Page 42 of My Fallen Saint

Chapter Fifteen

I’d intended to spend Saturday with Brandy, but after one of my friends from my cop days returns my call, I end up in Santa Monica having lunch with Millicent Kittridge and talking about The Wolf.

“How did I not know any of this?” Millie asks after I give her the rundown of my uncle, Ricky Mercado, and the bastard crime lord I blame for it all.

I lift a shoulder. “Probably because I never told you about Peter. And I just found out about The Wolf connection yesterday.”

“So how can I help?” Even on the weekend, she’s impeccably dressed in slacks, a silk shirt, and a black blazer.

“Honestly, I’m not sure. But you’re working in organized crime, right? Mostly drug cases?” A cop before she went to law school, Millie now works for the US Attorney’s office in Los Angeles.

“Yeah, but The Wolf was before my time.”

“I’m trying to track down one of his lieutenants.”

“Which one?”

“Any lieutenant, actually. I need a jumping off point for building a picture in my mind of The Wolf. Eventually I want to figure out how the threads lead to my uncle. I’ve already asked staff at The Spall to pull every article they can find and send them to me. But—”

“You want a sit-down,” she interrupts. “I get it. What about Mercado’s cellmate? The one who told Chief Randall about how Mercado took the fall for the real killer?”

I shake my head. “That was my first idea. But he had nothing to do with The Wolf’s organization. That was just luck of the cellmate draw. Apparently, Mercado was a chatty kind of guy.”

She nods slowly. “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll text my boss today.”

“Saturday?”

She shrugs. “Justice never sleeps.”

“Touché.”

The rest of the lunch is catch-up, including a few questions about how Lamar is doing. I tell her she should give him a call, then bite back a smile at the thought that my friend is suddenly being inundated by female attention. That’s okay. I figure Tracy and Millie can battle it out, and either way, Lamar will be the winner.

I’m back in Shelby and trying to remember how to get to the 405 when my phone rings. It’s Roger, and I consider ignoring it. Then I cringe under a wave of guilt, so I connect the call.

“Sorry I missed you the other night,” he says.

“No, my bad. I was only calling to check in and didn’t even think about the time difference. Listen, I can’t talk. I’m in Shelby with the top down.”

Honestly, I have my ear buds in and can hear him fine, but I’m not emotionally ready to tell him what I’ve learned about Peter.

“Tell her I said hi,” he says, and I laugh. Since I can’t afford parking in the city, Roger keeps Shelby garaged for me at his house in Rockland County. He doesn’t drive her—no one does but me—but I know he’s hoping that I’ll eventually break that rule in his favor.

“I’ll give her your best,” I promise. “Want me to call you tonight and update you on the profile?”

“No, no, kid. I’m not checking up on you. I need you to cover something. Just for the website. LA-based, so you’re practically on site. We’ll run it tomorrow.”

“Actually, I am on site. I just had lunch up here with a friend. What’s up?”

“That shooting this morning. Terrance Myers.”

“Wait. What shooting?” Myers is a wealthier-than-sin prick who’d captured and tortured almost two dozen children in his Hollywood Hills mansion over a two-year span. Several died and the ones who survived will undoubtedly be messed up for life. He’d been the subject of a three-day manhunt before he was finally captured, then tried and convicted. And yesterday morning, he was released, his appeal granted because of a goddamn technicality.

“I emailed you the wire reports. Someone took him out early this morning at an executive airport as he was getting on a private plane for Mexico. Not surprisingly, the guy was getting the hell out of the country. The interesting thing is, his itinerary hadn’t been announced, presumably because he feared for his safety.”

“Someone inside law enforcement leaked his whereabouts. That’s kind of whack.”

“It’s very whack.”