The address in Koreatown was her next stop.If Tayen wasn't answering her phone, maybe her roommate would be more forthcoming.
CHAPTER SIX
The apartment building in Koreatown was a three-story stucco box painted the color of old mustard, wedged between a nail salon and a restaurant with a menu Kari couldn't read.Fire escapes zigzagged down the front façade, and window-unit air conditioners hummed and dripped onto the sidewalk below.
Kari checked the address Diana had given her.Apartment 2C.She found the entrance around the side of the building, a metal security door propped open with a brick.So much for building security.
The hallway inside was narrow and dim, lit by flickering fluorescent tubes that cast everything in a sickly yellow glow.The carpet was worn down to the backing in places, and the walls bore the scuffs and stains of decades of tenants.A far cry from the glossy images on Tayen's Glimmer.
Apartment 2C was at the end of the second-floor hallway.Kari knocked and waited, listening for movement inside.She heard footsteps, then a pause.Someone looking through the peephole.
"Who is it?"A woman's voice, young and wary.
"My name is Kari Blackhorse.I'm looking for Tayen Stern.Her family sent me."
A long silence.Then the sound of locks disengaging, three of them in sequence.The door opened to reveal a young woman in her early twenties with dyed-black hair and smudged eyeliner.She was pretty in a tired, worn-down way, her features sharp beneath skin that looked like it hadn't seen sunlight in weeks.
"Tayen's not here," the woman said."And she doesn't have family."
"She does.Her aunt Lola has been looking for her for two years."Kari kept her voice gentle, non-threatening."I'm a detective back in Arizona.Lola asked me to make sure Tayen's okay."
The woman's expression softened a little.She glanced down the hallway, then stepped back from the door.
"You should come in."
The apartment was small, just a single room that served as living room and bedroom, with a tiny kitchen alcove and a door that presumably led to a bathroom.Two mattresses lay on the floor, separated by a curtain that had been pushed aside.Clothes spilled from cardboard boxes that served as makeshift dressers.The only decoration was a string of fairy lights tacked above one of the mattresses and a few photos pinned to the wall.
This was the reality behind Tayen's carefully curated Glimmer life.Kari felt a familiar sadness rise in her chest, the same sadness she felt whenever she saw the gap between how people presented themselves and how they actually lived.
"I'm Jade," the woman said, settling onto one of the mattresses."Tayen's roommate.We're both with Elite Vision."
"How long have you known Tayen?"
"Since she started at the agency.About a year and a half."Jade pulled her knees up to her chest, making herself small."We moved in together because neither of us could afford a place on our own.The agency takes a cut of everything, and the jobs don't pay as much as they make it sound like they will."
"When did you last see her?"
"Day before yesterday.She came home from a shoot, seemed normal.We talked for a while, then she went out to meet someone.Said she'd be back late."
"But she didn't come back?"
Jade shook her head.
Kari felt the familiar tightening in her chest that came when a missing persons case turned into something more serious."She's been gone for two days and you didn't report it?"
"Report it to who?The cops don't care about girls like us."Jade's laugh was bitter."Besides, Tayen sometimes stays out.Crashes with friends, goes to parties.I figured she'd show up eventually."
"But you're worried now."
"I tried calling her yesterday.But her phone's off."Jade hugged herself tighter."And then this morning I saw her Glimmer was gone.Tayen would never delete her Glimmer.That account was everything to her.It was her whole career."
"When this morning?"
"Maybe an hour before you showed up.I went to tag her in a throwback post and—nothing.The whole account, just gone."Jade's voice cracked."That's when I knew something was really wrong.I've been sitting here trying to figure out what to do.And then you knocked on the door."
It was clear from Jade's face and body language that she felt helpless.She'd realized something was wrong but hadn't known what to do about it.
"You said she was meeting someone yesterday," Kari said."Any idea who it was?"
