by Wolfe, R. T.
His fingers started working again. So, she waited—anxiously, but she waited.
He shook his head. "I remember this. The professor for that lab has been out. He's had a sub."
"I'd like the names of both teachers."
He looked at her through the corner of his eyes.
"There's a missing girl, sir. I can come back with a warrant. Shall I share with you the falling probability of finding her the longer I sit here?"
Pushing away from his desk, he pulled open a drawer. He removed an index card and pencil and wrote down the names.
"Addresses and phone numbers, too," she added.
He did it, but not without heavy sighs. "Good luck, Detective."
They shook hands when her phone rang. She pocketed the index card and answered as she left the office. "Savage."
"We got another call." It was the captain. "Same deal. He's baiting us. Used a prepaid. We couldn't get a trace."
"Bastard." She growled and picked up the pace to her car.
* * *
Duncan sat behind the expansive desk his uncle had made for him. The cherry wood had darkened in the sun from the south window. He liked big, and he liked the best. The biggest and the best took up a lot of room.
Hacking into the Northridge Police Department's database wasn't difficult. He'd been doing that for months now. Locating the 9-1-1 recording was even easier.
Nickie wouldn't have asked if she didn't need him. She held a great pride for her department and their abilities. And although she hated hunches, she was thorough and made it a habit to check out any leads that crossed her path.
Rarely did she bring up his secret.
A smile beckoned at the corners of his mouth as he remembered the day she tricked him into revealing his memory. He'd kept it hidden for thirty years. She figured it out in two weeks. She was one damned smart, incredible woman.
He closed his eyes as he listened.
"9-1-1 dispatch. What is your emergency?"
He played it again and again, each time adjusting the sound features until the majority of what he heard was the water. He took a deep breath, listening, hearing, imagining. Swirls of memories flooded his mind. Memories of fishing as a child in the lake that spilled into Black Creek. Of catching crawfish under the bridge that ran over his street. Warm memories mixed with nightmares.
There was an echo. A metallic or concrete echo. The water ran consistently. Not a pour or a rush, but a steady stream of water. The echo was large.
He opened his eyes and woke his monitor. How far of an area should he search? He would start small. The weather had been dry lately. Where in the immediate Northridge area was there a large, round casing with water that ran freely?
* * *
Serena's parents lived in a small bungalow on the southeast side of town. The neighborhood was older with a mixture of run-down homes as well as ones that had been maintained nicely. Overgrown yards next to ones with tasteful yellow and maroon fall-blooming flowers. Serena Flats' parents' home fell somewhere between the run-down and the maintained.
Nickie knocked quickly and waited. Mrs. Flats wore a housecoat and dirty slippers and was quite possibly stoned. Holding up her badge, Nickie reintroduced herself. "Mrs. Flats, I don't know if you remember me." She must not have because she squinted as she looked closer at the badge. "I'm Detective Nickie Savage. I was in the room during your visit with Captain Nolan. May I ask you a few questions about your daughter?"
Mrs. Flats stepped out of the way grumbling, "Oh, for crying out loud. If you knew Serena, you wouldn't be wasting your time. I spent the last two decades doing that. I learned."
She would wait to tell her about the latest 9-1-1 call and about the registered sex offender who lived two blocks from them. "Regardless, we'd like to find her."
She walked in and looked around. It smelled sweaty. The place was a mess but not enough to make an episode of Hoarders. Nickie sighed, thinking of her townhouse and realized she didn't have much room to judge. The absence of family artifacts was apparent. No framed pictures. Not a child-made trinket or a school award to be found.
"May I sit?" Nickie asked as she lowered herself to the couch. "I'd like the names of Serena's close friends and any boyfriends. It would be beneficial if you would allow me access to her computer."
The woman sighed overtly but agreed.
Nickie thought of the teenage years she herself had missed and wondered if this was the way her parents acted toward the police investigation. Rich, belligerent teenager runs away from home. Except Nickie hadn't been belligerent.
Following Mrs. Flats upstairs, she decided the downstairs must have been the tidy floor of the home. She pulled her jacket closer around her.
Serena's room was refreshing. Her tower and monitor sat on a small Formica desk. Her mother spoke as she walked around, looking at the room as if she hadn't seen it in months. Nickie did her best to multitask, taking down the names Mrs. Flats rattled off as she searched the computer.
Serena had left her social media page open, but other than that her computer was either barren or password protected. "Mrs. Flats, do you have access to the passwords to these accounts?" As fruitless as it seemed, she had to ask. Serena's mother rolled her eyes like a sixth-grader.
Regardless, Nickie found the name of a boyfriend from her social media page. Serena had messaged him the night before. They'd made middle-of-the-night plans.
Now, for the part of her job that never got any easier. Should never get any easier.
"Mrs. Flats, I appreciate your cooperation. Could you sit down for a moment, please?"
Serena's mother sat on the bed like it might bite her.
"We got another call." There it was. Finally. Serena's mother's eyes darted to Nickie's.
"Is... she dead?"
Chapter 3
Nickie hadn't returned his call, and Duncan wasn't about to wait any longer. He'd memorized the list of possible locations but wrote them down anyway. A highway bridge with a stream that fed into a larger lake, a spillway that generally gushed water during rainier weather and a spot close to the populated southeast part of town where the creek ran deep and flowed beneath a four-lane stretch of busy road.
Nickie would call when she could. Dating a cop was a learning curve for him. He pulled over down the street from the highway bridge. A familiar aching wonder pressed in the back of his mind–whether the reason she wasn't calling might be because she was in the middle of something. Or worse.
Gravel crunched under the tires of his '77 Barracuda. He looked over his shoulder, then opened the door. What if the girl was down there? He hadn't brought his gun. He parked far enough away that if they were down there, the sounds of the car's tires wouldn't be heard over the sound of the water.
His phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket so fast he almost dropped it. "Nickie?"
"I'm sorry it took me so long to call. We got another 9-1-1. The girl's mother is no longer in denial. I'm headed to interview a registered sex offender who lives a few blocks away."
He shut the car door and started a three-point turn. "I could... take a look around with you."
There was a pause. He could picture what she looked like as she considered his offer. Her pupils would dilate ever so slightly. She would shake her head twice as she convinced herself she could take care of it herself, and then...
"I'll call it in and get the okay."
She gave him the address. He pressed on the gas pedal, knowing if he took too long, she would damned well go in without him.
* * *
Nickie tapped her thumbs on the steering wheel. Duncan had exactly five more minutes before she went in without him. She still needed to get to the boyfriend's apartment and to see if she could check out the teacher who was conveniently absent from Serena's class that afternoon. It was getting dark and the temperature was dropping. If Serena was held captive in some place with water, some outside cold place...
She heard his car. Duncan had more secrets than just h
is eidetic memory. He was The Taste of L.A. who painted the rich and famous. And he liked to get his hands dirty working on cars. Like his memory, she would keep this secret safe for him, too.
He walked directly to her and linked their fingers in silent greeting. What did it mean that his simple presence could reduce her blood pressure? It was foreign to her.
Nodding in return, she squeezed, let go, then climbed the three wooden stairs to the door.
"Tom Bradley?" she asked the man who answered. She'd already seen his picture and knew it was him. Short black hair. Brown eyes. Five-foot-eleven. Skinny as hell.
"Who are you?" he murmured with a smile.
She pushed aside her jacket and revealed the badge on her belt. "I'm Detective Nickie Savage." Holding up the picture of Serena, she asked, "Have you seen this girl?" She watched to see if he broke eye contact. Creating a lie?
He didn't. Either he was telling the truth or was a stone cold freak.
"I'm a law abiding citizen." He stepped aside and gestured with his arm. "Come in. Look around if you don't believe me."
She turned to Duncan who was looking back at her. Bradley hadn't asked who he was. They exchanged knowing looks and entered the home.
It was about the same size and style as the Flats' home but was precisely clean. A single dollar-store picture hung in the center of each wall. The coffee table and entertainment center held a total of two remote controls and the television.
Bradley followed them silently. She glanced at Duncan every few minutes, watching as he scanned each room. He had a system when he entered any space or building, investigation or not. He stood at the entrance and took several seconds to scan the area. Not only would he carry an exact picture of each area of Tom Bradley's home, he had a knack at spotting details most people missed, even a detective.
They didn't have time for a warrant and were lucky Bradley was arrogant enough to let them in this far. "May I?" she asked as she placed her hand on the knob of a closet door.
"Of course. I said I have nothing to hide. I am a law abiding citizen," he repeated. It was creepy. He was enjoying this. Was it the attention?
She knew the statistics of rehabilitating a sex offender, and they were close to zero. They found shoes, dirty boots, clothes and a hanger that held an array of belts on one side and ties on the other.
As they went back down the stairs, Duncan glanced over his shoulder, giving her a look that said he had something to tell her. Funny how they could read each other's thoughts after only a few months as a... couple?
But she trusted him. She gave Bradley her card and thanked him for his time.
When they reached her car, Duncan turned to face her. "I have three possible locations. We should take a look."
She considered as she leaned a hip on her police issued unmarked. "I need to check out the boyfriend, and I want to see about a teacher who didn't show up for Serena's class today. How did you—? You hacked into the police department database again, didn't you?" she said as she poked him in the chest.
His smile was pure evil, and it sent waves of desire through her she shouldn't have been feeling at a time like this. "I'll follow you."
As she walked around and opened her car door, she noticed the curtains fall in the front window of Bradley's home.
* * *
The first stop was a bridge over a highway just outside of town. Nickie hoped the others weren't too much farther out. She'd called in her location to the captain on the drive but couldn't very well ask for backup because Duncan thought he heard a location.
Duncan pulled over in front of her, about two hundred yards from the bridge. She didn't mind walking on gravel in her heeled boots. Her ankles were made of steel.
He wrapped his long fingers around hers as they stalked in the silence. Who did he think he was fooling? It was an act of protection, not warmth. "I'll take the front," she said. "You take the back. We're just checking it out. If we see anything suspicious, I call for backup."
She didn't expect an answer from him. Duncan Reed's words were few and far between. He crossed the highway and headed for the other side.
Water. It wasn't deafening, but she could hear it. The incline had the same dry grasses, poking her legs as she maneuvered the dirt. She slid and caught herself by sitting. Damned boots. As she sat for a moment, she looked up. And squinted. Attached to the side of the bridge was a dish. A Dish Network dish. As she continued down the hill, she looked around, making sure she hadn't missed a home nearby.
The water ran continuously but was shallow enough that she could walk along the side without wading. The chill from the running water made her think of Serena.
She'd barely turned the corner when her feet were swept out from under her. She must have hit her head on the concrete because she saw stars as she realized she was lying partially in the frigid water.
"This is my home!" a deep voice screamed as a heavy form landed on her waist.
Stammering, she squirmed as a foul-smelling hand covered her face.
Dizziness clouded her vision, but she had enough sense to understand if the man on top of her wanted to hurt her, he would have done it already.
When her ears stopped ringing, she heard loud splashes. She regained focus just as the man lifted from her like a crane had hooked his back and flung him through the air.
Oh crap, Duncan. She winced at the thought of his temper.
It was like watching a short fight between rabid dogs. "Duncan, stop!" Rarely did Duncan lose control, but the few times he had were enough to last her a lifetime.
He straddled the man. One of his hands twisted the center of the man's shirt while the other cocked back in a fist.
Crawling to them, she held out her hand. "Duncan," she whispered.
She could see the wheels turning in his head as his chest rose and fell in rapid succession.
Defiantly, the man jutted his face toward Duncan. "My home," he repeated.
Duncan growled and lifted from him.
She was wet and cold and her head hurt like hell. "We don't want your home," she said. "We're looking for a girl, a young girl." Out of her back pocket, she pulled a soggy picture of Serena Flats and held it out.
He 'humphed' and stood. Taking the picture, he held it an arm's length away, then squinted. Still not ready to stand, she stuck her hand in the inside pocket of her jacket and took out a pair of reading glasses.
When she held out the glasses for him, he hesitated. "I don't like cops." He moved his glare to Duncan.
"I'm not a cop," Duncan grunted like it was a four-letter word. How could that make her smile at a time like this?
"I don't like them either some days," she said. "Put the glasses on, will you?"
He did so, turned his back to her and hunched over the photo. "My home. I don't like cops," he repeated. Then, she heard him mumble, "I have a daughter." He held the picture out behind him, leaving his back to her. "Never seen this one. Only drifters down here. I don't like cops." His head twitched as he walked toward his home.
His home consisted of some blankets and a few piles of junk piled in one of the tubes that drained into the underpass. Sure enough, there was the TV. How did he get power? What did he do when there was a hard rain?
"Thank you for your time." And the wet clothes and the lump on the head. "I'm sorry I startled you. I'm not going to report this." She dug back into her jacket and leafed through some business cards. Choosing the one for the homeless shelter, she held it out to him. "You need a place to stay when a hard rain comes."
He took it but not without reminding her that this was his home and that he didn't like cops.
"We've got two more stops." Duncan's voice came from the other end of the tunnel. He was squatting down, sifting through some gravel with his hands.
She left the man her glasses as she walked to Duncan.
* * *
"I'm soaked and I smell like I'm homeless."
Duncan looked Nickie over from head to toe. Wet, yes. Smelly, no.
He wouldn't try and argue the point.
She continued as they walked, "I'm going to grab a shower before I stop by the boyfriend's and the absent teacher's homes."
When they reached their cars, she turned to him with her steel gray eyes. The wet clothes hugged her in places he shouldn't be admiring at that moment. She wasn't long and thin like most women wanted to be... quite literally like every other woman he'd dated. She was fit and all woman. Her makeup was running, and she looked at him with contemplation. "I'm not kissing you looking like this," she said just before he covered her lips with his. It wasn't his fault. She'd challenged him. He wound his fingers through the damp waves and pulled her into him.
Taking the challenge, always taking the challenge, she grabbed hold of his shirt and pressed her female shape against him. This wasn't the pleasant peck he'd planned on. He should have known better. Opening for him, lips danced and tongues meshed. How could he ever live without this woman?
The small moan that escaped her mouth nearly made him take her then and there.
Expectantly, he felt her hands on his chest as she pushed him away. Licking her lips, she opened her car door before he had the chance. "That's for helping today. Don't go check out the other two locations." At that, she paused, turning to face him head on. "I mean it. Duncan—" But he was already turning to walk away.
Chapter 4
Duncan stood with his legs wide, eyes on the target. With confidence, he squeezed the trigger of his Beretta 9mm. He didn't care for guns. The noise reverberated in his mind and his memory, regardless of the hearing protection. The feel of the kickback threatened to bring him back to his stint in the Middle East. The need outweighed the memories. The memories were as clear as if they were happening at that moment. Which was why he considered his eidetic memory a curse. The Chinook, the bazooka, the hole the size of a small car, the blood.
He was dating a cop—a cop who seemed to get herself into the kind of trouble that could use a steady trigger finger and good aim.
