LITMIR.BIZ

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sheepish. “It’s hard to maneuver splayed out on the floor like this.”

      “Just rein it in a little, okay?”

      “I’ll try. There’s just a lot going on, you know? Anyway, I talked to Wickwire and told him to place Evie at a location somewhere in LA where she’d be well taken care of, in case we needed her later on. I wanted to make sure she didn’t leave the city. And I didn’t want her to go through… more than she had to.”

      Keri didn’t respond but they both knew there was nothing he could do about the years prior to that, and the horrors her daughter must have suffered in that time. Anderson continued quickly, clearly not wanting to linger on the thought any more than she did.

      “I didn’t know what he did with her but it turned out he put her with the older guy you eventually found out she was staying with.”

      “If you had decided to help me, why didn’t you just find out her location and get her yourself?”

      “Two reasons,” Anderson said. “First, Wickwire wasn’t going to give up her location to me. It was prized info and he kept it closely guarded. Second, and I’m not proud of this, I knew that I’d get arrested if I came to you with your daughter.”

      “But you got arrested intentionally anyway a few months later for child abductions,” Keri protested.

      “I did that afterward, when I realized I had to take drastic action. I knew that eventually you’d research child abductors and traffickers and find your way to me. And I knew that I could set you on the right path without making Cave suspicious of me. As to getting arrested intentionally, that’s true. But you may recall that I defended myself in court. And if you check the court record closely, you’ll discover that both the prosecutor and the judge made several errors, errors I baited them into, that would almost certainly lead to my conviction being overturned. I was just waiting until the right time to appeal the case. Of course that’s all moot now.”

      Keri looked up and saw a commotion outside the window of the room. She could see multiple officers passing by, at least one of whom was carrying a long gun. He was a sniper.

      “I don’t mean to be cold but we need to wrap this up,” she said. “There’s no telling if someone out there has an itchy trigger finger or if Cave has ordered one of his minions to put you down as a precaution.”

      “Quite right, Detective,” Anderson agreed. “Here I am blathering on about my moral conversion when what you want to know is how to get your daughter back. Am I right?”

      “You are. So tell me. How do I get her back?”

      “I genuinely don’t know. I don’t know where she is. I don’t believe Cave knows where she is. He might know the location of the Vista event tomorrow night but there’s no chance he’ll attend. So it’s pointless to have him followed.”

      “So you’re saying I have no hope of getting her back?” Keri demanded, disbelieving.

      Have I been through all this for that answer?

      “Likely not, Detective,” he admitted. “But maybe you can get him to give her back.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “Jackson Cave used to consider you an annoyance, an obstacle to running his business. But that has changed in the last year. He’s become obsessed with you. He not only thinks you are out to destroy his business. He thinks you want to destroy him personally. And because he has twisted reality to make himself the good guy, he thinks you are the bad guy.”

      “He thinks I’m the bad guy?” Keri repeated, incredulous.

      “Yes. Remember, he manipulates his moral code as he sees fit so that he can function. If he thought he was doing evil things, he couldn’t live with himself. But he’s found ways to justify even the most heinous of acts. He told me once that the girls in these sex slave rings would be starving on the streets if not for him.”

      “He’s gone mad,” Keri said.

      “He’s doing what he can to look himself in the mirror each morning, Detective. And these days, part of that means believing that you are on a witch hunt. He views you as the enemy. He sees you as his nemesis. And that makes him very dangerous. Because I’m not sure what lengths he’ll go to in order to stop you.”

      “So then how can I get a guy like that to give Evie back to me?”

      “If you went to him and convinced him that you’re not after him, that all you want is your daughter, maybe he’d relent. If you could persuade him that once you had your daughter safe in your arms you would forget about him forever, maybe even leave the police force, he might be convinced to lay down his arms. Right now he thinks you want his destruction. But if he could be made to believe that you don’t want him, that you only want her, perhaps there’s a chance.”

      “You think that would really work?” Keri asked, unable to hide the skepticism in her voice. “I just say ‘give me my daughter back and I’ll leave you alone forever’ and he goes for it?”

      “I don’t know if it will work. But I know that you’re out of options. And you have nothing to lose by trying.”

      Keri was turning the idea over in her head when there was a knock on the door.

      “The negotiator’s here,” Kiley yelled. “He’s coming down the hall now.”

      “Wait a minute!” Anderson yelled. “Tell him to stay back. I’ll tell him when he can come in.”

      “I’ll tell him,” Kiley said, though his voice indicated he was desperate to hand over communication as soon as possible.

      “One last thing,” Anderson whispered in her ear, even more quietly than before if that was possible. “You have a mole in your unit.”

      “What? West LA Division?” Keri asked, stunned.

      “In your Missing Persons Unit. I don’t know who it is. But someone is feeding information to the other side. So watch your back. More than usual, I mean.”

      A new voice called out from the other side of the door.

      “Mr. Anderson, this is Cal Brubaker. I’m the negotiator. May I come in?”

      “Just one second, Cal,” Anderson called out. Then he leaned in even closer to Keri. “I have a feeling this is the last time we’ll talk, Keri. I want you to know that I think you’re a very impressive person. I hope you find Evie. I really do. Come in, Cal.”

      As the door opened, he brought the toothbrush back up to her neck but didn’t actually touch the skin. A pot-bellied man in his mid to late forties with a mop of bushy gray hair and thin, circular-framed glasses that Keri suspected were just for show eased into the room.

      He was wearing blue jeans and a rumpled lumberjack-style shirt, complete with the red and black checkerboard pattern. It was borderline laughable, like the “costumed” version of what a nonthreatening hostage negotiator might look like.

      Anderson glanced at her and she could see that he felt the same way. He seemed to be fighting the urge to roll his eyes.

      “Hi, Mr. Anderson. Can you tell me what’s bothering you this evening?” he said in a practiced, unaggressive tone.

      “Actually, Cal,” Anderson replied mildly, “while we were waiting for you, Detective Locke talked some real sense into me. I realized I was just letting myself get a little overwhelmed by my situation and I reacted…poorly. I think I’m ready to surrender and accept the consequences of my choices.”

      “Okay,” Cal said, surprised. “Well, this is the most painless negotiation of my life. Since you’re making things so easy on me, I have to ask: are you sure there’s nothing you want?”

      “Maybe a few small things,” Anderson said. “But I don’t think you’ll take issue with any of them. I’d like to make sure Detective Locke gets taken straight to the infirmary. I accidentally poked her with the point of the toothbrush and I’m not sure how hygienic it is.

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