Be Afraid (33 page)

“Are you Loyola Briggs?” Rick asked.

“Yeah. But I ain’t done nothing wrong. Ask my parole officer. I make my meetings.”

Rick reached for his phone and pulled up the picture of Heather Briggs. “Is this your daughter?”

Loyola didn’t look at the photo. She sniffed and shook her head. “I ain’t got no children.”

“Your mother says you have a daughter named Heather.”

Loyola met his gaze. “I don’t have no kids.”

Wednesday, August 23, 11:30
P.M.

Rick’s grip on the phone tightened. “According to your mother, Ester Higgins, you do have a child. Her name is Heather.”

Loyola stopped her struggles and for a moment stared at him as if he were a ghost from the past. “What?”

“Heather,” Bishop said. “Your daughter was Heather.”

The woman shook her head and dropped her gaze. “No.”

Rick gripped his temper. “Where’s Heather?”

She sniffed and kept her gaze on the ground. For a moment her gaze turned vacant as if she traveled backward in time. “I gave her away.”

“Gave her away?” Rick asked.

“Yeah.” She shrugged her shoulders. “To a good family. That was a long time ago. Is she looking for me? I’ve seen stories on the television, you know, where kids come and find their real families.”

He wondered how many times she’d told herself this story over the years. “You think she’s looking for you?”

“Sure. That’s what adopted kids do. Like I said, I seen it on those movie channels before.”

Bishop muttered a curse. “You didn’t give Heather away.”

“Yes, I did.” She raised her gaze staring at him with vacant eyes. “I did. To a good family.”

“Who did you give her to?” Rick asked.

“A good family. A really good family.”

“I need a name,” Rick insisted.

She shook her head. “I don’t remember the name.”

Bishop sighed. “You gave your child to a family and you don’t have a name?”

“That happens with adoptions. I think they’re called closed adoptions.”

Bishop growled. “This is a waste of time. Tell her.”

Rick shook his head. “Loyola, we’ve found the body of a child. A girl. And we think it’s Heather.” He scrolled through his phone and found Jenna’s sketch. “We think this is Heather.”

Loyola didn’t look at the image. “No. That’s not Heather.”

“You haven’t looked at it,” Rick said.

She folded her arms, as if donning armor. “I don’t need to.”

“Do me the favor of looking at the picture.” No missing the order behind the soft tone.

Loyola’s gaze flickered to the image, but didn’t focus on it. “That’s not her.”

With deliberate slowness, Rick turned off the image and tucked the phone in his breast pocket. “Know how we came up with this picture?”

Loyola sniffed and glanced toward her feet. “I don’t care.”

Bishop twisted his pinky ring. “You aren’t the least bit curious?”

“I’ve got to get back to work. Please take these handcuffs off.” She moved as if to leave but Rick stepped in her path, blocking her escape.

“We found a skull, Loyola. In the Centennial Park.” He didn’t say exactly where in the park because he wanted to hear that from her. “Skull was wrapped in a plastic bag. Didn’t take the medical examiner long to tell us the skull belonged to a five-year-old girl.” The desire to back this woman up against a wall and demand a confession was powerful. But he kept it in check. The medical examiner had pulled DNA from the skull’s teeth. “We’ll match that DNA to yours, which is on file.”

Loyola chewed her bottom lip. “I gave her away. She’s living a good life now. And I ain’t giving my DNA to nobody.”

Rick’s grip on his pen tightened as he clicked the end over and over.
Click. Click. Click
. “She was your daughter. And you can’t tell me who has her now?”

“They wouldn’t tell me who was gonna get her.”

“They? Who are they, Loyola?”

“I don’t remember.”

A smile tipped the edge of his mouth.
Click. Click. Click
. “No more stories. Let’s talk about the truth. Did you kill your daughter, Loyola?”

“I didn’t . . .” She hesitated. “I’d never hurt Heather. I loved her.”

“She’s dead. Someone killed this child. We found her body.”

She squeezed her eyes closed. “I wouldn’t . . . couldn’t. You’ve made a mistake. You didn’t find my Heather.”

“If you didn’t . . .” He leaned a fraction closer as if they were conspirators. “Then you know who did. Who did you give her to?” She might have given the child away or sold her to people who enjoyed hurting children. He’d seen it before and it never failed to sicken him.

“I don’t know.”

“That’s not going to cut it, Loyola.” Again, Rick kept his voice nonthreatening. He didn’t like this woman but he needed her to talk. Not for himself. But for Heather.

“Let’s haul her ass to jail.” Bishop’s anger rumbled like a growl that all but radiated from his body.

Loyola shook her head. “I ain’t going to jail. One more strike and I go to prison.”

“Too damn bad,” Bishop said. “Nothing would make my day better than watching them slam the door on your pathetic face.”

Rick stepped in front of Bishop as if to protect Loyola. “I need you to talk, Loyola. I just need the truth. I don’t want to see you go to prison.”

Tears welled in her eyes as she shook her head. “I loved Heather.”

“I know you did,” he said softly. “Tell me what happened. When was the last time you saw her?”

The tears flowed as she seemed to claw through the years to dark memories.

“What was she doing the last time you saw her?” Rick asked.

Loyola swiped away a tear. “She was crying.”

“Why was she crying?” he asked softly.

Bishop paced behind Rick as if he were a caged animal. Loyola’s gaze flickered to him and then quickly settled on Rick as if she’d fled to a safe harbor. “I don’t remember.”

“Was she hurt?”

She chewed her bottom lip. “She must’ve been sad. She loved me and didn’t want to go to the new family.”

“Was she hurt?” he repeated, as he laid a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“I don’t remember.”

“I think you do.”

“Danny was there,” she whispered.

Bishop stopped pacing but glared at Loyola as if to tell her the threat of jail remained.

“Danny was Heather’s father,” Rick said.

“Yes.”

“What happened?” Rick had to be careful here. He didn’t want to put ideas in her head about what had happened. He wanted all the facts to come from her.

She picked at her sleeve. “Nothing happened. Danny loved Heather.”

Rick’s anger simmered under the surface even as he kept his hand on her shoulder. He was careful to keep his fingers relaxed. He wanted her to think of him as a friend. Getting a pound of flesh right now wouldn’t help Heather. “What happened?”

She squeezed her eyes closed as if the scene played right before her. “Nothing happened.”

Bishop hissed in a breath, his anger as thick as the humidity soaking the night air. Both cops knew Danny Briggs’s rap sheet went back thirty years and was littered with violence and drugs.

Loyola kept her gaze on Rick as if he had become her sole lifeline.

“Where’d you see Heather crying?”

“In her bed. Danny said we needed to find her a new home. And I knew he was right. He took her to the new home.”

“He took her?”

She shrugged. “He took her away. I never knew where. He took her away and I never saw her again.” She looked up at him, her gaze pleading for forgiveness he could never give.

“Did he hurt her?” Rick asked.

She glanced up, her gaze wild, bloodshot and watery. “No. He loved her. He just took her away.”

The likes of Danny Briggs trampled children in their wake.

Rick nodded to Bishop, who quickly grabbed hold of Loyola’s handcuffed arms.

But Rick shook his head. Until he had a confession or a solid witness statement, he didn’t want to lose the fragile trust Loyola had given him. “Loyola, we need to go downtown.”

“Why do we need to go anywhere? And I’ll be good without the handcuffs, I promise.” She looked at Bishop and then Rick, pleading.

Rage roiled in Bishop’s gaze and, for a moment, he looked as if he would respond with a harsh comment. But he caught Rick’s warning glare and fell silent. Rick didn’t question his partner. They all had those moments, those cases that struck deep nerves that could paralyze with pain and anger.

“We need to talk more,” Rick said. Until he squeezed every bit of information he could out of Loyola, he’d play nice.
Sometimes you have to dance with the devil to solve a case.
How many times had he heard his father say that? “Bishop, remove the handcuffs.”

Bishop’s glare darkened, but he fished the keys from his pocket and unlocked the cuffs.

Rubbing her wrists, Loyola looked up at him, her gaze bewildered and confused. “I told you what I know.”

Rick shook his head. He wanted to know how a woman could allow a goon like Briggs around her child let alone allow the man to take her away. “My guess is there’re a few more details.”

After Rick and Bishop found drugs on Loyola Briggs, a violation of her parole, they booked her in the jail. The charge wouldn’t hold her long, but at least that had her location nailed down for no less than twenty-four hours.

Danny’s parole officer got a wake-up call at four in the morning. He’d been groggy, his voice deep with sleep, but he’d promised to head into the office and pull Danny’s file.

Two hours later when Rick got a call from the parole officer, he had had a chance to swing by his house for a quick shower and to pick up Tracker. Armed with a last-known address for Briggs from the parole officer, Rick and Tracker swung by the office and picked up Bishop.

Tracker sat alert in the backseat when they parked in front of the one-story clapboard house covered in a blend of old paint and mold.

Bishop glanced at the house and the pile of garbage by the front door. “Delightful.”

Tracker’s gaze looked at the house and he barked again.

“What’s with the dog?” Bishop asked.

Rick and Tracker shared a strong connection and he’d learned long ago if the dog was barking he needed to pay attention. “I don’t know.”

Rick got out and opened Tracker’s door. The dog barked.

Bishop slid out of his seat. “Why you bringing the dog?”

“He’s restless. Don’t worry, he’ll behave.”

Bishop slammed his door.

When Rick and Bishop banged on Briggs’s house door, Tracker sat at the bottom of the stairs, his ears perked and his gaze bright. It was seven in the morning.

No one answered. Rick banged again.

Bishop stood back, flexing his fingers. “I’m looking forward to meeting this guy.”

Rick shook his head slowly. “Let me do the talking. You’re angry and that’s not good.”

“Aren’t you angry?” Bishop asked.

“Yeah. But I’m better at locking the anger away until I’m ready to pull it out.”

Bishop’s jaw tensed. “I’ll be fine.”

Rick met his gaze. “I do the talking.”

“Understood.”

Rick hammered his fist on the door. “Police. Open the door.”

A light clicked on inside and the shuffle of feet moved toward the door seconds before it opened to a woman. In her late thirties, she had light brown hair, bloodshot eyes ringed with day old mascara, and pockmarked skin. “What do you want?”

“We’re looking for Danny Briggs,” Rick said.

She coughed. “He left yesterday. Took off like a bat out of hell.”

“What’s your name?”

“I’m Cindy Gavin. I’m his girlfriend for lack of a better word.”

“Mind if we search the place?”

She wore a silk robe that gapped slightly at her breasts. Smiling, she opened the door wider and stepped back. “Help yourself. He ain’t here.”

The two officers moved into the small house. It was decorated in a cat theme from the black carpet to the leopard drapes to the striped wallpaper. Pictures of lions and tigers hung on the wall. Mugs on the kitchen counter were striped like a tiger. While Bishop stood in the living room with Cindy, Rick searched the house. There was no sign of Danny Briggs.

Rick emerged from the bedroom. “Did he say where he was going?”

“Nope. Just packed a bag and took off.”

“Why’d he leave?”

She shrugged. “We were watching television, the news came on, and he got real sick-looking.”

“What was on the news?”

“I don’t know. I was reading a magazine. He was waiting for a sports score update and then there was some news story about an artist and he was gone.”

The story about Jenna and the Lost Girl had spooked Danny. “Any idea where he might go?”

“He’s been staying with me since he got out of prison. He’s got a few friends from before he went up. I guess he’s with one of them.”

“You have names?” Rick asked.

“Yeah, sure.” She rattled off several names as she reached in the pocket of her robe and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She lit one. “What’s he done now? Guy’s got a hot head and isn’t afraid to use his fists.”

“He ever mention anything about a kid or a wife?” Rick noticed the faint yellowing of a fading bruise on Cindy’s wrists as if they’d been gripped hard.

“No. You telling me he’s got a wife or a kid looking for him?”

“Not exactly,” Rick pulled a card from his pocket and handed it to her. “We’ll track down his friends, but if you see Danny, call me.”

She flicked the edge of the card as she raised the cigarette to her mouth with the other. “He’s really screwed up this time, hasn’t he?”

“He sure did,” Bishop growled.

Rick smiled, no hint of anger. “Let’s just say we got a few questions for him. And you’d be wise to call if you see him.”

“Yeah, sure. Why not? He’s a pain in the ass and it would be great to get him out of my life.”

The detectives turned and started for the car when Tracker glanced past Rick to the side of the house. The dog began barking loud.

Bishop glared at the dog but Rick immediately reached for his weapon and whirled around. Following Tracker’s gaze toward the side of the house, he instantly saw the flash of a gun muzzle as a tall man stepped out of the shadows.