“The acute pain of admitting you could conceivably be right.”
I laughed.
She said, “Don’s always telling memyworld’s too dark. I deny it and when he picks the wrong time to say it, I tell him writing screenplays is a juvenile attempt to avoid reality. But sometimes…like the case I was working on this morning. Fourteen-year-old referred for learning disabilities. I do a full battery and find subtest patterns suggesting a brain anomaly. They do an MRI and it’s a glioblastoma. Diffuse, not multiforme, so that’s at least a positive.”
She let out a soft gust of arid laughter. “The helping professions.”
I said, “At least we’re doing good deeds.”
“If you say so…yes, of course we are. But still…a two-year-old.Shit.”
She inhaled deeply, leaned over and got close enough for a kiss.
“Saucedo,” she said. “Victoria Saucedo.”
Chapter
20
Not an uncommon name in SoCal but it didn’t take long to find the likely match.
Victoria “Vicki” Saucedo’s presence on social media was one sparse page. The two images posted were eight months old and revealed a smiling, gorgeous twenty-something with sculpted cheekbones, wide black eyes, and thick, straight hair of the same color.
She’d worked as a “fashion consultant” at Chanel on Rodeo Drive and had been photographed in a little black dress and a body-hugging red gown.
Same boutique where Marissa French’s friends had attended a party.
I chewed on that for a while, inspected the rest of the page.
Split-second review; no friends, no favorites, no interests.
At the bottom a single italicized line surrounded by rose vines.
Get well, Vicki, everyone’s rooting for you!
—
An image search pulled up a whole lot of other Victoria Saucedos plus the same pair of photos and one other in which Vicki Saucedo wore a white bikini and posed on sand next to a beach chair. The back of the chair readRegency Cabo.
Pairing the hotel with her name pulled up nothing. A closer look at the resort produced room rates in the four-hundred-dollar range, a no-kids or time-share policy, and consistently good ratings.
Pairing her name with Paul O’Brien’s was a dead end. Same for merges with Gerald Boykins and Jamarcus Parmenter.
I tried matching her withmarissa frenchto no avail, had the same luck with each of Marissa’s friends.
Broadening toboyfriend, friend, friends, companionwas fruitless. Then I triedhigh schooland found an eight-year-old yearbook page from Torrance High featuring Victoria “Vicks” Saucedo’s senior headshot.
Less-than-ambitious photography couldn’t hide the fact that at eighteen she’d been a radiant, beautiful girl. Like Marissa—and Whitney Killeen. Women who’d sidestepped the indignities of adolescence.
At Torrance, she’d been a cheerleader and a member of the Art and Design Club, the Spanish Club, and something called The Fashionistas. That turned out to be a group of students with sewing skills who copied couture.
Three girls and a boy. I copied their names and went on to searchsaucedo family torrance.
Two items in theDaily Breeze.
The first was a nine-year-old photo of a middle-aged couple, a girl around twelve, and a boy a few years younger, sitting floor-level at the Forum in Inglewood.
Proud parents Harold and Maria Saucedo, along with sister Susan and brother Michael, watch as eldest daughter Vicki competes in the West Coast Cheer Competition.
