Vicki Pettersson - The Taken

Nodding, Grif straightened, too. Marin cursed, then pulled the screen back around, scrolling down. “Lance Arnold Schmidt, forty-two years old, born in L.A., moved here when he was twelve. Divorced, no kids, and…” She looked away from the computer, into Kit’s eyes. “Vice sergeant in charge of the sexual crimes division.”

Shit. Kit looked at Grif. “He’s a cop.”

He’s the cleaner,” Grif said, earning a steely, considered look from Marin, and causing Kit to stare. The image of him flying from the corner of her bedroom flashed through her mind. He’d emerged like a dark knight to beat back a murderer-a cop- and he hadn’t been scared then. Even with this new knowledge he didn’t look scared. “Dirty cop,” he muttered darkly, shaking his head.

“He could be the one organizing the prostitution ring,” Marin added, thoughts flashing so quickly across her face it was like reading a ticker tape. “But he’s not calling the shots.”

“How do you know?” Kit asked.

Marin leaned back in her chair. “The powers-that-be don’t dirty their own soft palms. Those who can afford it pay for distance from their crimes.”

“Let me see that,” Kit said, coming around to Marin’s side of the desk. Lance Schmidt’s hard face, looking into the camera lens so directly, caused an involuntary shudder to run through her. “I’m going to call Dennis.”

Marin looked up sharply. “You sure? He’s a cop, too.”

Kit reached for her purse. “He’s a friend.”

Grif was beside her so quickly she jumped. His hand was hot on her arm, his fingertips like wires. “No heat.”

Glaring, Kit jerked away. “I told you. He’s a friend, and there’s no way he’s in on something like-”

“I don’t care,” Grif said shortly. “Schmidt is getting away with this, so he ain’t working alone. It’s like a web. Something touches one corner of it, and the reverberations are felt across the entire network. So no cops.”

Kit finally nodded. No cops for now. She leaned back over the desk. “Let’s dig deeper, then. But I don’t want him to know we’re looking.”

Marin looked up at her. “You mean the family archives?”

It wouldn’t erase their e-tracks entirely, but there was nothing to be done about that. The police had resources.

But Kit had Aunt Marin, who wasn’t only the editor-in-chief of the Las Vegas Tribune, she was an information magpie. Every story by every reporter in the last thirty years had been meticulously archived, whether it ended up running in the paper or not. There were plenty of reasons the latter might happen-political sensitivity, timeliness, speculation that couldn’t be corroborated-but Marin believed knowledge should be preserved, even prized.

Reporters had learned over the years to capitalize on her insatiable appetite for information. A small bit of gossip, properly dated and vetted, could earn a free lunch or a plum assignment, in addition to a byline. A tiny fact, woven in with others, might be rewarded at bonus time. As for the undocumented tips and reports, Marin called those “potholders”-something a preschooler could cobble together and not particularly valuable, but damned handy when the kitchen got hot.

Some journalists called her a gossip, a scandal addict who hoarded secrets and held them over the heads of the powerful and wealthy in order to gain personal favor and exclusive stories. But Marin had never blackmailed anyone, and was the least political person Kit knew. Besides, she knew what others couldn’t… her aunt came by the habit honestly, learning it from her grandfather, who began the secret archives when he took over the paper. Yet no one would ever suggest the honorable Dean S. Wilson, who had a school and a street and a day named after him, was a slanderer. But Marin was a woman, and Marin was in charge. Those inclined to find fault would do so for those reasons alone.

For Kit, Marin’s info-hoarding meant only two things. First, she wasn’t the one who had to buy everyone lunch. And second, she had access to a treasure trove of information in the family archives that went all the way back to the paper’s inception in 1932.

“It’ll take time, but a cop isn’t squeaky-clean one day and then running flesh the next,” Kit said. “Not in an operation of this size. I bet there were rumors. There had to be other lists his name popped on first.”

Marin considered it. “My sources at Metro have been a little tight lately, but they were flush ten years ago, about the time Schmidt hit the force.”

“So anything from then ’til now,” Kit said, then remained hunched over the computer as she peered up at Grif. “Meanwhile, since I’m operating in shades of gray, you might as well gimme one of your names.”

Grif backed up a step. “What, now?”

Marin honed in on his reticence like a circling hawk. “What names?”

“He’s working on a cold case,” Kit said quickly, defending Grif though she didn’t know why. “He needs our help.”

Marin’s gaze narrowed. “Why can’t he go to the cops?”

Kit pointed to the obvious, Detective Schmidt’s face on the screen. “He. Saved. My. Life.” She turned to Grif. “Name?”

Looking down, he shifted his weight, hands shoved deep into his pockets. After a moment, he lifted his eyes and stared at Marin.

Marin huffed and rolled her shoulders. “I’m going to Starbucks. Text me if Mr. Shaw here happens to save your life again while I’m gone. Or if anything pops on Schmidt.”

She walked out without looking back.

Grif shifted his eyes. “Breath of fresh air.”

“Minty,” Kit agreed, settling herself in Marin’s still-warm chair. “Name?”

“Evelyn,” he said at last. “Evelyn Shaw.”

Kit typed it in, aware that he’d grown unnaturally still after moving to stand behind her. Shaw, just like him. Was it a sister? Or a wife? Kit wondered as she scrolled through the search results. She’d caught the way his eyes tightened at the corners, which had her automatically leaning toward the latter, and which meant she’d have to put even brief thoughts of his full bottom lip out of her mind.

Yet there was only one hit, and it was from fifty years earlier. Brows raised, she leaned back. “You weren’t kidding when you said it’s an old case.”

Evelyn Shaw, age twenty-four, had died in a casino robbery. The Marquis, one of the oldest, had also been the ritziest in its time. It’d since been demolished, of course. Newer was better, or so the thought went… all the way up until it wasn’t. Las Vegas had lost much of the glitter and kitsch that’d made it shine, and the unfinished, unfunded white elephant that now stood in The Marquis’ stead was proof enough of that.

The article Kit pulled up was just an old police blotter, there had to be more, but the caption alone had her riveted. “Starlet Dies in Botched Bungalow Robbery.” And linked to it was a photo. “Wow. She was beautiful.”

Slim in a way Kit could only dream of, Evelyn Shaw was also bright-faced and beaming, unaware at the time the photo was taken that her life would be short. And her end was brutal. An attack in one of the hotel’s courtyard bungalows that had been so fashionable back then. No witnesses, no leads.

God, Kit thought, looking at the poor woman’s dainty features, had someone killed this man’s beloved grandmother?

Grif’s silence and unnerving stillness prevented Kit from asking, but she wanted to know more-and yes, to help him, too. She did so in the only way she could. Fingers flying over the keys, she said, “Let me go deeper.”

But a ping sounded, a flash from Marin’s search, and Grif let out a long exhale behind her. Later then, she thought, sensing his relief. Right now, Schmidt…