We took Kimmy back to the house in Santa Monica. My girls were excited about taking her shopping as soon as the shops opened in Beverly Hills. I was somewhat less excited. I called Meyer and he agreed to meet me at the Pacific Dining Car in LA, which was open 24 hours. It was now around 8:00 AM. So I had a Sazerac Cocktail. Meyer drank coffee.
“Something on your mind, maybe?” Meyer said.
I explained what had happened after he left the house, and what the doctor had said.
I finished off my Sazerac, and signaled the bartender. Meyer put his hand on my arm.
“Never usually being one to impair the process of imbibing, still, I feel it necessary to intercede in this case.”
“What?”
“Stop drinking, Johnny.”
“Okay.” The bartender came over. “Coffee,” I said. He ran off to get it.
“You are pissed,” Meyer said. “And conflicted. Being an expert detective, I can discern these things.”
“The doctor told me I was her ‘daddy’ now,” I said. I explained how Kimmy had forced me into the exam room, and why.
“I’m going to give her a morning after pill later this morning. I’m going to do whatever I can to get her past this, and that includes the best therapist I can find in Los Angeles. I’m going to get her tested for STDs and if there are any, I’m going to do whatever it takes to knock them down. And then I’m going to go after ‘those people.'”
“Johnny, you and I worked RHD together and you know what we need to do to build a case.”
“Fuck ‘case’,” I said. “They raped a little girl.”
Meyer was silent for a while. Then he stood up, walked around the bar for a while, then sat back down.
“I was thinking like I still had a badge,” he said. I’m with you.” He signaled the bartender, who came over.
“Another one of those for him,” Meyer said. “And your Highland Park 25 for me. Neat.”
I looked at Meyer. “So, we kill them?”
“We kill them,” Meyer said.
—
“You can’t kill them,” the chief said.
“Why not?”
“What this is is likely not an isolated enclave of sex dealers. If they had only dealt in women of majority who were willing participants, while it would have potentially been a violation of statutes, it would have been only thus. When they kidnap children and force them to have sex, what we need to do is follow to the root cause and kill that. There could be a nationwide network at play.”
Meyer and I looked at each other. “We’re going to go and kill them,” I said.
The chief sighed. “Johnny. Can you at least try to find out who is sponsoring this abomination?”
I had never loved Meyer more than when he said, “Yes Sir. If they can still talk when we’re done, we’ll do our best to find out.”
—
Myer, Buddy, Jen, and I prepared for boots and saddles. We all pulled comm gear and the throwaway 10 mm suppressed pistols out of my little armory. Buddy and I opted to also grab a couple of Springfield Arms XD45s, and Meyer grabbed the Mossberg 590 shotgun that I keep upstairs. I thought about the Sako sniper rifle but dismissed the idea. If they were able to hold us outside of a distant perimeter, I wasn’t going to go trading shots without knowing who all was in the cabin.
Tricky part. I sat Kimmy down on a sofa and sat on an ottoman facing her and took her hands. She sat quietly and watched me.
“Sweetie, here’s the problem. I don’t know where the cabin is. I don’t suppose you have the address…”
She shook her head no.
“Is there any chance you could describe exactly how you got from the cabin to where I found you?”
She shook her head again.
Okay. “Then the only way we have a chance of finding it is for you to come with us and try to lead us there. We’re taking multiple cars so as soon as we’re sure we’ve got the right place, you can leave it and come right home.”
Her grip tightened on my hands.
“Do you have guns?”
“Yes.”
“Will you protect me?”
“With my life.”
“Then let’s go.”
—
“That way. Turn right.”
“Are you sure?” I said.
“Yes. I remember that flickering light.”
On a hunch, we’d made the drive in the dark since she’d run away in the dark. It also helped with operations if we decided to engage right away. We’d been slowly backtracking her route, which she’d established with “That boulder,” “The flag with the light on it,” and the like.
I made the turn. “We’re close,” she said. “It’ll be on that side of the street, not too far in.”
I slowed more.
“How many people were in the cabin?” I said.
“Five that I saw,” she said. “A man and a woman who just watched and made drinks and stuff, and the three men who…” She stopped.
I put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Kimmy. I had to know.”
“It’s okay,” she said. Then she pointed and said, “That’s it.”
“You’re sure?”
She stared at me, and I suddenly felt stupid.
“Trust me,” she said. “I remember.”
Two things were obvious about it immediately. First, it might have been called a cabin but it looked more like a regular house, just built in the forest. Second, there was a man on the front steps reading some papers under the porch light. He was already looking at my car curiously.
“Was he there?” I said.
She looked at him for a long time. “No,” she said.
I had to talk to him now, so I called in the troops who’d been tailing us.
“When they get here, we’ll put you in the car with Dawn and she’ll take you home.”
“I want to stay with you.”
Geeze.
“I have to go talk with that man. This could just be talk, but it could also get very ugly very quickly and you are not going to be anywhere near it if it happens. Young lady,” I added, because I’d heard parents do that to make their points.
She just stared me down.
“I’ll compromise with you,” I said. “Do you trust Dawn?”
“I do now,” she said.
“Then I’ll have her drive you back to where the big boulder is and wait there to hear from me. I’ll be back with you just as soon as I can be.”
She thought about that. Finally, “Okay.”
The troops arrived behind me. We did the transfer and Dawn drove away, then the other four of us walked up to the porch. The man stood up but did nothing more threatening than put the papers he’d been reading down on a small table.
“Do for you folks? Lookin’ to rent?” he asked. He was older, maybe 60’s, thin and tall with a thick shock of white hair. I was starting to suspect that he wasn’t one of the droids we were looking for.
“My name is John Rand, Sir, and these are my colleagues. We work for a private security firm.” I showed him my credentials. I realized that if this guy was an innocent and knew who we were, and we eventually did grievous harm to people he knew, it could be a problem for us.
But you’ve got to start somewhere.
“Oh,” he said. “Bigwig comin’ up here for a stay?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Would it be possible to have a look inside this cabin?”
“Sure! And your timing couldn’t have been better!”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I work for the company that rents and leases this cabin. The couple who were leasing it up and took off sometime today. Without even telling us. It was a three-month lease and they’re paid up until the end of it, so we won’t lose any money or anything. But I would like to know whether I’m free to put it on the market again.”
I glanced at Meyer and he grimaced. We’d been afraid they’d bug out fast, knowing that one of their victims had gotten away.
“C’mon in and I’ll show you around,” he said as he headed for the door.
“How did you know they left?” Meyer said.
“Neighbors.” He pointed across the street that we’d parked on. “Bill’s wife Marie is the secretary to the owner of the property management company we work for. Bill saw them packing up and told her, and she told her boss, and then her boss told me to come out and see what was going on.”
He opened the door and waved us in.
“Keep an eye on him, Buddy,” I whispered. “I think he’s a citizen but I don’t want any nasty surprises.”
“Copy.”
As we walked in I said, “What’s your name, Sir?”
“Mark McGuire.” I stared at him, and he chuckled. “Oh, not that Mark McGuire.” He fished into his pocket, and Buddy tensed, moved his coat, and placed his hand on the butt of his 10mm.
But all Mark came out with was a wallet. He extracted a business card and handed it to me.
“‘Mark McGuire, Arrowhead Property Management’,” I read. “And in parentheses below, ‘No, not that Mark McGuire.'” I smiled. “Nice. May I keep this?”
“Sure,” he said. “That’s what they’re for. I got about half a jillion of them.”
Buddy visibly relaxed.
“Sir,” Meyer said. “I’m going to ask a couple of strange questions.”