Bare Girl

by Bella Forrest

  Erin had to cough a couple of times to keep her voice from trembling as much as her body.

  “Thanks, Dad, I need to go now. I’ll see you soon.”

  “Oh, aren’t you coming over tonight?”

  “No, Dad, I’m in New York on a case. I’ll call tomorrow.”

  They said their goodbyes and Erin curled up on her bed for a long time, feeling cold as her mind raced.

  At last she sat up and wiped her eyes. She knew she’d be useless for any work tonight, and wouldn’t be able to sleep, making her doubly useless tomorrow. She didn’t even want to think what kind of dreams she’d get if she did manage to nod off.

  She grabbed her bottle of sleeping pills and took a double dose. Drugs weren’t her thing, even legal ones, but sometimes there was too much at stake and you had to get your rest.

  This was one of those times.

  Erin woke up groggy. She rubbed her eyes and took a look at the clock. Nine-thirty a.m. She was usually up and ready for work by seven. In her chaotic mental state of the previous night she had forgotten to set her alarm.

  Wisps of memory and fragments of dream floated through her half-awake mind. She tamped them down. She didn’t have time for them right now.

  She made herself a cup of coffee at the kitchenette. As the coffee brewed she checked her phone. She felt a tug of disappointment to see that Eddie hadn’t called.

  Captain Wilson had left a voice message, though. His voice sounded haggard. It seemed like he hadn’t chosen to get some sleep. Erin felt a bit guilty that she had.

  “Hello, Mrs. Bond. There still hasn’t been a message from the kidnapper. We’re running on the assumption that it’s either an estranged fan or some other hater. The cybercrime unit is analyzing her social media feeds and have isolated several individuals who have repeatedly sent her hate messages over a long period of time. We’re prioritizing those whose messages have been getting more frequent and violent. So far nothing firm, but it’s a good lead.

  “Also we’ve been checking out various employees at Isabel Enterprises. Nothing firm coming from that, either. Seems like a cold lead but still worth checking out, of course. I’d like to hear what you’ve come up with. Please call me as soon as you get up.”

  Erin gritted her teeth when she saw he’d left this message at eight-thirty. She’d have to think of an excuse to explain why she hadn’t been around to pick up the phone or answer the message promptly.

  Depression clutched her, threatening to drag her down. She had literally been sleeping on the job. Isabel could be dead in a ditch right now. Considering that there hadn’t been any ransom note, that seemed quite likely.

  But no, Eddie had said there was time. Not much time, just some. How could he know that? If the kidnapper really was one of the other children, they would have their own narrative to work through. Their own set of instructions from twenty-five years ago.

  What could those be? She needed to learn more about the man who had taken them. If she understood his psychology, perhaps she could figure out what the kidnapper planned to do.

  She picked up the phone, tempted to call Eddie. She took a deep breath, dialed the first number, and then stopped and dropped her phone on the bed, sobbing with frustration. Prince Eddie would be angry if she called him. Prince Eddie didn’t like being defied.

  Erin slumped on the bed, feeling like she was five years old again.

  She thought through everything he had told her the day before, sifting through all those terrifying revelations to find any clues about what had happened to Isabel.

  Wait, what was that he’d said?

  “You should look at those close to Isabel. And don’t go looking for names of children lost and found in England a couple of decades ago. The person who did this was instructed to change their name.”

  So had someone been programmed to get close to a celebrity and kidnap her? She and the police were already investigating the employees. Erin supposed that Isabel’s celebrity lovers could be included in that too, but you couldn’t simply instruct someone to become famous. It took a lot of luck as well as effort. So it was much more likely to be an employee.

  But how could this all be arranged to correspond to the time and place where Erin could be brought into the case? There was no way her abductor could have known Erin’s father would end up getting a job at Brown University years after Erin was freed.

  That left two possibilities. The first was that Eddie had been keeping tabs on Erin, which he had already admitted to, and sent instructions to the person to move to the East Coast too and get into the entertainment industry. The second was that the abductor had kept tabs on Erin’s career, moved across the Atlantic after she did, and arranged to kidnap Isabel when she was close enough for Eddie to rope Erin into the case.

  Wait, there were two other possibilities. Eddie and the abductor could be working hand in hand and Eddie could already know where Isabel was being held, and was simply stringing Erin along. The other possibility was that Eddie was full of it, didn’t know a thing, and saw Isabel’s kidnapping shortly after Erin’s thirty-first birthday as the perfect chance to play mind games.

  Erin rubbed her temples. It was maddening. She couldn’t know anything for sure, because her one source of information was totally unreliable.

  And yet the first three possibilities all pointed to the same thing—look for someone close to Isabel.

  Someone. Not some man. Erin had a sharp memory, at least for things that happened in her adulthood, and she could remember their conversation in Central Park almost to the letter. Eddie had been careful never to say “he” when referring to the abductor. Was Eddie hinting that it could be a woman, or was he leaving a false trail? While the parking garage attendant had said the driver of the van had a moustache, he could have been mistaken or the kidnapper could have been wearing a disguise. Or perhaps Eddie was only being precise. He himself might not know which of the children had been instructed to do this.

  God, this was all too fantastic. Could the man with the old hands really have arranged all this twenty-five years ago?

  Her father’s words came back to her.

  “When the doctor told us you hadn’t been abused, at least in the worst way you could have been, I decided then and there that you should be a force for good in the world. Fighting for justice, as you say. So I encouraged you.”

  Vague words from a man losing his mind, and yet they cut her to the bone.

  They proved Eddie was at least partially telling the truth, and that a pair of dead old hands really was pulling the strings of her life.

  She felt like giving up her job and going into something else, anything else. Being a checkout girl at a supermarket would be better than following that monster’s instructions.

  Erin took a deep breath and tried to get a hold of herself. No, she couldn’t run away. She had been searching all her life for answers and now that they were finally coming, she had to face them.

  Someone’s life depended on it.

  Chapter 12

  Erin drank her coffee and wolfed down a Danish she had bought the evening before, and then called Captain Wilson. After making excuses about a medical emergency in the family to explain her late call, which was true enough as far as it went, she asked if there had been any further developments. There had been none. Complete silence from the kidnapper and no promising leads. The stolen van hadn’t been found. There would be another press conference in an hour. The police officer shared this last bit of information with a frustrated sigh. Erin pitied him. One of the world’s biggest stars had vanished without a trace and the police had no idea where she was. The media were going to rake him over the coals.

  “So what are your plans?” Captain Wilson asked, hopefully. Erin had to give him credit. Most police officers resented her coming in on an investigation, especially since she had developed a reputation for solving cases the police couldn’t. It looked like the captain was putting ego aside for the sake of the case, or out of a sheer sense o
f desperation.

  “I’d like to visit Ms. Morales’s apartment, if I may.”

  “That’s fine. Maybe you’ll see something we didn’t. There’s a maid there from ten to noon. We questioned her but she didn’t know anything. We have the phone tapped, of course, and instructed her to answer if anyone calls. There’s always a chance the kidnapper will call in order to gloat. So far no luck.”

  “I’ll head over right away,” Erin replied, thinking that with all the care the kidnapper had taken to avoid leaving any trace, he or she would be unlikely to make such a bold step. “It’ll help to have her there while I look around.”

  Captain Wilson gave her the address and added, “We have a couple of patrolmen guarding the entrance to keep journalists and the public out. I’ll call ahead to tell them to let you through.”

  Isabel Morales’s apartment was just as Erin had pictured it would be. It was a penthouse on the top floor of a tall building overlooking Central Park, accessed by a private elevator. A police officer stood by the door and let her in when she showed some ID. As she did, she heard the click of a camera from a reporter standing a few feet away. She hadn’t looked at the morning papers, but she didn’t need to. Erin had too much experience with the press to fool herself into thinking that they hadn’t all picked up on her involvement in the case and delved into her history. No doubt Benjamin Bridges from the Daily Review had sold some aspects of her interview to fellow journalists over drinks last night. They would fill in or make up the rest.

  As she got into the tiny private elevator, its fixtures gleaming with chrome and one wall taken up by a floor-to-ceiling mirror, she tried to get into Isabel’s head. This elevator was Isabel’s link to the outside world. Coming down this elevator in the morning she would do a final primp in this mirror and brace herself for another day under the spotlight. Instead of going to the lobby where Erin had entered, Isabel would probably go down to the underground garage and get into a waiting car. That way she could avoid the crowd that must linger outside her door even on normal days.

  Coming up in the evening she would be returning to her private haven, leaving the last of the photographers, interviewers and fans behind. Perhaps she would bring someone up with her. Isabel’s affairs were legendary and were a staple of every gossip magazine. So Isabel must not mind occasionally bringing work home, for every aspect of her private life was fodder for the press and added to her image. From what Erin had seen of her career, Isabel cultivated that image very carefully. And if she sometimes brought the outside world home with her, then there might be clues to how the outside world had managed to hurt her. It was worth a look, anyway, and at this point Erin and Captain Wilson were both clutching at straws.

  The basement parking garage made her think. If the abductor really was close to Isabel, he or she would know where Isabel lived. So why run the risk of going into Trident Tower at the last minute and kidnapping her there, hoping that she really would be taking a smoke break after the press conference? Wouldn’t it be more of a sure thing to kidnap her when she came down for work, or came back from a long night out?

  Erin recalled reading about the chauffeur in the police database. He was far too old to be one of the children, so maybe the abductor wanted to avoid the certainty of there being a witness. While there was a decent chance of there being a witness at Trident Tower as well, taking her there was more dramatic. Whisked away right after a tumultuous press conference after the boldest publicity stunt of Isabel’s career.

  Maybe the abductor wanted to make a statement.

  If the abductor really was one of Eddie’s father’s kidnapped children, he or she thought their motivations were their own, as Erin herself had assumed her motivations for becoming a private investigator were her own. The abductor thought there was a legitimate grievance against Isabel, and that grievance was tied to the Wall Street stunt.

  What Erin really needed was more information from Eddie. She knew that would only come when and where he wanted, though. She ground her teeth in helpless frustration to know that there would be no way to force him. She’d love to call the cops on him and have the smug manipulator thrown in a jail cell, but that would only mean she’d get no answers, even if she got the satisfaction of seeing him behind bars for obstructing justice at the least, and probably accessory to kidnapping.

  The elevator dinged and the doors slid open to a small foyer. An Impressionist landscape hung on one wall and a potted plant stood in a corner. A single door with a peephole stood before her.

  That door opened just as she was about to knock.

  A chunky Hispanic woman about Erin’s age nodded to her. She wore the white uniform of a maid. She looked worn out from stress and lack of sleep. A mole with hair coming out of it disfigured her upper lip.

  “You are the private investigator, yes?” she said with a Mexican accent. “I’m Carlotta, Isabel’s maid. Is there any news?”

  “I’m afraid not, no.”

  Carlotta shook her head, her double chin wobbling. “Poor girl. I always told her not to expose herself so much. I say no good would come from it. And now look what has happened! I knew that thing she do in Wall Street would get her in trouble.”

  Carlotta ushered her in and Erin looked around. From a short entrance hallway with a gold-framed mirror on one wall and an elegant retablo of some angel on the other, Erin came to a living room.

  Despite her professionalism and having seen some of the best and worst spots the world had to offer, Erin couldn’t help but stop and stare. The living room was bigger than her entire apartment back in Providence. It sprawled across half the penthouse, encompassing a couple of cozy spots of plush sofas and fireplaces (three of them!), an entertainment area with a huge flat screen that was almost big enough to pass as a movie theater, and a Jacuzzi that provided a view of Central park through floor-to-ceiling windows.

  Erin got the feeling that she had gone into the wrong line of work.

  She felt herself drawn to the window and the impressive skyline of New York City. Central Park lay spread out at her feet like a green carpet. She picked out the Metropolitan Museum of Art and her heart sank a little. She thought she could see the park bench where she and Eddie had sat the previous day.

  That sight reminded her of why she had come. Tearing herself away from the view, she faced Carlotta, who smiled shyly, eyes downcast. Erin couldn’t help but be struck at seeing such an ugly woman in the gorgeous apartment of one of the world’s hottest supermodels. Pushing that thought to one side as uncharitable, Erin smiled at her.

  “It is nice, yes?” Carlotta said.

  “It’s incredible,” Erin admitted. “The police gave me permission to look through the apartment to see if I could detect something they didn’t.”

  Carlotta nodded. “Yes, yes. They tell me not to move anything or throw anything away. I clean but leave everything the same. I don’t even clean the ashtrays.”

  Erin scanned the room and spotted two ashtrays with cigarettes in them, one at a coffee table and another by the Jacuzzi. She checked both and found all the cigarettes to be stained with the same shade of lipstick. She recognized the color as Isabel’s Cherry Red. Erin had a few of the Isabel line of cosmetics herself. Most women did.

  She had already read Captain Wilson’s report on the apartment, and according to the maid and doorman there hadn’t been any visitors for three nights before Isabel’s abduction. The ashtrays suggested this was true. Erin strayed to the bedroom and found a king-size bed with silk sheets and a mirrored ceiling.

  “She is such a good boss,” the maid said. Erin hadn’t realized Carlotta had followed her in. “Not arrogant at all like some people I have cleaned for. It is because she grew up poor, I think. I grew up poor too, but nothing like her. Back in Sonora we used to make jokes about her town. We say if a pig visit her town, he want to take a shower. No one say that now. She fix that place up real nice.”

  Erin scoured the room, not sure what she wanted to find but confident that she’
d know it when she saw it. Her job was like that. You’d look and look until something jumped out at you. Once she’d revealed that a worker who had sued for employment compensation really wasn’t using his crutches when she noticed that while he used them outside and the indentations were all over his downstairs carpet, there were no scuff marks on his bathroom floor. Another time she’d discovered who was sending threatening emails to a woman by noticing that the times they were sent changed from every morning to every evening, and discovered one of her ex-boyfriends had changed shifts at work. It was the details that revealed the solution to a case, and details took their own sweet time to emerge.

  Unfortunately, Isabel didn’t have time.

  Erin rummaged through her closet and drawers, peeked under the bed. Nothing looked out of order.

  “You are English, yes?” Carlotta asked, still standing by the doorway.

  “Yes,” Erin said, passing by her and going back to the living room. After a second look around there she headed to the kitchen. Here she found everything in order. There was an impressive array of cooking equipment. Glancing in the freezer, she noticed something.

  “Isabel does her own cooking.” For some reason that surprised her.

  Carlotta nodded. “Sometimes. She date a big shot chef from Mexico. He teach her. I like to cook for her myself but she think she does it better. How did you know she cook for herself?”

  Erin reopened the fridge and pulled out a half-full bag of frozen corn. The opening was stained with Isabel’s lipstick.

  “When she’s in a hurry she rips open the bags with her teeth,” Erin said with a smile. The thought of such a glamorous supermodel doing something so common struck her as funny.