Dragon Walk Read online

  “No.” Lacey made a note in her notebook. “You knew her for a very long time.”

  “Yeah. Since first grade. She was my best friend.”

  “How was she that day? Was she acting normal? Or was she different in any way?”

  “Pretty normal,” he said. “She was always a little nervous until we started out on the trial, afraid her boyfriend would show up. Once we started jogging, she could forget about him.”

  “But that day you didn’t run with her.”

  He looked down, swatted a bit of dust from one knee. “No. Mom was sick.” He looked up again. “I wish I had…” Sadness and guilt gave his dark brown eyes a soulful quality.

  “Did you worry about her?”

  He looked stricken. “All the time. Greg was a… a nut case. Have you met him?”

  Lacey nodded.

  “Then you know what I mean. He would just… go off anytime, over nothing. He was paranoid, imagined things.”

  Lacey lowered her voice. “Did he hurt her?”

  Corey’s jaw tightened. “Yes. She said if he didn’t like something she said, or if he thought she was lying, he’d grab her arm and twist it behind her back. She’d show up with bruises, or she’d smell like muscle rub. She probably thought I couldn’t smell it, but I could.”

  Lacey could only imagine the impotent pain of seeing his friend suffer. “Why didn’t she leave him?”

  He dragged in a deep breath. “I think, deep down, she was afraid to, afraid of what he might do, but I don’t think she really wanted to admit that.” He looked shyly at Lacey. “Do you know about her dragons? She thought they protected her. She thought they kept her safe.”

  Lacey nodded. “Vanessa told me she loved them. She didn’t say anything about believing they protected her.”

  “And the really crazy part was that Greg told her that he was protecting her.”

  “Protecting her from what?”

  Corey’s eyes slid away. “You heard about her boyfriend before?”

  “Brad,” Lacey said.

  “Yeah. Greg said he was protecting her from him. But he’d stopped coming around a long time ago. Greg tried to keep her away from everyone—from her parents, from Vanessa, from me. Everyone.”

  “He was trying to isolate her,” Lacey said. “Typical abuser tactics.”

  “Yeah. Cut her off from everyone. I’ll tell you, I got to where I worried every morning if she was just a minute later for our run. I was terrified one morning she just wouldn’t show up.”

  Lacey could see the stress in his eyes, hear it in his voice. Witnessing the tension as it rose day by day, waiting for the flashpoint, and able to do nothing about it.

  “Let me ask you a hypothetical question,” Lacey said. “If Madison—Maddie—had been out on the trail—”

  “Is Maddie here?” Mrs. Erickson suddenly came to life, glancing around expectantly. When she saw Lacey, she frowned. “You aren’t Maddie.”

  “Maddie’s not here, Mom,” Corey said. “This is Lacey.”

  “Harold?” Mrs. Erickson called out again. “Where’s your father? Is he out in his shop again? He spends all his time out there.” She sighed and turned back to the TV.

  Corey shrugged. “You were saying?”

  “Yeah,” Lacey said, regaining her train of thought. “If she’d been out on the trail alone, and either Brad or Greg had shown up, how do you think she’d feel? Would she be okay with that, unconcerned? Or would she be angry? Scared?”

  Corey stared up at the ceiling behind Lacey. “I don’t think she’d be scared. I don’t think she thought he’d ever really hurt her—not like I thought he would. I think she’d just be… annoyed. She liked her solitude. She enjoyed being alone.”

  Lacey tilted her head at him. “But she wasn’t alone, not usually. You were with her.”

  His face flamed with embarrassment. “But I wasn’t… she didn’t have to…”

  Lacey waited.

  “Being with me was like being alone. She didn’t have to be careful what she said. She didn’t have to pretend, or lie. She could just be herself. I—”

  Lacey watched him struggle and thought she understood. “Did you love her?”

  He frowned angrily. Painfully. “Yes.”

  “And you still run every day”—she started to say without her but changed her mind—“alone?”

  “Yes. I, uh, feel close to her there. Like we’re still… you know.”

  Lacey looked around at the life he had—his mother, the cluttered house, a part-time job cleaning cages—and thought about the one he’d wanted. Maddie, all to himself. But it was never to be.

  She clicked off the recorder. “I think that’s all I need. Thank you for taking the time to see me.” She put the recorder and her notebook into her pack and stood up. Corey walked her to the door.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “for your loss.”

  He nodded. “Thanks.”

  He closed the door silently behind her.

  ~~~

  TWELVE

  Monday morning, Lacey picked up Sam and they headed for Griffith Park. They were meeting Captain Shaw there and kicking off the new search.

  Lacey had filled Sam in on her interviews the night before.

  “I can see why the police hit a dead end,” she said as she drove. She’d been working things out in her mind last night and this morning. “To my mind, Brad’s a non-issue. He’d quit bothering Maddie even before Greg showed up, he’s got an alibi and several witnesses to back it up. Greg is a powder keg, no doubt about that, but he’s got an alibi, too, at least from the time he showed up at work. He might have taken Maddie out on the trail earlier in the morning and still made it to work, but then Corey’s story wouldn’t fit. If he hadn’t actually seen her that morning, why would he lie about it? He was fearing that very thing. If she didn’t show, he’d call the police.”

  “And he’s got his mom for an alibi?” Sam recalled.

  Lacey snorted. “Yeah, such as it is. The woman’s in early stage Alzheimer’s. No short-term memory at all.” She shook her head. “What are we missing?”

  Sam angled his head her way. “A body?”

  “Oh, yeah, that,” she agreed in a wry voice.

  “I think,” Sam said, “once we find the body, we’ll be able to piece it out. That’s where the clues will be.”

  Lacey nodded. “DNA, if we’re lucky, wounds maybe, depending on what shape the body is in. But after four months, there may not be much left.”

  They both recognized the brick wall they were up against.

  Lacey parked alongside several police vehicles at the gravel lot. She and Sam were required to check in with a detective before they’d be allowed past the crime tape across the trail, and she was pleased to see Tommy Belvedere.

  “Tommy,” Lacey called. “Don’t tell me you got valet duty.” She crossed to him and stuck out her hand.

  “Lacey! Good to see you.” Instead of shaking her hand, he grabbed her up in a happy bear hug. “How are you?”

  “Good,” she said, patting his back. “Tommy, this is my partner, Sam Firecloud. Sam, Tommy Belvedere. He’s the one who steered me to Adrian DelMonico in Vegas.”

  “Hey, nice to meet you,” Tommy said, pumping Sam’s hand. “I’ve heard about the good work you do. Glad to have you on this one.”

  “Thanks,” Sam said. Lacey thought she detected pleasant surprise in his voice. It wasn’t often that he got a positive reception from police.

  “So where’s the captain?” Lacey asked. “On down the trail?”

  “Yeah.” Tommy hooked a thumb that way. “They found the place you marked and they’ve got a command center set up there. But they’re anxious for you to give ‘em the direction.”

  Lacey smiled at Sam. “Okay, let’s go.”

  The walk down seemed much shorter than before, Lacey thought. Probably because they knew where they were going and didn’t have to be careful of Sam missing any ethereal feelings. They saw the tent on the trail
in just minutes.

  “Captain,” Lacey said, greeting her ex-boss.

  “Lacey, Sam.” He shook both their hands. “Thanks for coming out.” He nodded to the dead tree limb and rocks beside the trail. “This is the place, right?”

  “Yes,” Sam said. He was already turning eastward to stare out across the scrub.

  Captain Shaw called several other men over, all of them outfitted with Search and Rescue vests. He made brief introductions, then turned the floor over to Sam.

  “The feeling I’m getting,” Sam said, “is strongest this way.” He put both arms straight out in front, as if he were guiding a vehicle or a plane into a parking spot. “I’m not sure exactly what direction that is.”

  “East southeast,” one man said after consulting a tablet.

  “Okay.” Sam nodded. “What you’re looking for is some place that faces roughly west, and from where you can see the Hollywood sign. Someplace with good cover. A cave, a hollow, maybe a copse of trees.”

  The assembled men blinked at each other. “There’s nothing but trees out there,” one observed.

  “I know.” Sam sighed. “I’m sorry, I can’t give you more than that. Just some place that feels like… a destination.”

  Lacey recognized how difficult it was for Sam to translate his perceptions into words. When he was working alone, or with just her, he could simply follow his feelings, like a dog following a scent. But trying to describe that scent to others, especially others who did not share his ability, was almost impossible.

  “Destination,” one man repeated.

  “Yeah. Just keep that in mind.” That was as much as Sam could give them.

  “All right,” Shaw barked. “Let’s get to it.” The men moved out across the canyon floor and into the trees.

  “So this is not an area you searched before?” Lacey asked.

  The captain shook his head. “We searched the length of the trail—and several others—but kept fairly close to the trails themselves, maybe thirty yards out or so. We were actually looking for tracks, but there are so many small, faint social trails, they could have literally gone any direction at all.”

  Lacey smiled grimly. “Should have called Sam back then,” she said.

  Shaw did not return her smile. “Yes, we should have.” He shrugged. “Next time.”

  Sam and Lacey stayed with the captain for a short while, all of them looking east as they talked, all of them hoping to hear a shout, a call, a signal. Finally Sam took Lacey’s wrist and checked her watch.

  “We need to go, huh?” she asked him. To Shaw, she said, “Sam needs to get to work. He’s not self-employed like I am.”

  “Sure,” the captain said. He shook Sam’s hand again. “Thanks for coming out. I appreciate all you’ve done on this. Both of you.”

  “Let us know,” Lacey said. They left him staring moodily out after his men.

  ~~~

  Back in the car and headed for Sam’s, Lacey felt antsy. “It doesn’t seem like enough,” she said. “I wish we could do more.”

  Sam was silent for a moment, then said, “Me, too.”

  She sighed. She knew sometimes a connection, an inspiration, would come unbidden, but if she chased after it, it would continue to dance away, just out of reach. She resolved to give it up, at last for a few minutes.

  “Did you have fun with the kids?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Good weekend.”

  She swallowed. “Did you, uh, tell them? Explain?”

  He nodded. “They weren’t happy. Daniel got very quiet, which is pretty much how he handles disappointment”—like his father, Lacey thought—“but Kenzie was pretty ticked off.”

  “Ticked off?” Lacey repeated. She had a sinking feeling in her gut. “So she’s mad at me for leaving?”

  Sam laughed without humor. “She’s mad at me.”

  “You?” Lacey glanced over quickly, then looked back at the road. “Why?”

  “She thinks I chased you away. She thinks I was mean to you.”

  “Mean?” Lacey murmured. “You’ve never been mean to me. How could she…? I need to talk to her.” She set her jaw. “Next weekend, or whenever this is all over, I need to talk to her. To both of them.” She peered at Sam. “Okay?”

  He shrugged. “Sure. Whenever.”

  Lacey fumed. Now she had two things she didn’t want to think about.

  And neither of them had easy answers.

  ~~~

  THIRTEEN

  Shaw called that afternoon to report no luck. He said on Tuesday they would deploy men from the other direction, heading west from Mt. Hollywood Drive on the east side of Brush Canyon. He hoped that the westward direction with the Hollywood sign in the distance to provide reference would make a difference.

  It did not. Tuesday was a bust as well.

  Lacey chafed. She went over all her notes again, watched video and listened to her recordings, hoping some spark, some connection would jump out at her. It didn’t.

  This was like the proverbial search for a needle in a haystack. But she and Sam had faced such impossible odds before, and won out. In Las Vegas, they had combed the town for a sense of Sam’s dead brother-in-law, had practically gone door to door checking self-storage places, and they had found him. Found his body. Found his killers.

  They would do no less this time.

  She called Sam to give him the dismal news.

  “It’s got to be right there,” he said in frustration. “They just can’t see it. Can’t feel it.”

  “No one can but you,” she reminded him. “If you could pass your talent to them…”

  “I can’t,” he said brusquely. “Lacey, there’s no other way. We have to do the searching.”

  “We—” The idea was daunting. The miles of brush and scrub, up hillsides, down into canyons. The heat—Las Vegas had been brutal in June; LA was not much better in July.

  “We have to, Lacey,” Sam insisted. “It’s the only way.”

  She swallowed heavily. “Okay, Sam. If that’s what it takes.”

  “Good girl. I’m going to call my boss, tell him I won’t be in tomorrow. Why don’t you call the captain and tell him what we’re doing? If he could give us maybe four men, that should be all we need. Oh, and water.”

  “Yeah.” She laughed grimly. “Lots of water.”

  ~~~

  They met up at the command post on the trail. Lacey and Sam greeted the captain and met their helpers: Sloan, Dockerty, Ramsen and Sotelo.

  “How do you want to play this?” Shaw asked Sam as he passed out radios to everyone.

  “What I’d like,” Sam said, “is for two men to stay on my right and two on my left, maybe thirty to fifty yards out. This isn’t an exact science, so I may not be able to pinpoint it perfectly. If I do miss something, maybe they can find it.”

  Shaw eyed each of his men. They all nodded.

  “And,” Lacey said, clipping her radio to her S&R vest with a carabiner, “just so you know, Sam may walk slow as he’s tuning in, or faster if he’s getting a strong impression, or he may just drop the anchor without warning sometimes. Just keep an eye on him and do what he does. I’ll radio you if we don’t have a good line of sight.”

  More silent nods. The men clipped on their radios and double-checked their sidearms. Everyone settled hats on their heads and shoved water bottles into pockets on the vests.

  “All right,” Shaw said. “Sloan, Dockerty, you two fan out left; Ramsen, Sotelo, you go out right. Stay in sight of each other as much as possible.” He turned to Sam and Lacey. “Good luck.”

  They started off across the canyon floor. Although the early morning air was cool, the sand and rock had a nasty habit of reflecting the sun’s heat up at them. Lacey pulled her sunscreen from a pocket and slathered extra on her face and neck and arms as she walked. Her fair Irish skin would turn into crispy critters without protection, unlike her copper-skinned partner.

  At the far side of the canyon floor, just as they approa
ched the edge of scrub forest, Sam stopped. Lacey checked their flanks; all four men stopped and waited, their eyes on Sam.

  He quested for a moment, scanning the forest with more than his eyes. “Angling this way,” he said, pointing slightly right. “There should be a trail.”

  They moved forward again. If there was a trail, Lacey couldn’t see it. The ground between trees and bushes was bare, but she’d hardly call it any kind of path. She just followed Sam.

  “Maddie’s still okay?” she asked. “Not scared?”

  “Not at all,” Sam tossed back over his shoulder. “Matter of fact, she’s kind of excited. Anticipating something good.”

  Good? Lacey thought. What the hell could someone promise her out here in the brush? The view of the Hollywood sign? She could get that from a zillion places.

  “She knows this trail,” Sam said. “She’s been here before.”

  Lacey wondered if Maddie ran this “trail” as part of her training. You could break a leg out here, she thought as she stepped over dead branches and scrambled around boulders.

  They reached a low point and the ground suddenly tilted up. Sam stopped and took a drink of water.

  “Up there?” Lacey squeaked, pointing to the tangled slope before them.

  “Yup.”

  “Great,” she muttered. Keying her radio, she told the men. “We’re heading up this ridge.”

  “Roger,” came back the tinny responses.

  Sam stowed his water bottle and started up. He brushed past creosote and Manzanita, ducked under low tree limbs. Lacey followed, feeling every rock through the soles of her sneakers. How could he not feel that through his soft moccasins, she wondered. What’d he have for socks—Kevlar? She’d have to ask him.

  “Hold it,” Sam said suddenly. Lacey alerted the men, since it was hard to see twenty feet through the brush. He stared up the slope, then angled his head left. He shook his head once, then turned to the right. “This way.”

  “Heading right,” Lacey relayed to the men.

  The slope became steeper. The trees began to thin somewhat, and the “trail” became easier to follow, or would have been, if it wasn’t almost straight up. Lacey struggled to keep up with Sam and twice had to rely on him to pull her up over large boulders.