Stolen Things

by R. H. Herron

  “You really want to bring up your dad right now?”

  “Yeah, I do.” Kevin could be numb, or sad, or angry as shit, but she needed his help to find the person who mattered more than anyone else. “My dad’s in the hospital, and I think my mom just got arrested for breaking into a cop’s house, looking for Harper. No matter what, we know that Harper has to be found, and then we’ll get whoever did this to Zach.”

  Kevin mumbled, “And to you.”

  Right now her assault didn’t seem to matter very much at all. “Dude, I wasn’t even awake. It fucking sucks, but a man was killed in your house, the man you loved. What I went through is nothing compared to that.”

  Kevin finished the second shot he’d poured. He coughed and gave a short nod. Then he banged his fist against the counter. “So. How do we find Harper?”

  Jojo reached for the blank grocery list stuck to the refrigerator door with a magnet. “First we make a list.”

  FORTY-TWO

  “HOURS.” LAURIE STARED at Sarah. “You left me in there for hours.”

  Sarah dodged her gaze, keeping her eyes on her paperwork. She mumbled, “You know there’s nothing I could do about that.”

  “In that cell.” She’d thought Sarah had been kidding when she first led her to the same cell Kevin had been held in. But it hadn’t been a joke—there’d been no other cells available after a busy night of corralling drunks. In a few hours, after they sobered up, there would be plenty of room. But there was nothing else at that particular, crucial, terrible moment that a co-worker locked her up while other co-workers watched, forced joviality slanting off the walls as they tried to make light of it. You’ll be out in no time, Laurie. We’ll sneak you a knife in a cake.

  She’d had to sit on the same bed Kevin Leeds sat on. And even if Jojo was right, that he had nothing to do with this and was as caught in this terrible trap as the rest of them, it didn’t help. She didn’t want to share a jail cell with that memory.

  And the joviality with which the jailers had placed her inside the cell had worn off. They knew now that it wasn’t just Laurie flying off the handle and punching Yarwood. Now they knew that Laurie thought one of their own was holding a kidnapped teenage girl.

  Which was, obviously, impossible.

  Last week Laurie would have said the same thing.

  “What if something had happened to Omid? What if he’d gotten worse while I was in there? Would you even have told me?” She was worried sick about Omid’s health on top of everything else going on, and at the same time she was thinking about getting a divorce lawyer when this was all over.

  When would it be over?

  Sarah didn’t answer; she just pushed the citation for Laurie to sign over the standing desk.

  Laurie didn’t reach for it. “Now you’re finally citing me? Why couldn’t they have done this at the beginning?” A citation was a promise that she would show up in front of a judge. The charges weren’t being dropped; she just had to place her signature on the line and promise she wasn’t going to run to Mexico. God knew she wasn’t going anywhere. She could have signed it hours ago, but instead the fucking acting chief Brent Stanley had let her rot in the cell for hours while Laurie’s daughter was alone and Harper was still missing.

  “Wasn’t up to me, Laurie. Stanley and Yarwood wanted to hold you, but now they say I can cite you out. I’m sorry.”

  That was the thing, though. Sarah didn’t sound sorry. Sarah—Laurie’s friend—sounded angry.

  The department was highly dysfunctional, full of infighting and backbiting, but it was all the family some of them had in the world. Cops didn’t usually stay married long. Most ended up sharing custody of kids, living alone in boxy duplexes that smelled of new paint and dryer sheets. The department was everything to a lot of people on the force, and that included dispatch, records, and the jail.

  Laurie had just lobbed a bomb directly into the middle of it.

  But she didn’t have time to care too much about Sarah’s feelings. “Did they check his house? Yarwood’s?”

  Sarah didn’t look at her, just pushed the paperwork closer to Laurie.

  Laurie scribbled her signature and pushed the citation back to Sarah. She leaned forward. “I know you don’t believe me, but something is going on, and one of our guys probably has Harper Cunningham. As his prisoner. I think it’s Yarwood.”

  Sarah took a deep breath. “There was nothing there.”

  “In the garage, then.”

  “Nothing. Laurie . . .”

  “Tell me.” Maybe Sarah suspected someone else. Maybe she knew something.

  “I think you have some kind of PTSD.”

  “What?”

  “Jojo got attacked—”

  “Raped.” Now the word was a battle cry.

  “And you found a dead body near her. The next day you witness a friend kill himself. That’s got to fuck up anyone.”

  “So you just think I’m crazy.”

  “I didn’t say crazy. I just think you’re going to be really confused for a while, and that’s normal. I hate it that you would suspect one of us, though. This isn’t like you. It’s so not like you that I can’t stand it.”

  “It could be any one of them—”

  “That’s exactly what I don’t want to hear.” Sarah put a firm hand on Laurie’s shoulder and steered her toward the door. “I don’t want to hear your theories or your paranoia. I understand that you’re going through a difficult time, and that’s not made any easier by the fact that your boss and your husband is in the hospital. Your life is upside down right now.” She yanked the door open and pushed Laurie into the hallway.

  “I’m not paranoid. I have proof.” But did she? As the thick metal door clanged shut, leaving Laurie alone in the hallway, she wondered if this was even true. She had a bunch of dick pics. She had a husband trying to help cover something up.

  That was about all she had.

  Heading downstairs to dispatch, she passed Frank Shepherd going up.

  Laurie didn’t open her mouth. There was nothing to say. Obviously he’d heard rumors. He looked at her like he’d just caught her stabbing a homeless person. And, surprisingly, it hurt. Shepherd was her friend, a man she’d trusted for years. Her stomach flipped, and she felt so dizzy she had to hold on to the stair rail until he was on the floor above, out of sight.

  She could hear dispatch chattering from outside the locked door, but the sound ceased as soon as she pushed it open.

  “Hi,” she managed.

  There was a chorus of low “Hey”s back, but none of them looked up from their screens. It was as if they had received a command to glue their gaze forward.

  Dead silence. No one even squawked on the radio.

  “Maury? Can I talk to you?”

  Maury nodded and stood, heading automatically for the office. He closed the door behind them. Not that the conversation would remain private—Maury was as talkative as anyone else in dispatch, and Laurie knew that as soon as she left, the details of their conversation would be repeated and analyzed.

  So she didn’t waste time. “I need this next week off.”

  Maury nodded and looked at the open schedule book on the table. “We’ve been thinking you’d probably say that. We’ve got most of it covered, so don’t worry about it. You have plenty of vacation time.”

  “Not vacation. FML.” Seemed appropriate that “family medical leave” had the same initials as “fuck my life.”

  Maury finally looked into her face, but his eyes dropped quickly and he nodded again. “Sure.”

  “What are they saying?”

  Through the glass window, Laurie saw Nate Steiner approach the door to dispatch. He looked in, saw her, and pressed his lips into a firm line. He turned around immediately, going back the same way he came.

  Obviously the whole department hated her.<
br />
  Well, fuck them. This was bigger than hurt feelings or a worry that she might say terrible things about some of their officers. This was literally life or death. Someone had Harper, and no one was helping.

  “Never mind. Put me off for two weeks instead.”

  Maury didn’t look up from the schedule book. “I’ll cover you for three, just in case.”

  There was no one in the hallway as Laurie strode past Vice and then went up the stairs. She checked her mailbox out of habit and grabbed the few pieces of paper that were in it. One was an invite to a local crab feed benefiting Children’s Hospital, another was a payroll form.

  Underneath those was a photograph.

  The eight-by-ten picture was of Laurie and Omid at the last Christmas party, the party that had been on the boat. Omid had been mildly seasick, even though the waves in the bay hadn’t been bad, and Laurie had been equally mildly drunk. They’d had a good time, actually, not something that was guaranteed at a work party. The deejay was fantastic, and Laurie danced, something she hadn’t done in a long time. In the photo she and Omid were standing near the prow of the boat, Omid’s arm around Laurie’s bare shoulders. She remembered how she’d shivered that night, though she hadn’t actually felt cold, the alcohol warming her as much as the realization that they’d made it. Omid was chief of a tight-knit department, Laurie loved both him and her job, their daughter was healthy and happy. Behind them, in the distance, the lights of San Francisco had glittered in that cold, crisp way that only happened in midwinter.

  In the photograph she now held, Laurie’s face had been shot off. A .45 round, judging by the size of the hole. She touched the shredded pieces of paper at the back. The hole was large enough so that she could stick her finger through.

  Her forehead went slick with sweat.

  Laurie left without seeing anyone else except a parking tech, who appeared to be cheerfully out of the loop and greeted her with a chipper hello.

  She wanted to text Jojo, but her phone was dead. She’s home, Laurie told herself. It’s six in the morning. Don’t worry. She’s sleeping.

  She made a quick stop at the hospital. Omid was completely out. The nurses said he was doing well but had been sleeping for hours. She paused and thought about kissing him. Why, though? She sure hadn’t wanted to earlier. When the nurse wasn’t looking, she shook his arm a little, hoping for him to wake.

  He mumbled something unintelligible, and his face twisted in what looked like pain.

  Guilt slipped through her veins again.

  She inhaled sharply, letting the chemical scent of the hospital rush up her nose. She had to get home to Jojo. The sun would be up soon, and Laurie could make her oatmeal or take her out for Starbucks.

  She drove home. Her body yearned for sleep.

  As Laurie unlocked her front door, the sky just beginning to lighten behind her, her toe nudged something soft. The weight moved easily.

  She looked down.

  A dead rat.

  She swallowed the scream that was obviously the expected response. On the off chance someone was watching, she threw her head back and tried to laugh, but it didn’t come out right. The sound from her throat was brittle.

  She didn’t bend to pick it up or even examine it—she just kicked it off the stoop as casually as she could. It was obvious that the rat had been shot. Most of the head was missing, but it wasn’t a bloody wreck, so whoever’d placed it there hadn’t killed it with a gunshot.

  Keeping the false smile affixed to her face, Laurie stepped inside and closed the door behind her. She bent forward, propping her hands on her knees, taking a deep breath. Then she called, “Jojo, I’m home.”

  No answer.

  “Jojo?”

  Upstairs, Jojo wasn’t in her room. Goddamn it, where was she?

  Laurie went to the closet in her bedroom and knelt to unlock the safe.

  The H&K conformed to her hand perfectly. It felt natural. Her shoulder holster still fit.

  Next to her bed, she plugged in her phone with trembling fingers.

  Laurie sat on the edge of the bed and checked to make sure there was a bullet chambered. Of course there was. In a cop’s house, guns were always ready to shoot.

  And so was Laurie.

  FORTY-THREE

  JOJO LOOKED AT the list she’d tried to write. She’d written down the names of the cops from Harper’s social media. She’d also listed the names of the frequent fliers she knew from dinner table talk—the people who got arrested most often in town—and she’d Googled her father’s name with the department’s to see which cases had been most incendiary. Next to her, Kevin worked on the list for CapB. He was supposed to write down anyone he thought might be a mole in the organization, but he kept groaning that it was impossible. Anita’s too tight with our founder. Jerry is down to the bone a great guy.

  At the same time, he was supposed to list anyone against CapB, who might want to bring it down. The people who hated CapB tended to be white and scared. Or they were cops, or families of cops.

  “This isn’t helping,” said Jojo. “It’s all too broad.”

  “We have to try, right?”

  Jojo tried to think like a cop. “Okay, so forget for a minute about the mole idea. We have a list of people and groups who hate CapB. Cops, generically, aren’t too fond of you guys.”

  “Us guys.”

  She nodded. “Yeah. Cops have to be the connection. We also have a list of actual police officers who all slept with a minor. Where’s the overlap here?”

  The pen looked tiny in Kevin’s hand. “A cop who hates CapB and wanted to kill a member of it, who dumps two girls involved with the group into my unlocked house, where . . . No, it doesn’t make sense. How would a cop even know you and Harper were involved with CapB? It’s not like you two handed out flyers on campus, did you?”

  Jojo shook her head. “We’re still thinking too generally.” She closed her eyes and rubbed the spot between her eyebrows, the way her father did at the dinner table when he was thinking about work. “Two groups are implicated right now. One group is CapB, from the signed text.”

  “But they didn’t do anything.”

  Jojo didn’t lift her eyelids. “That’s what we think.”

  “That’s what we know.”

  Now she glared at him. “If you don’t have an open mind about this, you can’t help anyone.”

  Kevin’s eyes narrowed, but he nodded.

  Jojo continued, “The other group is a bunch of cops. Those are our two groups: CapB and a bunch of cops.”

  “Opposite lists. One a group of social-justice activists. The other group out to kill the black man.”

  “Quiet for a second.” Sucking in a breath, Jojo felt the missing piece slip into place. That was it. “The overlap! It’s just one person.” She grabbed both pieces of paper and stared at them. “It’s a setup. One person who wants to take down a whole police department. A group of people within the department wouldn’t want to do that. Coups like that just don’t happen—police officers have too much pride in their profession as a whole. But one cop on the force who’s tired of the politics, who wants to get back at the department, who would set up Harper to sleep with all these guys so the whole PD will crumble? That makes a kind of sick sense.”

  “What about CapB, though? Why am I involved?” Kevin clicked the pen open and closed rapidly.

  “What if you’re just a bonus? Someone who wants to take down a department and someone who’s not fond of CapB. Maybe you were just handy. A way to get attention. Grab us, put us in your house—”

  “What about Zach?”

  Jojo didn’t know. She didn’t know anything. “Collateral damage?”

  “This is fucked.”

  She nodded. “Yeah.”

  Kevin scrubbed at his stubble. “Or it could be some wack job who hates everyone. Plent
y of those in the world.”

  Jojo stabbed the paper in front of her with her pen. “It’s more directed than that. Harper’s messages to my dad say she knows that this kind of scandal will get everyone involved fired.”

  “That’s just common sense.”

  “Sure, but she knows that at some point it will probably come out. She knows stuff like this doesn’t stay buried. The scandal will hit the news. It seems like it must be about more than just money, doesn’t it? It’s personal. And if it’s only one person behind this, whoever has her also hates CapB. So this person hates both the police and an anti-police-brutality group. So it has to be a disgruntled cop, or a scared one. It has to be one of the guys she was sleeping with.” She circled Yarwood’s name on her paper.

  Kevin took her paper out of her hand and put it next to his. “Or an ex-cop. Someone used to hating CapB but someone who also has a major ax to grind with your dad’s department in particular.”

  “Exactly.” The link was there—she almost had it. “An ex-cop who hated our department in particular.”

  “You got something?” Kevin leaned forward.

  It shifted into focus for Jojo, as if the page had been slightly blurred until this second. “Oh, my God.”

  She pulled up Google on her phone again and scanned for an image. She’d almost forgotten about that whole thing. “Darren Dixon hates my father, a lot. Like, it’s a racial thing combined with the fact that he didn’t get the job he thought he was going to. He did this whole Facebook rant about Muslims taking over the department, and it was super ugly. He got fired over it, refused to back down. Do you know how impossible it is to get fired as a police officer? He really tried. Here he is.” She showed Kevin the image—Dixon in a button-down blue shirt standing next to a white wall. In the photo he was smiling broadly, as if life were fantastic.

  Kevin looked closer at the screen. “Wait, so this cop you’re talking about is Harper’s dad?”