Gated Prey (Eve Ronin #3)(52)

The front door opened and they were greeted by a woman who was as young and fit as Daphne Grayle, but her hair was completely gray.

“Who are you? I didn’t get a call from the gate,” the woman said.

Duncan flashed his badge. “Mrs. Greenberg? I’m Duncan Pavone with the sheriff’s department. Could we have a word with your cleaning lady?”

“Fernanda? What has she done?”

“Nothing, ma’am. We’re trying to reach one of her friends.”

Greenberg looked over her shoulder and yelled, “Fernanda, could you please come here? Be careful not to let the dogs out of the kitchen.” She looked back at Duncan and Eve. “If the dogs get out, don’t run or they will chase you.”

Fernanda opened the kitchen door a crack and squeezed herself out, the dogs trying to nose their way through, too. But she managed to get out without the dogs escaping and nervously approached the door, obviously picking up their cop vibe.

She’s illegal, Eve thought. Fernanda was round faced and round bodied, wearing a T-shirt and floral leggings, her hands in rubber gloves. Eve recognized her immediately as one of the women she saw in the gate video.

Duncan smiled warmly and addressed her in Spanish and she answered. The only word Eve understood was “Priscilla.” They exchanged a few more words, then Duncan thanked her and turned to go. Eve followed him to the car.

“I didn’t know that you speak Spanish,” Eve said.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me. For instance, did you know I’m a magnificent ballroom dancer?”

“You are?”

“No, but I could be, because I’m a mystery to you. Fernanda doesn’t know where Priscilla lives, but she knows it’s in a motel and what bus stop she gets off at each day.” Duncan gave Eve the address on the valley stretch of Sepulveda Boulevard that ran parallel to the 405 freeway north of Burbank Boulevard.

Eve knew the area. A lot of undocumented immigrants lived in the many cheap motels and low-end apartments that lined that end of Sepulveda. It was also a hot spot for drugs and prostitution.

“If Priscilla and her family are here illegally,” Eve said, “that would explain why nobody reported her missing. We better call the LAPD and let them know we’ll be in their backyard again.”

“Not this time,” Duncan said. “If they send a black-and-white and some uniforms to the motels, people will scram or clam up.”

“You don’t think the same thing will happen when we start flashing our badges?”

“I’ll win them over with my charm.”

On their way out of Oakdale, they had to pass Anna McCaig’s place, where Deputy Clayton was parked out front. Eve told Duncan to pull up alongside the patrol car and roll down his window so she could speak across him to the deputy.

“How is it going, Eddie?”

“Dandy.” Clayton held up a Jack Reacher paperback. “I’m getting paid to catch up on my reading.”

“Could I ask you to do us a favor?”

“As long as it’s police work and not picking up your dry cleaning.”

“Has anybody ever asked you to do that?”

“I choose to remain silent on that,” he said. “I don’t need more enemies.”

“I’d like you to run the plates of every vehicle that left Oakdale between Tuesday at one thirty p.m. and Wednesday at seven a.m. and let me know who owns them. I’d do it myself, but we’re going to be tied up in the field for a few hours and we’re racing the clock on this case.”

“What are you looking for?”

“A pregnant maid who walked into this community on Tuesday morning and never walked out.”

“I’m on it,” he said. “You have the plates?”

Eve asked for his email address, then forwarded him the Oakdale gate log. “I owe you one.”

“You owe me a lot more than one.”

“I’ll pick up your dry cleaning,” she said.

He laughed and they drove off.

Duncan gave her a look. “Do you really think Priscilla got a ride out or that her body was in somebody’s trunk?”

“You’re the one who said to keep an open mind.”

“I’m glad to see you’re taking my hard-earned wisdom to heart.”

“Besides, if Anna McCaig got a dead body out of her house, she didn’t do it in her car. It would have to be in one of the vehicles on the list.”

“I’m also glad to see you don’t give up easily.”

“I don’t give up at all,” she said.



They hit one dreary motel after another for two hours. The places were low-slung cinder-block motor courts with rusty window air conditioners that whined in mechanical agony as they desperately sucked in air and wheezed it out again. The instant Duncan and Eve arrived at each place, the tenants would rush away or dash inside their rooms. Drapes would close and cars would peel out. None of the resident managers recognized the photo of Priscilla, or at least they claimed they didn’t. But on the eighth or ninth motel, the half-drunk desk clerk’s eyes widened with recognition and he told them where they could find her distraught husband, Alejandro Alvarez, in his room.

“He hasn’t left in days,” the manager said. “In case she comes back.”