“Ha.” Raul saluted and left.
Petra said, “Technically it’s his day off. He was watching his kids so his wife could go out with her pals. Took a while to get his mom over to sub. Anything else you can think of?”
“Nope, thanks for saving her stuff for me to see.”
“Of course. I’ll bug my boss to authorize the collab.”
Milo said, “Same here.”
“Rank doesn’t have its privilege?”
“Depends on what you’re asking for.”
“Don’t see that working with us aces should be a problem.”
“Nothing should ever be a problem,” said Milo.
They both laughed as Petra walked us out of the apartment and over to the stairwell. She held the fire door open and remained on the landing.
Milo said, “See you, kid. Hopefully soon.”
Petra said, “I have to say, I’m kind of looking forward to it. The dream team and all that.”
Chapter
8
As we headed back to West L.A., I searched forblood warriors movie,found it readily on a film-archive database. Released nineteen years ago, low-budget production, one-star rating.
The archive was more inclusive than the poster. Paul O’Brien was listed on the stunt crew. I told Milo.
He said, “Hired to fall down, probably thought he was gonna be an action star. Anything more recent?”
I ran O’Brien’s name through the site, came up with two additional mentions for stunt work. Similar stinkers, one a year prior toBlood Warriors,the other two years after.
Milo said, “Three gigs in three years. Mega-delusions.”
I said, “He needed to make a living another way.”
“To me he looks like an obvious sleaze but it didn’t stop Marissa from falling for his I’m-a-producer line. What you said about that dump makes sense. No way she’d fall for his bullshit if she was fully conscious so he had to start dosing her at the party. Easy enough to do it, those weird little fishies. Pop the cap, squeeze it into a Sea Breeze, and you’ve got your unwilling partner.”
I said, “Then you supplement the dose to make sure she’s totally out by the time you get her home. O’Brien thought he knew how tocalibrate and time because he’d had experience. But something went really wrong.”
“Vice doesn’t know him but let’s see what Petra turns up. Meanwhile, I’ll get a victim’s warrant on Marissa’s place and try to find out where her last party was. Then I work on locating her aunt and do what needs to be done.”
“Anything you want from me?”
“Just keep thinking.”
—
We were nearly at the station when Detective Sean Binchy called.
“What’s up, kid?”
“Loot, you got a call a few minutes ago, desk sent it to me. Woman named Tori Burkholder, I told her I’d pass anything along but she only wanted to talk to you.”
“The perks of personal charm.”
