Lost Hills (Eve Ronin Book 1)

by Lee Goldberg

  It was a question packed with land mines. “If you want a comment, you’ll rephrase the question.”

  Darrow forced a smile and took a different approach. “We’ve heard from various sources that an extremely violent crime occurred in that house and that the family who lives there is missing. Is it an abduction or something worse?”

  That was a fair question. “For now, all I can say is that Tanya Kenworth and her two children, Caitlin and Troy, are missing. We’d like anyone who has seen or had contact with them in the last forty-eight hours to call our toll-free tip line.”

  “Do you believe they have been seriously injured?”

  Eve ignored the question, got into her car, and drove off. Not that evading the question made any difference. Eve was certain that Darrow already knew the answers to all the questions that she’d asked . . . and so would everybody who would be watching.

  And Darrow knew that, too.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Eve went back to the empty squad room and laid out what she knew about the crime across several dry-erase boards. She started by creating a timeline, adding the information they had to it and illustrating the facts with printouts of her crime scene photos, a headshot of Tanya’s that Eve downloaded from the extra’s casting agency, and pictures of Caitlin and Troy that Duncan got from their school.

  Her phone vibrated in her pocket. She took it out and saw MOM on the caller ID. Eve surprised herself by answering the call. “Hey, Mom, I’m kind of busy right now.”

  “I just saw you on the news,” Jen said. She had a scratchy voice that men found sexy but that Eve knew came from cigarettes and alcohol. Eve could swear that she smelled the cigarettes through the phone. “Kate Darrow is a knockout. She looks like an actress playing a reporter.”

  “It’s the boobs,” Eve said, feeling her shoulder muscles becoming rebar.

  “At least she knows how to use hers.”

  “I’m a cop, Mom. It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to dress like that unless I was going undercover as an escort.”

  “You looked like a hobo next to her. You don’t appreciate how lucky you are to be getting so much screen time.”

  “I don’t want it.” Eve knew it infuriated her mother to hear her throwing away something that Jen always wanted and considered priceless.

  “The camera loves her and it could love you, too, if you made an effort. It takes two seconds to put on lip gloss and you can do wonders with concealer.”

  “I don’t carry makeup with me on the job.”

  “Would it have killed you to take off the hat?”

  “I really don’t have time for this, Mom. You saw the news. I’m in the middle of a homicide investigation.”

  “I’m well aware of what you’re doing. I was on the FBI’s Criminal Behavior Task Force.”

  “You wore an FBI windbreaker and stood in the background on a Criminal Minds episode. It’s not the same thing.”

  “It still haunts me,” she said.

  Eve saw Deputy Ross walk in with a stack of papers. “I have to go, Mom. Love you. Bye.”

  Ross dropped the papers on the table beside her. “Here are the reports from the canvas of the neighborhood and a list of license plates from the cars parked at the Topanga Park trailheads.”

  “Anything come up?” She rolled her shoulders, trying to loosen the rigid muscles.

  “I spoke to a woman who says her son rode home on the school bus yesterday with Caitlin and Troy,” Ross said. “When they got to their stop on Entrada, the kid saw them walking home like they always do. That would’ve been about two fifteen.”

  “Thanks, that’s very helpful.” Eve was tempted to ask him for a shoulder rub or maybe something more. She’d noticed his strong hands and warm smile. Those could melt the rebar but that wasn’t a real option.

  The deputy walked out and Eve added the information about the kids to the timeline. She picked up the stack of reports and took them to her cubicle so she could go through them. That’s when Captain Moffett came in.

  “I saw you on the news,” he said. “I’m not happy about it.”

  “I couldn’t avoid Darrow and I thought a ‘no comment’ answer to her question would confirm what she said about a bloodbath and they’d run with that.”

  “You made the right call.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “Look at yourself, Ronin. Your jacket and pants are filthy, there’s a stain on your blouse, and that baseball cap makes you look like a teenager. It reflects badly on the department.”

  She was tempted to ask if her mother had called him, too, but instead she said: “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “Go home, take a shower, get some sleep, and come back tomorrow in a clean set of clothes. Maybe keep a spare set in your locker.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The captain headed for the door, then paused before walking out. “I’ve ordered a search party with dogs to start going through the woods around the house tomorrow morning.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “You just told the world that the family was slaughtered and we have nothing to go on.”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  “That’s what everybody heard and what we all know is true. The sooner we find the corpses, the faster we’ll find the killer.”

  He continued out the door. She stood there for a moment, thinking about what the captain said, and about why she was wearing the baseball cap. She’d forgotten it was still there and realized now that taking it off was going to be a painful problem. It was stuck to her hair with blood.

  She took out her phone and texted her sister, Lisa, who was an ER nurse at West Hills Hospital, which was about six miles north of Calabasas.

  Could you drop by my place when your shift is over? Bring your first aid kit.

  She left the building by the rear exit, where her ten-speed bike was parked, along with all the squad cars, the mobile command center, the helicopter, and everybody’s personal vehicles.

  Eve put on her helmet carefully over her baseball cap, got on her bike, and rode off, heading east on Agoura Road. She crossed Lost Hills Road and continued on toward Las Virgenes Road, better known by the locals as Malibu Canyon. Along the way, she passed by a shopping center, the Good Nite Inn, and several office buildings, none taller than three stories so nothing would obscure the views of the open hills to the north and east.

  When Eve reached Las Virgenes, she turned left and cycled across the 101 freeway overpass to the residential area on the other side. There were undeveloped hills to her left and three townhouse condominium complexes to her right. She lived in a two-story unit on the street. Her windows faced the charred hills and blackened oaks that burned a year ago in a wildfire that started thirty miles north in Stevenson Ranch and was blown west by the hot Santa Ana winds before being put out at the freeway.

  She got off her bike at the curb, wheeled it to the front door, and brought it inside, parking it in her entry hall at the base of the stairs. Her living room walls were bare and the dinette set, coffee table, couch, and entertainment center all came from IKEA.

  Eve went upstairs to her bedroom and stripped out of her clothes, but she kept on her cap. The dried blood in her hair had stuck to it and she didn’t want to pull any hair out. She got into the shower, stuck her head under the hot water, then eased the wet cap off her head, only losing a few hairs in the process.

  The water was scalding, just how she liked it, but the water flow was weak, part of the state’s efforts to conserve water during what was becoming a permanent drought. She shampooed her hair and saw the red swirling amid the white foam at her feet. It brought back unsettling images of Tanya’s bloody bathroom.

  She stepped out of the shower and dried off, looking at her reflection in the full-length mirror on the bathroom door. The bruise on her flat stomach was a deep, angry purple. She pressed her ribs, took some deep breaths, and feeling no sharp pains, satisfied herself that nothing was broken. She got out som
e cotton swabs and rubbing alcohol and gently cleaned the wound on her head.

  Eve slipped on a tank top and sweats and went downstairs, where her sister was standing at the kitchen counter, still in her blue nursing scrubs, eating chocolate ice cream out of a container. This was not the first time Lisa had let herself into Eve’s place.

  Lisa and Eve shared their mother’s piercing blue eyes but not much else, thanks to having different fathers. Lisa was shorter, rounder, though not chubby, and had curly black hair.

  “You look better than you did on TV tonight,” Lisa said.

  Now it was official. Everybody thought she looked terrible. “How did you see it at work?”

  Lisa handed the spoon to Eve, who carved out a chunk of chocolate ice cream for herself. “It was on in the waiting room. They said a single mother and her two little kids disappeared and that there’s blood all over the house.”

  “I wish that stuff about the crime scene hadn’t come out yet.” Eve gave Lisa the spoon and her sister took another bite. They continued sharing the spoon back-and-forth as they talked. “But I suppose it could be worse.”

  “It could?”

  “Much worse. You don’t want to know.”

  “They also mentioned that the mother was an aspiring actress.”

  “Isn’t everybody in LA?” Eve asked.

  “Tell me she doesn’t remind you of Mom and that you aren’t seeing me and Kenny in those missing kids.”

  “I haven’t had a chance to think about the similarities.”

  That was a lie. The parallels were striking and she couldn’t help but see her herself in Caitlin, which made the gruesome murders even more horrible to contemplate.

  “But you’re feeling them,” Lisa said, “which is why you asked me to make a house call.”

  Lisa was always attuned to the emotions at play in a situation, which is why she got hurt so easily by tension in the house when they were growing up. It was also why Eve had felt such a strong need to minimize the strife around them any way she could. But it was a futile effort. Eve was undermined by her mom’s irrational behavior at every turn.

  “Actually, what I’m feeling is a headache and, thanks to the ER stories you’ve told me, I’m worried about the risk of a subdural hematoma.”

  “Were you hit on the head today?”

  “Yes,” Eve said. “With a rock.”

  “How hard?”

  “I might have passed out for a minute or two.”

  “Damn it.” Lisa took the spoon and the ice cream away from Eve. “Sit down.”

  Eve took a seat at the kitchen table. Lisa rummaged angrily in her purse, took out a penlight, and shined it into Eve’s eyes.

  “Why didn’t you go to the hospital?” Lisa asked.

  “There was too much happening with the investigation,” she said. “But I did ask an ER nurse to come to my house with a first aid kit.”

  “When you say that, it usually means ice cream and a sympathetic ear, not medical supplies,” Lisa said. “Look right and then left without moving your head.”

  Eve did as she was told. Lisa put down the penlight and held a finger up in front of Eve’s face.

  “Now follow my finger.” Lisa moved her finger from left to right, then up and down. “What day is it?”

  “Thursday.”

  Lisa lowered her finger. “What was the name of the director Mom dated with the ’70s porn star mustache?”

  “Hank Bloom.”

  “How many times has Mom had a boob job?”

  “Three,” Eve said. “Why are you asking me all these questions?”

  “I’m checking your mental acuity.” Lisa examined the wound on Eve’s head. “It doesn’t look like you need any stitches. When was your last tetanus shot?”

  “Two years ago when I got that dog bite.”

  “I think you’ll live,” Lisa said. “What about the woman and kids you’re looking for?”

  “They’re dead,” Eve said. “We just haven’t found their bodies yet.”

  Lisa gave her sister a long, appraising look. “Don’t make this case personal, Eve, though it’s laughable for me to say that.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Eve picked up the spoon and started working on the ice cream again.

  “You don’t have to be Dr. Phil to know why you became a cop. You’ve been trying to impose order on Mom and the world and take care of everybody since you were born. This case is going to play you.”

  “Dr. Phil is an asshole,” Eve said. “His name, and the fact that he is on TV, should tell you all you need to know. What real doctor would drop his last name and analyze patients in front of a studio audience? Only an asshole.”

  “I think you’re missing the point,” Lisa said. “Or purposely avoiding it.”

  “Why did you become a nurse?”

  “Probably the same reason you became a cop—to make up for something I was missing in my life. Someone to take care of me.”

  “I took care of you,” she said.

  “I was also emulating a terrific role model. People are complicated.”

  “Not according to Dr. Phil.”

  Lisa gave Eve a hug. “I’m going home to bed. You should get some sleep now, too.”

  “I can spare three hours for a quick nap.”

  “You just said the family is dead.”

  Eve sighed. “But the killer isn’t.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Lisa was barely out the door when Eve changed her mind about the nap. Sleeping wouldn’t move the case forward. All the talking about her mom made Eve think about family. It nagged at her that she hadn’t spoken face-to-face with Cleve Kenworth, Tanya’s ex-husband and the father of the kids. He was the closest relative to those dead kids. The Merced Police had talked to him but she hadn’t looked him in the eye. She decided it would be an investigative mistake if she didn’t meet with him as soon as possible.

  Merced was 273 miles north of Calabasas in California’s Central Valley, a straight shot up Interstate 5 and Highway 99 and there would be almost no traffic at this time of night. If she drove at ninety miles an hour, it would take her three hours to get there. That was a much better use of her time than sleep.

  So she got dressed, rode her bike to the Lost Hills station, checked out a plain-wrap Explorer, and headed for Merced. She lit up the flashers behind the front grille and put the magnetized swirling bubble light up on the roof so everybody, particularly any California Highway Patrol cars hiding in speed traps, would see her coming.

  Eve slowed only to go down the Grapevine, the winding route out of the Tehachapi Mountains into the southern-most end of the San Joaquin Valley, because it was dangerous even at normal speeds and there was a big CHP weigh station at the bottom. Racing past the CHP station, unless she was in hot pursuit of a felon, would have been obnoxious and just asking for trouble.

  Once she hit the valley, the freeway split off into a continuation of Interstate 5, heading up the sparsely populated western edge, and the older Highway 99, which went straight up the center and hit all the major agricultural communities, from Bakersfield to Sacramento. Eve took the 99, a journey through vast expanses of pitch-black farmland where half of the nation’s fruits, vegetables, and nuts were grown. At least for now, she thought. After years of drought, the underground aquifers were being sucked dry and the crops were baking. Soon, the valley could be a dust bowl.

  To stay awake, she cranked up the AC to keep herself uncomfortably chilled and listened to one of Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch crime novels. Bosch was an LAPD detective who, over a thirty-year career that spanned about as many books, solved one major murder after another and yet his bosses still doubted his skill and integrity, regularly undermined his work, and repeatedly investigated him for misconduct. It frustrated her even more than it did him. His problem, she thought, was that he didn’t know how to play politics. She’d already proven that she could. Now she had to prove she could do the job.

  Eve arrived in Merced at 4:3
0 a.m. She drove up G Street, past the unoccupied storefronts downtown, under the railroad tracks, and across the dry creek to the bedroom side of town. The shopping centers and homes became more suburban looking the closer she got to the new University of California campus.

  Cleve’s neighborhood was full of recently built Spanish-Mediterranean tract houses with FOR SALE and FOR RENT signs in their dead lawns. His home was one of the few without a sign and had an old Chevy Malibu in the driveway. She parked in front of Cleve’s dark house, shut off her engine, and closed her eyes for a moment.

  Eve was awakened by someone rapping a knuckle on the driver’s side window. The sun was up, though only barely, and a white guy in a bathrobe and pajamas was standing beside her car, a newspaper tucked under his arm. He was in his thirties, about six feet tall with a paunch, and had dark circles under bloodshot eyes. She rolled down the window.

  “Yes?” she said. “Can I help you?”

  “I was just wondering why a police officer is parked in front of my house at six in the morning,” he said.

  “How do you know I’m a police officer?” she asked. The man took the bubble light off the top of her car and handed it to her. She forgot she’d left it up there. “Are you Cleve Kenworth?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “I’m Detective Eve Ronin from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. I’d like to talk with you.”

  “You drove all the way up here last night?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I got in about an hour or so ago.”

  “You should have knocked on the door when you got here.”

  “I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “I haven’t been able to sleep. I just sat in the recliner all night, thinking about where Caty and Troy might be.” He wiped a tear from his eye. Now she knew why they were so bloodshot.

  “Can I come in?”

  He looked back at the house, then at her. “My girlfriend and her kids are up now. Tell you what. I’ll meet you at Paul’s Place in ten minutes. It’s a coffee shop on G Street.”

  “I’ll find it,” she said.

  She watched Cleve, his shoulders slouched, shuffle back into the house. He was carrying a lot of sadness and she knew he’d soon be carrying a lot more.