The Lost Witness (33 page)

“I’m sorry,” he said. “There’s no one here by that name. You must have dialed the wrong number.”

She listened to the man hang up. Then she moved over to the table by the windows. Her computer was already logged onto the Internet. She found AutoTrack in her bookmarks and entered her user
name and password. When the search window popped up, she typed in the phone number and hit
ENTER
. Almost immediately a man’s name appeared on the screen. Mike Bloom from Las Vegas,
Nevada.

Lena jotted his address down and started reading. Until four years ago Bloom had been employed by the Las Vegas Police Department and carried a badge. He was only thirty years old, so he
couldn’t have retired and she already knew that he wasn’t deceased. Every job he had ever worked was listed. Every address ever used and every phone number. Yet, the lack of information
about the man was striking. Everything was listed as it should have been until four years ago when everything in the man’s life seemed to stop. Everything went dark except for the
registration on his Ford F-150 pickup.

She made a second pass, rereading Bloom’s history and thinking it over. She didn’t want to call him back and she didn’t necessarily want to inform the LVPD. After what happened
last night, she didn’t want to spook the guy or possibly warn him. Still, Bloom’s past four years had as much detail as a black hole feeding on the universe.

She crossed the room, opening a cabinet below the bookcase. Inside were a variety of LAPD forms she kept as backup when working at home. Most of them were blank reports that made up a murder
book. But now she was looking for a letter. The one she needed to get her firearm through security at the airport. Vegas was only an hour away from Burbank. And after one week, she finally had a
lead on who the victim might actually be. A real name to go with the woman’s dead body.

S
he had tried to catch some sleep on the plane,
but couldn’t shake the way Albert Poole had died. The man’s
fate had followed her to Vegas. And she knew with certainty that he would follow her home when she returned to Los Angeles. No matter what happened to her career, no matter how Chief Logan decided
to rewrite what went down, Poole would be with her for a long time.

Just like the woman who cast spells. The woman without a name who was driving her, pushing her. As Lena walked down the aisle to her rental car, she understood that her need to know the
victim’s true identity had become an obsession—but also her saving grace. If she could just find out who she really was, Lena thought she stood a fair chance of living with whatever
came next.

She climbed into the car and unfolded the map on the passenger seat. Bloom lived in the desert, northwest of the city off Kyle Canyon Road. After deciding on her route, she powered up her cell
phone and checked for messages. There were three. The first call had been made by Rhodes an hour ago. He said that he had checked in with Barrera. There was no word from the chief’s office
yet. Barrera thought that it would be a good day to lay low and see what happens, maybe work on that loose end list. Rhodes had been away and didn’t know about the chief’s list, but
promised to call back later.

The next two messages surprised her. Both were left by Denny Ramira from
The Times.
And both calls were made within the last fifteen minutes. Ramira sounded upset again and wanted to
talk. But like the last time, the reporter didn’t give her any details. Just more smoke.

Lena tossed her phone on the passenger seat and pulled out. As she exited the garage and hit the bright sunlight, she could feel the dry heat and still air. According to the thermometer on the
dash, it was already seventy-five degrees. A winter day in the desert wasn’t usually so warm or forgiving.

It took about half an hour to clear the city and suburbs. Once the city finally vanished in her rearview mirror, she spent another fifteen minutes on paved roads, then more than ten miles on
gravel. It was brighter here, warmer—the open desert, raw and untouched. As the road dipped and curved and seemed to melt into the sand, she finally spotted a mailbox. But as she got closer,
she saw the burned out house and kept moving. After five more miles, another mailbox appeared on the right. This time the house that went with it was still standing. She could see it a hundred
yards off the road.

She pulled behind a sand dune, looking at the dust trail she had just left. If Bloom was anywhere near a window, then he knew that someone was here.

She got out of the car, trying not to think about it. Climbing the dune, she lowered her body onto the sand and peered over the top.

The house shimmered in the distance, its windmill standing motionless in the still air. She could see Bloom’s pickup parked in front of the garage. Behind the house she noticed a shed.
From this distance everything appeared weatherbeaten. Dried out, windswept, and so quiet and undisturbed that it didn’t feel right. All she could hear was the sound of her own breathing. The
rhythm between her breaths.

And then something started rattling in the car.

Lena slid down the hill and looked inside. It was her cell, beating against the map on the passenger seat. She checked the display and flipped it open. It was Ramira again, and he sounded
panic-stricken.

“I need to see you,” he said. “The shit’s hitting the fan.”

Lena moved back to her position on top of the sand dune. “What is it, Denny?”

“The shit’s hitting the fan. What more do you fucking need? How soon can you get here?”

“Where’s here?”

“My place. We need to meet and I’m ready to talk.”

“Why don’t you start by telling me what this is about?”

Ramira paused just as Lena expected he would. She looked back at the house.

“I can’t reach my contact,” he said finally. “I think they got to him. I think he’s dead.”

“The senator?”

“Not West. My contact.”

“Who’s your contact, Denny?”

Ramira shut down again. Lena was losing her patience and thought about hanging up.

“I get it,” she said. “You’re still not ready to talk.”

“It’s not that. It’s just that I can’t tell you the guy’s name. I’m a reporter.”

“What difference would it make if he’s dead?”

“But I promised. And I don’t know that he’s dead.”

“Like I said, Denny, you’re not ready to talk. And I’m out of town and too busy to fool around. If the shit’s really hitting the fan, you know what to do. Hang up and
call nine-one-one. If it can wait and you change your mind and really want to talk, I’ll be back sometime late this afternoon.”

He didn’t respond. Lena waited a beat, then slipped the phone into her pocket.

Smoke.

She looked over the dune, scanning the property and trying to put Ramira out of her mind. She took in the house and shed—the Ford F-150 parked in front of the garage and the windmill that
wouldn’t turn. The place reeked with bad vibes. It felt too remote. Too much like the last stop on the train. Too much like a place someone would live if his life had gone dark four years ago
just like Bloom’s had.

Lena checked her wristwatch. It was still early enough that she had options. She no longer wanted to approach him here. She could drive down to the end of the road and spend a few hours waiting
him out, then follow his pickup to the market or the bank. Any public place would be better than here. If he stayed home, she still had time to drive back to Vegas and work the meeting through the
LVPD.

She turned away from the house. Turned and heard the slide rock back on a semiautomatic pistol. Turned and saw the man standing beside her rental car.

“Are you the one who called?” he said. “The one asking for Jennifer McBride?”

Lena’s eyes zeroed in on the gun Bloom was holding. It was another Glock—a .40 or a .45. Either way, she knew that he only needed to fire a single round.

She nodded, hoping her voice wouldn’t betray her fear. “Did you know her?”

Bloom’s eyes narrowed. He motioned her toward him with the gun, then slammed her body against the car. He was bigger than her, stronger than her, at least five inches taller with dirty
blond hair and sunburned skin. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days. Like he didn’t get much sleep. He spun her around and frisked her. His search was quick and
professional and left nothing to chance. He pulled her gun and ID and slipped them into his pocket. He found her cell and tossed it inside her car. Then his large hands rolled over every inch of
her body, from her neck down to her ankles. Satisfied that he had found everything, he pointed the gun at her and backed away from the car.

Lena turned and watched him light a Marlboro. Bloom stared back at her like he meant business.

“Jennifer said that if anyone ever asked for her and used that name, they were trouble.”

“I’m a police officer,” Lena said.

“You think I give a shit? Welcome to Vegas, bitch. Now, get in the car and drive.”

“Where?”

He moved around the car, limping slightly, then climbed into the passenger seat with the gun on her. “Down the driveway to my pickup,” he said. “This piece of shit won’t
go anywhere in the sand.”

S
he pulled the rental car up to the garage,
unable to ignore the dread weighing her down. As they got out and walked over
to Bloom’s pickup, her legs felt weak and mushy. She couldn’t think her way out of this. Nothing was coming. Just Mike Bloom with his Glock.

“Get behind the wheel,” he said. “You’re driving.”

She climbed in, then watched Bloom enter. He tossed over the keys, pointing at the desert that began at his driveway and didn’t seem to end.

“That way,” he said. “Now let’s roll.”

She pulled off the gravel into the sand, trying to keep Bloom’s house in the rearview mirror for as long as possible. She checked the odometer, noting the mileage. She could see her
fingers trembling as she gripped the wheel. When she tried to say something, he told her to shut up.

They drove in an eerie silence. Pushed forward over the brush, crossing a dried-out stream bed and bouncing over the rough terrain. She knew that her only real chance of surviving was to appeal
to Bloom on some personal level. But as she glanced over at him and saw the madness in his eyes, the brutal determination on his face, the hope flickered out and died. About two miles into the
desert, she steered the pickup around a hill and came to a clearing.

“This looks like a good spot,” Bloom said. “Pull over and get out.”

Lena did as she was told, watching the man grab a shovel out of the bed and throw it at her.

“Start digging,” he said.

She picked up the shovel and stared at him, calculating the distance between them.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “Your eyes are all big. You’re breathing heavy. You’re all revved up because you’re about to die. And now
you’ve got that shovel in your hands. You’re thinking maybe this is your chance to take me out. Well, forget it, bitch. It takes one point five seconds for a human being to travel
twenty-one feet—the same amount of time it would take me to draw my weapon and fire. It’s called the twenty-one-foot rule. Only you’re more than twenty-five feet away, and this
gun’s out and ready to rock and roll. Now start digging.”

She drove the shovel into the sand, keeping her eyes on him as he sat down on a boulder and grimaced. He lit another Marlboro and started rubbing his right leg. If Lena was looking for a
weakness, it had to be his leg. There was something wrong with it. A pulled muscle in his lower thigh. Or, maybe a blown ligament in his knee.

She tossed another load of sand out of the hole, feeling the sun on her back. She paced herself—not too fast or too slow—just steady enough to not be noticed and keep things going.
Maybe buy enough time to come up with something out of nothing. It suddenly occurred to her that she hadn’t told anyone where she was. Other than Ramira, no one knew that she had left Los
Angeles.

“You used the past tense,” Bloom said after a long stretch of silence.

Lena stopped digging and gave him a look.

“Back at the house you used the past tense,” he said. “What happened to her?”

“She was murdered. Wednesday night. Exactly one week ago.”

She watched him take it. She saw him lower his eyes and shake his head. The pain he felt was deeper now. But more important, it seemed real.

“I know that you used to be a cop,” she said.

Bloom met her eyes, but remained silent.

“I looked you up when I found the phone number,” she said.

“How’d you find the number?”

She watched him smoke the cigarette. He’d asked her a question, but didn’t seem to care if she answered it.

“She left it with her doctor.”

“Now I know you’re full of shit,” he said. “Jennifer would never do that.”

“I’m a homicide detective. I’m trying to figure out who she was.”

He shrugged. “Who do you think she was?”

“A prostitute working in Venice. Someone trying to hide what she was doing by using someone else’s name.”

“Is that it?” he asked.

“Pretty much.”

“Then I’d say you know all you need to know. Shut up and dig.”

She got back to work with the shovel. After a while she looked up and saw him whispering something into his cell phone. But the call didn’t last very long, only three or four minutes
before he clicked off. When he noticed her looking at him, he waved the gun at her and she turned slightly. Bloom was lifting his pant leg. As he pulled it over his knee, she knew what the problem
was and had a better than good idea of what the man had been doing for the past four years.

Bloom had a prosthetic right leg. There was something wrong with the fit around his thigh. Something that required an adjustment. After a moment, he looked over and caught her watching him
again.

“Don’t get any crazy ideas,” he said. “I don’t need two legs to shoot a stupid bitch like you.”

Lena shrugged it off. “You were in Iraq. That’s why you left the department.”