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“That’s a given.”
“You know there’s a pool, right? How long until Hallie’s next abduction?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“C’mon, you’ve managed it three times in three years. If you can wait until the first week in May, I’ll win five hundred bucks.”
I flipped Dan the bird. “I’m signing up for a Krav Maga class right now.”
“I saw you in the gym with Dasha the other day. How did that go?”
Quite honestly? It had been both scary as hell and weirdly empowering. She’d started off with a condescending pep talk—kidnap me once, shame on you, kidnap me twice, shame on me, kidnap me three times… She’d just shaken her head in incredulity and muttered something in Russian—and then shown me how to take a man to the floor with brutal efficiency. Next, we’d headed to the indoor range, where she’d given me a long lecture-slash-lesson on point shooting, which meant a fast draw and aiming on instinct rather than relying on the sights, and then she’d made me practise over and over and over again. After two hours, I managed to get a few holes in the target. Her shots hit the centre every time.
I made a face, and Dan laughed.
“That good, huh?”
“Let’s just say I’m glad she’s back in Oregon.”
4
HALLIE
“He said he was a private investigator, but I know a cop when I see one. And the guy who came before—Toast, or whatever his name was—was a cop.”
Crumb. She meant Crumb. His notes mentioned that Chelle La Rocca had been uncooperative. But I wasn’t going to admit I knew that, and boy, was I glad I’d gone in with a cover story rather than being upfront about the circumstances of my visit. Today, I was here on behalf of Nicci, a friend from New York who’d worked with Kaylin a little over three years ago and never stopped wondering what happened to her.
Chelle poured coffee into two chipped mugs and added milk and sugar to both without asking. Life hadn’t been kind to her. The inside of her trailer was tidy, but the outside was weathered to within an inch of its life. Someone had patched the roof with plywood and a tarp. The odour of stale nicotine permeated throughout, and unless I was mistaken, there was a hint of weed too.
I took the mug Chelle offered and followed her to the tiny living room. She waved me toward an afghan-covered recliner, and when she moved a stack of magazines and took a seat on a side table, I figured she didn’t get many visitors.
“Maybe he used to be a cop and moved into the private sector,” I suggested, knowing that was exactly what had happened.
“Once a cop, always a cop. Men like that never change. Lazy and corrupt, all of them.”
Okay, now definitely wasn’t the time to mention that I was dating a detective. Ford wasn’t corrupt, and he wasn’t lazy either—the fact that he’d kept me up half the night was proof of that. My thighs clenched just from the memory.
“There are a few bad apples, no doubt about it.”
Rule 101: build rapport. Whether you were talking to a witness or a suspect, you caught more flies with honey. Unless you were Emmy or Dasha, of course. I bet they knew torture techniques I couldn’t even imagine.
“More than a few bad apples. My daughter was murdered, and do you know what they did? Nothing. Didn’t even bother to investigate, just offered half-baked condolences and went back to arresting jaywalkers or whatever it is they do all day.”
“I’m so sorry about your daughter. I didn’t realise.”
“Well, neither did those fools in uniform. They say she jumped out a window.”
Interesting.
“And you don’t think that’s true?”
“Renée made mistakes, but she wasn’t suicidal.”
I’d read that file too. Renée La Rocca had returned from Russia, quit modelling, and gotten a job selling advertising at a local newspaper. Quite a change, but she’d met all her sales targets, and her colleagues seemed to like her—there were even rumours of a romance with one of the reporters. The night she died, she’d been working late alone when she exited the building via a fifth-floor window. The only security camera had malfunctioned. Coincidence, or something more? My curiosity burned, but that wasn’t the case I was here to solve, and besides, if Renée had been given a helping hand, I already had a good idea who’d ordered it. Nico’s father.
I steered the conversation back in the right direction.
“Chelle, I can only imagine the heartbreak you must have experienced losing both your daughter and your granddaughter. I understand you raised Kaylin after her mom passed?”
