LITMIR.BIZ

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       Amy usually slept late on her day off, but her nerves were strung too tight. Instead, as the sun came up, she dressed in a pair of white stretch Levi’s and a pink T-shirt, left Babs asleep in the apartment, and walked a block down the street to a little espresso bar called The Caboose.

       “I’ll have a skinny double-shot latte,” she said to the barista, a dark-haired girl with braces who didn’t look old enough to be out of high school. With a chocolate biscotti in one hand and the coffee in the other, Amy sat down at one of the small square tables.

       She reached over to the table next to hers and picked up an L.A. Times someone had left behind. She did a quick perusal, checked the local news, which was nothing but murder and mayhem, the weather, which never changed in sunny California, and the comics, which at least made her smile.

       When she finished her coffee, she headed back to the apartment and found Babs up and dressed in jeans and an orange tank top. Babs was extremely big busted so no matter what she wore, she looked top heavy, as if she would topple onto the floor if she leaned too far over.

       “Oh, good, you’re awake,” Amy said.

       “My cell phone rang and woke me up,” Babs grumbled. “Wrong number, can you believe?”

       “Why didn’t you just go back to sleep?”

       “You said the Ranger wanted to talk to me. I figured I might as well get up and get ready.”

       Last night, Babs had still been awake when Amy got home. Her friend had been worried, she knew, though Babs would never admit it. Amy had told her all the gory details, how she had made a fool of herself by reneging on her sex-for-work proposal and how John Riggs had again behaved as a gentleman.

       “Johnnie was really great last night,” Amy said. “I was starting to freak and he knew it. He didn’t push me. He agreed to help anyway.”

       Babs scoffed. “Don’t expect the same treatment from Kyle Bennett. Your sister said he was a real horse’s ass.”

       Amy grinned, having no difficulty imagining her outspoken sister saying something like that. The grin slid away. “I’m not looking forward to meeting him, especially not at his house. I feel a lot better knowing Johnnie is going to be helping us.”

       “You can say that again.”

       Amy paced over to the window. The room they shared wasn’t glamorous, their only view the parking lot below. Still, she felt safe here, with Bo Jing and Tate to look after them, Dante and the rest of the crew. In the beginning, she had worried that someone Rachael had worked with might have been responsible for her disappearance, but Tate screened his employees well and after she got to know the men she worked with, she didn’t believe they’d had anything to do with it.

       Along with that, no men were allowed upstairs, which was one of the reasons the girls liked living there. They could work, pay cheap rent and save their money, and not be hassled by drunken Kitty Cat patrons.

       Amy walked over to the kitchen counter, where Babs was making coffee. “Do you think he’ll be able to find out what happened to her?”

       Babs pressed the start button on the coffeemaker. She knew what Amy was asking. “In a city this size, women disappear all the time. Some of them are never seen again.”

       A cold chill slipped through her. “You mean their bodies are never found.”

       “I’m sorry, honey, but yeah. That’s what I mean.”

       “We pretend she’s still out there, but I’m not sure either of us really believes it.”

       “Oh, she’s out there. We just don’t know if she’s alive or not. Until we’re sure one way or another, we’ll do whatever it takes to find out.”

       Amy felt better just hearing the words. They wouldn’t give up—not until they knew what had happened. She could handle Kyle Bennett. He was just a man and their plan was a good one. At least it was a place to start.

       And now she had John Riggs to help her.

       Johnnie climbed the short flight of steps and shoved through the front door of the redbrick building on North Wilcox Avenue. The Hollywood Community Police Station handled La Brea, Sunset, Hollywood and a half dozen surrounding communities.

       First thing this morning, he had run a check on Amy Brewer. Looked like she was exactly what she said—a kindergarten teacher from Grand Rapids. He groaned. Last night’s hot kiss popped into his head and he thought how much he still wanted her, bit down on a curse and forced his mind back to business.

       He’d also run Rachael Brewer’s name, and read the few newspaper articles about her disappearance he’d found on the Net and anything else he could find about her. It was a start, but not much help.

       Making his way over to the counter in the police station, he recognized Officer Gwen Michaels working behind the front desk.

       “Hey, Gwen.”

       She looked up at him and a smile broke over her face. “Johnnie! You devil, where you been? And don’t tell me you’ve been staying out of trouble, ’cause that just ain’t happenin’, honey.”

       Johnnie grinned. “Trouble’s my middle name, Gwen. You know that.”

       “Sure do. So what can I do for you, J-man?” Officer Michaels was in her twenties, black and gorgeous. And a damn fine officer on top of it.

       “Is Detective Vega around? I need to pick his brain a little.”

       “I think he left a while ago, but let me check for you.” She rotated her stool toward the computer on the desk in front of her, checked the monitor. “He’s out on a call, not due back until the end of the day.”

       “Leave him a message, will you? Ask him to give me a call when he gets in?”

       “No problem.”

       “Thanks, Gwen.”

       “Take care, J-man.”

       He chuckled. She always called him that. He wondered why he’d never asked her out. Probably because she was a cop. When he got off work, police business was the last thing he wanted to think about.

       He headed for the door, wishing Vega had been in but figuring he could count on the detective’s help. He didn’t get much resistance from the LAPD. In fact, he could usually depend on their cooperation with just about anything. His younger sister, Kate, had been an LAPD patrolman. Four years ago, Katie had died in the line of duty during a bank robbery. At the time, Johnnie had been in Mexico on some shit boat-recovery job for J. D. Wendel, one of the dot-com billionaires. The eighty-foot, million-plus Lazzara was chump change for Wendel, but the man wasn’t about to let one of his employees get away with stealing it from him.

       As Johnnie walked back to his car, he remembered returning to the States to find out he’d lost the sister he adored and his chest tightened. Katie was the only real family he’d had. He sure didn’t count the deadbeat dad who’d raised them in a crappy apartment off Los Feliz Boulevard.

       Max Riggs only worked hard enough to keep the power turned on and put a little food on the table. The rest of the time he was hustling some sucker out of his paycheck, or drinking and gambling with his buddies down at Pete’s bar. With their mother long gone and never to be heard from again, Johnnie and Katie were left to fend for themselves.

       He’d finally gotten over his mother’s abandonment, though as a kid, he’d often wondered what he and Katie had done to drive her away.

       As he grew older, he liked to think he’d had some part in how well his kid sister had turned out. He had worked two jobs to buy her the clothes she needed for school. After he joined the army, he’d sent money for city college, where she took classes in police science and finally landed the spot she so badly wanted on the force. Katie had been well respected in the department, intelligent and competent, a young woman dedicated to her job.

      

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