I leaned back in the seat and pulled up a browser on the smartphone. “An occult whatever,” I said, “yeah, that I am.”
I caught an hour’s sleep on the ride down I-5 South. Before I crashed, I did a quick web search for doctors, primarily ob-gyn, in Encinitas. I found one that fit all the letters and numbers I needed to spin and complete the puzzle, Pat. Her name was Dr. Patrica Nahn, and I managed to come up with her office and home address with some digging. By seven-thirty, Santos and I were in the parking lot of her practice when she drove up in a forest-green Jag.
I recognized her from her Facebook picture, blond hair to her shoulders, thick, black glasses. She dressed like a soccer mom. Dr. Nahn headed toward the locked doors of her lobby, looking a little oddly at Santo’s L.A. cab. I stepped out into the morning light and felt the nausea of an all-nighter catch up to me. I looked like a drowned rat that had managed to find a dry hole for a spell. I was not at my most charming. “Dr. Nahn?” She had her keys out and turned to me, slipping the door key between her index and middle finger, ready to use as a weapon if need be against my sketchy presence fucking up her nice morning commute of Starbucks and NPR.
“Yes, can I help you?”
“Crystal Myth,” I said. “Karen, Caern.” The recognition was undeniable. She knew. The doc turned and crossed to the door, her sensible heels clicking on the pavement.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She was fumbling with her keys, which rattled hard in her shaking hand. “Now please leave. This is private property and for patients only.” The door clicked open. “If you don’t go, I’m calling the police.”
“Please do,” I said, walking toward her. “We can swap stories about how you’re doing abortion work for porn stars. I’m sure your other clientele will get a kick out of that.” The doc spun, angry, as she looked around to see if anyone had heard me.
“I’ve done no such thing!” she said, and I believed her. “Caern was a patient of mine. It’s none of your damned business! Hasn’t that girl been through enough?”
“Yeah, I think she has,” I said, “and there is more trouble headed her way if you don’t help me.”
“Why should I trust you?” she said, looking me up and down.
“You’re not catching me at my best,” I said. “Actually, that’s not true. I’m pretty much always a hot mess. I was hired by friends of hers to make sure she’s alive and okay.”
“Like a private detective?” she asked.
“Yeah, something like that,” I said. “She’s alive, happy, and wants to stay anonymous, I’ll honor that.”
“She is,” Nahn said.
“I need to see her to be sure,” I said. “There are some evil bastards back in L.A. who wanted to use her, and they were going to kill her. They’re still out there.”
“I know,” the doctor said. “She came to me a disaster, a junkie, three and a half months pregnant. At the verge of a nervous breakdown, the things they did to her.” A car pulled in next to her Jag, the office manager I suspected. It was coming up on eight. “Tell me, how do I know you’re not one of these evil bastards from L.A.?”
“I am an evil bastard,” I said. “I guarantee you I’m the worst you’ll ever meet, but I’m not their evil bastard.”
* * *
Eight-fifteen and Santos’s cab pulled to the curb across the street from a pale-blue, shingled rancher on Cathy Lane. A few of the yards in this quiet little suburb were dotted with palm trees. There were swing sets and aboveground pools you’d buy at Walmart. Grills and boats under blue plastic tarps. It looked like a really nice place to live, to grow up, to grow old, as far away from L.A.’s porn scene or the Life as you could possibly find. I felt like an invader here, a virus. I didn’t belong.
“You cool?” Santos asked, sipping his third coffee. I flicked the cigarette out the window and crushed it with my boot as I stepped to the curb.
“Yeah,” I said. “Just been a long time getting here.”
“I can take you back to L.A.,” he said. “You can leave her be.”
“I have to,” I said. “I have to see if she actually got herself the fuck out of Hell and made it to Candy Land. I need to know.” Santos nodded.
“I’ll be waiting,” he said.
I headed up the walk, avoiding some scattered toys and a garden hose that hadn’t been rolled back up, and stood at the door. For a second the nightmare creaking of Crash Cart’s wheels filled my imagination, and I thought of walking into another murder scene, blood and flesh sprayed everywhere. I pushed the images, the stench of slaughter, out of my mind. I could go away. I could tell Ankou anything I wanted, and Vigil would back me up, I was sure of that, now. I didn’t have to do this.
I knocked on the door for the most selfish of reasons, not to free Torri Lyn from servitude, not to see if this girl was okay, not a hostage, or someone’s domestic slave. I knocked because I wanted to believe with all my heart that she had made it out the other side, and I had to see that, had to know it was possible.
The door opened. I heard children’s music; I think it was from the Nickelodeon TV channel. The house smelled of breakfast and baby powder. Caern Ankou, in her early twenties and still beautiful, opened the door. She was in a white cami and jeans, barefoot. A baby bump peeked out under the cami. She had scars on her arms, but they had
