Diabolical (Shaye Archer Series Book 3) (5 page)

“If only that bit of wisdom crossed everyone’s mind.”

“She didn’t leave anything that might help you figure out what happened?”

Shaye bit her lower lip, still wavering. Did she tell him everything now or hope the information in the journal remained confidential for a while?

“The police know what happened,” Shaye said quietly. “I’m going to tell you this because I want you to hear it from me and not some slimy news reporter, but I’d appreciate it if you keep it to yourself.”

Hustle looked confused. “Okay.”

“My mother’s name was in Clancy’s journals. I was one of his products. She sold me.”

“What?” Hustle jumped up from his chair and paced the tiny kitchen. “No fucking way.” He looked at Shaye. “You’re not shitting me?”

“I wouldn’t do that. Especially about this.”

“Of course you wouldn’t. What the hell am I thinking?” He ran his hand through his long blond hair. “I’m thinking it’s a horror movie is what I’m thinking. And I don’t blame you for not caring that she’s dead. I swear, if I could, I’d bring her back to life and kill her myself.”

Shaye felt tears fill her eyes. “You’re a good friend, Hustle.”

He stopped pacing and looked down at her. “We are friends, right? I mean, for real friends?”

She nodded. “I don’t have a lot of them, but you’re definitely my friend.”

He sat back down and leaned forward, over the table. “Then let me help you.”

“I don’t know what you can do. If there was anything…”

“There is. You went to her house, right? That woman who had you.”

“She lived in government housing—an apartment. And yes, I went there, but I never lived there. The dates in the journals confirm it. Nothing inside was familiar, and she wasn’t nice enough to leave a letter explaining why she sold her child. Not that I need it spelled out for me. I think we both know what happened.”

“Did you try talking to people there who might have known her?”

“I talked to the apartment manager the night I went to see the place but he has his head in the sand. If he’s not aware of it then he doesn’t have to report it to the police, you know? I went back this morning and tried to talk to the neighbors, but no one had anything to say.”

“Let me guess. You got a bunch of doors slammed in your face.”

“Yeah. They wouldn’t even admit to knowing who she was.”

Hustle shook his head. “They’re not going to talk to you. Even though you’re not one, some of your habits scream cop. And your clothes and haircut tell them right away you’re not one of them. But they might talk to me.”

“No. I can’t let you do that.”

“Why not? She’s dead. Clancy’s dead. The danger is gone, right?”

“I…well, I don’t know.”

“Do you have any reason to think it’s not?”

“There’s still the person who bought me.”

“And he hasn’t come after you all these years. Maybe he’s not around, either.”

“Maybe not.” That thought had only crossed her mind about a hundred times a day.

“Then let me take a run at them. I’m still a kid. I look street and I know how to talk it.”

“What will you tell them?”

He frowned. “I don’t know. I’ll lie, I’m sure, but I’ll have to see them to figure out what will get them talking.”

Shaye’s emotions warred. Hustle was right that the neighbors might talk to him when they wouldn’t talk to her, but it wasn’t his responsibility to help her. She was the adult. He was the child.

“If they give her name on the news,” he said, “I’m going to do it without your permission, and by then, it will probably be too late to get anything out of them because reporters will be camped out on the sidewalk.”

She smiled. “Playing hardball?”

He shrugged. “Sometimes you have to get a little pushy when you know what somebody ought to do.”

She knew exactly what he was getting at. She’d all but strong-armed Hustle into listening to her idea about Saul fostering him. And she knew he was stubborn enough to do exactly what he was threatening to do—investigate on his own as soon as he had the address. Unfortunately, he was also right about waiting. Nothing would seal people’s lips faster than knowing cops or reporters were looking at them.

“Okay,” she said, “but you cannot go there alone. I’ll take you.”

“It won’t work if you’re with me.”

“It will work if I stay in the car, and you wear a wire so I can help if there’s trouble.”

He grinned. “You’re all James Bond and shit.”

“I’m working on it.” She rose from the chair. “I have time tomorrow afternoon. Does that work for you?”

“Tomorrow morning is better.”

“Really? Why?”

“Because tomorrow morning is algebra class?”

Shaye smiled. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to suffer through it. You know I have to tell Saul what we’re doing.”

“Saul’s cool. He’ll want me to help if I can.” Hustle shuffled a bit. “Does he know…about your mother and stuff?”

“Not yet, but he’s about to.” There was no use putting it off any longer. “Thanks, Hustle.”

“For what?”

“For being my friend.”

* * *

J
ackson leaned back
in the conference room chair and blew out a breath. He’d arrived at work that morning, ready to launch full speed into finding the girl Clancy had sold, but before he even finished pouring coffee, he and Grayson had to take a homicide call. It had turned out to be a simple one as far as police and legal work went. A man tweaking on something had broken into a woman’s house and attacked her. She managed to get a shot off in the struggle and it went straight through the perp’s heart.

Open and shut on their end. Unfortunately, the perp was the woman’s brother, so it wasn’t over for her, maybe never would be. Still, she had a restraining order against him due to a previous attack and he was wanted for stabbing a man two nights before, so the ADA had taken one look at the facts and said he wouldn’t pursue charges.

But even the simple ones took time. Time to process the crime scene. Time to interview witnesses. Time to put the facts together and present them to the ADA. So it was midafternoon before they grabbed some takeout Chinese food and headed back to the police station.

For the last hour, Jackson had been reviewing files for missing children in New Orleans and calling to get updates if any were available. He tossed his pen on the conference table in disgust. Over twenty missing children, and that was the ones who got reported. How many others had slipped through the cracks in the system and taken off from a bad situation at home? Six fit the age range of the teen Clancy had sold, but two had returned home, another was found living with the noncustodial parent, and the fourth had been picked up working at a strip club.

“Anything?” Grayson’s voice sounded behind him as he walked into the conference room.

“Two still missing that fit the criteria, but neither feels right.”

Grayson looked over Jackson’s shoulder at his laptop. “Why not? Looks like either one could work.”

Jackson hesitated a moment before replying. The theory that had bounced around his mind the entire time he’d searched the database seemed sound when he was keeping it to himself, but now, when faced with saying it out loud, it sounded like a huge guess with nothing to back it up.

“Out with it, Lamotte,” Grayson said. “I told you if something got on your radar, let me know. Leave it up to me to reel you in if I think you’re too far out in left field.”

“Okay, well, I was thinking that the child he bought this time was the same age as Shaye when she escaped.”

Grayson’s eyebrows went up. “I hadn’t thought about it that way, but you’re right. You think that’s significant?”

“I don’t know, but what if he wanted to pick up where he left off?”

“Nine years later?”

“I know it sounds crazy, but if that was what he had in mind, then I was thinking he might want a girl not only the same age but who also looked like Shaye. One of these girls has blond hair and the other red. Both were overweight and fairly short.”

Grayson frowned but didn’t dismiss Jackson’s theory. “So nothing at all like Shaye, physically.” He put his hands in the air. “Okay, so let’s say you’re right and it’s neither of these two. Where do we go now? Broaden the search to Baton Rouge?”

“We can, but we know Clancy was working New Orleans at the time this girl was sold. She could have come to New Orleans from another city, but it’s more likely she’s from New Orleans or somewhere nearby.”

“If that’s the case, then we’ve got a big hole in our data. If this girl was off-grid as far as social services is concerned and the parents are a no-show, she might never be reported.”

“I know.” Jackson struggled to control his frustration. He tapped his desk, staring at the monitor as if a solution were going to materialize on the screen. “What about this? If the girl is local and not reported, then she’s got a crap home situation, right?”

“That’s probably a given.”

“Then chances are social services would have been called in, at least once.”

Grayson shook his head. “There’s no way we can check up on every fifteen-year-old that social services took a peek at. Hell, for all we know, they could have seen the kid years ago, if they investigated her household at all. It would take days to go through that amount of data, even if we only went back a year and only in the New Orleans area. And that’s assuming I could get this witch hunt approved in the first place. We don’t exactly have the manpower to spare.”

Jackson’s expression must have shifted at the words “witch hunt” because Grayson put his hand up to stop him from replying.

“I’m not saying
I
think it’s a witch hunt,” Grayson said. “I’m inclined to think you’re onto something, but we’d never get departmental resources approved for a search. Not right now. And besides, I can’t see how knowing who the victim is would help us find her now.”

Jackson slumped back in his chair and blew out a breath. Grayson was right. Even if they could convince Captain Bernard that this course of investigation was viable, they didn’t have the staff to pursue it, not with so many resources already pulled for the Clancy investigation.

“I guess I was hoping if we could identify her,” Jackson said, “then maybe someone has seen her—you know, could give us a place to start looking.” Then an idea swept through his mind and he straightened up. “What if we had someone else do the research? Someone who already has clearance?”

“There’s no one with clearance that isn’t already assigned to a double workload.”

“Corrine Archer is still on medical leave. She’d have access to the files at social services. Surely she could be cleared to have information on the missing girl.”

Grayson’s eyes widened. “Whoa, I don’t know. Sure, Corrine has access and she’s one sharp cookie, but her daughter was also this guy’s prisoner.”

“Which gives her more reason to want him caught than anyone else in this city except Shaye.”

Grayson stared over Jackson’s head at the wall, and Jackson could tell he was weighing the risks and possible rewards against the potential for the entire thing to blow up in their faces. Finally, he nodded. “We’ll have to run it by Bernard.”

“Of course.”

“No time like the present,” Grayson said. “If he goes for it, we can give Ms. Archer a call and see if we can go talk to her.”

Jackson nodded and hopped up from his chair. He was glad they were going to talk to Corrine in person, assuming Bernard approved this line of investigation. Jackson couldn’t fathom telling Corrine over the phone that another child had been sold to the same man who’d purchased Shaye. Apparently, Grayson felt the same way. It ticked the senior detective up another notch in Jackson’s estimation. He’d already known Grayson was a good cop. It appeared he was a good man as well. Jackson’s overall attitude about his job and his future with the department had improved by a mile in the past twenty-four hours.

Bernard was in his office and Grayson took the lead, explaining their theory and the desire to ask Corrine for help going through records at social services.

“That’s a bit of a stretch, isn’t it?” Bernard asked.

“Yes, sir,” Grayson said, not even trying to hedge. “Unfortunately, a stretch might be all we have to go on with this case.”

Bernard nodded, his expression grim. Jackson knew the mayor had already paid Bernard a visit, and word around the water cooler was he’d received a call from the governor as well. The amount of pressure on him to get those journals deciphered and put more of these despicable people behind bars must be practically crippling. Jackson did not envy the man his position. Not one little bit.

“Okay,” Bernard said finally. “If Ms. Archer is willing to do the research, I don’t see how it could possibly hurt.” He gave them a strained smile. “I always did like betting on a long shot.”