Look for Me

by Lisa Gardner

  “Roberto didn’t commit suicide,” D.D. was saying now, navigating the rows of theater benches, approaching closer, while keeping Mike in her line of sight.

  “No! Lola didn’t do it!” Roxanna spoke up in frustration.

  “She didn’t,” D.D. agreed. “It was you, Mike, wasn’t it? You, finally doing what had to be done to protect your friend.”

  “Never get caught alone at Mother Del’s.” Mike spoke up. His tone was mournful. And his expression not just bleak. Hopeless. A boy who’d seen too much, endured too much. I recognized the look. I’d seen it so many times on my own face, day after day with Jacob Ness.

  “Mike?” Roxy asked quietly.

  “You were a bright light,” he said, finally glancing at her. “Such a bright light. Walking into the kitchen that first day. Bright, bright, bright. I saw him see you. And then, week by week, no more bright. I knew what he would do. I tried to help. It wasn’t enough, but I tried. Then you got away! Safe. Off to grow bright again. Except you came back.” He frowned. “You shouldn’t have come back. Why did you come back?”

  I thought I got it. Mike had been with Roxanna in the hallway outside of Ms. Lobdell Cass’s office the day of the photo incident. He’d heard Roberto threaten the school counselor. And he’d understood, once again, that Roberto would get away with it. Five years later, he was still torturing Roxy and Lola. And five years later, the adults were still powerless to help. So Mike had taken matters into his own hands.

  “You took Roberto’s phone,” D.D. was saying now, her own voice carefully neutral. “Didn’t you, Mike? You took his phone to protect Roxy. To get rid of the photos.”

  “I crushed it. With a hammer. Little bitty pieces. Never to be put back together again.”

  “You killed Roberto?” Anya cried from the floor. “You did it?” But everyone ignored her.

  “Did you know about de Vries?” D.D. was asking, advancing a few more feet. “The theater director who was partnering with Roberto?”

  For the first time, Mike appeared confused. “Dirty Doug? Old married Dirty Doug who always picked plays with lots of young-girl actresses?”

  “Hey—” Anya, still being ignored.

  “That would be the one. I just had the most interesting conversation with him while he was duct-taped to his car. Nice use of a box cutter, I might add.” D.D. glanced at Roxy, who flushed. I could already picture exactly where Roxanna had placed the blade. Once again, provide the tips and they will use them.

  “According to de Vries, he spotted some of the images Roberto took of his victims at Mother Del’s. They organized a business where Roberto provided the inventory, while de Vries served as distribution. Roberto actually pissed off de Vries when he posted Roxy’s picture on the internet, calling unnecessary attention to their operations. De Vries was still trying to figure out what to do when you took care of the problem for him by killing off Roberto. You might have eliminated Roberto, Mike, but de Vries still has all the images. De Vries is the real problem.”

  Mike finally looked at the detective. “Bright, bright, bright,” he said. “Brightest light I’d ever seen. You still don’t understand.”

  Then, suddenly, I did. And I think Roxy must’ve, too, because her free hand flew up, covering her mouth right before tears flooded her eyes.

  “You killed Roberto to eliminate the threat to Roxy and Lola”—I spoke up—“because you could see what it was doing to Lola. To Roxy. But even after Roberto’s death, Lola didn’t settle, did she, Mike? She was still angry, out of control, and taking everything out on Roxy. It was only a matter of time before she did something really stupid. Something Roxy couldn’t fix. Something that would hurt Roxy even more.”

  “You loved her,” Mike said to Roxy, his voice sad. “But she didn’t love you back.”

  “I tried to tell her to let it go,” Roxy said. “I tried to get her to see that when Roberto died, it was over.”

  “You bitch!” Anya again.

  “I wanted her to give up the gang. But she said she couldn’t. They made her strong, she didn’t want to be weak.”

  “She would’ve gotten you to join.”

  “No! Never, Mike—”

  “You would’ve joined to save her. Roxy saves Lola. Always, Roxy saves Lola. And Lola—”

  Roxy was crying harder now. I could tell she already knew what he would say next. In the meantime, I took advantage of Mike’s distraction to shift forward.

  Mike, speaking quietly: “Lola never loved you. Not the way I loved you. She took. She did not give. She took, took, took.”

  “No! She was lost. She just needed a chance—”

  “You can’t repair what doesn’t want to be fixed.” Mike rocked up on the balls of his feet, his agitation returning.

  “Lola seduced Doug de Vries,” D.D. supplied now. She’d worked her way to the front of the stage area, standing merely twenty feet away, an easy shot in terms of distance. Except there were too many of us clustered together. I blocked Mike from shooting Anya, but also D.D. from shooting Mike. Though it still felt good to have a detective at my back, especially with Anya now staggering to her feet.

  “Then Lola sent pictures of the affair to Anya and Doug,” D.D. continued. “She wanted to hurt you, Anya. Not to mention destroy Doug with evidence of him sleeping with an underage girl.”

  “Lola wasn’t going to stop,” Mike said. “I heard her talk: She felt on fire. She wanted the whole world to burn. She hated everyone—”

  “She hated herself!” Roxy blurted out.

  Mike looked at her. “She hated everyone. Even you. Especially you. Because Roxy saves Lola. But you didn’t. You didn’t.”

  Roxy, crying harder now. “What did you do, Mike? Tell me. What did you do?”

  Silence. Absolute silence. Which said enough.

  “He killed your fucking family!” Anya snarled, clutching her shoulder. “I knew it. I told Roberto there was something wrong with you. You fucking homicidal idiot!”

  I couldn’t help it. I swung around and slapped Anya across the face. My shoulder flared to angry life. It was still worth it to watch her collapse in stunned silence.

  “You did this!” I snapped at her. “You and Roberto and your reign of terror. You tortured little kids. Then they grew up and decided to fight back!”

  “Manny . . .” Roxy was murmuring, her voice thick. “My mom. Lola. Charlie . . . Mike, how could you?”

  “Bright, bright light,” he said. “You got away. You came back. And there’s no brightness anymore. You love them. You give, give, give. All that brightness away. To a mom, one bad day from returning to the bottle. To Lola, one small push from breakdown. To Manny, who loves but doesn’t understand, so you have to protect him even more.

  “I saw you once.

  “I knew you once.

  “I wish I could see you again.”

  “They were my family!”

  “And you are my family! My only family! So I protect, too. I protect you. Roxy saves Lola. But I save you!”

  “By killing my entire family? Then attacking Hector and Las Niñas . . . By murdering Roberto. By . . . by . . .” Roxanna pointed wildly at Anya. “By taking out Anya next?”

  Mike had tracked Hector to the coffee shop that day, I realized, maybe, like me, after hearing reports of the dogs being found there. He’d wanted revenge on the man who could’ve saved Roxy and Lola from foster care if only Hector had come forward at the courthouse. Just as Mike had gone after Las Niñas Diablas for luring Lola into the gang lifestyle, then pressuring Roxy to follow. So many wrongs in Roxy’s life. Mike had taken it upon himself to avenge all of them—even the crimes committed by her own family.

  “It’s what you were going to do,” Mike said now.

  “No, I wasn’t! This is wrong. All of this, it’s wrong! We’re supposed to be better than them, Mike. We’re supposed
to be better.”

  “There’s no better. Only weaker. I don’t want to be weak anymore.”

  His arm was starting to tremble. The strain of holding the gun, the toll of the conversation, watching his best friend dissolve into tears. I should act. Three quick steps . . . Assuming he didn’t pull the trigger first . . .

  I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. D.D. shaking her head slightly at me, as if reading my mind. She had drifted to the right, I realized. Where she now had a line of sight on Mike Davis.

  “Do you know what I remember most about this place?” Roxy said abruptly. She looked hard at her best friend, bear spray on one side, fisted hand on the other.

  Mike stared at her. Even Anya, sprawled with her bruised face and bloody shoulder, was fixated on her.

  “I remember running the catwalk with you. On the ground, you’re always so jangly. But up there . . . you moved so smoothly, so gracefully. You could go everyplace, anyplace. I loved racing with you around the catwalks. Our own little world, where we were the ones in charge, and no one could catch us.”

  Mike smiled, faint, sad.

  “You kissed me. Do you remember that afternoon? My first kiss. I was happy that day, Mike. You made me happy.”

  “My first kiss,” Mike agreed.

  “But we didn’t do it again. Because the real world still existed. And I had Lola to take care of and we all had Anya and Roberto to survive. I carried that memory, though. Thoughts of you. So many moments with you. You made it all okay. You were the only person who tried to help me. The only person I ever . . . I’m sorry, Mike.” And now Roxanna was crying again, head up, tears staining her cheeks. “I’m sorry I never told you more. I’m sorry I never returned for you, after my mom took us away. I’m sorry I never let you know everything you meant to me. I’m sorry . . . So sorry I have to do this now.”

  She moved; she aimed the bear spray and squeezed the nozzle. And she hit him square in the face. He didn’t duck, didn’t flinch. Didn’t reorient the gun he was holding or pull the trigger. If anything, I watched him turn into the spray of capsaicin, open his mouth, take it all in.

  Drawing the pepper spray deep into his lungs . . .

  The next moment, I was racing toward the choking, stinging cloud.

  “Call nine-one-one,” I yelled. “Call nine-one-one.”

  Then I was shoving Mike out of the noxious fumes, trying to roll him into cleaner air, as his face turned bright red, his eyes swelled shut, and his lips turned ominously blue. All the strength of the pepper spray straight into the lungs. Mike started to gasp, then convulse, his heart already fluttering like a trapped bird against his rib cage as I searched for a pulse.

  Roxanna Baez lowered the can. She stood alone as D.D. jumped up onto the stage and joined me in starting CPR.

  “Fucking losers,” Anya Seton said. Too late, I realized she’d crawled across the stage and now had her hands on Roxy’s original firearm. Anya raised her bound arms triumphantly. Pointed the gun straight at Roxy.

  We were too far away. Nothing we could do.

  Anya pulled the trigger.

  Click.

  Anya frowned. Pulled the trigger again. Click, click, click.

  “It’s a prop gun,” Roxy said simply as Anya hurled the weapon across the stage, then sat back on her heels with a howl of frustration. “Mike and I worked with them before, as part of set detail. I knew where the good one was kept, the nearly perfect-looking model used for show nights.” She stared at Anya. “I just wanted to scare you into talking, to finally confess, on the record, everything you’d done.” Roxy motioned vaguely to the side of the stage, where I now saw her phone recording away. “You and Roberto always got away with it. You didn’t just bully the kids into silence, but the adults as well. This time, I wanted it to be different. I thought you’d killed my family. And I was going to make you admit to every single gruesome detail. Then I was going to give the recording to my friend Mike, who would take it to the police. He would finally feel vindicated, too.”

  Roxy glanced down at her gasping friend. Her next words sounded far away.

  “Besides, Flora told me to stay away from real guns. She said it took courage to pull the trigger, and not everyone could do it. She told me it was safer to stick to products I understood, like pepper spray. She taught me that with the simplest things, I could be dangerous enough.”

  She gazed at Mike, whose eyes had now swollen shut, whose arms and limbs convulsed against the floor.

  “I am dangerous enough,” she said.

  Then she wrapped her arms tightly around her waist, and wept.

  Chapter 40

  FLORA DANE WAS RIGHT, D.D. thought; she should surrender her detective’s shield and turn vigilante just to avoid doing any more paperwork.

  In the days following the showdown at the theater, it felt like she was drowning in reports. Evidence lists of all the items seized from Doug de Vries’s house. Computers, cameras, and, yes, caches of digital photos featuring underage girls. Some Doug had apparently taken himself at the theater. But many more had clearly been provided by Roberto Faillon, as various rooms in Mother Del’s house appeared in the background. De Vries had been taken into custody. His wife, as well, once they’d determined she’d not only been handling the financial end of operations, but skimming off her husband’s ill-gotten gains in order to set up an offshore account of her own.

  According to Mrs. de Vries, it was only a matter of time before her cheating husband ran away with one of his starlets. No way was she gonna be left with nothing.

  Mother Del swore up and down she’d never seen the photos before, had no idea Roberto had taken any, let alone been selling them to some pervert at the community theater. The fraud squad turned her books upside down and sideways without finding any evidence of financial gain. But the real truth, in D.D.’s mind, came from watching the woman view the photos for the first time. Her face had paled. Her three chins had quivered. She was horrified. She was heartbroken. And if D.D. wasn’t mistaken, she was traumatized by being presented with images too close to a personal history the woman would never tell.

  Mother Del was put on probation, her waivers rescinded, several children plus the babies removed. She had two foster kids now, younger boys who got along. They didn’t seem to know what to do with entire bedrooms to themselves and meals that now involved meat and fresh fruit and vegetables. Maybe this would help them. Maybe Mother Del would do better. But D.D. couldn’t help thinking of the kids who’d been taken away to be placed . . . where? The system remained overstretched. Today’s solution merely tomorrow’s problem.

  Anya Seton had received medical treatment for her shoulder. The gunshot wound had not been severe. She’d been in and out of the ER in a matter of hours. D.D. had dragged her down to HQ for several more days of questioning. But in the end, they couldn’t prove Anya knew that Roberto was wheeling and dealing in pornographic photos, particularly given that Mike Davis had smashed Roberto’s phone, destroying a key piece of evidence. D.D. was also willing to bet Anya had helped herself to Roberto’s share of the illicit-photo profits after his death, but they couldn’t find any trail of funds. Most likely, Roberto had dealt in cash, which Anya had then converted into head shots, acting lessons, wardrobe . . . whatever it took to advance her future Broadway career.

  After much consideration, D.D. charged the girl with attempted murder of Roxanna Baez. Law was based on mens rea, meaning what mattered was the intent to commit a crime. So while the gun might have turned out to be a prop gun, Anya hadn’t known that when she’d pulled the trigger. Her intent in that moment had been to shoot Roxy Baez; the lack of a real handgun had merely thwarted her best efforts.

  D.D. felt good about the charge, though in reality, given that Anya had been attacked and forcibly restrained by Roxy in the moments leading up to the would-be shooting, a good public defender would argue self-defense, and mo
st likely get Anya cleared on all counts. Basically, the only thing they could definitively prove was that the girl was a bitch. Sadly, that was not an offense punishable by law, so D.D. had no choice but to file what charges she could file, then move on.

  Roxanna was the tougher case. She had not murdered her family. Or shot at Hector Alvalos or Las Niñas Diablas. In the end, they even found video of Roxy buying the red scarf, as she had claimed, in the minutes after Hector went down.

  But she did assault Mike Davis, Doug de Vries, and Anya Seton with bear spray, which, as the warning on all the aerosol cans clearly stated, was a criminal offense in the state of Massachusetts. While the acts against Doug de Vries and Anya Seton could be minimized as first-time incidents, Mike Davis had died from the assault, warranting serious consideration.

  Self-defense was one of those gray areas of the law. Did Roxanna Baez have compelling reason to believe her life was in imminent jeopardy? Mike Davis had been pointing the gun for a good ten minutes without pulling the trigger. Then again, he’d used that time to confess to the murder of four other people. Of course, his self-proclaimed target was Anya, not Roxy. But he’d been looking straight at Roxy, not Anya, by the end. Meaning Roxanna could’ve believed herself in harm’s way . . .

  This is where paperwork mattered. A savvy detective writing up her report. While also including a corroborating witness statement from her new CI.

  As she explained to Alex that night, Jack finally tucked into bed, Kiko dancing at their feet in the backyard.

  “You know when policing drifts into murky terrain? There’s what happened in the eyes of the law and yet what matters for the sake of justice?”

  Alex nodded, hefted back his arm, let the tennis ball fly. He threw like a major-league pitcher. D.D. was already jealous.

  “So, Flora Dane and I are two very different people. And yet just today, we managed to deliver two accounts of the events leading up to Mike Davis’s death, prepared individually and independently, which both included all the right words to help the ADA reach the same conclusion: Roxanna Baez was acting to save her own life when firing the pepper spray. In fact, Mike Davis had thrown himself into the stream of chemicals, deliberately inhaling the capsaicin into his lungs to increase the damage.”