Little Girl Lost (Hard Case Crime) by Richard Aleas Read Free Book Online Page B

grandfather.
    “Khachadurian’s involved,” I said. “Whether he killed Miranda or not, he’s part of what happened, and I’m going to talk to him.”
    “What are you going to do, call him on your cell phone?”
    “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m going to do. I got a number for him from his brother, and if that doesn’t work I’ll get another number somewhere else.”
    “I should never have trained you,” Leo said.
    “Leo, I’m going to find the man and I’m going to talk to him, and if he killed Miranda, I’m going to bring him in. All I’m asking is, before I make the call, I want to know more about him. The more I know, the better the chances I come out of it in one piece.”
    “Have another drink.”
    I set my glass down on the floor. “I don’t want another drink. I didn’t even want the first one. All I want is some information. If you don’t help me, I’ll get it some other way. But don’t tell me you can’t get it because you don’t know anyone anymore. You’re not that out of touch.”
    Leo took the glass, refilled it, and put it back within arm’s reach. “Here’s a deal. When you can make it to the bathroom on your own, no promises, but I’ll make a few calls.”
    I tried to sit up, winced as the pain shot through me.
    “When,” Leo said.
    “Yeah. When.” I lay back down.
    By midday, I could stand on my own, as long as I leaned against the back of a chair. At one, Leo brought me a turkey sandwich and a Snapple, and at three I was leaning against the bathroom door, pissing it away. It was excruciating. But I came back from the bathroom as proud of myself as a newly toilet-trained toddler.
    “Zip up,” Leo said.
    “You’ll want to start making those calls now,” I said.
    I went back to the couch while he went into the other room to work the phone. The truth was that he probably didn’t know anyone still on the force — his contemporaries were all out of the game one way or the other, retired or dead, and even the rookies who’d shaken his hand at his retirement party were probably coming up on their own. But his buddies had had kids, and the police force is one of the last great dynastic employers: if your daddy was a cop, there was a good chance you’d go into the Academy yourself when the time came. So, no, Bill O’Malley, Leo’s partner for his first five years, wasn’t around any more, but Bill, Jr. was. Leo would be able to get someone on the phone.
    That left me to hold up my end of the bargain, and with Leo in the other room, I didn’t have to put a brave face on it any more. The truth was I felt like shit. I could walk again, and I didn’t think anything inside me was torn or broken, but my God, it couldn’t have hurt any more if something had been. I thought about the man who’d done it. Until he’d spoken, I couldn’t be sure who it was, but the voice wasn’t one you’d forget. I’d been bounced by the Sin Factory’s bouncer, and that meant either Lenz or maybe Khachadurian himself had told him to do it. Which meant I was in their sights already.
    It didn’t mean for sure that Rachel — Susan — was right. It didn’t mean that Khachadurian had put the bullets in the back of Miranda’s head or given the order to do so. All it meant for sure was that they didn’t want me poking around and maybe bringing to light whatever dirty business they were carrying on behind the closed doors of the champagne rooms. Maybe it was just sex, not drugs, or maybe it was both, but that didn’t necessarily mean it was murder, too.
    Not necessarily.
    But as Susan had said, someone had killed Miranda, and the little I’d heard about Khachadurian so far didn’t make him sound like an unlikely candidate.
    I fiddled with my cell phone while I waited for Leo to come back. Overnight, the battery had drained and I didn’t have a charger in the office. But I’d get it working again. The faceplate was scuffed and scratched, but it didn’t look like the damage was