Little Girl Gone - Brett Battles

“I’m serious. I need to get my car and get out of here.” When he still didn’t respond, she said, “Are you even listening to me? Turn this damn thing around, and take me to my car!”

“I believe you promised to answer some questions.”

She rolled her eyes. “Seriously? Fine. I’ll answer your stupid questions. Just take me back to my car.”

“Questions first.”

She groaned, then leaned against the door like she was trying to get as far away from him as possible.

“Where’s Elyse?” he asked.

“How the hell should I know? She was going to go visit her grandfather.”

“Where’s Elyse?”

“Seriously, dude. You really aren’t listening to me.”

“Where is Elyse?”

“Stop asking me that, God dammit!”

“I’ll stop when you give me a real answer.”

“I gave you a real answer.”

“You gave me a lie.”

“The hell I did. I have no idea where she is.”

“All right,” he said. “Then let me rephrase. What happened to her?”

“I don’t know.” Though she tried to sell it, some of the conviction had left her voice.

Around them, the traffic began to slow just a little as they neared the crest of the Sepulveda Pass.

“I think you do know, but are too scared to tell me.”

“Go to hell.”

“Why was that guy after you?”

“What guy?”

Logan looked over, his face hard. She was still sitting as far away as possible, her head against the metal frame of the cab, trying to look innocent. In quick succession, he punched the accelerator, tapped on the brakes. The result was the satisfying thunk of her head hitting the car’s frame.

“Ah! What the—”

“Why was that guy after you?” he asked again.

“You did that on purpose.”

“We can drive all night, or you can start talking now.”

She sulked in her corner.

“Okay, fine,” he said. “What I can also do is take you to the police. Tell them you’re involved in the disappearance of your roommate. That you probably also have something to do with the death of her friend Anthony.”

“What?” she said, surprised.

“Didn’t you know that?”

“I…I…”

Glancing over, he could see that, though she might not have actually known about it, she at least suspected something had happened to Anthony.

“They’re going to want to know all about you and your buddies Aaron and Ryan.”

“Hey, they’re not my friends.”

Logan shrugged. “But you were working with them.”

She said nothing, confirming he was right.

They passed the transition to the 101 and kept going north.

“What happened to Elyse?”

More silence. He was about to ask again when she finally spoke. “They took her.”

“Who took her?”

“I don’t know exactly. Aaron, I guess. A few others. I wasn’t there.”

“When did it happen?”

“Monday night. When she was with…Anthony.”

That answered that. “Where were they taking her?”

“I have no idea.”

He said nothing.

“Seriously,” she said. “I don’t know. I was just trying to make some extra money, that’s all.”

“You need to tell me what happened. Everything.”

She moaned loudly, as if it would be too painful for her to speak. But then she said, “Look, I got myself into some trouble, all right?”

“What kind of trouble?”

She paused, then said, “I took some money. A lot. Ten grand. Well, a lot to me, anyway. I didn’t think it was a lot to them. Thought I was being clever, taking a little here and there. But I needed the cash more than they did, you know?”

“More then who did?”

“The company I worked for. H. Wick Medical Supplies. I worked in accounts payable. Just a clerk, processing invoices. One day I came in and these lawyers were waiting for me in the conference room. They laid out copies of all the phony invoices I’d passed through. Said they were going to have me arrested.”

“Did they?”

She shook her head. “I was fired on the spot, and I spent the next two weeks waiting at home for the police to show up. Only instead of the police, this other guy knocks on my door. Totally professional looking, know what I mean? Expensive suit and nice shoes.”

“Was he from your former employer?”

“No.”

“The law firm?”

“He could have been, but he never said. He just gave me his name, Mr. Andrews, and that was it.”

“What did he want?”

“He told me he knew what I’d done, and said that if my old company filed charges there was no chance I would avoid going to prison for at least a couple of years. Then he told me it was possible he might be able to take care of things, if I was interested.” She paused. “I have a cousin who went to prison. He wasn’t the same when he was released. It changed him. Hollowed him out. I was scared to death that would happen to me. So, why wouldn’t I be interested?”

“And in exchange for this?”

She hesitated. “He wanted me to do something.”

“Set Elyse up.”

“No. No, not at all. I mean, I guess that’s what he really wanted, but that’s not how it was presented to me.”

Logan waited.

“Mr. Andrews said all I had to do was move in with some girls in Westchester, and keep an eye on one of them while pretending to be a student.”

“Elyse?”

“Yeah.”

“Did he tell you why he wanted you to keep an eye on her?”

“Not exactly. He just implied that she might have been involved in something she shouldn’t have been. You know, kind of like what I had been doing.”

“What did you think this ‘something’ was?”

“Honestly, I didn’t care. Mr. Andrews said he’d make sure the case against me was dropped, and told me he would even pay me a salary while I was doing the job for him. That sounded a hell of a lot better than going to jail.”

“Doesn’t sound like you think that now.”

She looked out the window and didn’t respond.

“So you’ve been watching her since January?” he asked to get her back on track.

“They…had to get one of the other girls to move out first,” she finally said. “That took a few weeks. Then they made sure I was ready, and I answered the ad for a new roommate.”

That was three months, plus the planning time before it, and more time getting Angie ready. This was no spur-of-the-moment action.

“So what did they have you do?”

“I was supposed to become friends with her, but we didn’t exactly click, so…” She shrugged. “We hung out sometimes, but not very much. I just kind of kept tabs on when she was around and who she talked to.”

“And who did you give the information to? Ryan?”

She laughed. “I didn’t even know Ryan was part of it until last week. He moved in about a month after I did, when the people next door moved out. But, apparently, Mr. Andrews didn’t think it was necessary to let me know who he was right away.”

“So you reported to Mr. Andrews directly.”

She shook her head. “No. Aaron.”

“How?”

“He’d come over every once in a while. We pretended like he was an old friend of mine.”

“And him hitting on Elyse and Joan? That was part of the plan, too?”

“I don’t know. I just went with it.”

Logan sat for a moment, shaking his head. “Once you were there, did you seriously think Elyse was involved in anything illegal? I mean, come on. You’ve got a brain, don’t you? You must have realized something weird was going on.”

“I tried not to think about it, okay?” she said, defensively. “I just did what I was told so I could get my life back.”

“At the expense of someone else’s.”

She said nothing for a moment, then, “Did they really kill Anthony?”

“Well, tell me this? Was Anthony the kind of person you’d think might take his own life?”

“Suicide? No way.”

“Then, yeah. They killed him.”

“But why would they do that?”

“I thought maybe you could tell me.”

“I have no idea.”

“None at all?”

“No.”

“You did say he was with Elyse when they took her.”

She thought for a moment. “Yeah. Maybe he tried to stop them. I don’t know.”

“Ryan and Aaron, were they like you? Doing jobs to get their names cleared?”

“We never talked about it, but I don’t think so.”

By then they had transitioned from the 405 to the northbound I-5. If they kept going they’d soon be out of L.A., on their way to Bakersfield. No longer worried she’d jump out, Logan exited the freeway, then reentered it going south, taking them back the way they’d come.

“Tell me about when she disappeared,” he said.

“I already told you I wasn’t there.”

“But you knew about it.”

“Only after it happened. Anthony picked her up, and they went out to dinner. An hour or so later, Ryan came over and told me she wouldn’t be coming back, and I had to play dumb, act like she’d gone up to her grandfather’s as planned.”

“How long were you supposed to stay in the apartment?”

“Until the end of the month. I asked Ryan what I should do when the police started looking into where she’d gone. He said there would be no police. I was just supposed to tell anyone who asked that I’d heard her grandfather had gotten ill, and that she’d decided to stay up there a little while.”

“Then why were your bags packed tonight? It’s only been two days.”

“Are you kidding me? I didn’t sign up to be involved in a kidnapping. Besides, when I woke up this morning, Ryan’s place was empty. That completely freaked me out, and I knew it was time for me to leave.”

He was confused. “Then why didn’t you take off right away?”

She laughed to herself and shook her head. “They owed me money. I thought maybe I could get it and pretend everything was fine, then leave.”

Plausible, but it didn’t quite add up. “But you were scared when you got back to your apartment. You even told me they were going to kill you.”

She fell silent again. This time he was content to let her stay that way as long as she needed. Turned out, it lasted almost all the way back to the Sepulveda Pass.

“They have this place in Westchester, a house they rent, I guess,” she finally said. “A few times Mr. Andrews would want to talk with me directly. That’s where we’d meet. It was also where I went to get my money every week. I had heard Ryan say he was supposed to meet Aaron and Mr. Andrews there this evening. So I waited until the end of the day, then went over. No one was around, so I waited in my car, out of sight. When I finally saw them arrive, I gave them ten minutes, then went back to the house. But before I got to the front door, I passed by one of the bedroom windows, and heard Aaron and Mr. Andrews talking inside. I stayed there long enough to learn they’d never intended for me to stay the rest of the month. That had just been a lie to keep me someplace easy to find.” Logan could feel her gaze on him. “Mr. Andrews said someone would ‘take care’ of me tonight. That’s why I was so scared.”

“What’s the address of the house?”

After she gave it to him, he pulled out his phone and called his father.

“I need Dev to get a few more guys,” he said.

“More?” his dad asked. “Uh, okay. How soon?”

“Now. We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

“We’ll?”

“Yeah,” Logan said, then hung up.

“Wait,” Angie said. “You’re not taking me to my car?”

“You really think that’s a smart idea? Someone else could be waiting there for you. I think it’s better if I put you someplace where they can’t find you.”

Of course, that wasn’t his only reason.

She didn’t look particularly happy, but he didn’t care.

20

The address Angie had given Logan was in a residential neighborhood, all single-family homes, no apartment buildings. He parked a block down, then donned the leather jacket he kept behind the seat, and slipped his newly acquired gun into the front pocket.

It was nearly 9 p.m., and the street had that settled, in-for-the-night feel. The house in question was one story with a front door near the middle, and an attached garage on the right. There were no lights on in the windows, and no cars parked in the driveway or at the nearby curb.

A front approach was out of the question. Logan would be in direct view of anyone on the street, and the last thing he needed was a nosy neighbor calling the cops.

He did a quick scan up and down the road, then ducked down the side yard next to the garage, and quietly hopped the fence into the back yard. He paused for a moment, listening for any movement, but heard nothing. He then made his way along the back of the house until he reached a window.

Peering in, his stomach sank as déjà vu hammered away at his skull.

The room was empty.

He eased himself further along the wall, stopping just short of a sliding glass door. Leaning forward, he looked through it, bracing himself to see another completely empty room, but, instead, found a sparsely furnished family room: a couple of old couches, a TV, and a dingy coffee table.

There was something else, too.

Halfway down the hallway on the far side of the room, light spilled out of a doorway.

He listened, but all was quiet. Maybe Aaron or Ryan or even this Mr. Andrews hadn’t turned the light off when they’d left.

That thought had barely passed through his mind when he heard the very distinct sound of a toilet flushing.

Nothing happened for several seconds, then the light switched off, and a man moved into the hallway. He was tall and lanky, and though mostly in shadow, he reminded Logan very much of Elyse’s neighbor, Ryan.

Logan pulled back out of sight as the guy started walking toward the family room. Five seconds later, a light came on.

Repositioning himself further out in the backyard, out of the halo of light, Logan looked through the glass door again.

It was Ryan, all right.

He plopped down on the couch and turned on the TV. For several minutes, he barely moved. Suddenly he jumped, then raised a phone to his ear a second later. The conversation was a short one. As soon as he was through, he leaned to his side, and grabbed something. When he stood up, he had a large duffle bag in his hand. He strapped it over his shoulder, turned off the light, then disappeared off to the left.

Logan backtracked to the window of the empty bedroom he’d first seen. Light was now filtering in from the hallway beyond the room’s open door. It stayed on for about ten more seconds, then switched off. This was followed almost immediately by the thunk of a heavy door shutting.

The heaviest doors in most homes were the ones that led to the outside. But Ryan wasn’t at the front door or the back, and there wasn’t any door along this part of the house that opened onto the yard. Then what had that—