CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Veronica went straight from Grace’s apartment to Mac’s building and pulled out her phone before starting up the stairs. It was almost eight. Logan would be home, maybe fixing dinner, or walking Pony. She jotted him a quick text.

Then she took the stairs two at a time up to Mac’s apartment. Mac opened the door before she even had a chance to knock.

“What happened?” Mac asked. “Did he confess?”

Veronica had called her on the way, saying only that she needed her help. Now she stepped into the apartment without preamble and asked, “How hard is it to retrieve a website once its admin has taken it down?”

Mac shut the door. “Well, most stuff on the Internet gets cached. It’s pretty easy to find. If you really want to make a website go away there are ways to do that, but most people don’t bother. It’s kind of a headache.”

Veronica threw her jacket on one end of the oversized sofa. The rugs and curtains had bright, geometric prints, and the air smelled like chai from the teashop downstairs.

“I need to find a webpage for someone named Chloé Huston.” She pulled her laptop from her bag and handed it to Mac. “It would have been taken down in late March or early April.”

“Sure,” Mac said, her brow furrowed. “What’s this all about?”

“Best to just show you, I think. And uh, be warned—there’s probably going to be some adult content on there.”

Mac blinked, but didn’t comment. She sat down on the sofa, opened the laptop, and started to type.

Working late with Mac always felt vaguely collegiate. They ordered pizza—half olive oil and eggplant for Mac, half cheese and pepperoni for Veronica. She hadn’t eaten since before San Diego, and was surprised at the surge of energy she got from righting her blood sugar. Before long she was pacing the living room, trying to determine what their next step should be, while Mac worked steadily at her computer.

It was an hour and a half before she found anything.

“Respect to the girl. She covered her tracks pretty well,” Mac said, exhaling loudly. “But I’ve got the site up if you want to take a look.”

Veronica sat next to her. On the screen, a black-and-white photo depicted a young woman sitting demurely on an outdoor terrace in a lace dress with a plunging neckline. Her face was turned away from the camera to gaze off over the city, but Veronica recognized Grace easily enough. There was a studied elegance in her posture.

Cursive script across the top of the page read Chloé Huston. Beneath that, in smaller font: Your fantasy come true.

“ ‘Welcome to my world, gentlemen. I’m ready to share it with you,’ ” Mac read out loud. “ ‘Refined, sophisticated…looking to share romance and adventure with generous, discerning men…enjoys intelligent conversation about art, music, philosophy, and spirituality’? ” She looked up at Veronica. “What are we looking at?”

“Grace Manning’s alter-ego,” she said. “Or, rather, her former alter-ego.”

“She’s a hooker?” Mac gasped.

Veronica took the laptop from Mac and kept reading.

I’m a cosmopolitan but approachable paramour who can provide a natural, satisfying girlfriend experience, whether we choose to go out or stay in. I also specialize in different kinds of role-play. I can make your dreams come to life. Contact me for details.

“Nope,” Veronica said. “She was a high-end escort. Trust me. There’s a difference.”

A gallery section had a collection of photos showing Grace, always looking away from the camera or with her honey-blonde hair obscuring her face, in a variety of provocative positions. Standing in front of a window in a corset and knee-high stockings; lounging chest-down on the deck of a sailboat wearing nothing but a bikini bottom. One showed her from the chin down, sprawled in a tangle of sheets.

The pictures were more pin-up than porn, and shot beautifully. But looking at them turned the pizza in her stomach into a leaden lump. Because you’ve seen the “after” pictures. Because you’ve seen her when someone took away all this care and control and turned her into a victim.

Veronica clicked on the section of the website marked “Donation” and scrolled through the pricing list. “Chloé Huston” charged $500 for an hour-long “interlude.” A two-hour “cocktail date” was $800; a four-hour dinner was $1,500. Other fees may apply. Mac’s eyes went suddenly wide. “So all that time we spent trying to find her ‘boyfriend’…”

Veronica put a hand on Mac’s arm. “I’m sorry, Mac. I guess Charles was one of her regulars.”

“Jesus,” Mac said. She took the laptop back from her and stared at the website. A mix of shock and disgust registered on her face as she scrolled through the information. “Oh, great. She likes fine dining and walks on the beach. I’m sure they have that in common.”

Veronica cleared her throat. “Mac, I hate to intrude on this reverie, but have you perchance checked out a vibrant little online salon called The Erotic Critique?

“The Erotic…?”

“Critique,” Veronica said, stressing the eek to help Mac with the spelling. “It’s like Yelp—but for lonely, horny fellas.”

When Mac gave her an incredulous stare, she shrugged. “Hey, hardboiled, remember? I’m on personal terms with the seedy underbelly.”

Mac typed The Erotic Critique into her search bar. The site launched, and a helpful intro explained the service. Customers could type in their parameters to find the perfect girl, or could simply browse through names, clicking on profiles to see descriptions and reviews. Veronica had once used it to try to help a client track down a prostitute who’d sold the GFE role a little too well.

A list of names filled the screen. Savannah Duvall. Miko Minami. Taylor Moran. Bella Diaz. Chloé Huston. “Seriously, how did anyone pay for casual sex before the Internet?” Mac murmured.

Veronica pointed at the screen. “There—could you click on Chloé Huston’s profile?”

Mac did. Instantly Grace’s vital stats popped up: eye color, hair color, height, and weight, along with measurements (34-24-34), tattoos (none), piercings (navel), and “breast description” (natural B cup). Below that was a comprehensive list of sex acts with bright green check marks indicating which ones were offered.

And below that were the reviews. Chloé Huston had forty-three reviews, all from guys with names like lovebandit and continental_gentleman.

Full, firm tits, fit bod, made me feel comfortable and at ease right away.

Has that something special u cant put ur fingers on (but I did!!!)

I have always had a teacher/schoolgirl fantasy and Chloé was awesome about making it “cum” true.

“These sounds like dirty Yelp reviews,” Mac said.

“Yeah. Raunchy lies and half-truths, a soupçon of single-entrendre humor, and a ton of dick-shaking—literally and figuratively. Ladies and gents, your American sex industry.” Veronica stood up and started pacing again. “So, did anyone give her a bad review? Anything two stars or lower?”

“A few.” Mac looked down at the screen. “One guy said she was ‘cold and aloof.’ He gave her two stars. One said some things I don’t plan to read out loud, but the gist is ‘unrefined technique.’ One said she didn’t follow instructions. The rest are just toxic gibberish.”

Veronica stopped in front of a framed movie poster for Nights of Cabiria that showed a doe-eyed Giulietta Masina smoking a cigarette. Something in Masina’s brittle, hopeful face made her think of Grace.

“This wasn’t his first time.”

Mac looked up. “What?”

Veronica turned away from the poster. The thought had been nagging at her since the beginning. “If I’m right, and Bellamy was the attacker, this wasn’t his first time. Think about how calm he looks in the surveillance footage—he’s standing right in front of a hotel clerk with a girl in his bag, getting the team checked out. A security guard is right there. A million ways he could get caught and he’s risking all of them. He’s forty-one years old. I seriously doubt that he just woke up one day after a life of respectful behavior and decided to start raping and brutalizing women. He’s been escalating to this. And so far he’s getting away with it.”

Mac looked queasy.

“If we could find other victims we could prove a pattern. We could show that he’s a repeat offender. It’d be harder for a jury to dismiss Grace Manning’s injuries. But the thing is: How do we do that if no one’s reporting?” Veronica said, now making her way toward the kitchen.

“The, uh, gentle hippie folk in the tea shop downstairs always know when you’ve come over to talk about a case,” Mac said, lowering her voice and gesturing at the floorboards beneath them. Veronica smiled and stopped pacing. She walked back to the sofa and sat down next to Mac. The Erotic Critique was still up on the screen.

“Anyway, they list the reviews chronologically, right?” Veronica peered over Mac’s shoulder at the computer. “Can you scroll down to the last few? Query the last date anyone reviewed her?”

Mac clicked a button labeled Search by Date and a dialogue immediately popped up: WELCOME BACK, VERONICA! WE SEE IT’S BEEN 9 YEARS, 8 MONTHS SINCE YOU ACCESSED THIS PREMIUM FEATURE. FOR DEEPER, MORE INTENSE SATISFACTION, CLICK HERE TO UPDATE YOUR PAYMENT AND ADDRESS INFORMATION.

Veronica groaned and Mac exploded in peals of laughter. Rolling her eyes, Veronica handed over her Visa card. A couple of minutes later, Mac was in the date-specific review, angling the screen toward her so she could see more clearly. “Looks like the last one is dated March twenty-eighth.”

Veronica stared at the screen. There were five reviews posted after the night of the attack.

Two were five-starred, one had three stars, and two had one.

professorXXX: 3 stars/5. Refused to come to my house even after I offered her extra—she made me take out a room in the most expensive hotel in town. I guess because she’s cute she’s gotten away with calling the shots before. Aside from that, I can’t complain too much—she worked pretty hard to placate me and at least at the Grand I didn’t have to clean up afterward.

mr_kiss_and_tell: 1 star/5. Gave me a lot of attitude and wouldn’t follow through on my requests.

top_dog: 5 stars/5. As amazing as advertised. Gorgeous girl, sophisticated and fun. After a few preliminary dates I finally persuaded sweet Chloé to go with me to the Sundance Festival in Park City. She fit right in and could have been a starlet herself—people kept staring at her, trying to place her. At one point I caught James Franco flirting with her!!

playhard69: 1 star/5. TIME WASTER!!!! Made an appointment with her THREE MONTHS in advance and she STOOD ME UP. No call, no email. I guess this WHORE is too good for my money?

master_P: 5 stars/5. ChloéChloéChloéChloéChloé. That is what you’ll be saying over and over again as she works her magic.

Her eyes narrowed. Would the attacker be ballsy enough to review a girl he’d left for dead? She thought again of Mitch Bellamy, standing at that front desk, laughing with the receptionist. Yes. If he was the one who did it, he’d think it was his right. He’d think, since he’d gotten away with it, that the universe was clearly entitling him to use and throw away whomever he wanted.

“ProfessorXXX is obviously a local,” she said softly. “He wanted Grace to come to his house. And Sundance is in January, so I’m thinking top_dog was just late in posting his review. Which leaves playhard69, master_P, and mr_kiss_and_tell.” She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “Open up their profiles for me, will you?”

Mac clicked on playhard69. He hadn’t included any personal information—no surprise there—but all of his reviews sprang up on the screen. In addition to Grace, he’d apparently sampled the wares of Larissa Grey, Angelica Starr, and Alexis van Dyne, all of whom worked in Neptune.

It gave Veronica an idea.

“We need to go through and flag any users who’ve reviewed women in multiple cities, and any users who’ve reviewed lots of women in San Diego.”

Mac stared up at her. “You think Bellamy was crazy enough…?”

“I don’t know. Might be a long shot. It’s not like every guy who hires an escort is going to leap right out of the sack and write a review, right? But if Bellamy’s a serial offender, he’s hired escorts before.” She leaned toward Mac. “Maybe it doesn’t matter that no one’s reporting him. Maybe he’s incriminating himself in his reviews.”

They combed through the reviews. Fourteen of Grace’s clients had supped from the erotic smorgasbord in multiple cities. Of them, only one of them had posted a review after the attack.

mr_kiss_and_tell.

The reviewer had patronized more than thirty high-end escorts. It was hard to pinpoint the exact dates; he could have waited weeks between when he saw a given girl and when he posted a review. But the majority of the girls worked out of cities in the western half of the United States: Boise, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Seattle, L.A. All university towns with Division I teams—places a basketball coach would have a reason to visit.

“He has a type, that’s for sure,” she said, looking over the list. The girls were all “small,” “slender,” “petite.” They were all very young, at least from what Mac and Veronica could see—most of their faces were obscured on their websites. All were high-end. And they all specialized in role-play.

I have a full closet of fun costumes I just can’t wait to wear for you.

Pretending to be someone I’m not really turns me on!

I’m eager to be the very girl you want.

Mac stared at a picture of a lithe brunette in a low-cut gown, a flute of champagne in one hand. “I just don’t get how anyone could do it. Like, even if danger weren’t an issue, there is no way I could let some rando get intimate with my lady parts.”

Veronica didn’t answer. It wasn’t that Veronica could suddenly imagine going into the business herself, but Grace didn’t feel foreign to her at all. Grace felt like someone who, in other circumstances, she might have been friends with.

Mr. Kiss and Tell’s rankings were all across the board. He gave most girls three or four stars out of five, critiquing their performances like a cross between Hugh Hefner and Simon Cowell. Yvette had perfect breasts, full lips, and a toned body, but the sounds she made were distracting and ridiculous. Or: Delia was very sweet and obedient but I didn’t care for her clothes. Why does everyone assume that just because I want a submissive that means I want leather and straps? That said, she had a great bedside manner. A few girls, like Grace, had one star. Those reviews were even more critical: Tonya Vahn from L.A. acted like a stuck-up bitch. Looked nothing like her picture. One, a Nikki Valentine from Albuquerque wasn’t properly groomed: I could see her roots, her nails weren’t done, she showed up in the trashiest dress I’ve ever seen. For $400 an hour I expect a princess, not a tramp.

“What a charmer,” Mac muttered.

“There’s a reason he’s paying for it,” Veronica said. “Tomorrow we need to start searching the criminal databases in all of these cities. We’ll look for open assault cases dating in the past four years and see if any of them match up. But I’m pretty sure Grace is right—if any of these women were attacked, most of them won’t have reported it.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“Can I see your computer for a minute?”

Mac handed over the laptop. Veronica opened up one of her private e-mail accounts and sat, thinking for a few minutes. Then she started to type.

I’m writing in the hopes that you can help me. I know you have a vested interest in keeping your clients confidential, but I’m currently investigating the rape of a working girl here in southern California and I think the man may have done it before. I’m trying to establish a pattern of abuse in the hopes that we can find a way to stop him. I’ve enclosed a photo of the suspect. If there’s anything you remember about him, please, call or e-mail.

It was a shot in the dark. If these women hadn’t reported an abusive john to the cops, there was no reason for them to do so for a perfect stranger. But Grace had mentioned that there were forums where sex workers could warn each other about “bad dates.” These women, at least some of them, looked out for one another. Veronica had to hope that the news that one of their own had been raped might move at least a few of them to reply.

Veronica and Mac sent the message to every girl Mr. Kiss and Tell had reviewed. A few of them had taken their websites down, apparently out of the business. A few of the e-mails bounced back immediately, the addresses no longer valid. But Veronica pictured the message winging its way across the country, popping up with little red Urgent flags in dozens of inboxes. Maybe landing in the right inbox. Maybe finding the woman who could help make their case against Mitch Bellamy.

CHAPTER THIRTY

“They’re too long, man.” Eli Navarro stood in front of the mirror outside the changing room, looking at his reflection. The slacks he’d tried on pooled at his feet. “You’d have to be seven feet tall for all this leg.”

Keith smiled. They were in Brautigan’s, a large department store in the Neptune Mall, trying to expand Eli’s courtroom ensemble options. Light piano music tinkled from the speakers, and an obsequious sales clerk hovered near the doorway.

“They do that so you can get them sized. Turn around.” Eli did. Keith nodded. “See, they fit everywhere else. We’ll take them to a tailor, have them hemmed right up.”

Eli shook his head slightly. “It’s a lotta money to spend on pants that don’t fit. And then you gotta spend more to get ’em fixed?”

“Trust me on this, Eli. It makes a difference.” Keith crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against a wood-paneled pillar. “When you have three million bucks you won’t even remember what it was like to wear off-the-rack.”

Eli smiled in spite of himself. “You’re counting chickens, and they ain’t hatched yet, Sheriff.”

Weevil was the only person who still called Keith by his former title. It was strangely endearing. Keith had known the kid a long time, had watched him grow from a petty criminal to the head of the PCH Biker Gang. Hell, half the time Keith had been the one to arrest him. When he’d watched Eli pull his life together, it’d made him strangely proud. He’d been pulling for the guy then, and he still was today.

“Well, I happen to think we’ve got a good chance at making you a rich man.”

Keith had managed a breakthrough in his search for witnesses. After weeks of pounding on doors, he’d found three more people willing to testify that evidence planted by Deputy Harlon had led to their wrongful convictions. From where he stood, the case against the department looked strong.

“It’s not just gonna be fancy pants and new TVs and diamond studs, Sheriff,” Eli said, padding back into the changing room and talking over the door. “I’m getting a house for Jade and Valentina. Even if they don’t want me back I’m buying them a place. And I’m gonna send Valentina to one of them Mussolini schools, you know? Where they learn by doing crafts and playing games and stuff?”

“I think you mean Montessori.”

“Yeah, that’s the one.” The door swung open, and Eli was back in his scuffed jeans and hoodie. “And I’m gonna invest. Find some way for my money to make money, you know?”

“But there’s going be a little flash, right?” Keith leaned in conspiratorially. “I mean, you’ll be able to afford one or two bad decisions.”

Eli broke into a grin. “I have to admit I like the idea of gettin’ a Segway, if only to see the looks on my PCH boys’ faces when I roll up on it. Either that or an Xbox One. I’ve been wanting to get my hands on one of them since the new Call of Duty came out.”

Keith handed him an armful of hangers. Pants, jackets, button-down shirts, and ties bulged from his arms. “Now let’s pay for this and head to Ben & Jerry’s. My treat—just don’t tell Veronica. I’m supposed to be on a diet.”

Keith paid for the clothes on his credit card. If Eli won, he’d pay him back; if not, Keith would consider it a donation to the Don’t Re-elect Dan Lamb campaign.

They went down the escalator and were heading toward the mall exit when Keith heard a familiar-sounding voice called out from behind him.

“Keith? Keith Mars?”

He froze, Eli stopping short next to him. They were between Women’s Shoes and Cosmetics, and the air was heavy with mingled perfumes. Slowly, he turned to face Marcia Langdon.

She was dressed in jeans and a blazer and she’d recently cut her hair. It now was too short for the severe bun she’d sported in her military photos but the new bob had an almost equally stiff and uncompromising look. Still it was a bit more stylish, and style counted in Neptune. You couldn’t expect someone like Petra Landros or Celeste Kane—or any of the other moneyed women currently teetering around them, trying on too-high heels—to vote for a woman who looked like a samurai Ayn Rand.

“Marcia. It’s been a while.” Keith held out his hand, and she gave it a single, brisk up-and-down pump. “I didn’t know you’d moved back to town until your election news came out.”

“I’ve been back since February, but I’ve been keeping a low profile.” The smile she gave him wasn’t quite warm, but it was pleasant. “I thought I was retiring. But you know how it is. Hard to sit back and watch your hometown become synonymous with ‘miscarriage of justice.’ ”

He put his hands in his pockets and studied her face. It was almost eerie; for a moment he could see the teenaged Marcia he’d known, superimposed over this older woman’s face. The eyes and nose were the same, even if the crow’s feet and the frown lines hung heavily around her features.

He gestured to his left. “This is my friend Eli.”

“Mr. Navarro.” She held out her hand to him. “I’ve been following your case with great interest.”

“Yeah?” He glanced quizzically at Keith, and then turned back to Marcia. “Well, for my part, I hope you’re able to run that asshole out of office.”

To Keith’s surprise, she grinned.

“Honestly, it was your case that made me decide to run,” she said. “For months now I’ve been seething over this guy, but I didn’t think I could do anything about it. But when you started speaking out, I thought…well, hell, it’s worth a try, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it is.” Eli shifted his weight.

She turned her gaze back to Keith. “And you. You do great work, Keith. I’ve read your books.”

“Oh, those.” He smiled self-deprecatingly. “Just a little something to make sure the bills get paid. PI work’s kind of boom or bust, so I turned to the even-keeled and predictable world of publishing to round things out.”

She laughed. “Well, I’m a fan. Anyway, I don’t want to keep you. It was nice seeing you, Keith, really.”

“Good luck, Marcia.”

They stood for a moment, watching her disappear back into the shoe section. Several women around Marcia seemed to notice and recognize her, and one or two walked up to her to shake her hand.

“She seems nice.” Eli said, glancing at him again as they started toward Ben & Jerry’s.

Keith didn’t answer right away.

The Langdon family had lived three doors down from Keith’s tiny efficiency. Mr. Langdon, like many dads in the neighborhood, had vanished to parts unknown. Mrs. Langdon worked in a garment factory on the edge of town. Keith, who at the time had been a twenty-one-year-old newly hired deputy in the Neptune Sheriff’s Department, remembered her as a soft-spoken woman with an expression that always appeared either anxious or frightened.

Keith often sat on his front porch to escape his gloomy apartment and quickly struck up a friendship of sorts with Marcia, who would walk by on her way to a 7-Eleven on the corner. With only four years separating them in age, they had plenty to talk about: the Padres, teachers, how much they both hated ABBA.

She was a different breed of cat than he’d been in high school. Keith had been a swingman between the gearhead and art-geek cliques. He’d also played bass for a local rock band that, infelicitously, played Springsteen and Warren Zevon covers at the exact moment punk rock was breaking. She was an avid JROTC member, socially maladroit, and a teacher’s pet. But Keith had always respected her scathing honesty and uncompromising intensity.

Then there was Tauntaun. Bobby “Tauntaun” Langdon was enormous, the kind of looming presence forged in iron for offensive line play. He was two years older than Marcia, and his steamroller blocking had powered a Neptune ground game that took the team all the way to State his senior year. Even beyond his status as a sports hero, he was a good dude, the type you could count on to break up a fight or to offer you a ride to a party.

Until graduation, anyway. Post-high school life didn’t agree with Tauntaun. He drifted, lost in the real world. Keith had only ever heard rumors, but not long after that, Tauntaun apparently fell in with a crew of guys who sold dime bags at the Boardwalk and broke into vacation homes to steal the hi-fis.

The summer after Marcia’s senior year, Keith was called as a backup when two other deputies arrived at the Langdon’s little apartment with a search warrant. He was just pulling up to the curb when they came out with fifteen kilos of coke that had been stacked neatly in Tauntaun’s bedroom closet. Marcia’s brother told them he’d been storing it for someone else, but when he wouldn’t—or couldn’t—name names, he took the fall.

It’d been Marcia who’d called the sheriff on him. Marcia who found the drugs while hanging her brother’s clean laundry in his closet. Marcia who’d been humiliated every time the cops showed up at the duplex to haul Tauntaun in again, for vandalism or public intoxication or breaking and entering. The night of Tauntaun’s arrest, the sound of breaking furniture and shouting echoed from the Langdon apartment. Keith heard later that Mrs. Langdon had kicked her out, claimed she never wanted to see her again. Marcia already had an ROTC scholarship at UCLA. She left Neptune and she didn’t come back. Not for thirty-three years.

And Tauntaun? He’d been stabbed to death in the showers at San Quentin a few short years later.

As Keith and Eli made their way down the long corridors of the mall, sidestepping moms with strollers and slow-moving teenagers, he remembered Tauntaun’s terrified face as the cop shoved him in the car. The whole thing had never sat easy with Keith, though it was hard to say why. It emerged at that trial that Tauntaun’s IQ had tested at eighty-seven, but even Tauntaun had to know that storing a dozen bricks of coke in his room was a bad idea. He’d committed a crime, and he’d gotten caught. That was how it worked.

But who turned in family?

Maybe there was more to it. Maybe Marcia had tried to reason with her brother before turning him in. Maybe she thought it was for his own good. Either way, she was honest. And, most important, not Dan Lamb.

Weevil turned a quizzical look toward him as they got in line in front of the Ben & Jerry’s.

“You all right, man? You look kind of…I don’t know. Spooked.”

Keith took a deep breath and smiled.

“Yeah, I’m all right.” He pulled out his wallet as the smiling scooper called them forward for their order. “Just thinking what a good sheriff she’s going to be.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The San Diego sky was bright and cloudless as Veronica turned down a quiet residential street, well behind the white Nissan that carried Bellamy and his sixteen-year-old daughter to his ex’s house.

Her decision to start tailing him had essentially been an impulse, born of frustration and restlessness. The e-mails she’d sent to the call girls had been met with silence, and the alerts Mac had put on his credit cards and bank accounts had turned up nothing.

And so had her surveillance. The three previous times she’d tailed him that week he went straight from his apartment to the PSU campus and back again, stopping only for take-out or fast food. Once home, he didn’t go out again. It wasn’t entirely surprising. Bellamy was all about measured control—until, of course, he snapped. After being questioned by the San Diego police, it followed that he’d play the part of model citizen.

That afternoon, though, he’d broken his routine and taken his daughter to a used car dealership, where they walked through a lot filled with ten-year-old Toyotas. Bellamy had obviously thought he was going to make her day with the promise of her own wheels. From a few rows away, Veronica had heard snatches of his eager words: “…know it’s not flashy, but it’ll be all yours!”

The girl had hung back the whole time, looking sullen and dispirited. Veronica couldn’t tell if it was her dad’s company that had her in this state, his taste in cars, or something else entirely. His ex had sole custody of both kids, and Bellamy had to request visitation on a case-by-case basis. While there was no evidence of abuse or neglect in the official documents, the arrangement struck Veronica as unusual.

Maybe she threatened to go public with something if he didn’t give her the kids. She could have known about the prostitutes—or maybe she’d been his first victim.

Now he pulled up at the foot of a sloping yard, dryscaped to survive the SoCal droughts. In addition to the kids, his ex had won the house in the divorce, a stucco two-story with flower boxes in the windows, a grand step up from his two-bedroom rental in a drab apartment complex called Sunset Cove, which offered neither a sunset view nor proximity to a cove. Hard to feel too sorry for the guy, she thought. Somehow he still manages to scrounge up enough cash to hire $500-per-hour call girls.

Veronica passed him without slowing, then pulled up to the side of the road several blocks ahead, taking out her phone and pretending to make a call. In her side mirror, she watched as the morose-looking girl got out of the car and started up the driveway without pausing to hug her father good-bye. Bellamy stood awkwardly next to the car until his daughter disappeared through the door. Then he got in his car and started the engine.

Veronica checked the time on her phone. It was almost five thirty; she and Logan had plans to go to her father’s for dinner that night. If she was going to be on time, she had to leave right now. She sighed, and put the car into drive. Just then, Bellamy sped up the street toward her. In her rearview mirror, she saw his light blue eyes narrow.

For a split second, she was sure he recognized her. But a moment later he blew past her, turned on his blinker, and cut left, no doubt going back to his apartment, stopping for something tragically unhealthy in a foil wrapper on the way.

—

By the time Veronica pulled up in front of Keith’s house, she could smell the burgers cooking.

She and Keith had instituted the Daddy-Daughter Dinners when she first moved out of his house a few months earlier—a weekly night set aside for them to hang out and catch up. Even working in the same building, there were weeks when they barely saw each other. Since Logan’s return he’d been a sincerely welcomed, if mildly awkward, addition.

When she opened the gate to the backyard, Pony scampered up to her, barking shrilly. She knelt down and ruffled the puppy’s fur. Keith stood at the grill, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and shorts; Logan clutched a sweating glass of water at the patio table. He cast her a relieved look as she approached.

“Perfect timing. You missed all the cattle-slaughtering, butchering, and grilling—just in time to eat,” said her father.

“I know better than to come between men and their blood rituals. I figured the whole meat-on-fire thing was a chance for you two to bond.” She took Logan’s water out of his hand and took a sip.

They settled around the table, the light starting to dim over the yard. Keith piled his plate with salad, then passed the bowl around to Logan. “Dig in, guys.”

“Three months on shore, and I have to tell you, real food hasn’t gotten old yet,” said Logan. He picked up his burger and eyed it appreciatively before taking an enormous bite. Then he closed his eyes and sighed with deep satisfaction.

“Those monosyllabic reviews are the ones you like to hear,” Keith said, grinding pepper over his salad.

Veronica’s mind began to wander as Keith and Logan made small talk. She was trying to decide whether she should drive back out to San Diego the next day. It was Saturday, so there wouldn’t be basketball practice. Maybe Bellamy would break routine in a real way. Then again, maybe he’ll just sit around his apartment watching ESPN all day, and I’ll be stuck in a parking lot watching his car bake in the sun.

Logan’s phone buzzed. He glanced down at the screen and frowned.

“Hey, this is a buddy of mine on the Truman. You guys mind if I grab this?”

“Go ahead,” Keith said, smiling. Logan stood up from the table and went in through the sliding glass doors, already pressing the phone to his ear. Pony followed at his heels.

Keith looked at Veronica. “You’re somewhere else tonight. What’s up?”

She shook her head. “Sorry, Dad. This case is making me crazy.”

She briefly summarized what she’d done since Bellamy’s test results had come back. He listened, raising his eyebrows when she described The Erotic Critique, nodding with approval when she told him how she and Mac had combed through the reviewers and pinpointed Mr. Kiss and Tell.

“But it’s been three days and none of the women have responded to my e-mail,” she finished. “I’ve got no word from potential vics, no witnesses, and no other leads.” She stabbed at her salad with her fork. “I’ve been following him, but he’s not doing anything wrong that I can see. I don’t know what else to do.”

Keith leaned back in his chair and looked up thoughtfully. “Well, have you tried talking to Lamb?”

For a moment the only sound was a car backfiring somewhere in the neighborhood. She stared at her father in disbelief.

“Lamb? What’s he going to do?”

“Well, the crime happened in his jurisdiction.” Keith gave her a humorless smile. “He can request a search warrant.”

Veronica snorted. “Sure. I’ll just call my BFF Dan Lamb and ask him to do me a solid.”

“Lamb knows this election depends on how good his stats look. He’ll want this collar.”

She set down her fork, suddenly not hungry. But her dad was right; she didn’t have a lot of options. And Lamb might just be desperate enough in the midst of this election to listen to her.

She looked up at the sound of the glass doors sliding opening. “There you are. That was a long…”

She came up short at the sight of Logan’s bone-white face. The jagged line of a single tear ran down one cheek and he bit at his lip, clearly trying to control his emotions. Instinctively, Veronica stood up from her seat, her skin going suddenly clammy.

For a moment he stood there, his phone still clutched in his hand. Then his eyes met hers.

“There was an accident,” he said. “On the Truman.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Lieutenant Vincent “Bilbo” Malubay, twenty-nine, naval aviator, husband, and father, had gotten his call sign because of the weekly Dungeons and Dragons game he ran in the USS Truman’s rec room. Apparently no one in the Navy was actually called “Maverick” or “Iceman”—real call signs were embarrassing, ridiculous, or patently disgusting. “Stewbeef,” “Big Bird,” “Purge.” Logan’s was simply “Mouth” for reasons Veronica took to be obvious.

“Bilbo” had brought a sack full of twenty-sided dice and a Monster Manual from home, and every Sunday he and a handful of other proud geeks would colonize one of the long folding tables to play. Logan had even played once, half ironically. “I was a bard,” he told Veronica, smirking a little. “I spent the whole time writing limericks about the other characters.”

“I bet they loved that.” She squeezed his hand.

It was the following morning, and they were in line at the Delta ticket counter at the airport, waiting to check Logan into his flight for the funeral. Harried travelers moved in every direction, tired parents ushering their children toward security, college kids in hoodies and backpacks heading back to their campuses for the fall semester. Logan wore service khaki and a garrison cap that increased his already imposing height by two inches. People kept glancing at him out of the corners of their eyes as they passed along the busy concourse.

Late Thursday night, Bilbo had been on the return leg of a six-hour mission in the Persian Gulf. It was all routine. He’d made dozens of these nighttime landings, sometimes in fiercely pitching seas with the flight deck tilting back and forth beneath him. But this time something went wrong. Bilbo apparently miscalculated the angle of descent as he brought his Hornet in to land. He’d flown in too low and hit the ramp instead. The plane was turned into a white-hot mass of shredded metal, skidding violently across the flight deck.

Logan rubbed his eyes and kept them closed for a moment, and Veronica noticed how tired he looked. He’d barely slept since he’d gotten the call. When he reopened his eyes, they flashed with sudden anger. “It’s not fair. Bilbo made that landing hundreds of times. He could park his bug on a dime. And then one mistake. One mistake with no margin of error.”

It could have been you. It could just as easily have been you. The thought had an edge of giddy hysteria to it, the sense of a disaster narrowly averted. But she couldn’t tell him that. Couldn’t tell him that, in the six months he’d been gone, she’d looked up every fighter-class aircraft accident listed on Wikipedia. That she’d read, over and over, about G-LOC and midair collisions and the various malfunctions that could lead to a jet slamming to earth at four hundred miles an hour. She didn’t tell him that there was a perverse sense of gratitude mixed in with her sympathy and her sadness. If it was that easy for a skilled pilot to destroy himself in the blink of an eye, she’d enjoyed several months blissfully ignorant of how close she always was to losing Logan.

“I wish you’d be there tonight,” he said suddenly, opening his eyes. The words cut through her reverie. She squeezed his hand again.

“I just need one more day.”

“You can’t just make some calls from the hotel?”

“Lamb’s not taking my calls and I need him to get a search warrant for Bellamy’s computer and phone. I’ll be on the first flight to Seattle tomorrow morning, I promise.”

He didn’t answer. His fingers felt limp and heavy in her hand. She moved closer, putting her arms around his waist and trying to ignore the guilt tightening in her chest.

“Come on. You know you’ll be out drinking with your squadron tonight anyway. I’ll be there tomorrow in time for the funeral.”

“Veronica.”

She looked up at him. For a few seconds he stood in silence, his mouth parted slightly as if trying to find the right words.

Then: “They want me to go back.”

She frowned. “Go back where?”

“Aboard ship. They’re short now.” He ran one hand over his face. “You know, with Bilbo gone, they’re shorthanded.”

“Yeah, but…” Several people in the line looked her way. She realized her voice had gone shrill. When she spoke again, she concentrated on keeping it low. “Logan, you’re on shore duty. That’s supposed to last another five months, at least.”

“I know. But they need me, Veronica.”

“Wait.” Her heartbeat felt uneven. The world tilted around her, unsteady. “Are they telling you that you have to go back? Is it an order?”

“No, but…”

“So you could choose not to.”

“Veronica…”

“You could choose not to.” She realized several people were looking at her again. She didn’t care. “If you wanted, you could tell them no.”

He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. “Look, I haven’t decided for sure what I’m going to do, okay? But you have to understand—this is what the job is. I trained for this, I worked my ass off for this. I chose this life. You of all people should understand that.”

She opened her mouth to answer. Before she could, the ticket agent called them forward. Logan stepped up to the counter, his ID outstretched.

He checked his bag, and they walked in strained, painful silence to the security checkpoint. When they got to the line, he hesitated for a second, his eyes meeting hers in what she realized was their first moment of real intimacy all day. She pressed her hand against his cheek; he took it in his and gently kissed it, holding it against his face for a moment before letting go.

“We’ll talk after the funeral, okay?”

Then Logan took Veronica in his arms and kissed her forehead, sweet and simple. She forced a smile. “Okay.”

—

Veronica arrived at the courthouse at eleven, her emotions frayed. A young female deputy sat at the front desk, her hair braided tightly behind her head. She gave Veronica a sour look when she came through the door. Her name tag said GANDIN.

Veronica stepped up to the desk. “I need to speak with the sheriff, if he’s available. It’s about a criminal investigation.”

One smooth, over-plucked eyebrow lifted skeptically.

“You can fill out a report and leave it with me,” said the deputy. “Or I can give you the CrimeStoppers tip line.”

Veronica feigned consideration. “The tip line, you say? Interesting. And who answers that tip line?”

“It routes to one of the deputies on duty.” The woman leaned on the counter. “Then they fill out a report, and leave it with me.”

Veronica smiled tightly, leaning on the counter as well so she and the deputy were facing off. “The thing is, Deputy Gandin, my information is time sensitive. I don’t have the luxury to wait for whatever elaborate filing scheme you use to move paper around this place. So if you wouldn’t mind…”

“Veronica?”

She looked up to see Deputy Norris Clayton. He’d come in behind her from the lobby, a powerfully built man with a long, serious face. His uniform was snug across his chest, clean and pressed with almost military precision.

Veronica smiled. It still startled her a little to see Norris—one-time bully and reformed trench coat mafia don—in uniform.

“Hey, Deputy. How’s the crime-and-punishment gig treating you?”

“Another day, another donut.” Norris glanced at the woman behind the desk and only then seemed to sense the tension in the air. He looked back at Veronica. “What’s up?”

“Oh, you know. Crime solving.”

A lopsided grin snuck in at the corners of Norris’s mouth. Spotting the look on Gandin’s face, he pressed his lips together to hide it.

“Come on back. I’ll see if I can help.”

Veronica gave Gandin a cool nod as she followed Norris through the gate.

“Don’t mind her,” he said as soon as they were out of earshot. “Brittany’s a good cop. But Lamb has her stuck at that desk all day every day, filing paperwork and making coffee. County policy says he has to hire a few women, but that doesn’t mean he has to let them in the field. She’s in a pretty constant state of fuck you.”

Veronica’s smile faded. She glanced back at the woman at the desk with a grudging sense of sympathy. “I guess I can’t blame her for that.”

“Yeah. Anyway, what’s going on?”

She looked toward Lamb’s closed office door. “Well, I need a search warrant and unfortunately Lamb is the only one who can get it for me. What are the chances he’ll see me?”

Norris snorted. “You? Right now I’d say slim to none. His ass has been glowing red since that lawsuit was announced.”

“That’s all Weevil,” Veronica protested. “I certainly didn’t feed him that ‘take the bastard down’ quote.”

He grimaced. “It doesn’t matter. He sees you in here, I guarantee you he’ll decide it’s time for an early lunch.”

“Norris, this guy I’m looking into—he’s bad. Really bad,” she said soberly.

He looked at her for a long moment. Then he heaved a sigh. “I can’t make any promises, Veronica. He’s probably gonna get a long running start and boot you out the door.”

“That’s fine. You can make a show of dragging me out if you have to.”

Norris gave her another long look, and then, as if he couldn’t help himself, shook his head and grinned.

A few minutes later, she stood in the hallway behind Lamb’s door as Norris knocked.

“Yeah?” Lamb’s voice was muffled from inside the office.

“Hey, Sheriff, I just got a tip on a case I think you ought to look at.” For a moment there wasn’t a sound. Veronica met Norris’s eyes, questioning, and he shrugged.

“The Neptune Grand assault? From back in March?” he tried.

“Come in.”

Norris pushed the door open and stepped through. Veronica held back for a moment, listening.

“Sorry to interrupt you, Sheriff. I’ve got some lady here who says she knows who did it.”

“What the hell are you waiting for, Clayton? Send her in.”

Veronica stepped into the doorway, jazz hands held aloft. “Ta-da!”

Instantly, a dark flush moved through Lamb’s cheeks, his lips twisting into the kind of sneer most people reserved for shit on their shoes.

“You,” he said, his voice low and venomous. It was with great self-control that she refrained from answering, “Me!”

“Look, Lamb…”

“Get. Her. Out,” he spat, biting down on each word as though he was ripping the sentence apart with his teeth.

“Listen to me for just a second!” She put her hands on his desk. “I have information on an open case. A big one.”

“Like I’m going to trust Little Miss Frivolous Lawsuit.” He turned to Norris. “She’s a snake in the grass, Clayton. Anything she gives us is going to be poison. Get her out of here, and if she comes back, slap her with a false-reporting charge.”

Norris hesitated. “You want me to take her report before I throw her out, Sheriff?”

“Fine.” Veronica took a step back from Norris, holding up her hands in surrender. “I’ll go. But do yourself a favor and run a luminol test in room 3031 in the Neptune Grand. I guarantee you, you’ll find blood evidence there.”

She turned to the door and made to leave. Lamb’s voice came in a short, sharp bark behind her.

“Wait.”

She stopped in her tracks, forcing the cynical smile off her face. When she turned, Lamb was leaning forward on one forearm, listening.

“I thought we already had DNA evidence in that case,” he said.

“We do. And it’s a match with my suspect. But he’s claiming the sex was consensual.” She hesitated. He’ll find out sooner or later anyway. “The victim’s a call girl. The San Diego PD took the guy in for questioning, but his lawyer had him out in less than an hour. He’s saying she was fine when she left his room, that someone else attacked her after he’d already had consensual sex with her. Everyone knows he’s lying but San Diego’s not looking any deeper. Now, of course, the crime’s in your jurisdiction, so you could prove the crime occurred in his room and get a warrant for his phone, his computer…”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Lamb shook his head. “You’re out of your mind if you think I’m biting on that. A prostitute?”

“Who was raped,” she said. “And strangled. And beaten so violently she had a two-week hospital stay.”

A slow, ugly smile spread over Lamb’s face.

“Yeah, but, I mean, if she’s a prostitute, it’s not rape so much as shoplifting, right?”

Norris stiffened beside her. For a moment Veronica couldn’t draw a breath. She stared across the desk, her vision sharpening to a single point: Lamb’s sneering face.

“A girl almost died, Lamb. And you know as well as I do that sexual predators don’t stop until they’re caught. When this guy ends up killing someone you consider worthy of justice—because he will—I’m going to make sure everyone knows you refused to investigate him.”

She turned and walked out of his office, slamming the door behind her.

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 579