A Trace of Death (A Keri Locke Mystery--Book #1)

by Pierce, Blake

  “Don’t move, asshole,” she told him, “or you’ll be using a colostomy bag for life.”

  His body went slack and she could tell he wasn’t going to put up any more of a fight. She allowed herself a long, deep breath before she pulled out her radio and called for backup. Finally, she turned to face Evie, who was still standing petrified under a streetlight.

  It was only then, in the harsh light and up close, that she realized it wasn’t Evie at all. In fact, other than being young, blonde, and white, they didn’t really look that much alike.

  Keri could feel a sob rising to her throat and forced it back down. She looked down at her radio and pretended to mess with one of the dials so the girl in front of her couldn’t see the devastation in her eyes. When she was sure she could speak without her voice breaking, she looked up again and spoke.

  “What’s your name, honey?”

  “Sky.”

  “No, your real name.”

  “I’m not supposed to—”

  “Tell me your real name.”

  The girl sized up the man on the ground, as if expecting him to jump up and grab her by the throat, and then said, “Susan.”

  “What’s your last name, Susan?”

  “Granger.”

  “Susan Granger?”

  “Yes.”

  “How old are you, Susan?”

  “Fourteen.”

  “Fourteen? Did you run away from home?”

  The girl’s eyes watered up.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, me and some other people are going to help you,” Keri said. “Would you like that?”

  The girl hesitated and then said, “Yeah.”

  “You won’t have to worry about this guy anymore,” Keri said. “He’s done hurting you. Has he been making you have sex with men?”

  The girl nodded.

  “Is he making you take drugs?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, that’s all over,” Keri said. “We’re going to get you somewhere safe, starting right now. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Trust me, you’re safe now.”

  Two black-and-whites pulled up.

  “The officers in one of these cars are going to take you somewhere safe for the night. You’ll meet with a counselor in the morning. I’m going to give you my card and I want you to use it if you have any questions. I’m searching for a missing girl about your age right now. But once I find her I’m going to check back in with you to make sure you’re all right, okay, Susan?”

  The girl nodded and took the card.

  As the officers led her away, Keri leaned in close to the pimp, still splayed out on the ground, and whispered, “It’s taking everything I have right now to keep from shooting you in the back of the head. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  The man twisted his neck, looked at her, and said, “Screw you.”

  Despite her fatigue, Keri’s body vibrated with rage. She stepped away from him without responding for fear of doing exactly what she’d promised him. The uniformed officers came over. As one grabbed the perp to put him in the car, Keri spoke to the other.

  “Book him. Make sure he doesn’t get his phone call for at least a few hours. I don’t want him making bail before we can safely place the girl. I’ll be in to write my report after I get a few hours’ sleep.”

  She saw the other officer about to guide the pimp’s head down into the back seat of the car and stepped over.

  “Let me help with that,” she offered, grabbing the man by the hair and slamming the side of his head against the side of the roof. “Oh, sorry, I slipped.”

  She headed back to her car, the sound of his curses in the distance serving as sweet music.

  As she drove home, finally headed to the houseboat, she dialed a number she rarely called.

  “Hello,” a sleepy female voice said.

  “It’s Keri Locke. I need to talk to you.”

  “Now? It’s four in the morning.”

  “Yes.”

  A pause, and then, “Okay.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  Tuesday

  Predawn

  “I’m unraveling.” She pictured the disappointment she knew must be on the face her department-ordered psychiatrist, Dr. Beverly Blanc.

  “How so?”

  Keri explained, letting it all spill out at once.

  She was seeing Evie’s face everywhere. She couldn’t stop thinking about her. Maybe it was because the five-year mark was coming up next week. She didn’t know. All she knew was that it was happening, more often than any time since the first six months after the abduction. She hadn’t had any blank time in the last six months. But now she’d had multiple blank-out episodes in the last twelve hours. Worse, she’d gotten violent. She punched a high-school kid in the head. She’d swung a microphone into another guy’s head. And she’d deliberately confronted both a drug dealer and a pimp.

  She got a lead that Evie may have been taken by someone called the Collector. A local attorney, Jackson Cave, might know the man’s real name and whereabouts but would never tell anyone voluntarily. Keri was entertaining thoughts of blackmailing him to force him to talk.

  Also, she was working the Ashley Penn case.

  “I know,” Dr. Blanc said. “I saw you on TV.”

  She was on the case, then got kicked off it, then got back on it; right now, she didn’t know what her status was.

  Dr. Blanc said, “You have more coming in than you can process. You’re like a balloon with too much air pumping into it. If it doesn’t stop, you’re going to explode. You need to either get off the Ashley Penn case or put Evie on hold. Stop thinking about her until this case is resolved.”

  Keri winced.

  “I can’t drop the case.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if I do, and something ends up happening, I couldn’t live with myself.”

  Dr. Blanc exhaled.

  “Then you have to let Evie go for now. You have to stop fixating on her. And you have to do the same with the Collector.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Look,” Dr. Blanc said, “here’s the reality. If Evie’s dead—”

  “She’s not!”

  “Okay, but if she is, setting thoughts of her aside for a while is not going to affect her one way or the other. If she’s not dead, then she’s probably found a way to cope with her current life. The fear and desperation that you saw on her face the last time you saw her, it’s not there right now.”

  “We don’t know that,” Keri said.

  “Yes, we do,” Dr. Blanc said. “Emotions like that are not sustainable. If she’s alive, wherever she is, the overwhelming chances are that she’s found a way to function day to day. She’s in some kind of a routine. She’s adjusted to it. Setting the Collector and this lawyer guy to the side for a week or two is not going to make a significant difference to Evie in the grand scheme of her life.

  “In fact, if you rush into hunting down this Collector guy, you might even make mistakes that you wouldn’t make later when you’re thinking straight. You might tip him off that you’re coming. He might slip away. So, clear him from your mind, the lawyer too, and work the Ashley Penn case if that’s what you have to do, then go back at him when you’re healthy and you can give him your full concentration. Does that make sense?”

  Keri exhaled. “Yes.”

  “You need rest, too, Keri. Rest is extremely important. Go home and sleep at least eight hours. Consider that the doctor’s orders.”

  “I can maybe try for three.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  *

  Keri went home.

  These days, home was a deteriorating twenty-year-old houseboat slipped at Marina Bay in Marina del Rey. There was a fancy part of the marina further west, with expensive apartment buildings and yacht clubs. But Basin H, where Keri lived, was much more working class. Her place was housed among industrial fishing boats and the barely seawo
rthy vessels of old-timers. The prior owner had named it Sea Cups, and hand-painted a pink bra on the side. It wasn’t exactly Keri’s style but she’d never worked up the time or energy to scrape it off.

  The good news was that it had electricity, water, a small galley, and a pump-out toilet, and it didn’t tie her down. She could abandon it without a second thought and run off to Alaska if her life suddenly demanded it. The bad news was that it had no shower or laundry. Those tasks needed to be done down the road at the Marina’s comfort station, or at work.

  It also had almost no room to spare. Everything was in something else’s way. If you wanted one thing, you had to move three. For people with houses, the thought of living in a houseboat might seem adventurous or exotic. For someone like Keri, who actually did it every day, the charm had long since worn off.

  Keri went to the galley, poured herself a generous serving of scotch, and headed for the roof deck. As she got to the stairwell, she saw that a framed photo had tipped over. The houseboat didn’t rock much but on occasion it moved enough to cause things to shift or fall over. She righted the photo, glancing at it without really processing what she was seeing.

  After a moment, she realized she was staring at what used to be her family. It was one of those posed beach photos they’d done as part of Evie’s preschool fundraiser when she was four. They sat by a section of rocks with the ocean in the background. Evie was in front in a white sundress. Her blonde hair was kept out of her eyes by a green headband that matched her eyes.

  Both parents sat behind her. Stephen had on khaki slacks and an untucked white dress shirt. Keri was dressed similarly in a flowing white blouse and a khaki skirt. Stephen had one hand on Evie’s shoulder and the other wrapped around Keri’s waist. That remnant of their casual intimacy flashed through her mind. It had been a long time since anyone had touched her in that comfortable, knowing way.

  She remembered that it had been hard not to squint that day because the photo sitting was in the morning and the bright early fall sun was right in their eyes. Evie kept complaining about it but somehow managed to open her eyes wide for this one shot. Keri couldn’t help but smile at the memory.

  She left the picture behind as she walked up the stairs to the deck and settled into a cheap chaise lounge she’d ordered from Amazon on impulse. She closed her eyes and tried to feel the nearly imperceptible movement of the houseboat. The photo drifted through her mind again. The Keri Locke in that picture wouldn’t recognize her now.

  It had been taken almost four years before Evie was abducted. Looking back, that was about as close to perfect as Keri’s life had ever been. She’d somehow survived a childhood she wouldn’t wish on anyone to become a successful professor of criminology and psychology at LMU. She was a respected consultant for the LAPD. She was married to a prominent entertainment attorney who never let his work interfere with a preschool recital or Halloween parade.

  And she had a daughter who made her see every day that growing up didn’t have to be about trauma. It could be about wonder and joy. There were pumpkin patches to visit and chocolate chip cookies to bake together. There were furtive, hurried Sunday morning lovemaking sessions to enjoy before little feet could be heard galloping into their bedroom. Those were the salad days and she hadn’t even realized it.

  The Keri of the past would be aghast at the current one, gulping liquor like it was water, alone on a houseboat named after a bra size. She tried to reconstruct how it had all fallen apart. First came the drinking to oblivion, then the screaming matches with a husband who had become distant and cold. Keri knew now that it had been a form of self-protection, a way for Stephen to survive the living nightmare they shared, to keep it at arm’s length. But at the time it had infuriated her, made her think he didn’t care what had happened to their daughter.

  After he finally left her a year later and moved out, their house felt somehow both empty and too full of memories, so she moved onto the houseboat. She also moved from guy to guy at the university. Sometimes it was grad students, sometimes undergrads—whoever was willing to make her feel good for a few moments and help her forget the anguish that consumed most of her waking hours.

  That went on for about a year, until one particularly naïve, love-struck nineteen-year-old dropped out of school because Keri had casually moved on. His parents threatened to sue. The historically Jesuit school had no choice but to settle quickly and quietly. Part of the agreement was that Keri be fired.

  It was around that time that Stephen told her that he was marrying one of his clients, a young actress with sixth billing on a medical drama. They were having a baby, a little boy. Keri had gone on a week-long bender at that news. It was soon after that when a former colleague, a detective from Pacific Division named Ray Sands, had come by the boat with a proposal.

  “I hear things haven’t gone your way lately,” he said, sitting on the same deck Keri was curled up on now. “Maybe you need a new start.”

  He told her about his own trip down the rabbit hole of despair and how he’d managed to crawl out by choosing to stop feeling sorry for himself and make a difference with what life he still had.

  “Have you ever thought about applying to the Police Academy?” he’d asked.

  The marina was quiet now, save for the sound of waves lapping up onto boat hulls and a distant foghorn calling mournfully into the darkness. Keri could feel herself drifting and chose not to fight it. She put down her glass, pulled a blanket over her, and closed her eyes.

  *

  Her reverie was interrupted by the ringing of her cell phone. She looked at the screen, blinking away the blurriness. It was 5:45. She’d been asleep for less than two hours. She squinted to see who was calling. It was Ray. She picked up.

  “I was finally sleeping,” she said irritably.

  “They found the black van!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  Tuesday

  Dawn

  Powered mostly by adrenaline, Keri got off the 210 Freeway near La Canada-Flintridge and headed north on the Angeles Crest Highway. The sun was rising on her right and she could see the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the distance as she followed the winding two-lane road into the Angeles National Forest.

  Within minutes, the huge city just to the south was forgotten and she was surrounded by towering trees as she made her way up the side of a steep, craggy mountain. At a little after 6:30 she reached her destination, a rest station and bathroom on a small dirt road just west of Woodwardia Canyon.

  Down a quarter of a mile, four police vehicles faced a black van. Two were LAPD and two more were LA County Sheriff. A CSU truck was there too and she could see investigators poring over the vehicle, collecting evidence. Ray and Hillman were off to the side of the road, talking. Detectives Sterling and Cantwell were there too, listening intently.

  Keri got out and headed over. She wished she’d remembered a jacket. At this hour in the mountains it was chilly, even during a heat wave. She shivered slightly, unsure whether it was the cold or the sight in front of her.

  The van’s doors were all open. Inside, there was no blood or signs of a struggle. The ashtray was full of butts. In the back, a brown bag full of granola bars, chips, Gatorade, and crackers had split open. The keys were in the ignition.

  Ray saw Keri and walked over.

  “They were running away,” he said, showing her a handwritten note inside a clear evidence bag.

  I’m going to start a new life.

  All I want is for everyone to leave me alone.

  If you bring me back I’ll just run away again.

  Ashley

  Keri shook her head.

  “This is bullshit.”

  “No, it’s legit,” Ray said. “We took a photo of it and texted it to Mia Penn. She says that’s definitely Ashley’s handwriting. Also, the piece of paper is stationery that Ashley got for her birthday. The note was pinned to the dash with an earring, which was also definitely Ashley’s.”

  “I don’t buy it,” Keri
said.

  “Look around, Keri,” Ray said. “You’re on the Angeles Crest Highway headed northeast. My guess is they planned to avoid the authorities by staying on it until about Wrightwood, then hook up with the Fifteen Freeway north to Vegas. From what we can tell, they stopped here to use the facilities. When they got back to the van, it wouldn’t start.”

  “How do you know?”

  “We tried, watch.” He led her over, adjusted his gloves, and cranked the key. Nothing happened. “The battery terminal is caked with corrosion. The battery’s not making contact with the cable.”

  “Hell, all you have to do is work it off and scrape the inside with a key and then twist it back on.”

  “You know that, I know that, but a fifteen-year-old girl doesn’t know that,” he said. “It didn’t start and they hitched their way out of here.”

  “You keep saying ‘they.’ Who was she with?” she asked.

  “God only knows with this girl.”

  Keri stood quietly, trying to make sense of it.

  Then she said, “Who does the van belong to?”

  “Dexter Long.”

  Keri had never heard the name before.

  “Who’s he?”

  “He’s a college kid at Occidental College,” Ray said. “The van is registered to him. Someone apparently stole it from a campus garage. The kid didn’t even know it was gone. He lives in a dorm and hasn’t even driven it in over a month.”

  “He didn’t lend it to anybody?”

  “No.”

  “Then how did someone get the keys?”

  “He leaves them up in the visor.”

  “With the door unlocked?”

  “Apparently so.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, are you getting prints?”

  “They already did,” Ray said. “But if she’s with another teenager who’s not old enough to drive, unless the kid’s got a record, they won’t have anything to match them to.”