s death. Of that police officer tonight who’d needed to talk about his college freshman in Montana. Short, important moments in time that were made different because he’d been there. “Yeah,” he repeated, “that about says it.”
Lydia’s phone buzzed. “I should go upstairs,” she said, scanning the text and reaching for her briefcase. “We have a young cancer patient. I want to be there for his parents.” She met Micah’s gaze again. “Are you going to stick around for a while?”
“I told crisis dispatch I wanted to wait for word from surgery. And in case any family or friends show up for . . . Jane.”
“I’ll probably see you again, then.”
Micah told the chaplain good-bye, then grabbed a cup of coffee from the pot at the back of the chapel. Along with packaged graham crackers, it was something the hospital offered for visitors who found themselves waiting. Micah’s stomach growled as he opened the crackers; this would be dinner for now. He thought of what he’d said to Lydia about being here in case someone showed up for the young woman in surgery. The chaplain had referred to her as a child. She was probably right. Even with all the blood, what he had glimpsed of the victim’s face looked very young.
Micah grimaced, remembering the one personal item they’d found next to Jane Doe in the alley. A crime scene tech had been sliding it into an evidence bag as Micah was leaving the scene.
A blood-soaked teddy bear.
“She needs to get out of there,” Zoey insisted, catching Stack’s attention as he dealt cards onto the musty bedspread for another of his endless games of solitaire. Slap them down, grumble, curse, crow with pride—the same, hours on end. The only thing that changed was these crummy motel addresses. “She’s still all cut up from surgery, but those pigs are already planning ‘dates’ and—”
“Forget it.” Stack stubbed his cigar on yesterday’s pizza box, shooting her the look that said she’d gone too far. “Not gonna happen. Count yourself lucky it’s not you, kid. It could be. Or have you forgotten your little tattoo?”
A smirk teased Stack’s lip
s, making his gray-green eyes narrow in the way some girls would probably find sexy. He had those Bachelor TV show kind of good looks, with decently cut hair, a faint stubble of beard, and a lean, hard-belly build. Good teeth. Appealing, probably, if you didn’t really know him. Stack’s looks were just generic enough that he could change them in a minute if he needed to: cowboy shirt and boots, hoodie and ball cap, Army fatigues—requiring a buzz haircut—coat and tie, and even a priest’s collar once.
“You don’t remember I saved your skinny behind from that life?” Stack said again, close enough to the darkened window that the motel’s neon sign lit his hair as pink on top as hers. His grin spread slowly. “Saved you from unholy sin and degradation?”
“So you keep telling me,” Zoey fired back, knowing just how far she could go with a smart remark before she’d pay for it. Not that Stack would hit her—or touch her. She was sixteen and he was pushing forty, and he’d told her a thousand times she was a punk kid not worth a real man’s time. He wouldn’t hurt her physically for disrespecting him. But he’d absolutely let Zoey go hungry, leave her to thumb rides, and then remind her again and again she could easily be on the menu at every truck stop they passed. Or end up back home. Was it really worse than this?
Stack “saved” her because she was useful. Small enough to slip through windows, quick enough to jam out of there if she got caught. Neutral enough to pass for a boy and—with a dress, heels, and a good layer of shoplifted makeup—pretty enough to distract a man. She could cry on demand and lie with the best of them. Zoey was a good actor and an easy keeper, sharp-witted, and most of all, she had nowhere else to go.
“That pink hair,” Stack said, lighting another cigar. His smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. “It’s not half-bad.”
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