her as she hurried across the street into the garage. She found Vaughan’s cell number on her recent call list, and felt some degree of relief when he picked up.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Downstairs,” he said. “They’re delivering my ex-wife’s car.”
She gave him a three-sentence update that ended with the words, “Lily Hight left Club 3 AM with a guy.”
“I’ve got wheels,” he said. “I’ll meet you there. I’ll only be five minutes behind you.”
She blew through a red light-that grim feeling sitting beside her in the passenger seat. Once she’d pulled onto the 101 Freeway, she slid into the far left lane and decided to call for backup. The Hollywood Station was just a few blocks south of the club. The dispatch operator took the information down, then repeated it to her.
It took Lena twenty-five minutes of hard driving to reach Hollywood. As she approached Club 3 AM, she didn’t see the guard in his booth and the gate was open. She turned into the drive and pulled around to the back of the building. And then her heart sank. The Toyota pickup was here, and so was Escabar’s Ferrari, but no one else. She could hear sirens in the distance, but it sounded like they were moving in the opposite direction.
She gave the building a hard look, then hurried up the steps to the main entrance-that grim feeling still as close as a shadow. She tried the front door, wrapped her hand around the handle, and gave it a slow pull hoping that the place was locked up.
But when the door opened, she took the shock and knew.…
She stepped inside the foyer-everything dark and quiet. Digging into her pocket for her phone, she found Escabar’s cell number and pressed CALL. Two or three seconds later, she heard his phone begin ringing from somewhere upstairs. She could hear the haunting sound travel through the dark building. She could hear the eerie silence when his voice mail cut in and the ringing finally stopped.
She tried to compose herself.
Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and she could see a body on the floor. It wasn’t very far away. She noticed a light switch on the wall and flipped it on. The switch only handled a row of dim floor lights leading to the staircase, but provided enough illumination for Lena to pick up detail.
She moved toward the body slowly and knelt down. A green trash bag had been pulled over the man’s head and tied around his neck. From the shoes and slacks he wore, Lena knew that she was looking at the security guard. She started to check his pulse, her response on automatic, but looked at his face pressing through the plastic bag and stopped.
Few people die pretty.…
She turned away, trying to catch her breath. She heard something behind her-the door opening, the foyer flooding with light. It was Vaughan, and he looked frightened and nervous. As he moved in beside her, he couldn’t seem to stop staring at the dead body.
“I called for backup,” she said quietly.
“There’s a bank robbery on Sunset,” he whispered. “I heard it on the radio.”
Lena spotted the pistol on the guard’s belt. “We can’t wait,” she said. “Do you know how to use a gun?”
Vaughan shook his head and seemed jittery. “I’m a lawyer,” he said.
Lena pursed her lips. They were in a tough spot, yet she couldn’t help acknowledging to herself that there was something about Vaughan that got to her. Something she liked a lot. She shook it off, grabbing the guard’s pistol and lifting it out of the holster. Even in the dim light, the Beretta.40 glistened as if brand new. The hammer was half-cocked with the safety engaged. Readying the weapon, she passed it over and met Vaughan’s eyes.
“Whoever did this is probably long gone,” she whispered. “Can you handle this?”
He nodded at her with determination. “I’m ready.”
Lena drew her weapon, then pulled out her cell and hit the REDIAL key on the touch screen.
Vaughan shot her a wild look. “What are you doing?”
“Calling a dead man,” she said.
After several moments, Escabar’s cell phone started ringing again and Vaughan understood. They moved quickly through the darkness, rushing up the stairs and following that ghostly sound down the hall until it stopped. Lena pressed the REDIAL key again and they continued pushing toward the sound. When they reached the corner, she realized that Escabar’s phone was ringing from Bosco’s office and broke into a run.
She found him on the floor beside the desk-one round through his forehead, and two more through the center of his chest. His mouth was open, his teeth jutting out. But even more striking, she could see what looked like fear permanently frozen on his face. His gun was on the floor beside his right hand. She turned to check the wall and spotted a bullet hole in the plaster by the door. Escabar had managed to get a shot off, but aimed too high and missed.
“Something’s happening with the computer,” Vaughan said.
Lena stepped around Escabar’s corpse, her eyes dancing between the computer monitor on the desk and the television mounted over the fireplace. The screens were connected, the images identical.
“Files are being deleted, Lena. Look at the size of them.”
She checked the screen, searching for a CANCEL option. When she found the button, she clicked it and sat down at the desk.
“Media files,” she said. “The security cameras.”
“Are we too late?”
“Not necessarily,” she said.
“Escabar told you that he made a copy?”
She nodded, her wheels turning, “He was burning it when I called.”
There was a stack of blank DVDs on the desk, but nothing else. The drive in the computer was empty. Lena searched through the desk drawers but found nothing there as well. After giving Escabar’s corpse a quick check, she turned back to the monitor and tried to think it through.
There were a number of programs that Escabar had opened. Each one had been minimized and parked at the bottom of the screen. As she read the icons, she realized that Escabar had burned a copy for her without closing the program. Clicking the icon, the software opened and a graphic box popped up.
The program had recorded a mirror image of the project and saved it. She glanced at Vaughan unable to speak, then loaded a blank disk into the computer and clicked YES. The next five minutes idled by in the key of slow-the anxiety was overwhelming. But after the drive stopped churning, Lena highlighted the disk and a video image began rolling on both the monitor and the television mounted over the fireplace.
“My God, it’s her,” Vaughan said.
Lena stood up and walked over to the television, mesmerized by the image.
She was sitting at the bar with a glass of white wine. She had on that red lipstick, and was wearing a black dress without a bra. There wasn’t much to the dress, and her breasts were loose and only partially concealed. The bar was lit entirely by candlelight, and Lily seemed to glow more than everyone else in the darkened room. A man dressed in a pinstripe suit was standing beside her, his head lost in the shadows above the frame. But Escabar had called it right. Lily was laughing with the man and rubbing her fingers over his hand.
“Does she look sixteen to you?” Vaughan asked.
Lena shook her head and offered a sad smile that didn’t last very long. Nothing about Lily Hight looked like a teenager on the Friday night one week before she was raped and murdered. The sheen of her blond hair. The glint in her eyes. Her spirit and beauty and magnetic smile. On this night, Lily looked like the kind of woman no man could walk away from.
Lena tried to push through the shock and concentrate on the man Lily was with. There wasn’t much to see, and the camera angle was more than frustrating. She thought he might be wearing a wedding band, but when Lily finally lifted her fingers away, the man cupped his hand and lowered it below the bar. His pinstripe suit appeared expensive. As he turned and pressed his chest into Lily’s bare shoulder, Lena’s eyes zeroed in on the left lapel of his jacket.
“There’s a mark on his lapel,” she said.
Vaughan moved closer to the screen and squinted. “I’ve got it. I see it.”
