Wherever She Goes (ARC)

by Kelley Armstrong

  So we drink, and we talk. Mostly about the case. A little about Charlotte. Nothing about us. When it’s time to retire, I take the futon and he heads upstairs to bed.

  I am in the car where my mother died. I see her reach for me. Feel her hand wrapping around mine. Hear her tell me it’ll be all right, that someone will come.

  I know no one will come. I see her smiling at me, and I know she will die if I don’t help. I know I could wriggle out of my seat. I’ve done it before. I’m not supposed to, but I could. Yet I don’t.

  I don’t escape and go for help. I don’t scream for someone to come. I don’t scream for someone to save my mother. I just sit there . . . and I watch her die.

  The nightmare stutters to a stop. Rewinds. Starts over.

  This time she begs for help. This time she undoes my seat so I can get free. This time the car door lolls open, giving me no excuse, and she’s begging, begging, me to go for help.

  I ignore her. I pick up a toy, and I play with it, and I ignore her.

  Inside my head, I’m screaming at myself to do something. Screaming so loud. But all I do is play with that damned toy, and I want to knock it from my hands and—

  “Aubrey? Aubrey.”

  A hand grips my shoulder, and I think someone’s there. Someone’s come to save my mother.

  Someone has finally come.

  The hand squeezes, and my eyes fly open, and it’s Paul. He’s crouched beside the futon, his hand on my shoulder.

  I scramble up, looking around, blood rushing in my ears and drowning out his words.

  Nightmare. He’s telling me I was having a nightmare.

  I know that. But it doesn’t matter. I’m still shaking and gasping for breath.

  “I’m okay,” I say. I’m not, but I say it anyway.

  “You were calling for your mother,” he says. “For someone to help your mother.” He wipes a finger over my cheek, and I realize it’s hot and wet with tears. “It was about the accident, wasn’t it?”

  “I didn’t get help. She unbuckled me and told me to go get help and . . .” I squeeze my eyes shut. “No, that’s not how it happened. Or, I don’t think that’s . . .”

  “It isn’t,” he says. “I read the police report. You were buckled in your seat, which was jammed shut by the accident.”

  “I could have wiggled out. I could have—”

  “Bree?” He puts a hand on each shoulder, turning me to look at him. “You couldn’t have. Your mother would have never expected you to. You were barely two.”

  “No one came,” I say. “She was there all night. She was alive all night. They could see the car in the field. And no one stopped.”

  His arms go around me, and I collapse into them, sobbing.

  Over breakfast, Paul asks whether I’ve heard from Ellie.

  I shake my head. “She never called back. I hope that means she contacted the police and doesn’t need my help. She only reached out once, in hopes . . .” I shake my head, gaze on my plate, and I don’t finish.

  “She reached out in hope,” he says.

  I nod, and I sip my coffee.

  “You want to help her,” he says. “You feel bad about refusing.”

  I shrug and keep drinking.

  “That’s what the nightmare was about,” he says. “No one stopped for your mother. No one helped. And now you feel like you’re doing that with Brandon.”

  I take a deep breath. “Rationally, I know better. He’s not lost in a field, with no one looking for him. Ellie knows he’s gone. She’s his aunt. It’s her responsibility to call the police.”

  He eats quietly for a moment. Then he says, “If you want to contact her, that wouldn’t be a bad idea. Try to convince her she can trust Officer Jackson. If she still won’t . . .” He takes a deep breath. “I need to work at the office this morning, but I’m taking the afternoon off. Whatever you do about Ellie, please don’t physically investigate until I’m here. I know you can look after yourself, but I can watch your back. I’d like to watch your back.”

  I agree.

  Before Paul leaves, he tells me I should take a nap.

  “I know you won’t,” he says. “But you had a rough night, so I’m going to suggest it anyway. If you’re calling Ellie, maybe wait a bit. Give her time to wake up and realize she needs to contact the police.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “You gave Officer Jackson Orbec’s gun, right?” he asks.

  I nod.

  “Then since you have the day off, I’ll ask you to stay in with the security system set. Obviously, you can tell me where to stick my advice . . .”

  I smile. “I’d never do that. But yes, I know it’s just a suggestion. A wise one. I’m going to spend the morning online. I won’t hack anything from the home Wi-Fi, though.”

  “Hack?”

  “Er, sorry. I meant—”

  He presses a finger to my lips. “You meant hack. I get it. Maybe someday you’ll explain that part, but for now, as long as you don’t ‘hack’ government security, I’m not too worried about it. We have an open Wi-Fi channel. If anyone reports hacking, I’ll blame it on Mrs. McDonnell next door.”

  “Eighty-year-old invalid Mrs. McDonnell?”

  “She needs a way to spend her time.”

  I laugh. “Okay. I’ll be careful, though. I’ll mask the IP.”

  He shakes his head. “I’m not even going to ask what that means. I’ll be home by one, and I’ll bring lunch. Be safe.”

  He leans forward to give me a goodbye kiss, as he did every morning of our marriage. Then he stops and pulls back, mumbling something.

  I kiss his cheek, a quick peck. “Old habit, I know. If this gets too cozy for you, just say the word. I can stay in a hotel.”

  He gives me an awkward, one-arm hug. “It’s fine. I’ll rest better with you here.”

  “You know I appreciate it.”

  “I do. Now arm the system as soon as I leave.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  * * *

  I don’t nap, of course. I couldn’t sleep even if I wanted to. I have a job to do, which will keep me from fretting about many things . . . including the fact that I may not have an actual job. I told Paul that I have the day off. That’s true. It’s just not a scheduled one.

  I called Ingrid last night to tell her that I’d reported the video incident, and I gave her Laila’s number to follow up on that. She said that was fine . . . but that my job was under review for “other reasons,” and I should stay home until they decided the future of my employment with the Oxford Central Library.

  I pull up the video from yesterday’s threat. I keep feeling like I should be able to get something from it. That’s not my area of expertise, though. I analyze the metadata, but there’s nothing useful there. I already knew the date and the location and there was little more I could gather from the data. On to the video itself then. It’s less than three minutes long, which makes it easy to parse and view frame by frame.

  I hope for some secret in those frames. I don’t know what. A reflection of the videographer in a window? A glimpse of his shadow, with some distinctive hair or headgear? Ridiculous, I know, but I still look. The problem is that it’s a distance shot, with nothing in the videographer’s immediate surroundings.

  I see Charlotte and Mrs. Mueller and Becky and the dog. At one point, another woman and her child join, and I think I recognize her. I can ask Paul if he does and find out whether she saw anything untoward. Otherwise, it’s just a video of the park, with a house in the background and two cars parked on the street.

  One of the cars catches my eye. I zoom in. The playground doesn’t have a parking lot—people walk to it or they park on the street. There are two cars clearly in the video. The one that grabbed my attention is farther down, and the video only includes the back end.

  I’ve seen that car before. I can’t make out the make or model, but the rear bumper tweaks a memory. It’s a luxury sedan in a neighborhood full of luxury sedans. I must recognize
it because I’ve seen it around before.

  Still, I screenshot the image for later, along with one of the neighbor and her son, for Paul to follow up on.

  Next comes the phone number. For that, I do need to hack. It turns out to belong to a prepaid—surprise! I trace back to the call records. It was activated yesterday morning, and it has sent two videos—one to me and Paul—and four texts, all to us. That’s it. No calls. No other texts.

  I stare at that meager call log . . . and it reminds me about something. The calls on Kim’s phone. I’d traced a few, including Ellie’s, but there’s the one that came in while I was with her in the park and a couple of times before that.

  Time for more hacking. This one’s easier than I expected, and I kick myself for not digging deeper before now. When a simple search hadn’t returned an owner, I presumed it was prepaid. Yet when I dig, I come up with an actual account . . . one owned by Hugh Orbec. I look for the call I heard him make Saturday night, when I was in the closet at Zodiac Five, but it’s not there. That suggests two phones: personal and business.

  Why would Hugh Orbec be so careless, using his personal phone to call Kim?

  Or had someone else used it? Denis Zima could probably get access to Orbec’s cell phone. Was he setting up his old friend? I don’t know. But I do make note of other numbers that called and texted with Orbec’s phone. I’m doing that when my alarm goes off, telling me it’s 11 A.M. Time to phone Ellie, having given her plenty of time to wake up and realize she needs to get the police involved.

  That’s how I greet her. Not with “Hello” or “Good morning,” but “It’s Aubrey. Have you called the police yet?”

  She hasn’t. She’s absolutely convinced that if she involves them, Brandon will suffer. I try to convince her to speak to Laila Jackson. It doesn’t work.

  “If they didn’t believe you, they won’t believe me,” she says. “You’re a librarian. I’m a stay-at-home mom from South Dakota.”

  “You’re Brandon’s aunt. You know him. The police can’t say you hallucinated a nephew.”

  “And then what? Where will they go from there? Whoever has Brandon murdered Kim. They’ll kill him too if the cops rush in.”

  “So what are you going to do?” I ask. “Just hope they’ll take good care of him?”

  “Of course not. I’m hiring a private investigator. I’ve found someone. I just need to figure out how to cover his retainer. It’s . . . more than I expected. But I can do it.”

  I struggle to keep the impatience from my voice. “Any PI worth his salt would tell you to contact the police. Private investigators are a last resort, when the police won’t get involved. If he’s not telling you that, he just wants your money. How much is the retainer?”

  “Five thousand.”

  “What? No. That’s crazy.”

  “How much would you charge?”

  “Me?” I sputter. “I’m not a private investigator. I’m a librarian, like you said—”

  “Which means you’re smart. Detective work might not be your job, but you’re really good at it. You identified Kim. You found out who Brandon’s dad is, and even I didn’t know that. You are—”

  “—not a private eye.”

  “But I’d pay you.”

  “I don’t need money.”

  Silence.

  I should wish her luck and sign off. Let me know how it goes! I’ll cross my fingers for you!

  I can’t do that. Physically cannot.

  I take a deep breath. “Can I get that address? The one Kim gave you?”

  She gives it.

  “Let me do some digging,” I say. “I’ll get back to you. If you decide to contact Officer Jackson, please do that and let me know. But hold off on hiring a PI and spending five grand you don’t have. Please.”

  Not surprisingly, there’s no public listing for the owner of that house. Still, obtaining the owner of record is easy enough through property taxes. But that requires doing exactly what Paul asked me not to—hacking into government servers. I’ll wait for Paul on that. In the meantime, this triggers another thought. Kim must have been in contact with whomever she asked to take Brandon.

  A scan of her prepaid call record identifies the most likely number. It’s one she dialed twice in the days before her death. One call was made on the Friday, and then one shortly after she spoke to Hugh Orbec—or whoever used his phone. The initial one was short, as if she was reaching out.

  I may be in trouble. I may need your help.

  The second is longer, as if it was the planning call. Orbec had made contact, presumably threatening Kim, given what I’d heard of the exchange. She realizes then that she must enact her plan with Brandon, and she places the second call.

  I try to trace that phone number, but I have no luck.

  Paul gets home shortly after that. He’s brought lunch and a sympathetic ear as I vent my frustration. First, he takes what action he can, by asking his assistant to investigate the tax situation on that house. Then he just listens.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I say.

  “What do you want to do?”

  I shake my head. “That doesn’t matter. I already endangered Charlie doing what I wanted to do.”

  “No, some thug threatened Charlie to scare you off. Whoever these people are, Aubrey, they’re not going to kidnap your daughter. It was empty posturing. But, in the event that it wasn’t, we’ve removed our daughter from the equation. She’s safe.”

  I nod, but I don’t say anything.

  “You’re right about the private eye,” Paul continues. “He’s scamming Ellie. You’re also right to keep pushing her toward Officer Jackson. Eventually, she will have to make that call. If, in the meantime, you want to keep digging, I don’t see any problem with that. As long as ‘digging’ doesn’t mean marching to that club to confront Denis Zima.”

  I chuckle. “I’m not that stupid.”

  He takes another plate of pad Thai. “On that note, I also had my clerk dig into the Zimas. It’s an interesting situation, and I’m not sure what to make of it. Denis’s father definitely has ties to organized crime. It’s the kind of scenario where everyone knows he’s breaking the law, and no one can prove it. They even tried doing an Al Capone by going after him for tax evasion. He’s very, very careful. He has good connections to the Russian mob through his wife’s family. So Denis grew up right in the heart of that. There are all kinds of rumors about his old strip club in LA. The most pervasive was that it wasn’t just selling underage strippers, but underage girls themselves.”

  “Prostitution?”

  “More like sex slavery.”

  “Do you think Kim was part of that?”

  He takes a bite of his food before answering. “On the surface, that makes sense. Teenage girl starts dancing in his club and then gets together with him. It seems very . . . suspect.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “But I’m not sure it’s as cut-and-dried as it seems. Kim stayed with Zima after he closed the club. And he’s the one who closed it. The rumor is that he had a falling-out with his parents and decided to go straight.”

  “He closed the strip club and started the Zodiacs.”

  “It’s more than that. Apparently, he started to cut a deal with the feds, turning on his parents. He told the feds that he had information. He asked for witness protection for himself and Kim. She was using another name at the time, but it was clearly her. They were brokering a deal with him when he backed out. He said he’d made a mistake, and he didn’t have anything for them.”

  “Was it grandstanding? He wanted something from his parents so he threatened to expose them?”

  “Possibly. That’s a dangerous way to get a bigger allowance, though. It’s more likely that he realized the danger. Either way, it looks as if Brandon was born about ten months later.”

  “Which probably means he didn’t go straight after all. She ran and hid her baby for five years. She knew Zima was dangerous.”

  “I’d agree. Throu
ghout all that, Hugh Orbec was at his side. He’s definitely Zima’s right-hand man . . . whatever business Zima is into these days.”

  We talk some more. I pull up the still images from the video of Charlie. He recognizes the mother and boy, and he says he’ll talk to them, see whether they noticed anyone hanging around the park or videotaping nearby. When I show him the photo of the car, he chuckles at first, and says, “Lots of those around here. Probably a lot in Denis Zima’s world, too. I could try to find out what he and Orbec drive. Do you have a better shot of it? I can’t see much from that angle.”

  “No, this is it.”

  I zoom in. “Do you recognize it?” I say.

  He pauses, lips pressed. “Possibly? I’m not sure. Leave it with me.”

  I’m making coffee when Paul’s law clerk gets back to him. The house is a secondary address owned by a Chicago woman named Elizabeth Kenner.

  I look up Kenner. She’s a retired social worker, active in several youth organizations. She’s been living in Chicago for seven years. And before that? She’s from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Where Kim and Ellie grew up.

  I call Ellie. When I tell her the name, she’s quiet for a moment. Then she says, “Yes! Of course. Beth. She was Kimmy’s outreach worker. Before Kimmy left, she had some problems. Our dad . . .”

  “There were problems,” I say when she trails off. “Between him and Kim.”

  “Him and all of us, but Kimmy got the worst of it. She was tough, and the tougher she got, the harder he . . .” She inhales sharply. “It was bad. I didn’t realize how bad because I moved out when she was still a kid. Anyway, Kimmy got into trouble, and she was assigned a youth outreach worker. That was Beth. I met her a bunch of times in hopes I could help.”

  She describes the woman she remembers, and it matches the photographs of Elizabeth Kenner.

  “That makes sense, doesn’t it?” Ellie says. “My sister trusted Beth. When she needed help, she might have contacted her. Kimmy might even have moved to Chicago because of her.”

  “It does make sense,” I say.

  “Then we need to speak to Beth. Do you have an address?”