Woken by his alarm, Lock rolled over. Carmen was already up and out of bed. Patting her side to check for warmth, he guessed she’d been up for a while.
He really must have been exhausted because he usually woke when she did. Even if he went back to sleep afterwards.
Reaching over, he checked the phone he’d taken from Andre before his own, hoping there would be a message from Hanger.
There wasn’t. Just lots of notifications and messages, mostly from young women that Lock presumed Andre was working some kind of an angle on.
Glancing at his own phone, he hoped for a message from Jenny telling him she had a GPS pin location for Kristin. No luck there either.
He got out of bed, threw on some shorts and a faded old t-shirt and went through into the kitchen. Fresh baking and freshly brewed coffee with some kind of cinnamon Christmas spice hit his nostrils, making him suddenly hungry.
The sink was empty. He guessed he was going to have to have that discussion and as Carmen walked in wearing a robe and with her hair up in a messy bun, he guessed it was going to be now.
She looked at the sink. “It’s Christmas morning, so I don’t want to know what all that blood was from.”
“Believe me, it should have been a lot more.”
“They’re still breathing?” she asked.
“For now,” he said, pouring himself a mug of coffee.
She came up and behind him and rested a hand on the small of his back. “Just don’t end up in prison, okay?”
Lock took a sip of coffee. “The only good thing about this, traffickers usually don’t go to the cops. Listen, I may have to go out a little later.”
“Guess we’d better open presents then.”
“Thank you,” he said, meaning it. “I know this isn’t a great way to spend the holidays.”
“I would be mad, but I was the one who suggested you help out. I should have known only you could turn checking a few cameras into something like this.”
There was no edge to her voice, no sense of disappointment or recrimination behind the words, but he still felt bad. The problem was that the alternative, not spending the day trying to find Kristin Miller, would leave him, and Carmen, feeling infinitely worse.
They opened their presents and their stockings, drank coffee, and ate a little. Then Lock showered, got ready and kissed her goodbye. Carmen was going to her sister’s. Lock would join her there later.
He kissed her again on his way out.
“Be careful,” she said.
“Always,” he smiled. “I’ll see you later. If you need me for anything, then call. I shouldn’t be more than an hour away.”
The streets of Los Angeles were even quieter than the night before. Save for people heading to visit family or friends, the freeways were as close to ghostly as they would get all year, barring another stay at home order.
People were in their homes, enjoying time with their families, but not Kristin Miller, and therefore not Lock.
As he drove, Lock imagined that this must have been what it was like fifty years ago, before the city bulged at the seams with people searching for fame and fortune, or simply blue skies and sunshine. He wondered if things like trafficking had gone on back then and concluded that they surely must have. Just maybe not on the industrial scale it happened now.
His cell rang with a call from his business partner, Tyrone ‘Ty’ Johnson. He and Ty were like peas and carrots, not just partners in justice but friends at a level most people rarely had.
“Merry Christmas, asshole,” said Ty when Lock answered.
“Right back at you,” said Lock.
“Just wanted to wish you a happy Christmas,” said Ty.
“Thanks.”
“How’s Carmen?”
“At her sister’s place.”
“And you’re not?”
Ty knew a little about Lock’s involvement, but he hadn’t yet brought his partner up to speed with the latest developments. Lock didn’t want his partner to think he had to get involved when this was something Lock had taken on off the books.
“Be careful, Ryan,” said Ty when Lock had finished giving him the broad brush strokes.
“Yeah, everyone keeps saying that. You haven’t heard the name Hanger, have you?” said Lock.
“Doesn’t ring a bell, but I can make some enquiries if you like.”
“Only if you have time.”
“What’s your next move?” said Ty.
“Well, I have his number so I’ll keep trying that, and in the meantime, I have a couple of places I can start looking.”
“Christmas Day or not, just holler if you need someone riding shotgun. And by riding shotgun I mean…”
“Sitting next to me with a shotgun?” said Lock.
Ty laughed. “You got it.”
“Okay, brother, appreciate it.”
“I’ll make some calls. See if anyone I know has heard the name.”
“Thanks.”
Lock’s first stop was a diner near one of the main tracks in downtown. A track was an area where sex workers solicited. Andre had said that Hanger could often be found holding court in a booth here with his girls. The girls would check in every few hours and hand over the money they had made out on the track.
As Lock got within a few blocks of the diner, he noticed the streets became busier. Driving through the rest of downtown, he’d been lucky to spot three or four cars driving on every block. Here it was four or five times that number and there was something else that stood out.
Almost all the cars on this block had a solitary male occupant, and they were all moving slowly. They weren’t passing through; they were cruising, checking out the scantily clad young women who were walking slowly up and down the sidewalk.
Lock guessed that he’d found the track, or at least the start of it. Embarrassed, even though he had no reason to be, he found himself slowed to a walking pace by the car in front, the driver of which was almost leaning out of his window as he catcalled a young black girl who teetered over to him on impossibly high heels that lent her the gait of a baby giraffe.
A hand tapped the glass of Lock’s window.
“Hey, cutie, looking for a date?”
For the first time since this started, Lock questioned what the hell he was doing in a place like this on this day of all days. He waved the woman off and she walked down to the next curb crawler.
Lock pulled around the car in front and kept moving. he could see the neon sign of the diner up ahead. There was a parking lot sign just before. He’d pull in there and get his bearings before he headed into the diner to see if he could spot Hanger or ask the people who worked there if they’d seen him.
Just as he pulled into the lot, the cell phone he’d taken from Andre rang. He pulled it from his pocket. The caller name read Hanger.
Lock hesitated.
Should he let it go to voicemail? Hope that Hanger texted him and he wouldn’t have to give away the fact that someone else was answering Andre’s phone.
Or did Hanger already know about what had happened and that Lock was in possession of Andre’s phone. That had to be the more likely of the two scenarios, in which case it was a call Lock had to take.
He tapped answer.