A Trace of Hope

by Blake Pierce

  “Hands up!” she yelled.

  “What the…?” the man said, raising his hands, his face a mix of shock and terror.

  “Who are you?” her mom demanded. “What are you doing trolling down this street?”

  Ray caught up and leaned in close to her.

  “Lower your weapon, Keri,” he said. “Look at the sign on the van.”

  Evelyn looked at the sign herself. It read “Delivery Dude.”

  “Answer my question,” her mom demanded of the guy, her voice still hard, her gun still pointed at him.

  “I’m making a delivery,” the guy said. “I’m supposed to drop off some insulin but I can’t tell if the number on this address is a three or an eight. I was just trying to tell which place looked more like a residence, lady.”

  “So you stop right in front of some teenage girl?”

  “I didn’t even notice her,” he said. “I was looking at the numbers, I swear.”

  “Keri,” Ray muttered under his breath, “can you please holster your weapon and take a walk with your daughter, who looks like she’s about to pee herself. I’m going to try to defuse this situation. I’ll meet you back at the apartment.”

  Evelyn’s mom put her gun back in its holster and motioned to Evelyn.

  “Let’s go,” she said firmly and started in the direction of home. Evelyn got up and joined her without speaking.

  Behind her, she could hear Ray talking to the delivery guy in a friendly voice.

  “We’ve had a rash of molestations in the neighborhood and everyone’s on edge. You just happened to be at the wrong place at…”

  Neither Evelyn nor her mother spoke the rest of the way home.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  The morning was uncomfortably quiet. Ray had left early to get a head start on the case. Keri planned to meet up with him at the station after dropping Evelyn off at the Raineys’. She reminded her that the custodial appointee would be picking her up directly from the school office but otherwise didn’t mention anything about the visit to Stephen’s house. Neither did Evelyn. They each said a perfunctory “I love you” before her daughter slammed the door.

  I guess having a pissed-off, surly teenage daughter is a kind of progress.

  Pushing the thought out of her head, Keri tried to focus on the day ahead. She knew no advances had been made in the Tara Justin aka Jonas case or she’d have been contacted. Roan Jonas now had taps on all his phones and every form of online communication. If someone reached out, they’d know. That is, assuming someone hadn’t already done so.

  Realizing there was little she could do on that front at the moment, Keri mentally reviewed her conversations with Tara’s friends from the day before for leads she might have left unresolved. She retraced the Alice conversation in her head but nothing jumped out at her.

  Then she did the same with Jan. As she went over what the girl had said, she vaguely recalled how one comment she’d made on the mountain road had struck her as odd. But she’d somehow gotten distracted at the time and lost the thread before she could nail down what it was.

  But now, with a day’s distance, she remembered what she’d found peculiar. She dialed Jan’s cell, got voicemail, and left a message instructing her to call back right away. She considered going straight to the campus but decided it was better to hold off. Besides, she needed to check in at the station and see the status of the investigation.

  She arrived just as Hillman called the unit’s all-hands meeting to order. Unfortunately, he didn’t have much new to share. The taps on Jonas’s phones and devices were in place but had revealed nothing so far. Coast Guard and Search and Rescue were resuming their hunts again this morning. Amazingly, nothing had leaked to the press yet about the daughter of the biggest movie star in the world going missing. That was the gist of it.

  Keri noticed Jamie Castillo giving her occasional sidelong glances throughout the brief meeting and wondered what new affront she’d committed to offend the officer. She got that Jamie was pissed for being left out of the loop when Keri and Ray decided to fake her death, but it had been three months now.

  How long does this girl hold a grudge?

  When the meeting broke up, Castillo walked over to her.

  “Can I talk to you privately for a minute?” she asked.

  “If this is about me not confiding in you before the Vista raid, can we deal with that some other time? I have a lead I want to follow up on.”

  “It’s not about that,” Jamie whispered, looking around furtively as she spoke. “It’s important.”

  “Okay,” Keri said. She followed Jamie out of the room. Ray caught her eye as she went and raised his eyebrows questioningly. She just shrugged in return.

  Castillo led her out the back door to the small covered patio that served as the smoking area for the division. It happened to be situated next to the station’s large, noisy air conditioning unit. Jamie stood as close to the A/C as possible and waited. When Keri was standing less than two feet away, she finally leaned in and began to speak.

  “You know IA reopened your case, right?” she asked so quietly that Keri had to put her ear almost to Jamie’s lips to hear her. She nodded yes in response.

  “Well, I was talking to one of my informants last night, a guy who specializes in getting drugs to powerful people who don’t want to risk exposure. He operated on the edge of the world Jackson Cave dominated, brushed up against some of those people, never really interacted much, never really wanted to. You know what I mean?”

  Keri felt a familiar tightness in her chest, the one that always emerged whenever she got a sense that a tidbit related to Evelyn’s case was forthcoming.

  “I know what you mean,” she replied as calmly as she could.

  “Well, this guy says he’s been hearing that a big-time local politician was in deep with Cave. He’d smooth the waters for him in exchange for money, girls, drugs—you name it. Apparently this politician guy was worried he’d be exposed when Cave was. Yet somehow he slipped through. But now that you’re back on active duty, he’s worried you’re going to start digging to see who Cave was working with. So he’s using all his clout to get you dismissed for good. That’s why the IA case was suddenly reopened yesterday when you started working again.”

  “Does your guy have any guesses as to who this politician is?” Keri asked.

  “No. I pushed hard and he genuinely didn’t seem to know. He said he cut himself off from everyone in that world after the Vista bust so everything he hears now is third or fourth hand. But it makes sense, right?”

  Keri looked hard at Jamie. The younger officer was staring back at her with nothing but concern in her eyes. Keri had never really suspected her of being the mole. And if she was, bringing up the fact that someone powerful was still after Keri was an odd move. It risked exposing herself.

  Beyond that, Jamie had put her own life on the line more than once to save Keri’s. And she’d once told her she’d joined LAPD after being inspired by seeing Keri find a missing little boy in her neighborhood when no other cop took his disappearance seriously.

  It’s time to make a choice. Trust this person or not. Decide, Keri.

  “Jamie, I need to tell you something—something I probably should have told you a long time ago.”

  “What?”

  “There’s a mole in our unit.”

  Castillo stepped back as if she’d been zapped with electricity. After taking a moment to regroup, she leaned in again, her eyes wider than Keri had ever seen them.

  She proceeded to tell Castillo everything, from the prison visit to the Ghost where he warned about a mole, to the decision after the cliff crash to fake her death so the mole wouldn’t have anything to pass along to their contact. When she was done, Jamie took a few seconds to process it all, then asked a question.

  “What do we do now?”

  “I have an idea but you’re not going to like it,” Keri said.

  “What’s new? Just spill it.”

  “
Can you look through the personnel records of everyone on the team? See if anyone has a personal connection to any local politicians? It would probably be from early in their career, before they ever joined West LA Division, much less the Missing Persons Unit.”

  “What about financials?” Castillo asked.

  “No. They’re harder to access and would draw more suspicion. Your search might get flagged somehow. A personnel search is innocuous. It could be for any reason. If something pops, let me or Ray know. But no one else, okay?”

  “Okay. And Keri?”

  “Yeah?” Keri said apprehensively.

  “I get why you did this, why you kept me in the dark. But you could have trusted me.”

  “I should have. But I was in a pretty intense place. I hope you can understand. And maybe forgive me one day.”

  “Already done,” Jamie replied, smiling, “although you’ve got the next round when this is all over.”

  “That seems fair.”

  They returned inside. Jamie went to her desk. Keri was headed for hers when she noticed she had a message on her cell. She must have missed it because the air conditioning unit was so loud. It was from Jan, returning her call.

  She grabbed Ray and they stepped into the conference room and closed the door, where she dialed Jan’s number. Just before hitting “send” she looked up at him and spoke.

  “I told Castillo everything. She’s on board.”

  For a second, Ray looked surprised. Then his face broke into a wide grin and he nodded.

  “About time,” he said and left it at that.

  The phone rang twice before Jan picked up. Keri asked her question before the girl could even say hello.

  “Jan, it’s Detective Locke. You said the guys in your partner fraternity came up with the idea to tell the girls that ‘everybody likes going down’ as a way to let them know to walk downhill when they got to the drop-off spot, right?”

  “I’m sorry, Detective,” Jan said, obviously thrown off by the question. “I know that wasn’t very sisterly. I feel bad about it, all right?”

  “That’s not my point,” Keri said. “If the guys knew to tell them to walk downhill, then they knew where the pledges were being dropped off, correct?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “If this was some secret sorority ritual, why did the guys know about it?”

  “Come on, Detective,” Jan said defensively. “It was a secret but it was an open secret. We’re not the CIA. Sisters talk to their boyfriends.”

  “So how many guys in the frat know?” Keri asked.

  “I don’t know. You’d have to talk to them.”

  “Then that’s exactly what I’ll do.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  It felt like an eternity to Keri. But it was really only an hour later that she and Ray stood in the kitchen of the fraternity’s unofficial house, about to address the entire membership. Dean Weymouth had been surprisingly accommodating when Keri had called and said what she needed.

  In fact, his lack of combativeness made her suspect he’d learned Tara Justin’s true identity and was desperate for the girl to be found before the case broke into a tabloid story that consumed the entire university. He promised that emergency texts would be sent to every fraternity member instructing them to be at the house for an urgent 10 a.m. meeting.

  They were just about to walk out into the main meeting room to address the guys when a trim, muscular man in his late twenties wearing a sports coat and jeans stepped into the kitchen. Before he even opened his mouth, Keri knew she wouldn’t like him.

  “Hello, Detectives,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m Gerry Brockenbock, an assistant professor in the Political Science Department. I’m the boys’ Greek Advisor. It’s my job to serve as a mentor and liaison for the fraternity whenever they interact with the larger community. A couple of the guys let me know about this impromptu meeting and it seemed like the kind of event that fit my job description. What are we doing today?”

  He had been doing fine up until that last line. Keri could tell Ray felt the same way because she saw his back stiffen at the same moment she felt her own spine get hard. She could sense he wanted to speak first and was fine letting him. But when she glanced over at him, he nodded at her, as if to say, “He’s all yours.”

  “Well, Gerry,” she replied, using the tone she saved for abusive bosses, unprincipled landlords, and other self-important jerks with a little power and a lot of attitude, “we’ll be asking the boys a few questions about a missing girl. You’ll be sitting in the corner, observing quietly, not interfering.”

  “Detective Locke, is it?” Gerry replied, full of an unexpected arrogance. “So great to see you in person. I’m aware of your exploits, of course. Oh dear, I mean your exploits on the force, of course. I had not yet joined the university when you were making your name for your…exploits here. Those I only know through oral tradition.”

  He let the comment hang in the air, wondering if Keri would respond. She didn’t, only giving a tight smile, letting him continue, and seeing how far he’d dig. Ray, standing beside her, seemed to sense she had a plan and stayed quiet too.

  “No matter,” Brockenbock continued when greeted with silence. “I will of course offer any assistance I can. But as a proud alumnus of this fraternity and the sworn Greek Advisor to these young men, I will serve as their advocate in this matter and not as just some potted plant sitting in the corner.”

  Keri remembered this kind of guy from her academic life—the pompous young academic who sometimes fancied himself a campus Adonis. With all the fawning co-eds and the late-night chats about Ayn Rand over scotch in the faculty bar, it was easy for men like this to lose sight of the outside world. But even in her darkest days as a professor, she’d eaten chumps like Brockenbock for lunch. And after years as a cop on top of that, she was licking her chops.

  “Gerry,” she said, a sweet smile on her face. “Thanks for letting us know where you’re coming from. Now let me tell you where I’m coming from. I’ve got a missing teenage girl. She’s been gone for about thirty-six hours now. That’s my priority. I don’t give a rat’s ass about your sworn advocacy. Every guy in that room is eighteen or older. That means they are adults and subject to interrogation. You don’t have a say in it. Hell, their parents don’t have a say in it.”

  “This is a private university—”

  “Shut up, Gerry.” Keri said curtly. “This isn’t the Russian Embassy. You don’t have diplomatic immunity. We’re in Los Angeles, California, and I’m a detective with the LAPD—end of story. So unless you are an attorney—their attorney—you don’t have much say in how this goes. And another thing, Gerry; just between you and me, I don’t love your tone. Your belligerence makes me wonder if you’re the kind of fella who ignores traffic laws and parking instructions. I’m wondering if I need to assign a car to keep a regular eye on you to make sure you’re not a menace on the roads. So many potential motor vehicle violations out there, you know, Gerry?”

  Gerry stared at her, clearly seething, but said nothing. Still smiling, she moved on.

  “So we’re going to go in that room, Gerry. My partner and I are going to conduct our investigation as we see fit. And you’re going to keep your sworn advocate mouth shut unless you want to have your sworn advocate ass tossed in jail for interfering with an investigation. And if you doubt that I’ll do it, why don’t you just do a check of my…exploits?”

  Gerry stayed quiet. Next to her, Keri could hear Ray trying hard to do the same. He turned his head and coughed to cover the chuckles.

  *

  Unfortunately, the actual meeting with the fraternity didn’t turn up much. Brockenbock gave a brief statement asking them all to be cooperative before Keri provided the broad strokes on Tara’s situation and asked if anyone knew anything. No one raised a hand.

  After that, they broke the guys up into smaller groups and questioned them, looking for anyone acting out of the ordinary. But it was impossible to gauge
who was feeling guilty and who was just nervous at being questioned by a cop. Ultimately, they handed out some business cards, wrote their phone numbers on a whiteboard, and left.

  “That was a mistake,” Keri said as they returned to the car. “If we were going to interrogate them, we should have done it formally and individually down at the station.”

  “You want to drag sixty college kids down to West LA division?” Ray asked. “We don’t have the manpower to question them all even if we knew what we were looking for.”

  “Maybe not,” Keri agreed, “but this was useless. Even if someone knew something, this wasn’t the environment where they would be forthcoming. I feel like we wasted an opportunity here. There’s a connection we’re missing.”

  They were halfway back to the station when she got a text.

  “Check this out,” she said. “It’s from one of the brothers—a guy named Logan Mattis. He’s asking to meet us at the bowling alley coffee shop at Lincoln and Manchester in ten minutes.”

  “Maybe we didn’t waste our time after all,” Ray said hopefully.

  Keri and Ray had each already downed a cup of coffee and were on their second when Logan Mattis arrived. Tall and tanned with a tangled mess of sun-stained blond hair that suggested he was a regular surfer, he strolled in trying to look casual but was obviously nervous. He sat down across from them in the booth.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t say anything back at the house,” he said sheepishly. “But there’s supposed to be a code among brothers, you know? I didn’t know how far the other guys thought it extended so I didn’t want to say anything in front of them.”

  “We understand,” Keri said. “We’ll take information any way we can get it, Logan. What do you know?”

  “I’m not sure that it’s anything so I almost didn’t want to bring it up. But I figured, if it’s nothing, you guys will be able to figure that out pretty quick and he won’t get into any major trouble.”

  “You’ve got to give us more specifics than this, Logan,” Ray said, having difficulty hiding his exasperation.