Hence, Jacob Cornell, fresh from a disgraceful conduct review and thrown under the bus by Lieutenant Davies, was given the assignment.
Jake glanced back over his shoulder. The crew was busy with the taco truck.
He went to the door that was always locked and usually guarded by Paolo, although the man had adopted a strolling security tour and disappeared for half-hour intervals to chat up the makeup girl.
Jake had taken the time to study the door and knew it could be picked with a simple jimmy, which he now had in his hand.
He slipped the slender implement inside the lock, pinched and twisted until the lock popped.
Jake ducked inside and shut the door behind him. If Paolo stuck to his schedule, he had at least fifteen minutes.
The light switch was just inside the door, and Jake turned it on.
It was an office, with a simple desk and computer, as well as a file cabinet.
What was a bit unusual was the glass window at the rear of the office. Jake walked forward past the desk and peered around the window, where there was another room.
There was a small bed, a camera on a tripod and a few lights.
Jake saw a separate door to the right of this hidden stage and —
He registered a whisper of movement behind him and then searing pain that ran down his neck and back. His body went numb, and then his mind went black.
17
Seventeen
Mary drove back to her condo, parked in her assigned spot, and climbed the stairs to her place.
The building had been built in the early ‘90s on Ocean Avenue, but far enough away from the tourist hotels to occasionally enjoy some peace and quiet.
Mary had toyed with moving out, finding a house somewhere, but she’d grown attached to the neighborhood, sort of halfway between Santa Monica and Venice.
She hated climbing the stairs to the condo, but vowed not to ride the elevators to her fourth-floor home. She rationalized that if she climbed the stairs a few times a day it would negate the need for an actual workout.
Yeah, she didn’t buy it either.
She unlocked the door, threw her keys on the kitchen table, opened the fridge, and pulled out a bottle of chardonnay. She plucked off the stopper and poured herself a glass.
The mail. Mary scooped up the stack and took it into the livingroom, placed the pile on the table in front of the couch. She went to the sliding glass doors that opened up onto her little balcony and took a long look at the Pacific. During the day, she rarely looked at the ocean, but usually when she was home, she would look out at its vastness and inevitably think of her parents.
They died when she was quite young, on their sailboat during a freak storm. The police eventually found the boat, or more accurately, the thousand pieces that would have represented what the boat used to be, but they never found the bodies.
All Mary had left were some faded photographs, newspaper clippings, and some of her father’s papers. He had been an entertainment attorney in Los Angeles, her mother had been an actor and a comedienne, as well as one of his clients.
There were still a lot of questions in Mary’s mind about them, their deaths, and even the last few years of their lives. But for now, Mary had set those issues aside until the day when she had time to go back.
That day always seemed just around the corner.
Closure was not something Mary had ever enjoyed in abundance.
She went to the couch, sipped from her wine and picked up the mail. Flipping through bills and offers from her cable company, she got to a flyer from Ralph’s and set the bundle back on the table.
Seeing the Ralph’s flyer made her think of Kurt, and thinking of Kurt and Jason, two questionable representatives of their gender, made her think of Jake.
She missed him.
It had taken her quite awhile to get here. When Jake had slept with his boss, Mary had taken it personally, even though technically they had broken up. He claimed it happened once and only because he was drunker than a Kennedy on vacation.
Vulnerability had simply never been her strong suit. And the fact that she had allowed Jake in, and then he had hurt her — unintentionally though it was — made her even more guarded.
She drank the rest of her wine. What the hell was she doing? Preparing to go on Dr. Phil?
Wilshire Entertainment.
That was the name of one of the files on Trey Williams’s desk. Why did it sound so familiar to her? Mary went to her computer in the spare bedroom and logged on. She launched Google and typed in Wilshire Entertainment. There were virtually no hits for the company.
Google was good for public information, but for the classified stuff, she launched a search engine provided to her by one of her happy clients.
This time, Wilshire Entertainment appeared at the top of the list. She clicked on the attached link and was brought to a spreadsheet. Mary groaned. Spreadsheets. Why not take a rusty razor to her armpits?
She went and got a fresh glass of wine, then returned to the document, took a long drink, and focused.
It came in a flash.
She dug out the production booklet she’d lifted from Vince Buslipp’s production office.
On the first page, the name of the production company was listed.
Wilshire Entertainment.
She went back to the computer and tracked Wilshire Entertainment through its spreadsheets and other corporate filings.
It appeared to be simply a shell company. The name was buried in a list of other seemingly innocous names plastered across a ridiculous flow chart.
Ugh. Flow charts. Even worse than spreadsheets.
She worked her way up the pyramid. The name at the top was interesting.
The Buslipp Group.
The only name she could find was Vince Buslipp.
But “The Buslipp Group” certainly implied more than one partner.
For the first time, Mary felt like she was on the right track.
18
Eighteen
Mary was one never to follow rules. She considered all traffic laws merely suggestions that she was free to interpret depending on her situation at the time.
One rule she did follow somewhat often was quite simple. Whenever she saw a curve ball in her current investigation, her rule of thumb was to go back to her client for more information. Typically, she had discovered new information from the last meeting and knew better, or simply different, questions to ask.
In this case, she had pursued the boyfriends, the porn connection, Nina’s social media outlets, and while she had discovered some key information, she still had nothing tangible that could lead to the girl’s whereabouts.
Which prompted Mary’s decision to once again contact Elyse Ramirez.
She dialed the number, but it went straight to voicemail. She left a message asking for a return call, but feeling unsatisfied, she came up with an idea. Mary remembered Elyse mentioning her husband, a prominent businessman.
It was time to interview the husband, who could possibly provide new and different information than the mother. Also, Mary had been doing this long enough to know that nine times out of ten, a family member was somehow involved in an individual’s disappearance.
That thought pushed a discussion with the father to the top of the list.
Mary looked at the sheet of paper Elyse Ramirez had given her. There was a phone number for the husband, and she dialed it.
A recording notified her that the number had been disconnected.