Page 30

CHAPTER 30

BABY MET ME IN the parking lot of a strip mall in Toluca Lake. I pulled in just long enough for her to jump out of her Uber and into my car. I’d been circling the blocks, spiraling wider and wider, looking for Troy. He’d ditched his truck and, with it, our tracker and the police bugs on the vehicle.

“Did Troy get himself another burner phone?” Baby asked by way of greeting.

“He must have,” I said. I was sweating; my heart was hammering. I forced myself not to drive erratically, but my foot was heavy on the accelerator. “The burner I gave him wasn’t a smartphone, but Troy knew about the footage of himself in the supermarket going viral. He must have gotten a new phone.”

“If that’s true,” Baby said, “why didn’t he tell you?”

“Maybe he’s been thinking of running since day one.”

“Stupid.” Baby’s jaw clenched. “You never run. Everybody knows that. This is going to look terrible.”

“It won’t look like anything. We’re going to find Troy before anyone realizes he’s gone.”

Baby was texting like crazy.

“You’re supposed to be looking out the windows.”

“I’m texting Jamie,” she said. “If Troy bought a burner, maybe we can track it somehow.”

“Hell of a long shot.”

“You got a better idea?”

I didn’t. We drove and drove, our heads swiveling. We hit traffic, and it was all I could do not to scream and beat on the steering wheel.

At one point I pulled over so Baby could run across the street to check out someone who looked like Troy at a bus stop crowded with people. An incoming call from Dave Summerly flashed on my phone.

“He slipped us?” Summerly barked.

“Look, he didn’t slip you,” I lied. “The stress is getting to my client. You and your team hanging around like vultures waiting for an injured rabbit to die isn’t helping his mental state.”

“I’m not trying to help Troy, Rhonda,” Summerly said slowly. “I’m trying to breathe down his neck so Troy will do something that leads us to his wife’s body.”

“He needs a few hours to himself, that’s all.”

“Rhonda, I — ”

“Sorry, Dave.”

I hung up as Baby got back in the car. She shook her head. The bus stop had been a bust.

“Tell me what you found in Jarrod Maloof’s diary,” I said, my tires screeching as I pulled out. “I need something to get my mind off this wild-goose chase we’re on.”

“I didn’t have a lot of time.” Baby was scrolling through her phone. “And I didn’t find anything helpful. Jarrod apparently thinks Uncle Oliver is working for the CIA and that he recruited his parents for some kind of seditious scheme. There’s a lot of stuff about the president. It’s all completely cuckoo.”

“No mention of Troy specifically?”

“Nope. The only thing that might be related is an undated entry about someone coming and fixing the phone wires near the Muscle Beach camp and the sketch of the man up the pole.” She sat back and sighed. “It could be Troy. I mean, that’s what Troy does, right? But who knows. Jarrod Maloof is such a conspiracy nut, he probably thought it was government spies or the illuminati or whoever the fuck, trying to listen in to the camp’s business.”

“What about Maria Sanchez? You said you’d look at her too.”

“Totally different. Maria’s online life was dedicated to her makeup and hair tutorials,” Baby said. “She was trying to grow a following online.” She sniffed. “I had, like, a hundred times more followers when I was doing fashion influencing full-time, but she’s not bad.”

Baby showed me a screenshot of Maria Sanchez. The girl was posed in a gold-filtered shot, caught in the process of dividing her long, luscious hair into sections, presumably so that she could style it. Spread out before her on a white table were the tools of her trade.

“There’s the hairbrush from the box.” I pointed at the screen. “The one with the rabbit.”

“Right,” Baby said. “You can see her using it in a couple of her videos.”

Traffic began rolling again. “Here’s what I don’t get, Rhonda. The only thing Maria Sanchez and Jarrod Maloof have in common is that they’re both teenagers. She’s not crazy. She’s, like, a beautiful, put-together, ambitious young person. He’s a messed-up homeless kid with zero grip on reality. They come from completely different parts of LA. She never mentions him on her socials. He never mentions her in the diary. Where’s the link?”

“Maria was last seen entering Franklin Canyon Park. Was she a big hiker?”

“Sort of,” Baby said, her attention caught by a guy in a black hoodie waiting at a taxi stand. She took a good hard look, then turned away. “She went hiking, but she didn’t like it. She wasn’t fit. She complained on her channel about how hard it was. Grueling. I feel like it was something she did just for the likes and follows.”

This conversation wasn’t bringing down my stress levels.

“Okay,” I said, changing tacks. “You’re Troy Hansen, accused murderer. You’ve decided to run. Where do you go?”

“Mexico.” Baby was texting. “We’re, like, two hours from the border. He’s seen it in the movies. If you’re a middle-class white boy with no priors fleeing the law, you go to Mexico.”

“This isn’t a movie. As far as we know, all Troy has on him is his wallet and maybe a phone. He can’t use his credit cards without being tracked. Even if Mexico is the plan eventually, it isn’t the plan today. Today he needs shelter. He needs help. He needs ... ” I trailed off, thinking. Troy’s words from the other day floated back to me.

I have one buddy, a guy from work.

“I know where he’s going.” I swung the wheel.