Look For Me (Detective D.D. Warren #9)(40)

“I have no interest in anyone else getting hurt.”

“But,” D.D. pressed, “if this does have to do with gangs and you magically have an opportunity to interfere with a group of drug dealers—”

“I would still call you first. That world . . . I don’t know what I don’t know.”

“Confidential informant,” D.D. stated crisply.

“What?”

“Learn what you’re going to learn and report back to me. As my CI. Anonymity for you, so you can still look cool in the eyes of your fan club, and genuine help finding a missing girl for me. Consider it the first rung up the policing ladder.”

“Wow. Do I get a ring? A paperweight?”

“You get your two hours. Then, yes, we’ll be meeting again.”

“Sounds ominous. Fine. I’m in. But you tell me what you learn from Hector Alvalos. The price for my information is your information.”

“Then I’ll start with a down payment: While you were learning about Hispanic gangs in the public schools, I learned that Juanita Baez was investigating the time her children spent in foster care. Roxy and Lola were placed together. Juanita strongly suspected Lola had been sexually abused, though neither girl would talk about it. She’d contacted a lawyer on the subject. If she had proof or was on the verge of finding proof, we could be talking a multimillion-dollar lawsuit, not to mention criminal charges.”

“Sounds like motive for murder to me.”

“Phil and I will interview Juanita’s lawyer. But I’m thinking it would be good to also talk to some of the kids placed in the same home as Lola and Roxy. Being foster kids—”

“They probably aren’t that forthcoming with adult authority figures. Whereas someone like me . . .”

“Maybe they’ll recognize you from the news.”

Flora rolled her eyes.

“Are you practicing with knives?” D.D. asked abruptly. She gestured to Flora’s left hand. “No way that injury’s from sparring.”

“I’m not playing with knives,” Flora said.

D.D. waited. Used her best detective’s stare. But Flora didn’t offer any more details. Sometimes, D.D. wished Jacob Ness had lived, if only so she could meet the monster who’d turned out such a hardened foe. He had to have been beyond awful for Flora to be so resilient now.

She wondered if Flora understood her own strength. Or if under the cover of night, the woman still felt like that helpless college student all over again.

Some nights, D.D. still dreamed of a voice crooning, “Rock-a-bye, baby,” right before she flew down the stairs.

As a detective, she couldn’t condone vigilantism. But as a woman who’d once been there, she understood.

D.D. held out her hand. Flora shook it. And just like that, D.D. thought, she made a deal with the devil herself.

Flora exited the office space. D.D. got on the phone with the crime scene techs.





Chapter 16


ACCORDING TO GRAPHIC NOVELS, EVERY hero has an origin story. I’d watched enough movies to know how it worked. Something terrible happened; the hero lost everything he or she loved and was left a wreck of a human being. At which point—cue the music—the hero rose from the ashes, a leaner, meaner model, and the quest for vengeance began. While the crowd cheered wildly.

Did this make Jacob my origin story? Did this mean, in some perverse way, I owed everything I was now to him? I didn’t like that idea. I liked the story I fed to Sergeant Warren. I would’ve survived the beach in Florida, returned to school in Boston, and somewhere along the way realized policing was a good fit for me. A job with purpose. That involved less sitting and more doing. Maybe I would’ve even returned to the wilds of Maine, a small-town deputy, where I could play with foxes.

Who knows? It’s possible that young, hopeful Flora wouldn’t have been a very good cop. She had a tendency to see the best in everyone. Probably not a great trait in an investigator.

So maybe Jacob was my origin story. The person I was now, filled with purpose, clever survival skills, and a keen sense of vengeance, was the person I could only become after spending four hundred and seventy-two days with him.

It wasn’t something I wanted to think about.

And yet we all have to come from something, right?

It takes a villain to make a hero.

And it took a monster to make me.

? ? ?

WHEN I WAS TWO BLOCKS from Roxy’s hideout, my cell buzzed again. Caller ID unknown, but I was guessing Mike Davis, Roxy’s friend, finally reaching out via the guidance counselor. He’d called for the first time while I’d been standing next to the hypervigilant Sergeant Warren. I’d done my best to send a discreet reply text: Cops around, will call back.

Upon leaving, I’d added: Let’s meet in person.

Timing would now be right for his return call. I answered crisply, “Flora Dane.”

The voice on the other end sounded breathless and spoke in muffled tones, as if the caller didn’t want to be overheard.

“Thirty minutes,” he said. “There’s a park.”

“I need your name.”

“You know who this is.”

“I’m trying to help Roxanna.”

“Come to the park.” He rattled off directions.