Tim said, "Have you tried -"
"The goddamn cops have been useless. Won't even file a missing person's. We've tried every law-enforcement agency – FBI, CIA, LAPD – but there are virtually no resources devoted to cults. No one cares unless they turn Waco."
"Her name," Tim said.
"Leah. She's my stepdaughter, from Emma's first marriage. Her real father died of stomach cancer when she was four."
"She was a student at Pepperdine." Emma's voice was brittle and slightly hoarse, as if she had to strain to reach audibility.
Tim's eyes returned to Emma's cross pendant, this time making out Jesus' tiny hanging form.
"Three months ago we got a phone call from her roommate. She said Leah had dropped out. She said she was in a cult, that we'd better find her or we'd never see her again."
"She came home once," Will said. "March thirteenth, out of the blue. My men and I tried to reason with her but she…uh, escaped out the bathroom window, and we haven't seen or heard from her since."
He was the kind of man who had men.
"I'm sorry," Dray said. "I don't mean to be rude, and I understand how painful this is for you, but what does this have to do with Tim?"
Will looked to Tim. "We're familiar with your…work. Marco -Marshal Tannino – confirmed that you were a brilliant investigator. He said you used to be a great deputy -" He caught himself. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way."
Tim shrugged. "That's okay. I'm not a deputy marshal anymore." The edge in his voice undercut his casual tone.
"We need our daughter back. We don't care how it's done, and we won't ask any questions. She doesn't have to be happy about it – she just needs to be home so we can get her the help she needs. We want you to do it. Say, for ten grand a week."
Dray's eyebrows raised, but she gave Tim the slightest head shake, matching, as usual, his own reaction.
Tim said, "I don't have a PI license, and I'm not affiliated with any law-enforcement agency. I got myself into some trouble about a year back, with a vigilante group – maybe you read about it in the papers?"
Will nodded vigorously. "I like your style. I think it was a great thing you tried to do."
"Well, I don't."
"What would make you say yes?"
Tim laughed, a single note. "If I could follow the trail legally."
"We could arrange that."
Tim opened his mouth, then closed it. His brow furrowed; his head pulled to the side. "I'm sorry, who exactly are you?"
"Will Henning." He waited for recognition to dawn. It did not. "Sound and Fury Pictures."
Tim and Dray exchanged a blank glance, and then Tim shrugged apologetically.
"The Sleeper Cell. Live Wire. The Third Shooter. Little art-house flicks like that."
"I'm sorry…" Dray said. "You wrote those movies?"
"I'm not a writer. I produced them. My films have grossed more than two billion dollars worldwide. If I could get fifteen Blackhawk choppers landing in Getty Plaza on three days' notice, I certainly think I can orchestrate your redeputization." His steel gray eyes stayed fixed on Tim. A man used to getting his way.
"The marshal probably has his own opinion on the matter."
"He'd like to talk to you about some creative solutions in person." Tannino's business card magically appeared in Will's hand. Tim took it, running his thumb over the raised gold Marshals seal.
On the back, in Tannino's distinctive hand: Rackley – tomorrow a.m. 7:00.
Tim handed the card to Dray, who gave it a cursory glance, then tossed it on the coffee table. "Tell me about the cult," he said.
"I don't know a goddamn thing about it, not even its name. Considering the amount we've paid for information…" Will shook his head in disgust.
"How do they recruit?"
"We don't know that either, really. We talked to a few cult experts – deprogrammers or exit counselors or whatever they're calling themselves this month – and they coughed up some generalities. I guess a lot of cults prey on young kids, in college or just out. And they recruit rich kids." He grimaced. "They get them to turn over their money." He ran his hand through his hair, agitated. "Leah gave away a two-million-dollar future. Just gave it away. That money was for her first indie film, grad school, a house someday. I even bought her a forty-thousand-dollar car before college so she wouldn't have to dip into it. Now her money's gone, she's alienated her friends, her family" – he nodded at Emma, who sat passively, hands folded, forehead lined. "She has nothing, nowhere to go. I've sent her letters begging her to come home. Emma has sent articles about cults, what they do, how they work, but she's never responded. I tried to talk some sense into her when we had her that day, but she wouldn't listen." His face had colored; his tone was hard and driving. "I told her that she'd given away her whole future."
"You told a girl in a mind-control cult that?" Dray said.
"We're not here for family therapy. We're here to get our daughter back. And besides, what was I supposed to say? You try dealing with a teenage daughter who's got all the answers."
Dray took a gulp of her vodka. "I would love to."
Tim squeezed her hand, but Will just kept on talking. "Leah's trust fund is irrevocable – I set it up that way to maximize tax benefits. It turns over money to her every year, and there's nothing we can do to stop it. She gets another million when she turns twenty, another million every year after that until she's thirty. Those people are stealing my money."
"The car," Tim said. "She still has it?"
"Yes. It's a Lexus."
"Is it registered in your name or hers?"
Will thought for a moment, eyes on the ceiling, fingers fiddling with the catch on his gold watch. "Mine."
"Okay. When you leave here, file a report that it's been stolen. The cops will put out a BOLO on the car – a Be On the Lookout. If they pick her up, they can hold her, and we'll see about getting her released into your custody."
"Jesus." Will looked excitedly to his wife. "That's a brilliant idea."
"Did she tell you anything about the cult?"
"No. No names, no locations, no matter how hard we pressed."
"So how do you know it's a self-help cult?"
"From her buzzwords. They weren't religious. More about how she learned to 'tap her inner source' and 'own her weaknesses' and crap like that."
"She didn't mention any names?"
"No."
"What did she refer to the guru as? She must have mentioned the leader."
Will shook his head, but Emma said, "She called him the Teacher. Reverently, like that."
Her husband regarded her, brow furrowed. "She did?"
"You mentioned the cult was dangerous. Did you get any death threats?"
Will nodded. "Couple. Some punk called, said, 'Back off or we'll slice you up like the lamb you served for dinner last night.' " Emma raised a wan hand to her mouth, but Will didn't take note. "Creative little threat, letting us know they had eyes on us. I'm used to threats and bullshit – thirty-four years in Hollywood – but I don't like being pushed around. I didn't realize how serious it was until our investigator went missing. Then we got another calclass="underline" 'You're next.' They probably figured if they hurt Leah, they'd be killing the golden goose, but us, hey. We're expendable."
"Who was the investigator?"
"A PI. Former chief of security for Warner. My men hired him out of Beverly Hills."
Tim's mind reversed, drawn by the pull of a buried instinct. "The same men parked up at the mouth of the cul-de-sac in a Lincoln Navigator with tinted windows, license starts with 9VLU?"
Will stared at him for a long time, eyebrows raised, mouth slightly ajar. He finally sat. "Yes. The same men."
Tim crossed the room and grabbed the pen and notepad by the telephone. "Go on."
"Short little nervous guy, the PI was – Danny Katanga."
"And he was killed?"