It had been taken at a bar, a selfie with a large group of people, and the caption said Happy Hour. Ivy recognized a few of his coworkers, but others she had never seen. Including the woman standing next to him. She wasn’t looking at the camera, either. She was looking at Wes.
After work, Ivy went home and gathered up everything she needed—the photos, notes, truffles—and brought them straight to the police station. Wes deserved it. More importantly, she knew he would respond. She just didn’t think he would be this angry about it.
Wes is not above payback. In fact, he loves it.
So he reeled her in, made her feel comfortable, and then disappeared. The simplicity of it is almost admirable. But not quite. Not from where she’s sitting.
And it’s a little hard to believe he would be that cruel. That calculating. Even for him, that’s a little far.
6:40.
Ivy checks her phone one last time, then starts her car and drives home. At a stoplight, she bangs her hands against the steering wheel.
Forget pas grave. Now she’s furieuse.
31
Karen woke up early to ride the bus to Sacramento and back before going to the police station. Still no sign of the voyeur, despite the fact that another report about him came in this week. When she gets to work, two new cases are waiting. The endless flood of sex crimes is no longer shocking. The only surprise comes when someone is arrested, tried, and convicted.
She goes outside, taking a deep breath just as a semitruck passes by. The exhaust in her lungs makes her feel like she’s choking.
Perfect.
She stands on the sidewalk for a minute, looking up and down the street. The station is downtown, near the business district, and people are out running errands, grabbing that midmorning coffee, talking on their phones. She doesn’t see them as individuals. Not really. What she sees are potential victims and potential suspects. That’s the difficult part. Either one could be anybody.
“Morning, Karen.”
Louis Knox stands before her, holding his own cup of coffee. No, tea. She remembers that detail from all the way back at the academy. Even then, she was taking notes.
“Louis. Just the person I wanted to see.” Karen looks up at him, shielding her eyes from the sun with one hand. He looks a little annoyed.
“What can I help you with today?” he asks.
“I wanted to ask about the Tanner Duncan case. Are you making an arrest?”
“Waiting on the DA’s decision about prosecuting Bianca Mercado,” he says. “We’ve also been talking to a few other women Tanner had . . . propositioned.”
“Propositioned? Really?”
“We didn’t find anyone he actually assaulted—at least not anyone who would admit it. But there’s a few where the line got blurry. He was pretty insistent with some women.”
Insistent. Is that what they’re calling it these days?
Before she can say a word, her cell rings. Louis moves on when she holds up the phone, indicating that she has to take the call.
“Hello?”
“Um, hi. This is Sara? Sara Walker? You left a message for me the other day.” She sounds impossibly young, like a teenager, though she is at least thirty.
“Yes, Sara. Thank you so much for calling me back,” Karen says. “I’m looking into something that happened a few years ago. It would’ve been when you were working at the Fine Line.”
“And who are you again?”
“A private investigator,” Karen says. “I’m working for a family that’s trying to find their daughter. She briefly worked at the Fine Line.”
“What’s her name?”
“Ivy Banks.”
“Dancer?”
“Waitress.”
“Doesn’t sound familiar.” Karen hears Sara inhale and exhale, like she’s smoking. “I haven’t worked at a club in a long time,” she finally says.
“I know this is a long shot, but I wanted to talk to you anyway.” After discovering the domestic-dispute call from the Fine Line, Karen used the bankruptcy filing to compile a list of former employees who were owed money, and then she started calling them. Most didn’t answer the phone, and the ones who did hung up on her. So far, anyway.
Sara is the first to call back.
“Seven years ago, a 911 call was made from the club to report a domestic disturbance,” Karen says. “Do you know if that kind of thing happened a lot?”
“Sometimes, I guess,” Sara says. Karen could almost hear her shrug. “A woman looking for her boyfriend, or someone looking for one of the dancers. It happened.”
“So it wasn’t unusual.”
“Not really. But the 911 thing is a little weird. We had security there to take care of fights.” Another inhale and exhale. “It’s not like anyone wanted the police at the club.”
Of course not. “I don’t suppose there are any incidents you remember?” Karen asks. “Something that was more serious?”
“Ummm . . . I remember when one of the girls fell off the stage and broke her ankle. Someone called for an ambulance. Oh, and there were definitely overdoses, Oxy and heroin and that kind of thing. This was before fentanyl was around as much as it is now, but we always had Narcan behind the bar, so the police didn’t usually get called,” Sara says. “We didn’t have any shootings, though. Those were all at that other club. Leopard or Tiger something.”
“Kitty Kat,” Karen says.
“Yeah, that’s it.”
Karen asks a few more questions, but Sara doesn’t remember enough—or claims not to remember enough—to give her anything useful. She ends the call, knowing she shouldn’t feel so disappointed. The incident at the Fine Line didn’t even warrant a report from the responding officers. Finding someone who remembers such a nonevent would be difficult, Karen knew. Still, she had hoped to get lucky.
With a sigh, she goes back into the station and turns her attention to a new file. Time to get back to her other job. The one she is paid to do, starting with trying to track down that camera footage of an attempted rape. The case takes priority over riding the bus to Sacramento.
Hours later, long after her day should’ve ended, her vision is blurry from watching all the footage. All she ends up with is a man who is possibly the attacker. He isn’t even facing the camera.
Never easy. Even with all the technology available, it’s never easy.
* * *
—
By the time she gets to class, she feels exhausted. Mentally, physically, even spiritually. Her students are the ones who reenergize her.
One night a week, Karen teaches a self-defense class. A free service provided by the Fair Valley Police Department. Karen’s time is also free, because she doesn’t get paid. She volunteered.
Women make up 90 percent of the students. A few of the men who attend are there solely to meet someone, or to satisfy some fetish of being surrounded by women in spandex. Karen weeds them out quick. The men who come to actually learn self-defense can stay.
Tonight, nine people have shown up. She smiles at all of them. “To those who have been here before, welcome back,” she says. “And if it’s your first time, please don’t be intimidated. Everyone is here to learn the same thing: the best way to protect yourself.”