Her eyes grew wide. “His daddy’s bad. He said so.”
Lucy said, “His daddy is in jail, and will be there for a long, long time. Michael has a new mama and papa. They love him and miss him.”
She still looked worried. “He was afraid of the bad place.”
“Do you know where the bad place is?”
She shook her head and seemed to crawl into herself. Jennifer said, “Bella, you’re safe here. And we want to make sure that Michael is safe, too.”
Karl Grove sat down next to her with a glass of apple juice. It was clear he wanted the conversation over, and hovered protectively over the girl. Bella drank. She touched Karl’s arm. That’s when Lucy noticed he had a long, jagged scar. Probably from a serrated knife. “That happened in the bad place.”
Karl shook his head. “That happened a long time ago, when I was a policeman.”
Lucy cut him off. “Did Michael have a scar?”
“Yes, right there.” She tapped on Karl’s forearm.
Lucy had read Michael’s file. He had old scars on his back, but there had been nothing about a gash on his arm. CPS had done a full medical on him when he became a ward of the state.
“Would all scars be documented in his records?” she asked Jennifer.
“Absolutely.”
Bella tilted her chin up. “I’m not lying.”
“Of course not,” Lucy said. She pulled out her notepad and a pencil. “Can you draw it for us?”
“How is that going to help find him?”
“Everything helps. You’ve already helped a lot.”
She reluctantly took the paper and pencil and stared at it for a minute. Then she drew what at first looked like a capital T with an extra line like a small t and an arrow at the bottom. She frowned, unhappy with the picture. “Sort of,” she said.
“That’s good, Bella.” She showed the picture to Jennifer, who shook her head, and to Karl, who was also perplexed.
Karl said, “It’s too specific to be an accidental scar.”
Bella looked from one adult to the others, then stared at Lucy. “He’s going to be okay, right?”
“We’ll do everything we can to find him.”
Bella bit her lip again. “What’s going to happen to me and CeCe? Are we going to go to the bad place, too?”
“No,” Jennifer said emphatically. “No one is going to hurt you. You’re safe here, with the Groves. Okay?”
She nodded, but she was uncertain. “When can I see Uncle George?”
Her uncle, not her mother. That was very interesting.
Lucy glanced at Karl and Anna. They knew about his murder, but no one had told the girls.
Anna said, “Let’s talk about that, Bella. You, and me, and CeCe.”
Karl walked them out. Lucy said, “I’m going to call about getting you some protection.”
“We have good security, this is a nice neighborhood. Neighbors pay attention.”
“These aren’t people who care about being subtle.”
“I understand, Agent Kincaid. I was a deputy sheriff for thirty-five years.”
Jennifer said, “We’re about as far as you can get from their old neighborhood without leaving the city limits. There’s no way the uncle can find them here.”
“There’s always a way,” Lucy said. “I’m going to work on it. They might simply increase patrols, but I’m going to try and get a unit twenty-four seven.
“And,” Lucy continued, “one more thing—CeCe is young, but she might have great loyalty to her uncle Jaime and her mother.”
“I’ve already taken away all the phones in the house,” Mr. Grove said. “I’ll do everything in my power to protect those girls.”
CHAPTER 10
Donnelly and Ryan were both gone when Lucy arrived back at SAPD headquarters that afternoon. She sat in the conference room that had been set aside for the task force and reviewed Michael Rodriguez’s file again.
She kept coming back to the father, Vince Rodriguez. She used the federal criminal database to pull up his record, and while there was no direct connection to Sanchez, there were many common associations. They had to have known each other—same neighborhood, same friends. Even though Vince was imprisoned four hours away, she wanted to talk to him in person. She’d need Brad Donnelly’s blessing first, and barring that she’d go to Juan Casilla. Her gut instincts told her Michael’s disappearance and captivity was at least loosely related to his father and it would be worth their time to talk to him. Sometimes, what wasn’t said was as important as what was said.
Lucy sent Donnelly a text message asking him to call her when he had the chance, then put the file and her notes aside. She wasn’t going to get anywhere until she had more information to plug into the holes.
She’d promised Charlie DeSantos that she would let him know when she had a confirmation on Michael Rodriguez’s identity. She left a message at the number he’d given her, relating only the basics, and telling him to contact Brad Donnelly if he needed more. She wasn’t going to get in the middle of some jurisdictional issue, and Brad was in charge. She’d learned the hard way that when possible, play by the rules or you’d get bitten in the ass.
Officer Crane walked by the open door. She called out, “Do you know where Donnelly is? He and Ryan didn’t sign out.”
“They took a team to follow up on a lead. I don’t have details.”
She itched to be there, but she also had something else she wanted to do. She asked Crane, “How easy is it to get a sit-down with a prisoner at McConnell?”
“Have your boss call the warden’s office. Or Donnelly can do it. It shouldn’t be too much of a problem.” He eyed her stack of paper with curiosity. “Something come up? It’s not a pretty place.”
“We ID’d the boy who was kept in the basement. His father is in prison, and I might have found an indirect connection between the father and Sanchez.”
“Definitely talk to Donnelly.”
She thanked Crane then turned back to her notes. She had nothing else to do except wait for Donnelly and Ryan, so she looked yet again at the limited information they had.
Had Sanchez kidnapped Michael as payback for something his father had done? Why now, four years after the father went to prison? Michael had been in foster care since he was eight; he’d turned thirteen last month. He’d disappeared the month before his twelfth birthday. What was she missing?
Where had Michael been for the thirteen months before he was held in the basement?
Lucy had a vivid imagination, created through her own experiences and those of being a cop. She knew what horrors adults inflicted on children. She thought of the scar on Michael’s arm. She looked again at Bella’s crude drawing, then made a copy and posted it on the board. It had to mean something, and Donnelly might know. If not, they could consult the gang task force to see if this was a gang marking. It might not be a scar; it could be a tattoo. Bella was a little girl. She might not have been able to tell the difference, especially if the tat was homemade.
Brad would ask her what she hoped to gain from Rodriguez at the prison, and she had to convince him that they could gain insight into Sanchez. It was a long shot, so maybe they could develop an incentive to get Rodriguez to talk—particularly if Sanchez had, in fact, hurt his son.
She bit her lip. Would Rodriguez care? He’d abused Michael, had abused his wife, killed a man—was family important to him? If he had killed his wife, did he resent or hate the son she’d borne?
She wouldn’t know until she met him face-to-face.
She was staring at the whiteboard Donnelly had used to post information and leads on Jaime Sanchez, practically willing a clue to leap out at her, when her cell phone rang. It was Charlie DeSantos, returning her call.
“Hello, Mr. DeSantos. You got my message?”
“Yes. Thank you. What else did you learn?”
“I simply confirmed his identity. I sent a report to my supervisor as well. Michael’s file is very thin. Is there anyone from his past you think
he might contact for help?”
“Only his foster parents. As far as I know, he cut all ties to his old neighborhood.”
“How much do you know about Vince Rodriguez?”
“The father? He’s in prison, twenty-five-to-life. It’s in Michael’s file.”
“Rodriguez and Sanchez are from the same neighborhood.” She was musing out loud, trying to get information from DeSantos without giving him more than she was allowed.
“I didn’t see any connections in the file. Rodriguez wasn’t affiliated with a specific gang, at least as far as I knew.”
“Fourteen months is a long time for a thirteen-year-old to stay in hiding. Do you have any idea where he might have gone?”
“None. I assumed, like the police, that he’d run away.”
“If you hear from him, please call me.”
“Likewise. And Agent Kincaid—Lucy—I want to help.”
“Talk to his foster parents again. Make sure they call you or me if they see him, if he makes any contact.”
“I’ve already done that.”
“Then maybe, since you were his counselor, if there’s anyone from one of his previous homes that he might have reached out to?”
“I can pull those records.”
She almost said her good-byes, then asked spontaneously, “Did Michael have a scar on his forearm that isn’t in his medical records?”
“What kind of scar?” he asked.
She looked at the picture Bella had drawn. “A double-crossed T, maybe, possibly with an arrow at the bottom.”
“I never saw anything like that. An accident?”
“I don’t know, it was described to me verbally. I’m just trying to put it all together. Do you think his father might have information that could help us track him down? I assume he knew his son was missing and presumed a runaway.”
“Yes,” DeSantos said. “I didn’t notify him, but I’m certain someone must have.”
“Maybe he knows something not in the records that might help us find Michael.”
“Vince Rodriguez has nothing but contempt for his son and the system. Even if he knew something, he wouldn’t share. Michael hated his father, never visited him in prison.”
“It was just a thought,” she said. Brad and Ryan walked in, faces long and tired. “I have to go, Mr. DeSantos. I’ll call you if I get a lead.” She hung up and turned to her teammates. “Bad news?”
“We’re chasing our tails,” Donnelly said, then walked out to take a call.
She looked at Ryan. “What happened?”
“We got a warrant and dumped all the phone data from the five gangbangers we arrested yesterday. Found a pattern of usage and targeted a run-down apartment building four blocks from the hardware store. Thought it was a hot lead, but there was nothing. If Sanchez was there, no one’s talking, there’s no cameras or other security, and there’s no sign of him. Donnelly has his analysts going through the data to see if they can pick any more potential leads, but it’s a long shot.”
“Why didn’t he send out uniforms to check it out?”
Ryan glanced behind him, then closed the door so they could have a modicum of privacy. “My guess? He wants the collar. Personally. He has a stick up his ass about Sanchez. I think there’s something more here than what we know.”
Lucy had suspected the same thing, and was glad to have Ryan’s confirmation.
“Personal?”
“I don’t know. But something’s going on with him and Sanchez. He wants him bad.”
“Maybe it has to do with the rookie who was killed while on one of his ops,” Lucy said, almost to herself.
Ryan scowled. “What? What rookie?”
“Something his partner, Nicole Rollins, said to me. About why he doesn’t like working with rookies.”
“I don’t know anything about it. Must have been before my time.” Ryan ran both hands over his drawn face, took a deep breath and slowly released it. “I don’t like this. I need a plan of action, and right now we’re just reacting.”
“I have some news.” She told him what she’d learned from Bella about Michael, and the information she was gathering about his father. “Do you think maybe Vince Rodriguez might have information about Sanchez?”
“Long shot,” Ryan said. “He’s been in prison for four years. But it’s definitely no coincidence that the kid was raised in the same neighborhood as Sanchez’s hangout. You found other connections?”
“Not directly between Sanchez and Rodriguez, but between Rodriguez and some of Sanchez’s people.”
Donnelly walked in alone. He took off his tactical vest and dropped it on the table. “What about Sanchez?”
He didn’t look at them, but was staring at the information Lucy had added to the board.
Lucy repeated everything she’d just told Ryan. Then she said, “I’d like to talk to Vince Rodriguez. About his son,” she added.
“It’s too long ago, too many variables. But it’s another angle. I’ll contact our DEA unit there and have them send two agents to talk to Rodriguez. Write up what you have and get it to me by tomorrow morning.”
Lucy tried not to show her disappointment about not being the one to talk to the father, but she had to admit, it probably wasn’t the best use of her time, especially when it was a two-hour trip each way. She said, “See if you can get someone with psychological training. Someone who might be able to manipulate information out of the father.”
“Someone like you?” Donnelly said.
“I said I’d go.”
“I need you here.”
Ryan bristled. “We work for Casilla, not you. If Lucy thinks this is a lead, we should follow it up.”
Donnelly shot Ryan an angry glare. The tension was rising between the two men. Lucy intervened before it escalated. “Let’s see what Donnelly’s people can get from him and depending on what he says, decide if we need to visit ourselves.”
Before Ryan could say anything else, Donnelly tapped Bella’s drawing. “What’s this?”
“A scar or tattoo on Michael’s arm. Have you seen something like this before?”
“No. Is this from the girl?”
“Yes.”
“Gangs and drug cartels tat or brand themselves with symbols all the time,” he said, “but I haven’t seen this one. They start them young.”
“Maybe Michael wasn’t a willing participant.”
Brad didn’t say anything.
“He was held against his will,” Lucy said.
“We don’t know that. Maybe it was a gang-related punishment because he didn’t do something Sanchez wanted. We can’t assume that this kid is an innocent victim.”
“He is a victim.”
“You don’t know that. Don’t go all soft on me now, Kincaid. Kids can kill just as easily as adults, especially if they’re brought up to be killers.”
“You don’t have to explain what we’re up against, but this kid is different. I can’t explain why, except that Bella let him go because she was worried about his safety. If he was violent, I don’t think she would have trusted him.”
“Her uncle is Jaime Sanchez. The kid’s been raised around hardened criminals.”
“And she warned me about Jaime. She said that her uncle George was nice and sometimes made mistakes, but that her uncle Jaime wasn’t nice, and she was scared of him. Kids get it, even if they can’t explain it in big words.”
Donnelly looked back at the board, whether because he was irritated with her or in an attempt to wrap his head around the information they had, she didn’t know.
“Gangs recruit young,” he said, but his tone was much softer. “Maybe this kid was enticed with money, or maybe he was threatened. All we know is that Jaime Sanchez is on the run and has something big coming down, that there’s a missing teen who allegedly ran away from a good home fourteen months ago and wasn’t seen until he turned up in the Borez family basement, and that our witness is seven years old. And someone got to George Sanchez, which makes m
e think that there’s someone on the inside.” He obviously hadn’t meant for that to slip. He glanced from Ryan to Lucy. “That’s not a public theory.”
“It’s the only theory that makes sense. Someone who turned his back so Sanchez could be poisoned. Did you get the autopsy report?”
“Preliminary. The guy had an allergic reaction, but the ME thinks there was a secondary factor, and is rushing some tests.”
“He has to have a guess.” Lucy had worked at the morgue for a year as a pathologist. MEs always had a guess, and were usually right. They just didn’t routinely share with the investigators until they confirmed their findings.
“He said the allergic reaction seemed to be far too extreme—it happened too fast. There’re some drugs that may have increased the reaction, or a poison that killed him but the allergic reaction to fish was a red herring.” He stopped, then suddenly his entire body relaxed and he smiled. “I can’t believe I said that.”
Lucy relaxed, too. They needed to all take a step back and reassess.
“We’re running all the guards who were on duty, the food prep, anyone who potentially could have come in contact with Sanchez or the food. But it’s not going to be easy to prove without physical evidence.”
He glanced away and then Lucy saw it, the familiar focus in Brad Donnelly’s eyes. She was well aware of how fixated a cop could be when pursuing a violent predator. Focus was important, but there was a fine line between being committed to the job and being obsessed with the job. Lucy had been on both sides of the line. She knew the signs better than anyone.
Brad Donnelly was obsessed with Jaime Sanchez. Lucy needed to know why.
* * *
Sean said he had a meeting and couldn’t make it to the Casillas’ for dinner. He didn’t elaborate on it so she didn’t push, but it seemed odd to her that he had a business meeting late on a Sunday afternoon.
She and Ryan drove to the Casillas’ house north of the outer loop, in an older neighborhood filled with families in simple one-story ranch-style homes, no fences; all of them looked like they’d been built in the early 1960s. Instead of being crammed together, each house had a large lot and established trees. Kids of all ages rode their bikes up and down the street, and Lucy had to stop for a football pass that required the kid to run into the middle of the road to make the play.
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