Finding Forever (30 page)

20–30 mins . . . traffic sux!

                      
hurry up . . . i cant stay here too long, not safe here

Brooklyn put the phone down between her thighs. “Simone's getting antsy,” she said.

“So who is this chick anyway?” Tamara asked.

“A source. She wants to show me something.”

“And you promise that she can hook me up with an agent or somebody? The world needs to know the”—she lowered her voice like a baritone radio announcer—“one and only Tamaraaaa Curtiiiiis!”

“You know, you're not so bad for a bad influence,” Brooklyn said.

“Who said I was a bad influence?”

“My mom.”

Tamara shrugged. “I get it. She's a lawyer. She sees bad bitches whose lives in some ways look a lot like mine. At least she cares about you. My mom is more checked out than
Hunger Games
at the school library.”

Brooklyn exploded into giggles. “Oh my god. I think I just peed myself.”

“How many times do I have to tell you to wear a diaper around me?”

Tamara turned off on the exit for Nichols Canyon and headed up a hilltop. “By the way, I get why your mom thinks I am the Antichrist, but why's Holden so douchey to me?”

“He's just protective,” Brooklyn said.

“Of what?”

“Me.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Tamara grumbled. “I'm the bad girl, the girl who swears, who dresses like a whore and gets kicked out of school. I'm such a baaaaad influence. Blah, blah, blah.”

“Something like that, yes.”

“Everyone needs a devil,” Tamara said. “Even serial killers. ‘Oh, the devil made me do it!'”

“Holden just wants me to be safe.”

“If he's so protective, why didn't
he
drive you down here to meet with your sketch source?”

“Because he didn't want to get in trouble.” Brooklyn didn't mention that Holden had already texted her three times in the last hour to make sure she was okay. It would just make Tamara think he was even more of a control freak. “He's just very conservative. It's his upbringing.”

“If you ask me, that boy has balls the size of Tic Tacs.”

“C'mon, his parents are just hardcore and put a lot of pressure on him to be perfect.”

“I'm not talking about how he is with his parents. I'm talking about how he is around you. He is obviously still in love with you but too afraid to tell you. You guys have more sexual tension than those blood-suckers in those movies.”

“Twilight?”
Before Tamara could answer, Brooklyn pointed ahead to their right. “There!”

Tamara banked sharp at a private driveway flanked by tall palms and flicked on the high beams as she steered up to a
black iron gate, which automatically swung open. A sleek, modern mansion loomed ahead.

As they pulled up to the house, Simone stepped out the front door to greet them.

Simone's usually stylish hair lay tangled, and dark circles rimmed her eyes as if she hadn't slept since she had last seen Brooklyn up in Twin Oaks.

“This is Tamara,” Brooklyn said. “She's cool, don't worry.”

Tamara shook Simone's hand hard. “Brookie's right. I only bite when I'm hungry.”

“Fine, but you can't park the car here,” Simone snapped. “And you can't be here. Just pull out and drive around the block, okay?”

Tamara glanced skeptically at Brooklyn. “I don't think so.”

“Just trust me,” Simone said. “It's safer this way.”

“Brooklyn?” Tamara tilted her head. “You sure about this?”

“Yeah,” she replied. “It's okay. I'll text you when we're done.”

Tamara shrugged. “Fine.” She climbed back in her car and drove out the gate.

Simone motioned to Brooklyn. “Come with me. The security monitor is in the pantry.”

Simone allowed Brooklyn to step first through the silver front door, then she slammed it closed behind them. “Not too shabby, eh?” Simone said. “Taylor loves to sit out on the deck and watch the sunset. It's her favorite thing about the house.”

“I've seen it in aerial pics, but never the inside.” Brooklyn eyed the shiny white marble walls and high ceilings. The house wasn't flashy or pretentious, but it was still stunningly grand.

“Try decorating this monstrosity. I spent a year chasing down furniture to fill it.”

Simone guided Brooklyn through the living room, into the kitchen, and finally to the spacious pantry. Shelves of food and drinks filled the left side like a mini grocery store. On the right
sat a desk and chair. Simone pointed at the screen mounted on the wall above the desk. “There's the surveillance system.”

Brooklyn could see on the black-and-white monitor a fuzzy image of Tamara reading her phone on the hood of her car.

Simone flicked a switch on a box connected to the monitor. “This house is actually twenty years old, and so is the surveillance system, if you can call it a system. Taylor never upgraded it. So it's basically just one camera fixed on the driveway. It's so old school that it records on a tape, but a really long-ass one, luckily.”

Simone pressed Rewind, scanning the tape back to last Friday night. A minute or so later, she paused the tape and tapped the screen, pointing to the time code. “See? Those cops pulled up at 11:58 p.m.”

Brooklyn leaned in close enough to make out a black SUV pulling into the driveway. Two beefy dudes carrying guns stepped out wearing dark clothes, but nothing resembling police uniforms. One held a white megaphone.

“This is strange.” Brooklyn watched the men walk off camera to the side yard. “Is this all you got of them?”

“No.” Simone fast-forwarded the tape. “Then there's this.”

The video showed the two men returning to the SUV. One was carrying Taylor's limp body like a baby, her high-heeled feet dangling as he placed her into the backseat.

“Those aren't cops,” Brooklyn said.

After putting Taylor in the car, the video showed one man climb in the back. The other guy closed the door, and as he walked around the back of the SUV, a younger guy in a T-shirt ran into frame, appearing to yell at the driver as he opened the back door and turned toward the camera.

Simone pressed Pause. “That's the Pretty Boy I told you about,” she said. “See him?”

Despite the somewhat grainy resolution, Brooklyn could
still make out his chiseled face. “Oh my god, he
was
totally in on it.” Brooklyn steadied her cell phone close to the screen and snapped a picture, which she immediately texted to Holden.

                      
remember the pic of the dude from the party I sent u? he's sketch. Look at this video still. we really must ID this guy. PS sorry for being such a bitch

Simone played the rest of the tape, which showed the SUV pulling out at 12:04 a.m. The resolution was too dark to make out a license plate number. Brooklyn snapped a pic of the car anyway, forwarding that to Holden as well.

“You were right, Simone,” she said, pressing Send. “That's definitely a smoking gun.”

Simone shrieked.

Then Brooklyn heard a male voice say, “Don't move!”

Brooklyn dropped her phone to the floor and threw her hands in front of her face. She felt a sharp stabbing pain in the nape of her neck and winced.

The man pushed her face down onto the desk. “I said, ‘Don't move!'”

Then he swung Brooklyn around, forcing her to sit in the chair with one hand while tightly gripping a pistol in the other. Brooklyn looked up.

Pretty Boy.

The barrel shaking, he pointed the gun at her forehead. “You've made a very big mistake.”

Brooklyn could see Simone sprawled face down on the tile floor just behind Pretty Boy, surrounded by a mess of fallen cans and bottles. A patch of blood was growing on the back of her head.

“I wouldn't shoot me if I were you,” Brooklyn said.

“Oh, really. Why's that?”

“Because you'll get caught.”

“I'm good at not getting caught. Unlike you.”

Brooklyn stared into the barrel of the gun, hoping Simone was just unconscious.

“Who the hell are
you
?” he asked.

“Brooklyn Brant. I'm a reporter.”

His eyes popped wide and his aim lowered toward the floor. “A reporter?”

“An investigative blogger. I cover celebrities.”

Brooklyn could see sweat beading on his forehead. He pointed the pistol back at her. “What the hell are you doing here? You've made a big mistake, Red.”

“I'm investigating the disappearance of Taylor Prince.” She stared coldly into his eyes, which looked less dreamy and more panicky now. She pointed with her head to the monitor behind her. “I came to see that video.”

His focus switched over to the video screen showing his image in freeze frame. He kept the gun aimed on her face.

Brooklyn didn't dare show her nerves.
A scared cop is a dead cop.
“You don't want to shoot me. It will only make things worse for you. And things are bad enough, my friend.”

“What are you talking about?” he said, refocusing on Brooklyn.

“I already sent some screenshots of you to my assistant. And like it or not, he will have you ID'd within the hour.”

“You're lying.”

Simone groaned from the floor.
She's not dead.

“In the corner,” Pretty Boy barked, pointing to the far end of the pantry with his pistol. “And shut up.”

“Have you ever heard of
false imprisonment
?” Brooklyn asked, stepping backward from him with her hands up.

He looked confused, making Brooklyn realize that while he may have been pretty, he wasn't the brightest bulb in the box.

“Just sit,” he said.

Brooklyn knelt on the floor and began counting fours.

Four soup cans. Four foot taps. Four bananas. Four shelves. 1, 2, 3, 4 . . .

And praying.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done . . .

“By the way, holding a hostage is an automatic eight-year sentence,” Brooklyn said. “Eight years.”

Four goes into eight twice.

“Make that sixteen,” she added.

Four times four is sixteen.

“When you count both me and her. That's two counts.”

Pretty Boy reached under Simone's armpit and dragged her across the pantry, placing her head in Brooklyn's lap. The spot of blood on Simone's head had stopped spreading.

“Nobody's being held hostage,” he said.

“Well, then there's always assault with a deadly weapon.”

Pretty Boy stuffed the pistol in between his hip and the waist of his jeans. Combing his fingers through his wet hair, he paced the pantry. “She fell into the shelf and that can fell on her head. I didn't lay a hand on her.”

He lifted a paper towel roll from the top shelf and tossed it to Brooklyn, who tore off a sheet, folded it, and began dabbing Simone's head wound.

“This is not good,” he said. “
So
not good.”

As he nervously jabbered on, Brooklyn counted his jittery steps.

“This gun doesn't even have bullets.”

1 . . .

“I never meant to hurt anybody.”

2 . . .

“I came here to make things right.”

3 . . .

“He made me do it.”

4 . . .

“Who made you do what?” Brooklyn asked. “God is the only one who has the power to make someone do something.”

He dropped down into the chair. “So does the devil.”

“Devil?” Brooklyn asked.

“My boss. That's what I call him.” He glanced at the security monitor. “He's the person you want, not me.”

Maybe Tamara was right: Everyone needs a devil to blame.