I got out of the car as I saw Molly come out of the school. She didn't spot me right away. She walked with her head down, pulling her little black case behind her. Though she was surrounded by other children, she seemed alone, deep in thought. I called out to her as she turned and started down the sidewalk. When she saw me, her face brightened with a carefully tempered expectation.
"Did you find her already?" she asked.
"No, not yet. I've spent the day asking a lot of questions. She may be in Ocala," I said.
Molly shook her head. "She wouldn't have moved without telling me, without calling me."
"Erin tells you everything?" I asked, opening the car door for her. I glanced around to see if anyone had me pegged as a child molester. No one was paying any attention at all.
"Yes."
I went around to the driver's side, got behind the wheel, and started the engine. "Did she tell you she and Chad were involved with each other?"
Her gaze glanced off of mine and she seemed to shrink a little in the seat.
"Why didn't you tell me about Chad?"
"I don't know," she mumbled. "I would rather not acknowledge Chad's existence."
Or that Erin had shifted from sister to sexual being, I thought as I drove back toward the cul-de-sac where Molly lived. Erin had been her idol and protector. If Erin abandoned her, then Molly was all alone in the land of dysfunctional Seabrights.
"Chad was at Erin's apartment Friday night," I said. "They had an argument. Do you know anything about that?"
Molly shrugged. "Maybe they broke up."
"Why would you think that? Was Erin interested in someone else?"
"She had a crush on her boss, but he's too old for her."
That was a matter of opinion. From what I had learned about Erin so far, I wouldn't have been at all surprised to find out she had her sights set on a man old enough to be her father. And if past history was anything to go by, Jade wouldn't draw that line for her.
"Anyone else?"
"I don't know," Molly said irritably. "Erin liked flirting with guys. I didn't pay attention. I didn't want to hear about it."
"Molly, this is very important," I said as I pulled to the curb at the end of her street. "When I ask you questions about Erin, or about anything, anyone, you have to tell me the absolute truth as you know it. No glossing over details you don't like. Got it?"
She frowned, but nodded.
"You have to trust me," I said, and a bolt of white-cold fear ran through me.
Molly looked at me in that steady, too-wise way and said, "I already told you I do."
This time I didn't ask her why.
7
I stand at the side of the Golam brothers' trailer. I've been told to stay put, to wait, but I know that's not the right decision. If I go in first, if I go in now, I've got the brothers dead-bang. They think they know me. I've worked this case three months. I know what I'm doing. I know I'm right. I know the Golam brothers are already twitching. I know I want this bust and deserve it. I know Lieutenant Sikes is here for the show, to put a feather in his cap. He wants to look good when the news vans arrive. He wants to make the public think they should vote for him in the next election for sheriff.
He's stuck me on the side of the trailer and told me to wait. He doesn't know his ass. He didn't listen to me when I told him the side door is the door the brothers use most. While Sikes and Ramirez are watching the front, the brothers are dumping their money into duffel bags and getting ready to bolt out the side. Billy Golam's four-by-four is parked ten feet away, covered in mud. If they run, they'll take the truck, not the Corvette parked in front. The truck can go off-road.
Sikes is wasting precious time. The Golam brothers have two girls in the trailer with them. This could easily turn into a hostage situation. But if I go in now… They think they know me.
I key the button on my radio. "This is stupid. They're going to break for the truck. I'm going in."
"Goddammit, Estes-"
I drop the radio into the weeds growing beside the trailer. It's my case. It's my bust. I know what I'm doing.
I draw my weapon and hold it behind my back. I go to the side door and knock the way all the Golam brothers' customers knock: two knocks, one knock, two knocks. "Hey, Billy, it's Elle! I need some."
Billy Golam jerks open the door, wild-eyed, high on his own home cooking-crystal meth. He's breathing hard. He's got a gun in his hand.
Shit.
The front door explodes inward.
One of the girls screams.
Buddy Golam shouts: "Cops!"
Billy Golam swings the.357 up in my face. I suck in my last breath.
He turns abruptly and fires. The sound is deafening. The bullet hits Hector Ramirez in the face and blows out the back of his head, blood and brain matter spraying Sikes behind him.
The image faded slowly from my brain, and the building I had worked out of slowly came into focus before me.
The Palm Beach County Criminal Justice Complex is tucked away on a patch of landscaped acres off Gun Club Road near Lake Lytal Park. The complex houses the Sheriff's Office, the medical examiner's offices, the morgue, the county courts, and the jail. One-stop shopping for lawbreakers and their victims.
I sat in the parking lot looking at the building that held the Sheriff's Office, feeling sick in my stomach. I hadn't been through those doors in a long time. There was a part of me that believed everyone in the building would recognize me on sight and that all of them nursed a virulent hatred of me. Logically, I knew that wasn't true. Probably only half of them would know and hate me.
The clock was ticking toward change of shift. If I didn't catch James Landry now, it would have to wait until the next day. I wanted Erin Seabright's name in his mind, a mental thorn to rub at all night.
My legs felt weak as I walked toward the doors. Jail inmates in dark gray uniforms were working on the landscaping, overseen by a black guard in camo pants and a painted-on black T-shirt, a trooper's hat perched on his head. He exchanged bullshit with a couple of cops standing on the sidewalk smoking cigarettes. None of them looked at me.
I went inside to the desk. No one called out my name or rushed to assault me. Maybe it was the haircut.
The receptionist behind the bulletproof glass was a round-faced young woman with three-inch purple lacquered fingernails and a Medusa's head of intertwined black braids.
"I need to speak with Detective Landry," I said.
"What is this regarding, ma'am?"
"A missing persons case."
"Your name?"
"Elena Estes."
There was no flicker of recognition. No scream of outrage. I didn't know her, she didn't know me. She called Landry on the phone and told me to wait in the chairs. I stood with my arms crossed and stared at the door to the stairwell, barely breathing. It seemed an hour before the heavy gray door opened.
"Ms. Estes?"
Landry held the door back by way of invitation.
He was a compact, athletic-looking man, mid-forties, with a meticulous quality about him. There was still starch in his shirt at nearly four P.M. His hair was cropped almost military-short; black, heavily salted with gray. He had a stare like an eagle's: penetrating and slightly disdainful, I thought. Or perhaps that was my paranoia showing.
I had known several of the seventeen detectives in Robbery/
Homicide, the major case squad, but I hadn't known Landry. Because of the nature of their work, narcotics detectives usually keep-or are kept-to themselves, their paths crossing with the other detectives only over dead bodies.
We went up the stairs to the second floor without speaking. There was no one behind the glass in the small vestibule that led to the Robbery/Homicide squad room. Landry let us in with a card key.
Steel desks grouped together made islands across the expanse of the room. Most of the desks were empty. I recognized no one. The gazes that flicked my way were hooded, flat, and cold. Cop eyes. The look is always the same, regardless of agency, regardless of geography. The look of people who trust no one and suspect everyone of something. I couldn't tell what they were thinking. I knew only that some of the gazes lingered too long.