Pretties in Pink

2. Hallie

2

HALLIE

“How was the meeting with Hamble Corp?” Dan asked.

“The CEO tried to poach Georgia for his finance team, but apart from that? Good.”

“Hope she turned him down.”

“Very diplomatically.”

Georgia had been a lucky find. She’d started out as a client for Nick’s Executive Protection team, but after being shot at and rescued, she’d ended up dating one of Emmy Black’s exes. Now she used her accounting skills to ferret out fraud and money laundering schemes for Blackwood. Only part-time because she had a daughter now, but Dan said one of Georgia was worth two of most other people, so the arrangement worked well.

“Can’t imagine Georgia being anything but diplomatic. She is a senator’s daughter, after all.”

“True. How was your vacation?”

Dan had flown back from Florida early this morning, and if the colour of her face was any indication, she’d spent most of the past week on the beach.

“Hot.” She passed a hand over her forehead and grinned. “In and out of the bedroom. To think I once thought monogamy would be a fate worse than death. And speaking of hot, did Knox find you yesterday?”

“Dan! You’re practically married.”

“Does that make me blind? Knox?”

“Did you watch the news while you were away? Or were you too preoccupied with Ethan’s naked ass?”

“I can multitask,” Dan said, but she quickly screwed up her face. “He hates when I do that.”

Too much information. “Okay, so what story’s been front and centre this week?”

“That guy who tried to get a gator to open his can of beer, but it bit off his—”

“Euew, no!”

“Chill, they reattached it.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

“Okay, do you mean the woman who got confused between hairspray and bear mace?”

How was that even possible? “Not that either.”

“The home invasion gang that gorged themselves on illegal moonshine and then fell asleep, Goldilocks-style?”

We were going to be here all day, weren’t we? “Vonnie Feinstein?”

“Oh, Virginia news. I’ve been watching Florida news.” Then the wheels turned. “s**t, Knox’s friend is involved in that?”

“His friend’s brother. Maybe. It’s kind of a mess. Now that the Hamble Corp meeting’s over, I was planning to spend my lunch break tracking down Micah Ganaway’s attorney.”

“Micah Ganaway? As in Calvin Ganaway? His brother?”

“Cal, yes. You know him?”

“I know Emmy wants him for her Special Projects team.”

“He’s that good?”

“Apparently. Which means that if he leaves the SEALs, he’ll have a dozen job offers on the table, and we want him to pick us. So when you start digging into this, think of it as a reverse job interview.”

“Digging into this? I only said I’d find the name of the public defender as a favour to Knox.”

“What cases do you have on your docket?”

“Uh…”

Dan patted me on the shoulder. “Emmy encourages us to take on pro bono work from time to time.”

“Are you serious?”

“Consider it a challenge.”

“But…but…Micah Ganaway’s in jail. Where do I start? How can I even ask him what happened?”

“Easy. First, you drive to Queen of Tarts and buy a dozen mixed donuts, and on the way back, you drop by the Grindhouse and pick up a triple espresso with caramel syrup. Then you take the whole lot up to Emmy’s office, smile sweetly, and ask her to make you an appointment.”

“At the jail?”

Dan just stared at me.

“Uh, I’ll get my car key.”

Every man had his price, so Emmy said, and the Richmond City Sheriff had been bought for a “reasonable” donation to the Sport4Kids community project. I was undecided on the ethics of that. Sure, there was a degree of corruption involved, but hey, they were kids. And didn’t every child deserve the chance to play softball?

Dubious morals aside, my name was on Micah Ganaway’s visitor list for tomorrow morning, thirty minutes max. Thankfully, Emmy had bought two seats at the table, and Dan had agreed to come with me, primarily out of a desire for justice—missing kids were the worst type of crime, and the Mila Carmody case had been one of hers—but partly out of curiosity.

After all, didn’t everyone want to meet a celebrity?

The news about Micah Ganaway’s arrest had broken this afternoon. Details of his arraignment had leaked, and now the whole world knew he’d been charged with the abduction of Vonnie Feinstein, missing and now presumed dead. The media circus had moved from Rybridge to the Richmond City Detention Center, and now we’d have to run the gauntlet of cameras before we could get inside.

“Good thing Emmy’s not with us,” Dan muttered. “She’d rather break in than walk past that crowd.”

“At least they don’t know who we’re here to visit.”

“Let’s keep it that way for as long as possible.”

The jail’s dress code specified modesty. No tight-fitting pants, no exposed cleavage, all skirts to be at least knee-length. Dan had run into a department store on the way and bought a whole new outfit, and now she kept pulling at the turtleneck as if it were strangling her. At least they brought out a female deputy to search us. If a man had put his hands on me that way, I’d probably have puked.

A quarter-hour later, we got our first good look at Micah Ganaway. The pictures splashed across the news didn’t do him justice, or had the reporters picked the most unflattering ones out of spite? Smooth light brown skin, neatly cropped hair, an athletic physique, and cheekbones to die for. But the eyes… The eyes were all kinds of hurt and angry and scared. Bewildered. And when he turned them on us, confused.

“I’m in the wrong place.”

The deputy looked at us, then back to Micah. “These people are on your defence team, that’s what Sheriff Bailey said. Your investigators?”

The deputy turned to Dan for confirmation, and she nodded. “That’s right. His brother hired us.”

Micah took a seat at the table, and his cuffs clanked against the metal surface. “You’re private investigators?”

Dan folded her arms. “Oh, I’m sorry, were you expecting someone with a d**k?”

Right away, he backed down. “Cal said he’d called a buddy of his, and I just figured…”

“The buddy called us. I’m Dan, and this is Hallie. And since we’ve only got half an hour together, you need to start talking. What happened?”

“Ask the cops. I didn’t know nothing about nothing until they broke the damn door down.”

“I’m asking you. Why did they break down your door and not somebody else’s? There must have been a reason.”

“You think they need a reason?” Micah looked both of us over. “Yeah, figures. Not like they’d come to your door.”

“Time’s ticking.”

“They keep asking me where the girl is. That little girl who disappeared. And I keep telling them I don’t know. She’s a kid, man. I’d never touch a kid. That’s messed up.”

“So why do they think you did? You’ve been charged with her abduction, so there must be some kind of evidence.”

“Because I went for a walk. A damn walk. I was in her neighbourhood, and some busybody thought I looked ‘suspicious…’” He raised his hands, I guessed to make those air quotes, but quickly remembered they were cuffed together. Lowered them again. “So she made a note of my licence plate, and when the cops spoke to her about the kid, she told them I’d been there.”

“This was on the day Vonnie disappeared?” Vonnie. Dan used her name to humanise her. I noted Micah had avoided doing that.

“The day before, that’s what they said.”

“Do you often walk in her neighbourhood?”

“Naw, first time and last time.”

“So why did you walk there that day?”

“The light was good. I was driving through, and the light was good, so I stopped to take pictures. I’m a photographer. I mean, I work in a restaurant most of the time, but someday, I want to be a pro photographer. I got a website. Sell prints to make a few extra bucks. Do weddings too, birthdays, proms, anniversaries… And dogs. Took some photos of a dog in Bryan Park a year ago, and the lady wanted them printed onto canvas for her wall. Told all her friends about me, and suddenly I’m the dog photographer. Money’s decent, though.” He’d been smiling as he spoke about his work, but now his expression soured. “Was decent. Ain’t nobody gonna hire me after this.”

“So the light was good, and you stopped to take pictures. What did you take pictures of?”

“The sunset, mainly. Trees, the skyline. A group of boys playing soccer. Caught them in silhouette against the horizon. Gave them my card, told them the pictures would be on my website in a couple weeks, and they said they’d take a look.”

“And this was in Rybridge Fields?”

“Yeah?” Micah shrugged. “I guess. Big green space with soccer pitches and nature trails. Lotta dogs, and half of them were wearing those little sweaters. Figured I’d go back later, put up some posters, see if any of the owners wanted pictures. People who live in Rybridge, they can afford it.”

The Feinsteins lived two blocks from the park. The homes on that street went for big bucks, not as fancy as the mansion Mila Carmody’s parents lived in, but definitely in the “aspirational” rather than the “realistic” category for most people. Yes, the folks there had money.

But the cops had charged a man for taking photos of the sunset? No, I couldn’t see it. Although the Richmond PD sure did have its problems. A little over a year ago, Blackwood had uncovered a child s*x ring, and guess who’d been a member? That’s right: Chief Garland himself. I used the past tense because he’d shot himself rather than face the consequences, and the new chief was rumoured to be cleaning house. But there’d been a lot of dirty cops in that department, so said Dan, who knew these things, and it stood to reason that he hadn’t managed to sweep all of them out the door yet.

“Was Vonnie in any of the pictures, Micah?” I asked, and fear flashed in his eyes.

Nailed it.

“I never knew it was her, I swear! The cops said I followed her home, but I didn’t.”

“Where were you that night?”

“In my apartment.”

“Fenika lives with you?”

“Yeah, but she was at a ballet camp that weekend.” Pride crept into his voice. “She’s an amazing dancer, my sister. One day, she’s gonna be on stage. And she’s smart. Pretends she isn’t, but she’s got brains.”

“Why would she pretend she isn’t smart?”

“Bullies, they don’t like the clever kids. Year before last, she had to change schools because it got so bad, so now she stays under the radar if you know what I mean.”

I thought back to the bullies in my old high school. “I do know what you mean.”

But what the bullies hadn’t realised was that I’d grown up in a trailer park in the rough end of town. The unofficial motto of Aspen Meadows—which was a bullshit name because there were no trees and no grass either—was fight or die. So when a bunch of kids cornered me in the hallway two weeks into the new term, I’d punched the biggest one in the face and broken her nose. Earned me a trip to the principal’s office, but they left me alone after that. When Mom found out, she’d just shrugged. Didn’t care. She didn’t much care about anything but where her next drink was coming from.

“So you took pictures of Vonnie the day before she disappeared, and you have no alibi for the night of her abduction,” Dan summarised. “What else? I can see them questioning you for that, but not charging you. There must be something else.”

Now Micah shifted uncomfortably. “They searched the apartment. My car too.”

“And what did they find?”

“Trash bags,” he mumbled. “And twine, and a spade, and gloves. And a knife in the glove compartment.” So basically a kidnap kit. Sheesh. “Probably shouldn’t’ve had the knife, but I do yard work on the side. Course I’m gonna have that s**t in my car. They said there was a hair too, a blonde hair, but I only bought the car two months ago, and getting it detailed would’ve took money I don’t have. Who knows where the damn hair came from?”

“Was the former owner a woman?”

“A man, but he could’ve had a girlfriend, right? The cops keep asking me where I buried her. The girl, I mean. Over, and over and over.” Micah raised his hands to his head and raked at his scalp. “Can’t tell them what I don’t know, but they won’t stop.”

“When you say ‘they,’ who are you talking about?” Dan asked. “Which detectives have the case?”

“Said their names were Duncan and Prestia. Duncan’s a real asshole.”

Dan snorted softly at the last comment, and I figured she was acquainted with Duncan. I’d avoided much interaction with the Richmond PD so far myself, but I suspected that was going to change real soon.

“We’ll speak to them, find out what we can. And I understand you have a public defender representing you? Del Farmer?”

“He said that if I just told him the truth, said what I’d done with the body, then the prosecutor would work out some kind of a deal. I thought the lawyer was meant to be on my side? He won’t listen to a word I say.”

That didn’t surprise me—I’d looked up Farmer before we left the office this morning, and his speciality was plea bargains. Of the handful of cases that had actually made it as far as a trial, he’d lost three-quarters of them. If Micah was telling the truth, then that didn’t bode well.

Dan sat back in her chair, legs crossed at the ankles, looking more comfortable than she had a right to since it was made from metal and bolted to the floor.

“Got any other skeletons in your closet? If we’re gonna check into this, we need to know everything.”

Micah closed his eyes, and from the way he sucked in a breath, I knew something bad was coming. Just how awful would it be?

“When I was seventeen, I was dating this girl, and we started sexting. You know, pictures of—”

“I know what sexting is.”

“Her mom found the pictures, and she didn’t much like me, so she reported it to the cops and they charged me with distribution of child pornography.”

Seriously? If that was a crime, then half of the kids I went to high school with would be in jail. There were probably pictures of me in my underwear floating around in cyberspace. I wasn’t proud of them now, but sixteen-year-old me had thought my C-cups were splendid and therefore a gift that should be shared with the world. Eight years on, I understood just how evil that world could be.

“Were you convicted?” Dan asked.

Micah shook his head. “I was wearing track pants, just—” His cheeks darkened. “Just, you know, hard, and my attorney argued that the images weren’t sexually explicit. But it’ll be on my record.”

And most people wouldn’t care about the details. They’d see child pornography plus abduction of a minor, put two and two together, and make first-degree murder. Micah Ganaway was in a whole world of trouble.

“This is gonna get out.”

“I understand that.” He put his head in his hands. “I understand that, and whatever happens to me, I need to protect my sister. Even if that means pleading guilty to something I didn’t do, I need to protect her. I’m not stupid—I know they’ll throw everything my way to get their conviction, I’ve seen it a hundred times—but Fen’s done nothing wrong. I have to know she’ll be okay.”

The anguish in his voice couldn’t be faked, and at that moment, I felt genuinely sorry for him. Knox said Micah had put his own dreams on hold so Fenika wouldn’t have to go into the foster system, and it had to be killing him that she’d ended up there anyway.

“I saw her last night, and I’ll meet with her again tonight,” I told him. “If there’s anything we can do to help her, then we will, and in the meantime, we’ll take a look through the evidence.”

“What happened to the photos you took that day?” Dan asked.

“The cops have my camera. I worked for a damn year to buy the body, another year for the lens. They got my laptop too.”

“Before they took them, did you save the pictures? Put them on your website? Upload them to cloud storage?”

“No, but Fen might’ve. She helps me out with that side of things—image processing, printing, mailing orders. I’m not sure whether she did that batch yet.”

“We’ll ask her. Now, I want you to run me through that night you went to Rybridge. Start to finish, and don’t skip any details. Somebody abducted Vonnie Feinstein, and if it wasn’t you, then maybe you’re a witness.”

“But I didn’t see anything.”

“You’re a photographer. You saw plenty, and it’s our job to work out whether any of it was important. Now, from the top…”