Because the most direct routes from City of Industry to Reseda would have taken her back to Union Station, Cara had had no choice but to take the long way around on different buses that allowed her to avoid stations. After first heading east, back toward Boyle Heights, she transferred to the 106 south toward Long Beach. From there, she transferred west at Manchester, went north again at Crenshaw, got off at Wilshire, and caughtanother bus north at Fairfax that took her all the way to Sunset Boulevard. Another bus went over Laurel Canyon into the Valley, where she transferred one last time to reach Reseda. Along the way, she had ducked into a Goodwill to buy a clean T-shirt, well-worn skinny jeans, and a Billabong surfer hoodie.
Cara had once expressed her dismay about LA’s stop-and-go traffic to the mayor over a gin and tonic at a cocktail party. Now that she’d spent a sweaty afternoon and evening transferring from bus to bus, Cara was mortified she’d ever dared to complain about anything from the comfort of a Range Rover.
Breathing in the warm evening air, she stepped through the gate and crossed a small front yard with mismatched pavers and weedy clay pots. As she neared the front door, she couldn’t help but notice the scrolled-metal security door clashed with the plain vertical bars on the windows.
Cara rang the doorbell next to a mailbox covered by a spiderweb.
No one answered.
She knocked, then finally heard a female voice from behind the closed front door.
“Yes?”
“My name is Claire.”
“What do you want?”
“I’m from Blue Skies Window Washers,” Cara said, wishing Rae had given her a coded phrase that would sound more believable after hours.
After a pause, two locks clicked open, and a woman appeared behind the security door. She had the deep wrinkles and frazzled, sun-damaged hair of someone who had either spent too many hours at the beach or lived too hard—or both. Her loose floral sundress suggested she was trying to hide a thick middle, but her lean, deeply tanned arms and calves indicated otherwise.
“I have one bed for tonight,” she informed Cara briskly. “Tomorrow night is a maybe. It’s twenty bucks for a bed and shower, ten more if you want breakfast. The shower is mandatory and happens first thing.”
Cara pulled a ten and twenty from her pocket.
The woman pushed the door open. “I’m Willow.”
Inside, the living room looked like the set of a very low-budget San Fernando Valley porn shoot. The original dark wood paneling was almost retro, but the mint-green paint and coordinating curtains would never come back in style. Two men and a woman were sprawled on a dilapidated tan sectional watchingHouse Hunters Internationalon a huge HD TV.
“No illegal drugs,” Willow added, as a twentyish couple came through a sliding glass door from the back yard, the man holding a blue glass bong. “Weed and cigs outside.”
“No problem.” Cara was just relieved she wasn’t staying in a meth house, a fact that wasn’t entirely obvious.
She followed Willow down a hallway to a small, lemon-yellow bedroom where two metal bunk beds had been wedged together to form an L shape. The lower bunks were occupied by women who appeared to be sound asleep and one of the upper bunks had been claimed with a backpack.
“Unaccompanied female sleeping quarters,” said her host. “The last bed is yours after your shower.”
Back in the hallway, they stopped at a linen closet, where Willow gave Cara a thin, scratchy towel. “Keep this as long as you’re staying here, but don’t leave it in the bathroom. Shower’s in there.”
She nodded at an open door and then left Cara alone.
Cara went inside the bathroom and locked the door. The floor was tacky, the grout was moldy, and the stained toilet—given the number of people sharing it—definitely warranted paper on the seat. When she was done, she ran the shower fullblast but didn’t get in. The noise would cover the call she had to make.
Her fingers trembled as she dialed the number Dylan Danvers had given her. She was still struggling to process what she had learned today and had no real idea how to start her search for Karl’s financial partners. But Dylan had thrown her a lifeline she would grab with both hands.
The call went to voicemail.
“It’s Cara Campbell,” she said quietly, cupping her hands around the phone. “I need your help.”
FIFTY-EIGHT
JORDAN
A lot of people thought OJ didn’t do it, either.
—@Z003Y
HER PRINTS WERE ON THE HAMMER.
