Redemption (8 page)

“Whoa! Hold on! I didn’t agree to take this case!”

“I looked up on the Internet what private investigators get per day. Since you’re relatively well known, I factored that into the equation. I came up with five hundred dollars a day as a fair fee. Meals, hotels, fuel, and anything else you require is on me—”

“Kit—”

“I’m hoping you can figure this out in ten days or less for the sake of that child. Either way, I’m prepared to give you five thousand dollars up front for the job—
in cash
.” With that, Kit withdrew a thick envelope from her satchel and slapped it on Jane’s desk. “It’s in hundreds. I hope that’s all right.” Jane looked dumbstruck at the envelope. “Feel free to count the money. It won’t insult me.”

“Where did you get five thousand dollars?”

“From my savings account, of course. If that’s not enough, I can withdraw more. But you’ll have to let me know right away since I want us to get going tomorrow.”

Jane’s head was spinning. “I have another case—”

“You mean that debacle you were involved in last night at The Red Tail?”

Jane bristled at Kit’s “debacle” description. “Yes, that one—”

“Do you truly like dealing with those lowlife scumbags? That swarthy fellow last night would have put your lights out if that big bruiser hadn’t intervened! From what I witnessed, you’d do well to hightail it out of town for a bit!”

“It’s a little more complicated than that!”

“Jane P.! A twelve-year-old girl’s life hangs in the balance!
What is there to discuss?”

Jane quickly realized that Kit’s fervent tone was probably the same one she used when she debated any number of pet political causes. “Kit, there is not enough hardcore evidence for me to link Lou with Charlotte Walker’s disappearance. Your gut intuition isn’t enough to convince me to travel all over hell and back with you—”

“I’d do this alone. But I don’t have the energy, nor do I possess the credibility and knowledge that you have. And tell me, Jane P., how many times did
your
gut intuition lead
you
to a killer?”

“It’s not my gut talking here! It’s
yours
!”

“And you don’t trust my intuition. I see. Well, get to know me and you’ll see that my intuition is right!”

“That’s not good enough for me!”

“When I sat down in this chair, I asked you a simple question: Do you believe in fate? The reason I asked that has everything to do with my intuitive abilities. Call it fate or coincidence, but isn’t a coincidence simply a
co-incident
?”

“You’re losing me, Kit—”

“Call it coincidence or synchronicity, it’s the same beautiful magic. Life serves them up to everyone; the trick is understanding
the messages they seek to deliver.” Kit leaned toward Jane. “Forget about logically explaining them. They
defy
explanation! When you begin to recognize how these ‘coincidences’ weave in and out and of your life, only
then
will you understand the governing power of a higher plan.”

The conversation was becoming too spiritually deep for Jane. “Yeah, okay, I—”

“You want concrete examples of what I’m saying?
Fine.
How about this: Because of my interest in children, I collected everything I could find on the Lawrence murder case you were involved in this past summer. Then I see you on Larry King’s show and I’m drawn to you. I can feel that you’re a kindred spirit. And then yesterday afternoon, I’m watching CNN and they break the story of Charlotte Walker’s disappearance in
Oakhurst, California
! Within two hours of seeing that story, for no reason at all, I feel a
calling
to go for a drive. I get in my car and what do I see immediately? A red-tailed hawk circling above me! The Native Americans will tell you the red-tailed hawk is a messenger. It is telling one to pay attention to all signals and coincidences! And so I drive for miles, letting my intuition lead me the entire way, until I end up in Denver on Colfax Avenue. That’s not exactly the neighborhood I choose to frequent. But there I am. And I’ll be damned if I don’t look up and see The Red Tail Hawk Bar. Well, it couldn’t get any clearer than that now, could it?
Coincidence
? Not to the untrained eye! I walk into the establishment and who do I see at the pool table but Jane Perry. At that moment, it all came full circle: my odd kinship with you, Charlotte’s disappearance in Oakhurst where Lou resides, the circling hawk, the bar, and you. Now, I know to a skeptic, that line of reasoning wouldn’t hold water. But to the intuitive person, those connections are solid!” Kit sat back, seeming a bit worse for wear after her passionate plea. “Open your mind, Jane P. There are greater things in heaven and earth than we’ll ever know.
Pay attention
! The synchronicities in life boggle the mind!”

Jane recalled the subject of synchronicity at the AA meeting the night before. And yet, she still wasn’t convinced. No matter
how much money Kit threw at her, she wasn’t about to embark on a wild-goose chase that would make her look more foolish than she did getting the crap beat out of her in a Colfax bar. And there was still that little issue of saving her current case and making things good with the FBI. Jane let out a deep sigh and rubbed the scar on her temple as she tried to engender a softer, less strident voice. “Kit, I’m sorry. I need more.”

“Money?”

“Proof.”

“We’ll find proof when we get there. Isn’t that how it works? Learn as you go?”

Jane looked at Kit with an empty stare. “I’m sorry.”

Kit’s face fell. In stunned silence, she gathered the files and envelope of money together and carefully tucked them into her satchel. Jane recognized a sudden frailty as Kit rose to her feet and walked to the door. After a good, well-thought minute, she turned to Jane. Her voice was choked with emotion. “When I said this was a matter of life and death, I was referring to Charlotte Walker’s life...and
my
death.” Jane stared at Kit in questioning silence. “I have inoperable, terminal lung cancer. Just hit stage four. I’ve got maybe another three months left. I don’t want your pity. I want your help. I couldn’t save my Ashlee from Lou. But I believe I
can
save that little girl in California with your assistance. I
have
to go there. My life
must
come full circle. I can’t die knowing I’ve lived an unfinished life, Jane.” Kit got control of herself. She reached into her satchel and brought out an eight-inch square, purple suede drawstring bag. “I know you’re cautious of anything that is ‘woo-woo’,” Kit said, gently moving toward Jane’s desk, “but humor me. This is a bag of animal stone totems I use for divination. Would you draw one out of the bag for me?”

If it had been anyone else, Jane would have replied with a string of obscenities. Kit opened the bag and Jane reached in, drawing out a flat stone the size of a silver dollar. Carved onto one side was a slithering snake.

Kit’s eyes widened, as if she were witnessing a pivotal moment in history. “The snake. My God! You’re on the verge of radical transformation. Your soul is ready to shed the skin of the past and move on to a more enlightened path.”

Jane did her best to hide a sarcastic smile and not utter an equally cynical retort. Instead, she handed the stone back to Kit. “I’m still not taking your case.”

Kit dropped the bag into her satchel, sans the snakestone. “You keep it. It’ll remind you of where your soul wants you to go.” She headed toward the door. “Oh, keep an eye out for proof that the animal you chose is legitimate. Very often, the universe delivers the animal to you in some form, as cosmic proof of its validity. Just another synchronistic event.” Kit exited the office and disappeared down the hall.

CHAPTER 6

The sooner Jane could suck nicotine into her lungs, the sooner she could think clearly and possibly save face with the FBI. Nervously pacing outside her office building, Jane dug one hand into the pocket of her jeans and anxiously rubbed the three sobriety chips. Drawing her hand out of her pocket, Jane dropped the flat snakestone totem she’d pulled out of Kit’s purple drawstring bag. Jane knelt down to retrieve the stone. Boojey-Woojey. That’s what it was, Jane insisted. Just another crackpot, New Age gimmick. And yet...she was beginning to experience too many strange things that couldn’t be easily forgotten. Like the past summer. Jane had experienced strange dreams—mystical, precognitive dreams that eerily alerted her to key signs to look out for. At first she had chalked them up to a bender or the result of quitting booze cold turkey. She tried to detach from the dreams, believing that by not acknowledging them, she could pretend them away. But she could never deny the disturbing realization that the images in those ambiguous dreams definitively led her to a cold-blooded killer. It was in these quiet moments alone that the memory of those staccato images haunted her. Jane looked down at the snakestone. “Radical transformation.” Those were the words Kit had used to describe the auspicious totem. “Ridiculous,” Jane muttered under her breath. She had half a mind to fling the stone into a nearby mound of fast-melting snow. But for some reason, she slid it back into her pocket to keep her sobriety chips company.

Four more attempts to reach her FBI contacts were unsuccessful. The feeling of being out of the loop allowed Jane’s thoughts to turn paranoid. Was Jerry calling Channel 7 News and spilling her story to the investigative journalist at the station? She mused how fragile one’s moment in the spotlight could be. Six months ago, the media had called her an “adroit heroine” after solving
a chain of brutal slayings while working for Denver Homicide. She was fending off phone calls from
Larry King Live
,
60 Minutes
,
20/20
,
Dateline
, and Diane Sawyer, all begging to nab the exclusive interview with the hottest commodity in town. She wouldn’t have agreed to any interview if it hadn’t been for Sergeant Weyler and his suggestion that granting one solid tête-à-tête would concurrently satisfy the masses and help out Denver PD. While Weyler personally favored the more intellectual offerings on PBS, it was he who encouraged Jane to grant Larry King the exclusive. “He’s smart,” Jane remembered Weyler telling her. “He doesn’t go for the jugular. He won’t piss you off like Diane Sawyer will. You’d deck Diane Sawyer inside of five minutes.” Jane smiled at the recollection. And that’s how she’d ended up on Larry King’s program five months ago. And now? Now she was twenty-four hours away from falling off that precarious ladder and having her name and reputation dragged through the muck. “Radical transformation, indeed!” Jane mused.

After three more hours of shuffling papers on her desk and not a single phone call, Jane scooped a disorganized mass of files into her arms and headed home. Halfway there, her cell phone beeped, alerting Jane that she had a voice mail message. Jane grabbed the phone and eagerly retrieved the lone message.

“Hey, Janie, it’s me!” The voice was Jane’s younger brother, Mike. The perpetual adolescent cadence to his voice suggested that he was fifteen years old rather than thirty-one. “I just turned on the TV and saw all the hotshots making their big announcement. I looked for you, but the only guy I recognized was that Weyler dude. You’re probably out celebrating. Hey, I’m confuzzled. Didn’t you say you were working this alone?”

Jane sped home. Tearing into her house, she quickly grabbed the remote and angrily turned on the TV. Scanning quickly, she landed on a Denver news station.

“...Weather should be warmer than usual over the next few days, Kent.”

“Thanks, Brock. Recapping the headlines this afternoon in Denver. An hour ago, Denver Police announced a successful close to an eight-month cocaine drug sting....”

The TV flashed video from the press conference. Ten Denver cops and detectives stood behind a long table stacked with kilos of cocaine. Standing to the far right was Sergeant Weyler, impeccably dressed in one of his tailored suits and crimson ties. The room was filled with a claque of photographers and rabid reporters.

“This is by far the
biggest
takedown of cocaine in Denver’s history.” The jacked-up, cocksure voice belonged to none other than Kenny Stephens.
Sergeant
Kenny Stephens. That’s exactly what it said under his pumped up frame. DH had done exactly what they intended to do: use Jane’s print and video evidence at the bar to seal their investigation. And there was Weyler—Jane’s mentor, confidant, and friend—standing in front of the cache. While many of the other cops gloated, Weyler’s expression remained pensive with a decipherable irritation under his seemingly calm surface. Looking more closely, that tension appeared to be most evident when Kenny opened his mouth. “As a bonus for the Denver PD,” Kenny continued, “nearly fifteen thousand dollars in counterfeit bills was found when we raided their location.” The TV cameras focused on the fake money. “So that makes this catch a double win for Denver!”

Jane stared helplessly at the screen as she sunk into the couch. She lit a cigarette and took a long drag. “Fucking assholes,” she muttered to herself. The more Jane mused on the fallout from this event, the madder she got. She sunk her left hand into her jean pocket and nervously started rubbing the metal off the sobriety chips. “Fucking assholes!” Jane screamed in a flinty rage as she threw the remote control with gusto against the living room wall. Unexpectedly, one of the channel buttons depressed when the remote hit the wall, causing the TV to switch to CNN.

“We want to run the video that was just released this hour to the media by the Walker family in Oakhurst, California,” the female news anchor reported. “Apparently, this video—which we’re
going to loop—shows twelve-year-old missing child Charlotte Walker at her birthday party this past year. The family wanted the public to get a better idea of what Charlotte looks like....”

Jane was still stinging from the PD’s announcement and didn’t immediately look at the television screen. But the playful, somewhat flirtatious giggle caught her attention. Turning to the screen, Jane observed Charlotte Walker in her backyard, opening birthday presents and surrounded by her mother and friends. A smattering of teenage boys who looked to be a few years older could be seen sitting on chairs around the yard. Charlotte’s mother, a heavyset woman who appeared to be in her mid-thirties, beamed and fawned over her exuberant daughter.