A Trace of Death. Blake Pierce

kid swallowed hard, then fished it out of his pocket and handed it over. The cover was pink and looked expensive.

      Ray asked, “This is Ashley’s?”

      The kid stood silent, defiant.

      “I can dial her number and we can see if it rings,” he said. “Or you can give me a straight answer.”

      “Yeah, it’s hers. So what?”

      “Sit your ass on that couch and don’t move,” Ray said. Then to Keri, “Do your thing.”

      Keri searched the house. There were three small bedrooms, a tiny bathroom, and a linen closet, all innocuous looking. There were no signs of struggle or captivity. She found the pull line for the attic in the hallway and tugged. Down came a set of creaky, wooden suspension steps leading upstairs. She carefully climbed up. When she got to the top, she took out her flashlight and pointed it around. It was more of a bonus crawl space than a real attic. The ceiling was only about four feet high and cross beams made it difficult to move around, even while crouching.

      There wasn’t much up there. Just a decade’s worth of spider webs, a bunch of dust-covered boxes, and a bulky-looking wooden trunk at the far end.

      Why did someone put the heaviest, creepiest item at the far end of the attic? It had to be hard to get it all the way to that corner.

      Keri sighed. Of course someone would put it there just to make her life difficult.

      “Everything okay up there?” Ray called out from the living room.

      “Yup. Just checking out the attic.”

      She climbed up the last stair and squatted her way across the attic, making sure to step on the narrow wooden beams. She worried that a wrong step would send her crashing through the drywall ceiling. Sweaty and covered in dusty spider webs, she finally reached the trunk. When she opened it and shined the flashlight inside, she was relieved to discover there was no body. Empty.

      Keri closed the trunk and made her way back to the stairs.

      Back in the living room, Denton hadn’t moved from the couch. Ray was sitting directly front of him, straddling a kitchen chair. When she walked in, he looked up and asked, “Anything?”

      She shook her head. “Do we know where Ashley is yet, Detective Sands?”

      “Not yet, but we’re working on it. Right, Mr. Rivers?”

      Denton pretended not to hear the question.

      “Can I see Ashley’s phone?” Keri asked.

      Ray handed it to her unenthusiastically. “It’s locked. We’ll have to get tech to work their magic.”

      Keri looked at Rivers and said, “What’s her password, Denton?”

      The kid scoffed at her. “I don’t know.”

      Keri’s dour expression let him know she wasn’t buying it. “I’m going to repeat the question again, very politely. What’s her password?”

      The kid hesitated, deciding, and then said, “Honey.”

      To Ray, Keri said, “There’s a shed out back. I’m going to go check it out.”

      Rivers’ eyes darted quickly in that direction but he said nothing.

      Out back, Keri used a rusty shovel to pry a padlock off the shed. A strip of sunlight pierced the interior through a hole in the roof. Ashley wasn’t in there, just paint cans, old tools, and other random junk. She was just about to step back outside when she noticed a stack of California license plates on a wooden shelf. On closer examination, there were six pairs, all with stickers for the current year.

      What are these doing here? We’ll have to have them bagged.

      She turned around and started to leave when a sudden breeze slammed the rusty door closed, blocking out most of the light in the shed. Thrust into semi-darkness, Keri felt claustrophobic.

      She took a huge gulp of air, then another. She tried to regulate her breathing when the door creaked open, letting some sunlight back in.

      This must have been what it was like for Evie. Alone, thrust into darkness, confused. Is this what my little girl had to face? Was this her living nightmare?

      Keri choked back a sob. She’d pictured Evie locked away in a place like this a hundred times. Next week it would be five years exactly since she disappeared. That was going to be a tough day to get through.

      A lot had happened since then – the struggle to keep her marriage together as their hopes faded, the inevitable divorce from Stephen, going on “sabbatical” from her professorship in criminology and psychology at Loyola Marymount University, officially to do independent research but really because the drinking and sleeping around with students had forced the administration’s hand. Everywhere she turned, she saw the broken pieces of her life. She’d been forced to face her ultimate failure: the inability to find the daughter who’d been stolen from her.

      Keri roughly wiped the tears from her eyes and chastised herself silently.

      Okay, you’ve failed your daughter. Don’t fail Ashley too. Get it together, Keri!

      Right there in the shed, she powered up Ashley’s phone and typed in “Honey.” The password worked. At least Denton was honest about one thing.

      She tapped Photos. There were hundreds of pictures, most of them standard fare – adorable little selfies of Ashley with friends at school, she and Denton Rivers together, a few photos of Mia. But scattered throughout, she was surprised to see, were other, edgier pictures.

      Several were taken in an empty bar or club of some sort, clearly before or after hours, with both Ashley and her friends visibly drunk and in hardcore party mode, shotgunning beers, lifting their skirts and flashing their thongs. In some they were working bongs or rolling joints. Bottles of liquor were rampant.

      Who did Ashley know that had access to a place like that? When was it happening? When Stafford was in DC? How did her mother have no clue about any of it?

      It was the photos with the gun that really caught Keri’s attention. It would suddenly be there in the background, a 9mm SIG, sitting inconspicuously on a table next to a pack of cigarettes, or on a couch next to a bag of chips. In one instance, Ashley was out in the woods somewhere, down by a river, shooting at Coke cans.

      Why? Was it just for fun? Was she learning how to protect herself? If that was it, then from what?

      Interestingly, the photos with Denton Rivers tapered off considerably over the last three months, corresponding with new ones of a strikingly good-looking guy with a long, wild mane of thick blond hair. In many of the pictures, he was shirtless, showing off his six-pack abs. He seemed very proud of them. One thing was certain – he was definitely no high school kid. He looked closer to his early twenties.

      Was he the one who had access to the bar?

      Ashley had also taken a number of erotic photos of herself. In some, she was flashing her panties. In others she was naked except for a thong, often touching herself suggestively. The photos never showed her face but they were definitely Ashley. Keri recognized her room. In one she could see the bookcase in the background with the old math book hiding her fake ID. In another she could see Ashley’s stuffed animal in the background, resting on her pillow with its head turned away, almost as if it couldn’t bear to watch. Keri felt the urge to throw up but forced it down.

      She went back to the phone’s main menu and tapped on Messages to see the girl’s texts. The erotic pictures from Photos had been sent one by one from Ashley to someone named Walker, apparently the guy with the six-pack. The accompanying messages left little to the imagination. Despite Mia Penn’s special connection with her daughter, it was starting to look like Stafford Penn understood Ashley much better than her mom did.

      There was also a text to Walker four days ago that said, Formally kicked Denton to the curb today. Expecting drama. I’ll let you know.

      Keri powered the phone off and