A Trace of Death. Blake Pierce
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“Because he asked her not to. He was as dismissive as you, maybe even more so. Hold on a second.”
Keri had reached her car. She put the phone on speaker, tossed it in the passenger seat, and got in. As she pulled out onto the street, she filled him in on the rest – the fake ID, the shell casing, the girl who saw Ashley getting in the van – possibly against her will – the plan to coordinate interviews. As she was finishing up, her phone beeped and she looked at the screen.
“That’s Suarez calling in. I want to fill him in on the details. We good? You disengaged yet?”
“I’m getting in the car now,” he answered, not taking the bait. “I can be there in fifteen minutes.”
“I hope you offered her my apologies, whoever she was,” Keri said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.
“She wasn’t the kind of girl who needs apologies,” Ray replied.
“Why am I not surprised?”
She switched calls without saying goodbye.
Fifteen minutes later, Keri and Ray walked the stretch of Main Street where Ashley Penn may or may not have been abducted. There was nothing obviously out of the ordinary. The dog park next to the street was alive with happy yips and owners shouting out to pets with names like Hoover, Speck, Conrad, and Delilah.
Rich bohemian dog owners. Ah, Venice.
Keri tried to force the extraneous thoughts out of her head and focus. There didn’t seem to be much to go on. Ray clearly felt the same way.
“Is it possible she just took off or ran away?’ he mused.
“I’m not ruling it out,” Keri replied. “She’s definitely not the innocent little princess her mom thinks she is.”
“They never are.”
“Whatever happened to her, it’s possible she played a role in it. The more we can get into her life, the more we’ll know. We need to talk to some people who won’t give us the official line. Like that senator – I don’t know what’s going on with him. But he definitely wasn’t comfortable with me probing into their life.”
“Got any idea why?”
“Not yet, other than a gut feeling that there’s something he’s hiding. I’ve never met a parent so blasé about their missing child. He was telling stories about pounding beers at fifteen. He was trying too hard.”
Ray winced visibly.
“I’m glad you didn’t call him on it,” he said. “The last thing you need is an enemy who has the word Senator in front of his name.”
“I don’t care.”
“Well, you should,” he said. “A few words from him to Beecher or Hillman, and you’re history.”
“I was history five years ago.”
“Come on – ”
“You know it’s true.”
“Don’t go there,” Ray said.
Keri hesitated, glanced at him, then turned her gaze back to the dog park. A few feet from them, a little brown-furred puppy was happily rolling on its back in the dirt.
“Want to know something I never told you?” she asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“After, what happened, you know – ”
“Evie?”
Keri felt her heart clench at her daughter’s name.
“Right. There was a time right after it happened, when I was trying to get pregnant like crazy. It went on for two or three months. Stephen couldn’t keep up.”
Ray said nothing. She continued.
“Then I woke up one morning and hated myself. I felt like someone who’d lost a dog and went straight to the pound to get a replacement. I felt like a coward, like I was being all about me, instead of keeping the focus where it belonged. I was letting Evie go instead of fighting for her.”
“Keri, you got to stop doing this to yourself. You’re your own worst enemy, you really are.”
“Ray, I can still feel her. She’s alive. I don’t know where or how, but she is.”
He squeezed her hand.
“I know.”
“She’s thirteen now.”
“I know.”
They walked the rest of the block in silence. When they got to the intersection at Westminster Avenue, Ray finally spoke.
“Listen,” he said in a tone that indicated he was focusing on the case again, “we can follow every lead that turns up. But this is a senator’s daughter. And if she didn’t just go for some joyride, the claws are going to come out on this one. Sometime soon, the Feds are going to get involved. The brass downtown are going to want in too. By nine tomorrow morning, you and I will be kicked to the curb.”
It was probably true but Keri didn’t care. She’d deal with the morning in the morning. Right now they had a case to work.
She sighed deeply and closed her eyes. After partnering with her for a year, Ray had finally learned not to interrupt her when she was trying to get in the zone.
After about thirty seconds she opened her eyes and looked around. After a moment, she pointed to a business across the intersection.
“Over there,” she said and started walking.
This stretch of Venice north of Washington Boulevard up to about Rose Avenue was a weird crossroads of humanity. There were the mansions of the Venice Canals to the south, the fancy shops of Abbot Kinney Boulevard directly east, the commercial sector to the north, and the grungy surf and skate section along the beach.
But throughout the entire area were gangs. They were more prominent at night, especially closer to the coast. But LAPD Pacific Division was tracking fourteen active gangs in greater Venice, at least five of which considered the spot Keri was standing on as part of their territory. There was one black gang, two Hispanic ones, a white power motorcycle gang, and a gang comprised primarily of drug- and gun-dealing surfers. All of them existed uneasily on the same streets as millennial bar-goers, hookers, wide-eyed tourists, homeless vets, and long-time granola-chomping, tie-dyed T-shirt–wearing residents.
As a result, business in the area comprised everything from hipster speakeasies to henna tattoo parlors to medicinal marijuana dispensaries to the place Keri stood in front of now, a bail bondsman’s office.
It was on the second story of a recently restored building, just above a pressed juice bar.
“Check it out,” she said. Above the front door, the sign read Briggs Bail Bonds.
“What about it?” Ray said.
“Look