Private L.A. (16 page)

“Bacon cheeseburger,” Malia mumbled.

“Not me. Jennifer says it’s bad for you, bacon,” Jin announced.

“No, it isn’t,” Malia said. “Anita says it’s the best. Makes you strong.”

“What does Anita know?”

“Everything,” Miguel said, eyes still shut.

“She’s here, you know, Anita, in Los Angeles,” Justine said. Her goal now was just to keep them talking, build trust.

Miguel’s eyes opened and his hand dropped. “Where is she?”

“I don’t know exactly,” Justine admitted. “But she’s here. I know she’d love to see you all at some point.”

Miguel’s face fell. “Oh.”

“Would you like to see her?” Justine asked.

Miguel blinked, nodded. So did his sisters.

“I’m sure we can arrange that,” Justine said. “But in the meantime, there is someone here I think you might also be happy to see.”

She opened the door and their bulldog came rushing in, trailing a leash, wagging her butt wildly, snuffling, whining, and trying to jump up on the bed.

“Stella!” Miguel cried. The boy leaped out of his bed and held the bulldog tight while she barked and licked his face. Then, with great effort—the dog weighed more than fifty pounds—he picked her up and set her down on his bed while his sisters crowded in around their brother and beloved dog.

“Stella Bella is such a pretty girl,” Malia soothed.

“Prettiest in the world,” Jin said. “Best dog in the world.”

Miguel beamed and scratched Stella’s belly. The dog flopped on her side so all the children could get in on the scratching. Her jowls hung open, making her look like an alien. But then, to Justine’s delight and wonder, the bulldog began to purr, almost like a cat.

“Does she always do that?” Justine asked.

“Only when she’s happy,” Jin said. “Stella’s a wonder dog.”

“I can see that,” Justine said. “She was very upset when we found her up at the ranch. Any idea why Stella would be so upset?”

Malia and Jin shook their heads, but Miguel said, “Because she missed us, I bet.”

Justine knew from a brief scan of the children’s medical records that in addition to the cleft palate, Miguel had been diagnosed as “on the spectrum,” not autistic, but very awkward socially. To her surprise, however, at least in the presence of the dog, he exhibited few if any signs of Asperger’s syndrome.

“I’ll bet that’s what it was,” Justine agreed. “Stella’s a smart dog.”

Miguel grinned. The dog made him happy. The dog made them all happy, and more relaxed, open. Justine decided the dog could be her ally.

“If Stella could talk,” Justine began, “what do you think
she
would remember from the day you all disappeared? Anything. Anything at all.”

“WHAT KIND OF
question is that?” Camilla Bronson demanded out in the suite’s common room, where Justine’s questioning unfolded on-screen.

“A brilliant one,” I retorted. “She’s getting them to separate from whatever happened to them by forcing them to engage their imaginations and look at their memories through the dog’s eyes. Stella’s like her key into their minds.”

Indeed, over the next two hours, using Stella whenever she could to preface questions, Justine brought out snippets of information that together created a loose tapestry of the Harlow family’s life on the day before their disappearance.

Stella remembered that she suffered from jet lag but felt happy to be out of Vietnam, with all those crazy scooters that almost ran her over. The bulldog recalled getting up early with Malia, who’d promised Jennifer she’d feed and water the horses. Jennifer liked to sleep in. The dog also remembered that Jin had worked on a watercolor painting instead of unpacking her room, which had annoyed her mother no end. Stella further recalled that Miguel had climbed a live oak tree he’d never climbed before, and Héctor, the caretaker and groundskeeper, got upset with him, and had to fetch a ladder to get him down.

“How long have you known Héctor?” Justine asked.

“Forever,” Malia said. “Héctor came with the ranch, Thom told me once.”

Their adoptive father had gotten up around nine the day after their arrival back at the ranch, got coffee, and disappeared to his editing room in the basement. The bulldog and all three children saw him go through the kitchen on his way there. Despite his promise that he’d spend time with the children, Thom had spent much of the day working. Jennifer rose later, around noon, complained of jet lag; but then she too went to her office and worked for much of the day.

They’d had dinner together around six. Miguel wanted to play soccer afterward, but Thom said he had too much work to do, took a plate of food, and returned to his editing room. Stella remembered this because Thom had dropped a cubed piece of chicken and she’d snagged it before he could.

“Thom told Stella she was like a shark,” Jin recalled softly.

As the group that was gathered in the common room watched the screen, the bulldog, on the bed next to Miguel, seemed to grow puzzled. Was that possible? Her eyebrows definitely rose. She clearly knew the kids were talking about her.

“When did Stella go out last?” Justine asked.

“Probably after we went to bed,” Jin said. “Jennifer always took her out last, let her go pee and poop while she went for a run.”

“Did Jennifer go for a run that night?” Justine asked.

“Jennifer never misses her run, no matter what,” Malia said flatly. “I heard the screen door slam when she went out that night. It’s below my window.”

“What time did Jennifer come back?”

“I dunno,” Malia said with a heavy shrug. “I was in my room when she left, but then my iPhone died, so I went to where we watch television, off the kitchen?”

Justine nodded. “And?”

“That’s the last thing I remember,” Malia said. “I was on the couch, watching the CW, and then like nothing.”

“How about you?” Justine asked Jin.

JIN SHOOK HER
head.

“Miguel?”

The boy looked off into the distance. He’d covered his mouth again with his hand. Even so, you could see the memory of some traumatic event ripple across his face. Then he shook his head, said, “No.”

“What were you thinking about just then?” Justine asked.

Miguel shrugged, said, “It was like a dream. I don’t think it was real.”

“What happened in your dream?” Justine asked softly. “Was Stella there?”

“She was sleeping in my bed,” the boy said.

“How do you know that?”

“Because she farted when I got up to go to pee. It was horrible.”

Jin giggled, nodded. “Stella’s the smartest, prettiest girl, but she’s got the worstest farts.”

The dog’s eyebrows went up again.

Justine said, “Okay, so Stella farts in your dream, Miguel, and then you go pee, and then what?”

The boy blinked, and the repressed memory passed across his face again. “I heard noises,” he said. “I didn’t know what they were, but I knew they were bad.”

“How?”

He hesitated, hand worrying the bulldog’s neck, said, “I don’t know. But I was scared. I started to run, and I fell and hurt my legs.” He pointed to the bruises on his knees and shins. “And then I don’t remember anything.”

“When you say ‘bad noises,’ do you mean screams or—”

“Crying,” Jin said suddenly, looking off somewhere herself. “I remember a dream too. Someone was crying.”

“Where were you?” Justine asked. “In your room? At home?”

Jin appeared puzzled but then said, “No. I was in like a bunk bed, because I was lying on my back, and I could reach up and touch the bottom of the mattress. It wasn’t very far.”

“You remember seeing that in your dream?” Justine asked.

“No, it was night. I could just, like … feel it?”

“And the crying?” Justine pressed. “Where was that? Who was that?”

“I don’t …” Jin said before her voice trailed off.

Malia’s mouth hung open. “I had that same dream too. Someone
was
crying.”

“Where?”

“Outside of where I was,” Malia said, growing agitated, tears starting to dribble. “Only I don’t think it was a bunk bed. I was in a box. I felt walls all around me. I heard the crying through the walls.”

“Was it a man or a woman crying? Your mom or dad?”

The oldest Harlow girl shook her head. “No. It sounded like a child crying. Not Jennifer.”

“Couldn’t have been Thom?”

Malia blinked, thought, said, “But I heard men talking and that stopped the crying, and then I heard loud noises like chains clanking, and something heavy hitting something metal. And then a sound like a jet, the way the engine sounds when it starts up?”

“I know that sound,” Justine said, paused. “The men you heard talking in your dream. What were they saying?”

“I don’t know. They were speaking Spanish.”

DEL RIO’S FACE
was puffy, bandaged. A carbon-fiber-and-canvas girdle wrapped and supported his torso. He was flat on his back, hitched to several machines and an IV, but breathing without a tube.

“I’m spending too much time in hospitals,” I said in weary greeting. It was past ten. Other than two twenty-minute catnaps, I hadn’t slept in nearly forty-eight hours. I should have listened to Justine, gone home, slept hard. But I felt I had to be by Del Rio’s side. It was my duty, and my honor.

Del Rio smiled, coughed, looked at me through a medicated haze. “They say it will all heal.”

“You can’t know how happy I was to hear that news, Rick,” I said, grabbed his hand and shook it. “How happy all of us are.”

“Don’t feel jack now, Jack,” Del Rio said. “But they got me on all sorts of stuff supposed to reduce the swelling.” He paused. “What-all happened? Nobody’ll tell me anything.”

I gave it to him in broad strokes, the death of Bud Rankin, the chase at the pier after the explosion, the identity of the kiteboarders, the sheriff trying to say Private should take the fall for the whole fiasco.

“What did I tell you?” Del Rio rasped.

I raised my hands in surrender. “I should have listened to you, but we had and have immunity. Anyway, FBI’s involved now. In both cases.”

“Both?”

I summarized Justine and Cruz’s trip to Mexico, the release of the Harlow children, and their spare and fuzzy recollections of their capture and captivity.

Del Rio closed his eyes. For a second I thought he’d lost consciousness, but then he said, “Those sounds she heard, the Harlow girl. Sounds like loading coffins on an airplane, right?”

I thought about it, nodded. “Could be, or something like it.”

“There’ll be paperwork on that somewhere,” he said. “You can’t just go flying bodies around in coffins.”

“That true?”

“Well, you’d think.”

I couldn’t argue with his logic, said, “I’ll have Mo-bot look into cargo flights to Mexico the night they disappeared. Guadalajara.”

Del Rio nodded, glanced at the clock. “I don’t remember you saying Fescoe or anyone else got another demand from No Prisoners.”

“Because there hasn’t been one, at least to my knowledge.”

“More than twenty-four hours,” he said. “No more killings either.”

He was right. What did that mean? Anything? Or was No Prisoners just trying to lull us into thinking—

“Where’s it all going next?” Del Rio asked. “Private’s end of things?”

“Justine and Sci are returning to the Harlows’ ranch in the morning along with a team of FBI techs, see if there’s anything they missed,” I said.

“Justine done with the kids?” he grunted. “Couple of hours of mind-flogging doesn’t seem enough for her.”

I shrugged. “She offered to go back in the morning. But Sanders wanted to give the children time to get settled into his house before they were talked to again. I have to admit, he seems very protective of them. They all do. Camilla Bronson and Graves. Justine’s arguing that I should send people back to Mexico ASAP. But the FBI’s already heard her story and they’ve got more clout.”

“No Prisoners?”

“I want No Prisoners because of what he did to you,” I said coldly. “But I have no idea what Private’s official role will be going forward.”

My cell phone rang loudly. “Shit.” I wasn’t supposed to have the damn thing on. I glanced at the caller ID and was taken aback.

I hesitated, clicked
ANSWER
. “More slanderous accusations to throw my way?”

“Jack,” Bobbie Newton sighed. “I just have to draw the line at someone disrupting my God-given First Amendment rights.”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

“How are they, the poor li’l darlings?”

I could tell she’d been drinking. Bobbie liked to drink, early and often, another winning aspect of her character.

“Who?” I said.

“Coy boy,” she said in a scolding tone.

I let the silence grow, knowing it would drive her crazy, personally and from a journalistic point of view. Bobbie had broken the story of the Harlow kidnapping and the release of the children. No doubt about that. But stories like the Harlows’ disappearance required near-constant updates to feed the cable, Internet, and network news monsters.

“Give Camilla a call,” I said. “I’m sure she’d love to talk.”

“Camilla Bronson carries grudges,” Bobbie said.

“And I don’t?”

“C’mon, Jack. That’s old news. Live and let live.”

I waited several beats, then said, “Tit for tat, Bobbie?”

“What’s the tit?” she demanded, and I heard ice cubes clink against glass.

“An update on their physical and mental condition, the little we know about the day of the kidnapping,” I said.

“Mmmmm, that is tempting,” Bobbie said. “The tat?”

“Who tipped you off? Was it Maines?”

“A good journalist never reveals sources,” she protested. “You know that.”

“Too bad, then. Gotta go, Bobbie.”

“Wait, wait!” she cried. “Okay, okay. You go first.”

“Nope,” I said, and stayed silent. “Offer’s good for ten seconds.”

Five seconds went by. Then nine. I was about to end the call when she said, “Terry Graves.”

That threw me. Why would …?

“I’m waiting for my tit, Jack,” Bobbie said.

“Sorry, Bobbie, your information came in a second after tit deadline.”