Chosen Girls

Chapter 5

5

Alice ran up the bare wooden stairs to her apartment building, preferring not to linger in the dim communal areas. She hurried into the narrow corridor that led to her apartment, three doors along. A rangy figure in a long raincoat and hat waited outside her door. She stopped in her tracks and considered back-pedaling.

Instead, she unzipped her fanny pack. She took out her keys, leaving her other hand inside on the can of mace. She hesitated as the figure in the raincoat turned to face her, his features broad and square.

"What do you want?" she asked, stopping short of her apartment door.

"Alice Parks?" he asked in a deep, educated voice.

"Who wants to know?"

The man took both hands out of his coat pockets and held them in the air, as if Alice had a gun on him. "I come in peace."

The man's silvering eyebrows arched under the same shade of hair. He had a jowly, suntanned face with forgiving eyes of a deep brown.

"You with the IRS or the cops?" Alice asked.

"Neither," the man said; a polite breeding about him. "I was wondering if you could spare me a few minutes of your time. That is, if you're still in the investigation business."

"Depends. Are you in the paying business?" Alice asked, slipping her key in the door.

"I am."

"Then I guess you'd better come in," Alice said, opening the door and letting the man enter.

As she locked the door from the inside and slid on a safety chain, she watched the man's eyes walk around the apartment.

"Are you locking me in?" he said.

"I'm locking everyone else out," Alice said, leading the man over to her desk. "You'll have to excuse the, well, everything."

"I'm sorry if this is a bad time," the man said.

"If you're waiting for a good time, get comfortable," Alice said. She removed a pile of papers from a flimsy wooden chair. "Take a seat," she said, dropping into her own, with her back to the window.

She pulled the chair up close to the desk and took her hand off the mace can inside her fanny pack. She wrapped the same hand around the but of a small, black revolver taped to the underside of the desk. The cheapest money could buy.

Axl sprung onto the table and paced left to right, sizing the man up, in his pressed white shirt and crimson red tie. His shoes shone dark like his eyes, yet he had a kind face and a relaxed way about him. From across the desk, Alice could smell the soap used to wash his hands. It suggested he was thorough.

"Casework?" the man said about the mess of papers on Alice's desk.

"Online courses," Alice said. "Criminal psychology."

"You're a profiler?"

"It's more of a hobby."

"The course going well?"

"It was, until they wanted paying. But anyway, how can I help?"

The man looked over to the raft of unpaid bills weighted down under a rock on the far corner of the desk. "Actually, it might be more a case of how I can help you."

"Please do," Alice said.

"I've got a case. An investigation."

"Let me guess, the wife?"

"No," the man said.

"Mistress? Daughter?"

"Niece, actually," he said.

"You want her followed?"

"Oh, I'm afraid it's more of a missing person," the man said, eyes dropping. "It's, well, it's quite urgent."

Alice shifted up in her seat and took her hand off the revolver. She could see he was struggling to get the words out. "You want a drink Mr—”

"Kilbride," he said. "Porter Kilbride."

Alice was up out of her chair. A two-second walk to the kitchenette. She put the kettle on and clattered around for her cleanest dirty cups. "Can I get you a tea or coffee?" she asked.

"Coffee," he said. "Thank you."

"Um, I've only got green tea," Alice said, rinsing out a pair of mugs. One that said Penn State. The other, Hogan's Alley.

"Green tea is fine," Kilbride said.

Alice brought the drinks into the living room and handed one to Kilbride. He took it in a large, weathered hand that suggested he'd once worked in fields or factories.

"Okay, where were we?" Alice said, returning to her seat and resting a free hand back on the butt of her revolver.

Kilbride steeled himself, warming his hands on the mug. "Well, about three weeks ago, my niece, Brooke, went missing." He trailed off and sipped on his tea, eyes closed, a shake of the head.

"I'm sorry," Alice said. "I can only imagine—”

"Yes, it's been a traumatic few weeks for the whole family.”

"Are you sure she's not just a runaway?" Alice asked, holding her nose over the steam from the cup. "It happens more than you might think."

"Oh, it's not like that," Kilbride said, looking Alice in the eye. "The police are quite certain she was abducted, but there are no new leads. We get no clear answers. And you know how these police departments are nowadays. They're understaffed, overworked, you know?"

"I understand," said Alice. "You want to get things moving."

"I live in a small town. I moved closer to my family, shortly before my father passed, but I'm a businessman from Kansas City. I suppose you could say an entrepreneur. So I'm not one to sit by, Miss Parks."

"Alice, please."

"If I see a problem, Alice, I'll call on all available resources to put it right. When it's my own flesh and blood, you can multiply that by whatever number you want."

"If the police are all over it, why do you need me?"

"I don't know, I guess I'd like a second opinion," Kilbride said. "A fresh pair of eyes on the case."

"What? Mine?"

"Yes," said Kilbride, resting his mug on the desk. "If you're not too busy."

Alice put her mug down and took a journal out of her sticky drawer. She leafed through to a blank centerfold. "Let's see. I think I can squeeze it in. If you don't mind me asking, what makes you so sure it's an abduction?"

Kilbride looked Alice in the eye. "I come from a little town called Mayflower," he said. "I know, I know, you've probably never heard of it. Unless you're familiar with the Homecoming Killer."

Alice froze. She snapped the journal shut and slipped it back in the drawer. "Sounds familiar," taking a gulp of green tea. “It's tempting. And sure would like to help," she said. "But I'm just not sure I'm the kind of investigator you're looking for. I mean, I take pictures of people screwing from my car. Pardon my French."

"Oh, I think you're being too modest, Alice. You're former FBI, aren't you?"

Alice couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah, the Academy. I dropped out of Quantico."

Kilbride reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He unfolded a piece of white copy paper and squinted. "Yes, it says here you were first in your class for crime analysis. Second for marksmanship. In the top percentile for almost everything else."

Alice pulled a face. "How do you know?”

"I find it pays to do your homework before you hire someone," said Kilbride, folding the paper away. "And lack of experience aside, you're just the kind of person who could cast some new light on the case."

Alice shifted in her seat. "I'm not sure—”

"Mayflower folks are easily ruffled," said Kilbride. "A young woman in jeans and sneakers might just get more answers than big city cops knocking on doors and dragging the PTA in for questioning."

"There are plenty of snoops out there," Alice said. "Far more experienced than me."

"Yes, and set in their ways," Kilbride said.

"And what if it doesn't work?" Alice asked.

"Then at least I can say I tried."

Alice chewed on one corner of her top lip. "I'm sorry, Mr. Kilbride, but I think you've been reading too much Raymond Chandler. This is better handled by the police."

Kilbride grabbed a loose pen from Alice's desk and ripped a yellow sticky note off a pad. He scribbled out a figure and handed it over.

Alice took the paper. She couldn't stop her eyebrows from jumping.

"An advance for taking the case," said Kilbride. "And the rest for giving the family a full week of your time. If you don't find anything new, you'll still get paid."

"Where have I heard that before?"

"I'm a man of my word, Alice. And if you unearth anything that leads to us finding Brooke, I'll triple it. Quadruple it, if we find the killer.

Alice looked again at the figure on the sticky note.

"Expenses paid," Kilbride said. "Of course."

Alice took her hand off the revolver and pushed her chair away from the desk. "I'm sorry about your niece, Mr. Kilbride. I wish you the best of luck."

"Please, if you know anything about the man who's taken Brooke, you know she doesn't have long."

"You don't know for sure he's got her," Alice said. "And I'm not the candidate you think."

Kilbride's entire body slumped a brief moment. "Well. that's disappointing," he said, straightening him self up. "We felt you were the ideal candidate. But I understand. We'll just have to make alternative arrangements." He took a business card from a trouser pocket and handed it over. "On the off-chance you change your mind.”

Alice held the door open once more as Kilbride loped out with a long, easy stride. He stopped outside the door and reached inside his pocket one more time. He took out another folded piece of white paper and placed it in Alice's hand.

"Time's running out. We're three weeks in and he kills them after a month."

Kilbride placed his hat on his head and buttoned his suit jacket beneath his raincoat.

"Wait," Alice said. "How did you find me in the first place?"

Kilbride turned in the hallway. "A lawyer friend passed on your details—Phil Reardon. For a moment, I thought the stars were aligning, but perhaps not." Kilbride forced a sad half-smile. "Goodbye, Alice. Thank you for your time."

Alice closed the door behind him and applied all the locks. She stared at the note, stuck to the end of her thumb. Enough to take the heat off for a good six months, maybe more. She sighed, screwed up the note and tossed it on top of an overflowing wastebasket.

She unfolded the piece of paper given to her by Porter Kilbride. It was a photocopy of a missing persons flyer. A grainy color print of his niece, Brooke Tanner. Young, blonde, and beautiful. A big, beaming smile and innocent blue eyes.

Alice shook her head. The flyer made it harder. She folded it over and tucked it away in the stationery drawer of her desk.

She stared at the drawer for a moment, before rooting under a pile of papers and pulling out a small, silver laptop. Alice opened it up and hit the power button. After a few minutes of clicks and whirrs, the laptop screen blinked into life. She opened a browser and scrolled through her bookmarked pages. There were a hundred or so, most relating to the Homecoming Killer and the town of Mayflower.

She hovered her cursor over a saved link, only to jump at a heavy knock on the door. A thin, brown envelope slid beneath the door and into the apartment.

Alice walked over and picked up the envelope.

She tore it open.

An eviction notice.

Twenty-four hours.

Alice looked to the ceiling and screamed, scaring the cat. She plodded to her tiny red sofa as if walking through tar and fell face-first across the cushions. She opened an eye in the direction of Kilbride's business card, left on the corner of her desk. She ran a hand through the thick fur on Axl's back as he came and sat at the foot of the sofa.

Alice foraged between cushions and grabbed the TV remote. She hit the power button, only to realize the standby light was off. She raised her head and clambered off the sofa, The battery pack for the laptop was off too. She flicked the light switch for the living room—dead. She opened the day's mail and found a cut-off notice in the first envelope she came to. She picked up her cell and dialed the number on the letter, but got no tone. So she opened the next letter. A letter from her network provider telling her they were canceling her account. The internet too.

Alice returned to the sofa. Too tired to cry or scream, she picked up Axl and nuzzled her face in his soft, warm fur.

"How would you feel about living with Mrs. Chen?" she asked him, kissing the top of his head.