Settling Scores (Piper Anderson Series) (10 page)

“They both have a history of drug arrests. They were addicted to meth.” Bobby scrolled further down the report. “It’s possible that for a price they turned their daughter over to your parents and delayed filing the report as a means to make sure the trail was harder to follow.”

“What?” Willow asked breathlessly. “They gave her up, like a used car they just traded her for money so they could score drugs?” She pounded her fist down on the table. “Then we find them too. We track them down.” Somewhere in her mind, Willow had built a fantasy that involved finding this girl and reuniting her with the family she’d been ripped away from. The slicing open and gutting of that possibility was painful.

“They’re dead,” Bobby said pointblank. “The mother overdosed, the father was killed in a prison fight. We can’t know for sure if they sold her or if she was abducted but it would explain the timeline issue.”

This wasn’t at all what Willow was constructing in her mind. She’d imagined these girls riding down the street on their pink bikes with white streamers flowing from the handlebars and her horrible parents pulling them away to a terrifying new reality. She hadn’t prepared herself for so many others to be culpable. There were too many bad guys in this scenario for her to wrap her mind around.

“What’s her name?” Josh asked in a calm voice, pulling Willow back into a hopeful place. He didn’t say, what was her name. He didn’t make her existence past tense.

“Josephine Vasquez. She was eleven years old when reported missing. The actual case file, not the missing persons report, has been marked as closed. I don’t have access to it, but if I go down to the precinct and they are open to the idea I should be able to see where it stands.”

“Why would they close it, because they found her?” Willow asked, a dim flash of hope jolting through her.

“Yes, if they hadn’t found her the case would be marked cold or open. So if it’s closed it means they’ve located her or her body.” Bobby’s voice trailed off and though it was clear, he wasn’t trying to, his words shot through Willow like an arrow.

“So being closed means she might be dead?” Willow asked a vulnerable tremble in her voice.

“Or that she was found safe,” Josh added, though it was apparent he was treading lightly. And for good reason. Bubbly optimism was just the kind of thing that would send Willow running for the hills at this point.

“It could be either,” Bobby admitted as he scratched down more notes in his book. “Do you want to go over what you remember about the other girls now or do you want me to go chase this?”

“She,” Willow hesitated, “Josephine is the one I remember most clearly. I think we should get this answer first. I’m going to go back to the apartment today. I know going in there will help me remember the others.”

“You sure you’re up for that?” Piper asked and Willow ignored the pins and needles all over her body as she nodded her head “yes.”

“What about tracking down your parents things?” Bobby asked as he closed the computer. “Some stuff would have been entered into evidence by the crime investigator who processed their murder. But mostly everything else would have been deemed nonessential and was likely left behind. Maybe if you don’t get into the apartment today for whatever reason, you can start looking for their belongings.”

“We can call Tony back. He’s the super of the building and has been for a couple decades. If anyone knows what happened to their things it would be him,” Josh said with a hopefulness in his voice.

“You guys call us if you find anything out, and we’ll do the same,” Piper said as she and Bobby headed out of the room.

“How are you feeling?” Josh asked in a hushed voice. “You did so great. I mean she has a name now. That’s incredible.”

“I feel like shit,” Willow snapped standing and slinging her bag over her shoulder. “I didn’t want to find other deadbeat parents. I didn’t want to think that no one even wanted her.”

“You don’t know for sure that was the case. It’s a theory. You’re remembering a lot of your time in the house now. I can tell. What’s that like?”

“Are you being a doctor right now?” Willow asked, halting in the doorway and forcing Josh to stop quickly, and bump into her slightly.

“I’m just asking.”

“It’s awful. Sometimes I feel like I was just a fly on the wall. I feel like I’m looking down on myself, watching it all play out. But sometimes it all feels very real and I remember I was really there.”

“But you aren’t anymore,” Josh said, brushing her short blond hair away from her downturned eyes. “This is all moving really fast Willow. I know that Piper and Bobby are on a time crunch and I don’t think they understand what this is putting you through. Maybe we should have them back off?”

“No, I want this moving fast. It’s like a Band-Aid; I just want to yank it off so I can start to heal. I want to find Josephine. Bobby is my best chance at that. We don’t have to be getting along perfectly for us to still get this done. I can manage how I’m feeling.”

“Okay,” Josh said, shrugging. It was clear to Willow that he wanted to press her to keep talking about this, but he just nodded and continued. “I’ll call Tony and we can head over to the apartment.”

“I’m going in this time,” Willow said with a glare in her eyes that flamed with resolve.

“Then so will I.”

“I think you’re being a jerk,” Piper called over her shoulder to Bobby as she hailed a cab and considered getting in without him.

“A jerk?” he said incredulously, hopping in beside her and nudging her firmly with his hip as Piper gave the driver the address to the police precinct. “She’s the one with the bad attitude. I reached out to her last night after dinner but today she’s all snippy with me again.”

“She has every reason to be a mess right now. You need to support her. Take a couple on the chin and soften your approach with her. She doesn’t need a grumpy big brother figure telling her how she feels is dumb.”

“Well what does she need?” Bobby asked, his tone no softer than it had been all day. “She’s out there thinking she can play detective. Did you see that pile of notes? She’s in for a rude awakening when these cases turn out to be messier than she thinks. Whatever she’s dreamed up in her mind about the outcome is highly unlikely. It’s not going to turn out how she wants.”

“Exactly,” Piper sniped as she checked her phone for messages.

“What do you mean exactly? What is that telling me?”

“Figure that out Bobby and I think you’ll finally get it. I swear, for a sweet and smart guy sometimes you’re a dumb jackass.”

“I love you too, honey,” he grumbled playfully. “Do me a favor, when we get to the precinct please let me do all the charming. Judging by this conversation, your skills are rusty.”

“I’m right about this Bobby. Stop going hard at her. She doesn’t need it.” She slipped her hand into his and they laced their fingers together. “I’m glad you’re my dumb jackass,” she whispered as she rested her head on his shoulder.

“I couldn’t think of any other pain in the ass I’d want calling me names,” Bobby replied, kissing the top of her head.

As the cab pulled up to the police department Bobby fished his badge and notebook out of his pocket. They passed through the front doors and stepped up to the wooden booth with a window in it. Through a static filled microphone, the cop on the other side scrutinized Bobby’s credentials and his authority to be there. After thirty-five minutes and four phone calls, they finally let them in.

“Hello Officer Wright, Miss Anderson, I’m Detective Denny Styles. I head the cold case task force. We get lots of families in here begging us to look into something or other, but it’s not often I get a cop in here saying he might have leads for me. You’ve piqued my interest.”

“Thank you for meeting with us right away Detective Styles,” Piper said with a smile as they walked down the long and painfully bland hallway toward the back of the office. She took note of his out of date mustache and mustard pinstripe yellow shirt, his pocket lined with pens. He looked like the kind of man who was more at ease in a dingy quiet office digging through a mountain of paperwork than having to deal with people.

“Please call me Denny, and don’t thank me yet. What I’m sure Officer Wright will tell you the second I leave is the only reason they’ve assigned me to help is to determine if you really have new leads on cold cases. If you do, it will be my intention to steal said case and information from you in order to further the success of my department. I’m less of a liaison and more of a double agent.”

“But admirably honest.” Bobby grinned. “Call me Bobby, and trust me, we’re fine if you take point on the case. I’m on a limited timetable here and I’m just happy to have some help. That’s if there is a case at all. I’ve gotten a tip from a close friend of mine and I want to see it through. This first one I’m bringing you doesn’t seem very promising, but maybe one of the others will pan out.”

Denny showed them into a small room and flipped the overhead lights on, sending the bulbs instantly into a hum. “You have a friend with information on multiple cold cases? Are you sure he didn’t commit them?” Denny laughed, his wide smile lifting his large ears up almost an inch.

“She was seven years old, I think it’s safe to say she wasn’t involved.” Piper retorted curtly and she knew she was being too sensitive. The cops she’d gotten to know through Bobby, all had a crass sense of humor at times. It was an obvious coping mechanism for processing the horrors they saw on a weekly basis.

“Here’s the case file number,” Bobby said, taking a seat across from Denny and sliding the notebook to him. “This morning the girl worked with a sketch artist to come up with a rendition of the missing person she remembered. Then I searched the missing persons database with the information she could recall and we got a strong match. My friend ID’d the picture I showed her.”

“Josephine Vasquez,” Denny muttered as he scrolled through the case file on the computer screen in front of him. “It’s not a cold case, it’s closed. She’s dead.” The disappointment in his voice wasn’t rooted in mourning the loss of a girl, but the loss of a chance at being a hero in a cold case.

“That’s so sad. How did she die?” Piper asked, trying to quietly guide the man back to his humanity.

“Killed herself,” he replied flatly, Piper’s attempt clearly unsuccessful. “The missing persons case was filed by her mother. She was assumed a run away. Josephine resurfaces in 2006 when she’s arrested for possession of narcotics and prostitution. That’s what closed the missing persons case, but she continued to acquire a long record after that.”

“We think she may have been originally taken to be sold into some kind of sex trafficking. Is there a chance the prostitution was against her will?” Bobby asked, scratching down all the information Denny was offering.

“Could be. There aren’t many ways to distinguish something like that until places get raided and the conditions the girls are living in come to light. I worked on a team a few years back that focused on prostitution. The girls in that area, where Josephine was picked up a few times, run without a pimp. Plus she was arrested six more times for the same charge over the following year and a half. She was put into a mandatory drug center. If she was being held against her will and forced into prostitution that may have been a good opportunity to break free. She went back out a few weeks later and got arrested in an area about seven miles from the corners she was working before. In my experience, this sounds like a profession of choice.”

“You say it like that takes away from the fact that she’s dead. Like it matters less. She was missing for eight years. Aren’t you interested in who took her, where that time in her life went?” Piper was pacing around the room as she felt her anger build. Going to school for victims advocacy had been a cathartic but sometimes traumatic experience for her over the last few months. She knew it was what she wanted to do. She could feel it in her bones. But the stories, all the horrific stories she heard on a weekly basis, were enough to make her want to scoop up all the hurt and exploited children and save them.

“I’m not saying she’s worth any less because she was a hooker, I’m saying she’s dead and there isn’t anything we can do to change that. There’s no case here.” Denny crossed his arms behind his head and leaned back in his chair.

“You said suicide? Is it solid?” Bobby asked shooting Piper a look that said he understood her point but it wasn’t going to help them to keep pushing it.

“Looks like it. She OD’d on pills. Left a note and made a few phone calls to girls she worked the corners with. Notes here say she was troubled. The other girls weren’t surprised when they heard.” Denny scrolled through more pages of documents as he whistled a cheery tune that didn’t match the somberness of the situation. “Nothing in here about where she was for that missing time. She never filed any complaint against anyone for imprisonment or kidnapping. Maybe your friend, she was only seven at the time, maybe she got it wrong. Maybe Josephine wasn’t sold. She might have just been a runaway who stayed off the radar for a while.”

“My friend’s parents were possibly the ones who took her and brokered the deal to get her sold into trafficking. It was their M.O. and she’s certain this girl was there against her will.”

“If that’s the case, there is another scenario that might make sense. These girls, the ones who go in real young, they cater to a certain market of men who desire that age. Josephine may have become obsolete in those circles as she got older. Sometimes they kill the girls, sometimes they get them hooked on dope and toss them out on the street, banking on the fact that they’re too damaged to be taken seriously or too scared to ever go after the people who hurt them. There’s a lot of brainwashing done to these girls.”