24

Piper sat with the therapist Dr. Alexandra Foster, who Sophie had consulted last year, in the small office on the outskirts of North Las Vegas.

Emily Grace, Sophie’s mother, had clearly recognized the toll her worsening addiction was taking on her kids. In a desperate bid to shield them, she had sought help, her motherly instincts fighting to save her children.

Piper tried not to, but couldn’t help contrasting it with her own childhood memories. By the time she had grasped the reality of her mother’s addiction, it had already consumed her. Piper had only known her mother through the lens of addiction, never experiencing any other facet of her.

Lazarus called. She sent it to voicemail.

The young therapist had raven hair and a tattoo of a tree on her forearm, the branches spreading like it were wrapping slowly around her.

“Sophie’s one of my favorites,” Alexandra said. “I just can’t believe it. Sullivan was only twelve years old. It’s inhuman.”

Piper just nodded. “Dr. Foster—”

“Alex is fine.”

“Um, Alex, I know that patient confidentially prevents you from disclosing anything very personal, but my job with Sophie is to make sure she gets through this. What can you tell me that might help me take care of her, that doesn’t violate privilege?”

“That’s clever,” Alex said.

“I’m sorry?”

“You’re trying to convince me you’re not attempting to violate privilege by making it sound like you’re concerned about it.”

Piper grinned bashfully. “You have a lot of insight.”

“I have to. Children don’t want to talk about their problems with a stranger. If I can’t read people quickly, I would never get them to open up.”

Piper said, “I just want to know how best to help her.”

“You can be there for her. Everything she ever knew about the world was taken from her in the worst way possible. She needs to know there are still people that care about her.”

A text came through on Piper’s phone, and she saw it was Lazarus. All it said was Call me .

“Can you excuse me a second?” Piper said as she rose and went out into the hall.

She called Lazarus who picked up and said, “We got a name on BloodyChef.”

“Who?”

“Robert Darrell Grimes. Forty-one, unemployed pipe fitter that’s on disability from a back injury he got on the job. Lives out in a trailer park on Rattlesnake Ridge. All the BloodyChef’s posts came from the computer in his trailer. I’m goin’ out to watch the trailer tonight.”

She paced in the hallway a moment. “I want to come.”

“Why?”

“I want to be involved. You might need me to draft a warrant anyway, so I should know what’s going on.”

“Your dime.”

Piper’s grandmother was napping on the couch with the television still on. Piper switched off the TV and gently covered her grandmother with a quilt. Afterward, she went outside to wait for Lazarus.

When Lazarus arrived, night had already fallen. Piper hopped into the car, and he pulled away from the curb. He was dressed in jeans and a black button-up shirt, soft bluegrass playing on the stereo.

“You done ride-alongs at all?” he said as they drove.

“No. We had a chance at the GAL to see what it was like, but I didn’t do it.”

“No reason to. Cops are on their best behavior during ride-alongs. You don’t get to see what really happens.”

They merged onto the freeway and left the city behind, entering the vast expanse of desert that stretched between Las Vegas and the next major city a couple of hours away. Through desert so barren even animals didn’t inhabit it.

“You ever take that Christian fish off?” Lazarus said.

“No.”

“Why?”

“Why do you have a rabbit’s foot hanging from your rearview mirror?”

He grinned as he changed lanes. A soft sapphire light emanated from his dashboard, casting his face in blue shadow.

They eventually exited the freeway and drove through desolate, dust-covered fields. There weren’t many houses, but the few there were prominently displayed “NO TRESPASSING” signs.

As they approached a trailer park, Lazarus nodded toward a trailer adorned with front string lights and a Confederate flag hanging from the side. He parked nearby but not too close.

“That’s Grimes’s trailer.”

The trailer was run down with rust caked around the windows, the wooden porch looking rickety and unstable.

Piper said, “Don’t you have a team for this kind of work?”

“The Intelligence Unit. But we’re not on great terms at the moment.”

“What did you do?”

He smirked. “Why assume I’m the one at fault? Maybe it’s on them?”

“Is it?”

“No.” He sighed. “It’s frustrating. I’ve got a crawl space to inspect and I’d rather just get it over with.”

“Crawl space?”

He nodded. “Got a tip about bypassing the alarm system. Involves cutting through the floor from underneath.”

“Didn’t CSI already check there?”

“I need my own look.”

Piper redirected her attention to the trailer. She leaned down, adjusted the seat, and pushed it back. “Have you done this a lot?”

He nodded. “I was with the Intelligence Unit before Homicide. Pretty much everybody would use us, so it was a good education, I suppose. I’d sit for hours listening to phone calls between drug dealers, human traffickers, pimps and their girls ... Got to really hear what people are like when they think nobody’s listening.”

“What made you want to go into Homicide?”

A song came on, an acoustic guitar and banjo strumming a slow tune as a mournful voice echoed over the instruments. Lazarus turned it up and didn’t answer.

Piper leaned her head back and listened to the soulful music. She had never heard bluegrass before meeting Lazarus—in fact, she didn’t listen to much music at all, and she wondered why.

After about an hour, she started to feel claustrophobic. She had already examined every trailer, played out various scenarios in her mind, and caught up on her emails and messages from the office.

“Did you ever lose someone you were watching?” she said, more to break the silence than anything else.

He took out his vape pen and rolled down his window a crack. “We were watching this guy for Financial Crimes ’cause he’d been passing off fake C-notes. Top-notch fakes. We had to go to the Secret Service to get confirmation they were even fake. Guy was an artist.”

“How’d he get away?”

“He lived in an apartment complex and made us somehow. I still don’t know how. But the complex had one of those underground lots, and we couldn’t see down there. So he got a mannequin, dressed it up in his clothes, and then summoned an Uber and got the driver to take the mannequin to the airport from the underground lot. We followed the Uber, and the guy took off the other way.”

“You’re kidding?”

“No.”

“You don’t sound too disappointed.”

“You think he happened to have a mannequin in his apartment? He had that planned out long before we ever showed up. He outsmarted us. He deserved his freedom.”

Time ticked away slowly. They chatted, but eventually Piper felt weary and stopped talking. They sat for several hours before Lazarus said, “I’m taking you home.”

“I’m fine. I can stay.”

He started the car. “This isn’t what they pay you for. Might as well get some sleep.”