Private L.A. Read online

  “And then we go again?” Johnson said. The wiry black man was sitting on the foot of his cot, cleaning a pistol.

  “Yes, Mr. Johnson,” Cobb said. “When that happens we go again. Meantime, anybody up for breakfast at Robby Eden’s? I could go for three eggs over easy, two sides of bacon, and an order of sourdough toast.”

  Chapter 51

  BY NOON I was running on fumes, riding shotgun with Cruz driving the company Suburban. Justine was in the backseat. So were Sci and Mo-bot. Behind them were stacked boxes of forensics gear.

  “I don’t believe the Mexicans,” Justine said for the fourth or fifth time. “The Harlows are down there, Jack. Or were.”

  “I’m not saying they aren’t, or weren’t,” I replied. “But the kids can tell us more. And then we’ll decide if we need to go back to Mexico.”

  Cruz barreled us into the Beverly Center parking lot ten minutes after Sanders called to say that we would find the children on level six of the luxury shopping mall, near the top of the Macy’s escalator and the Apple Store.

  I caught up with Dave Sanders, Camilla Bronson, and Cynthia Maines on the escalator between levels four and five two minutes later. The Harlows’ lawyer was talking on his cell phone, head down, intent. The personal assistant looked like she’d been crying. The publicist wore dark sunglasses and scanned everywhere around her.

  “Ms. Maines,” I said. “Surprised to see you here.”

  “Camilla called last night,” Maines replied. “She thought I should be here.”

  “Familiar faces,” Camilla Bronson said, still looking all around.

  We rode the escalator to level six in a pack. Sanders spotted the children first. All three were sitting in wheelchairs, backed up against the wall beside the bustling Apple Store, directly across from the Traffic boutique. They had iPhones in their hands and stared at them like zombies.

  “Malia!” Maines cried. “Jin! Miguel!”

  But of the three, only Malia, the Harlows’ oldest adopted daughter, raised her head toward her parents’ personal assistant. Malia had high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes, which were bleary, red, cried out. She blinked at Maines a second, then said in a little girl’s voice, “Why are we here, Cynthia?”

  “Oh, dear God,” Maines said, rushing to her, tears boiling down her cheeks. She embraced the girl. “You’re safe, Malia. You’re going to be okay. You’re all going to be okay. Jin? Miguel? I’m here. Cynthia’s here now.”

  The other two children just continued to stare at the phones in their laps.

  “They’ve been drugged,” Justine said.

  “I agree,” said Mo-bot, and moved forward, carrying a medical kit. Over the years, she had somehow found the time to earn her EMT’s license, handy at moments like this. “We’re going to want blood samples.”

  “Here?” Camilla Bronson said, horrified. “No. Get them out of—”

  “Mamá?” Miguel said suddenly. The boy’s head had come up. Over the years he’d had several operations on his cleft palate, which made him look different from pictures I’d seen. He gazed around in bewilderment. “¿Dónde está mi mamá?” He began to whine, and shook his arm violently free when Mo-bot tried to touch him. “Where’s Mommy?”

  Jin began to cry as well.

  Up until this point, Sanders had stood off to one side, unnerved by the children’s stupor. But now he saw that patrons leaving the Apple Store were looking at the upset children in the wheelchairs.

  “Camilla’s right,” he said to me through gritted teeth. “We’ve got to get them out of here before—”

  “Is that them?” cried a familiar skewer-sharp voice I’d heard just the night before. “The Harlow brats?”

  I turned in shock. Bobbie Newton was leading the charge off the Macy’s escalator. She had two cameramen in tight tow.

  Chapter 52

  “IT IS THEM!” cried Bobbie Newton. “Wheelchairs? Wheelchairs! What’s happened to them? Where are Thom and Jennifer?”

  “Downstairs!” Camilla Bronson cried, moving into the gossip reporter’s way. “Thom’s buying her a huge diamond at Cartier. The kids are just playing a game, that’s all.”

  Bobbie Newton was having none of it. “I’ve got Cartier’s wired. They alert me when anyone of that stature comes in. Where are they? What’s happened to those kids? Tim, you getting this?”

  Seeing the cameraman aiming tight on the children, Justine stepped up beside the publicist. “They’re minors. They have the right to privacy.”

  “They’re Thom and Jen Harlow’s kids,” the reporter shot back. “Which means they are de facto celebrities, whoever you are. I have every right to … what’s wrong with them? Where are the Harlows?”

  In a soothing tone, Camilla Bronson said, “Bobbie, we’ll have a statement later in the—”

  “They’re missing,” Cynthia Maines called out loudly. “Someone kidnapped the entire family and only just released the children.”

  Bobbie Newton’s trembling free hand shot to her mouth, unable to disguise her blossoming joy. “Oh, my God!” she said in a drawl that ended in a squeal. “Is that true? It’s the story of the year! It’s the story of the century!”

  “Bobbie!” Camilla Bronson said. “Bobbie, calm down. It’s nothing—”

  But the gossip reporter spun around gleefully, microphone in hand, ignoring the publicist. “Three, two, one,” she snapped at the second cameraman. The other focused on the Harlow children, who were still dazed, unsure where they were.

  Part of me wanted to lunge for the cameras and hurl them over the railing, but a crowd was gathering, and I have always hated seeing other people grabbing cameras and destroying them. It smacks of thugs and book burning, and I despise both. So like everyone else, I had to just stand there and listen to her. “This is Bobbie Newton, your best friend forever,” she brayed. “I’m at the scene of a shocking, shocking story that’s about to rock Hollywood to its core. Jennifer and Thom Harlow, the most powerful couple in all of film land, have been kidnapped. You heard it here first. And in a dramatic update, their children have only just been released, drugged out of their loving little minds, and they’re right behind me. Look, just look at the poor darlings!”

  “You’re fired,” Camilla Bronson snarled out of the corner of her mouth at Maines.

  “You can’t fire me,” the Harlows’ personal assistant shot back. “I work for Thom and Jen.”

  “But I can,” Sanders said.

  “I don’t work for you either,” Maines said, her voice rising. “And this cover-up you’ve been engaged in for whatever reason is frankly shocking and hardly in the Harlows’ best interest.”

  The publicist’s eyes went wide. She grabbed Maines by the arm, spun her away from the cameras. “You tipped her!” she hissed, while Bobbie blathered on, getting only half of her facts correct, a record high for her.

  “I did not tip anyone,” Maines retorted hotly. “But I was about to notify the FBI because I simply could not wait any longer for Mr. Morgan here to step up and do the right thing.”

  “Ouch,” I said. “In my defense, I spent last night chasing a mass murderer and praying until dawn while my best friend underwent spinal surgery after he was injured in the pier bombing.”

  Maines blinked. “Oh, I’m sorry, Jack, I—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Sanders said, still furious. He glared at me. “Help us get them out of here, now, Jack. I won’t have them treated like freaks. They need to be seen by qualified medical personnel, and—”

  “Who died and made you their guardian?” Maines challenged.

  Sanders turned cold. “No one has died, to my knowledge, Cynthia,” he snarled. “But Thom and Jennifer have stipulated in writing that in the event of death or incapacitation I will serve as the children’s trustee and guardian. I believe kidnapping fits the definition of incapacitation in anyone’s dictionary.”

  He and Camilla Bronson moved toward the children.

  Justine said, “I’ll help you.”
/>   Cruz, Mo-bot, and Sci followed.

  Maines said, “I’m coming with you.”

  Sanders whirled around. “No, Cynthia, you most definitely are not. As I remember, you are paid by Harlow-Quinn, which means Terry Graves can and will fire you. Expect a call momentarily.”

  Coats were draped over the children’s heads. Justine, Mo-bot, and Sci wheeled the three children past the cameras while Bobbie Newton prattled inanely that they looked “zombified.” Sanders got behind them. So did Camilla Bronson.

  When Bobbie Newton tried to join the entourage, I couldn’t take it anymore. I got out a pocketknife, slid behind her cameramen, and cut the cables that connected the cameras to their battery packs.

  “Dead,” one said.

  “Me too,” the other said.

  I was already moving around them onto the escalator.

  “What!” Bobbie cried as I disappeared below her. “No, I …”

  She must have seen the cut cables because she appeared over the railing, looking like a nut job when she said, “Of course it was you: Murdering Jack Morgan. What’s your involvement in this, Jack? That’s what I want to know. What’s Murdering Jack Morgan’s involvement?”

  I winked at her, pulled out my cell phone, and called the FBI.

  Chapter 53

  EIGHT HOURS LATER, after a long nap, a shower, and a change of clothes, Justine entered a large private suite directly across the street from the Beverly Center inside Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where the Harlow children were being kept overnight for further tests and observation. Sanders, Camilla Bronson, and Terry Graves had arranged it all.

  Justine had not known such suites existed, but here was a common room occupied by Jack, Sci, Chief Fescoe, and a half-dozen others: two doctors, a private nurse, and government technicians linking cables to computer screens. Before joining Private, Justine had worked for the city and courts of Los Angeles as a child psychologist who interviewed and counseled victims of crime. Even though her horizons had broadened into investigations, she still felt confident that there wasn’t anyone on the West Coast better at this kind of thing.

  Most of the people gathered in the common room evidently agreed with her assessment. Chief Fescoe had readily signed off on Justine’s involvement. So had District Attorney Blaze and Christine Townsend, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office. A tall redhead with a beaky nose, Townsend was familiar with Justine and openly valued her skills and judgment. The Harlow team had been the only ones to object. They had been summarily overruled.

  “What’s their current status?” Justine asked.

  “They’re up after a five-hour nap,” the nurse replied. “And Ms. Bronson just delivered them a large order from In-N-Out Burger.”

  “Their favorite,” the publicist sniffed.

  “Okay,” Justine said. “I need you to get me completely up to date on what we know before I go in there.”

  She looked at Dr. Allen Parks, the pediatric specialist overseeing the Harlow children’s care.

  “No sign of sexual or physical mistreatment,” Parks said. “They’ve been nourished, well hydrated, and generally well cared for, other than the fact that they lived in the same clothes for five days. Our blood work confirmed Dr. Kloppenberg’s findings.”

  “I heard scopolamine and Percocet,” Justine said, looking to Sci.

  Kloppenberg nodded. “A modern update on a nineteenth-century cocktail German doctors used to give women in labor. They called it twilight sleep. Don’t be surprised if they don’t remember much.”

  “That’s the point of the stuff, isn’t it?” Townsend asked.

  “Pretty much, Special Agent,” Parks replied. “Beyond that, Miguel has several bruises on his knees and shins. Malia suffered a sprained wrist. Jin appears untouched. And all three had puncture wounds that indicate someone had run IVs into them.”

  Justine looked at Jack and Fescoe. “Beverly Center security tapes?”

  Jack nodded. “Lots there. Men wearing dark hoodies brought them in off San Vicente Boulevard in the wheelchairs at ten fifteen a.m. They used elevators to get the children to level six. A camera outside the Apple Store showed the children were left there no more than three minutes before we arrived. The iPhones in their laps were junk knockoffs. No prints on the wheelchairs or the phones. Sci collected epithelial samples from their clothes.”

  “No hits yet,” Kloppenberg said.

  Justine looked at Townsend, who said, “Not surprisingly, the media is going insane over this. It’s gone viral and global. They’re giving it much more attention than the No Prisoners killings and the pier explosion.”

  “What did you expect?” Camilla Bronson said snidely. “I’ve done nothing but field calls since Bobbie Newton went live.”

  Justine said, “Those children just went from fishbowl life to circus life.”

  “You’ll have to prepare them for that,” Townsend said.

  “They won’t be exposed to any circus if I have anything to do with it,” said Terry Graves hotly. “I won’t stand for it.”

  “Neither will I,” Sanders said.

  “Absolutely not,” the Harlows’ publicist said.

  Justine softened, said, “Well, good. That’s a start.”

  Chapter 54

  MALIA LAY IN the bed on the right, Jin on the left, and Miguel in the middle. They were eating and watching a rerun of Family Guy. All three children glanced at Justine suspiciously when she entered. Small cameras had been set up, feeding the discussion out to the screens and recorders in the common room.

  “I’m Justine,” she said, turned off the television, set her purse on the floor.

  “You with the police?” Malia asked.

  “Working for them. And for the FBI.”

  “Where are Jennifer and Thom?” Jin asked.

  Justine thought it odd that she referred to her parents by their first names. Then again, nearly everyone referred to the Harlows by their first names. But was that just Jin? Hadn’t Miguel called out for his mommy?

  “We don’t know,” Justine admitted at last. “I’m part of a team trying to find your parents. We hoped you could help us.”

  Miguel set down the last of his burger and closed his eyes, hiding his mouth behind his hand, saying nothing.

  “I don’t remember anything,” Malia said.

  “Me neither,” Jin said.

  Miguel still said nothing.

  “Smells awful good in here,” Justine said, settling into a chair. “What did you get for dinner?”

  “Bacon cheeseburger,” Malia mumbled.

  “Not me. Jennifer says it’s bad for you, bacon,” Jin announced.

  “No, it isn’t,” Malia said. “Anita says it’s the best. Makes you strong.”

  “What does Anita know?”

  “Everything,” Miguel said, eyes still shut.

  “She’s here, you know, Anita, in Los Angeles,” Justine said. Her goal now was just to keep them talking, build trust.

  Miguel’s eyes opened and his hand dropped. “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know exactly,” Justine admitted. “But she’s here. I know she’d love to see you all at some point.”

  Miguel’s face fell. “Oh.”

  “Would you like to see her?” Justine asked.

  Miguel blinked, nodded. So did his sisters.

  “I’m sure we can arrange that,” Justine said. “But in the meantime, there is someone here I think you might also be happy to see.”

  She opened the door and their bulldog came rushing in, trailing a leash, wagging her butt wildly, snuffling, whining, and trying to jump up on the bed.

  “Stella!” Miguel cried. The boy leaped out of his bed and held the bulldog tight while she barked and licked his face. Then, with great effort—the dog weighed more than fifty pounds—he picked her up and set her down on his bed while his sisters crowded in around their brother and beloved dog.

  “Stella Bella is such a pretty girl,” Malia soothed.

&nbs
p; “Prettiest in the world,” Jin said. “Best dog in the world.”

  Miguel beamed and scratched Stella’s belly. The dog flopped on her side so all the children could get in on the scratching. Her jowls hung open, making her look like an alien. But then, to Justine’s delight and wonder, the bulldog began to purr, almost like a cat.

  “Does she always do that?” Justine asked.

  “Only when she’s happy,” Jin said. “Stella’s a wonder dog.”

  “I can see that,” Justine said. “She was very upset when we found her up at the ranch. Any idea why Stella would be so upset?”

  Malia and Jin shook their heads, but Miguel said, “Because she missed us, I bet.”

  Justine knew from a brief scan of the children’s medical records that in addition to the cleft palate, Miguel had been diagnosed as “on the spectrum,” not autistic, but very awkward socially. To her surprise, however, at least in the presence of the dog, he exhibited few if any signs of Asperger’s syndrome.

  “I’ll bet that’s what it was,” Justine agreed. “Stella’s a smart dog.”

  Miguel grinned. The dog made him happy. The dog made them all happy, and more relaxed, open. Justine decided the dog could be her ally.

  “If Stella could talk,” Justine began, “what do you think she would remember from the day you all disappeared? Anything. Anything at all.”

  Chapter 55

  “WHAT KIND OF question is that?” Camilla Bronson demanded out in the suite’s common room, where Justine’s questioning unfolded on-screen.

  “A brilliant one,” I retorted. “She’s getting them to separate from whatever happened to them by forcing them to engage their imaginations and look at their memories through the dog’s eyes. Stella’s like her key into their minds.”

  Indeed, over the next two hours, using Stella whenever she could to preface questions, Justine brought out snippets of information that together created a loose tapestry of the Harlow family’s life on the day before their disappearance.