The 6th Target

Chapter 85

I CINCHED THE SASH OF MY ROBE and padded barefoot to the door. I saw Rich Conklin through the peephole. He was wearing a flimsy clear-plastic shower cap on his head!

I was laughing as I undid the bolt, my hand shaking as I pulled open the door. Conklin was wearing his trousers, his blue cotton shirt unbuttoned to about his third rib. And he was gripping a Marriott toothbrush with the stem in his fist, like it was a small white flag.

"I was wondering if you have any mouthwash, Lindsay. I got a lot of moisturizer in the complimentary toiletry basket, but no mouthwash."

His serious expression, combined with the wacky request and the shower cap, cracked me up. I swung the door open wide, said, "I didn't get mouthwash either, but I think I have something in my handbag."

The door closed behind me, and as I stooped for the handbag I'd dropped on the floor, I stumbled over one of my shoes.

Rich grabbed my elbow to steady me, and there we were. Eye-to-eye. Woozy. Alone in LA in a hotel room. I reached up and pulled off the shower cap. His forelock of light-brown hair fell across his gorgeous face, and he dropped the toothbrush onto the floor. Then Rich put both arms around my waist and pulled me to him.

"I have only one problem with this working arrangement," he said. "And it's a big one."

Rich bent to kiss me, and I wanted him to. My arms went around his neck again, and his mouth found mine. Our first kiss set off a chemical explosion.

I clung to Rich as he lowered me to the bed in the dimly lit room. I remember lying beneath him, our fingers interlaced, his hands pressing my hands against the bed, saying my name softly, oh so gently.

"I've wanted to be with you like this, Lindsay, before you even knew my name."

"I've always known your name."

I ached for him, and I had a right to give myself over to this. But when my young, handsome partner opened my robe and put his lips to my breast, a bolt of pure reasoned panic pulled the emergency brake in my brain.

This had been a bad idea. Really bad.

I heard myself whisper, "Richie, no."

I clasped the edges of my robe together as Rich rolled onto his side, panting and flushed, looking into my eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"No, don't be." I took his hand and held it to my cheek, covered his hand with mine. "I want this as much as you do. But we're partners, Rich. We have to take care of each other. Just… not in this way."

He groaned as I said, "We can never do this again."

Chapter 86

I DROPPED THE KNOCKER ON THE DOOR of the Westwood Registry that sunless morning after our return from LA. Conklin stood beside me as a round-faced man cracked the door open. He was in his fifties, with blond-going-gray hair and clear gray eyes that peered at me through frameless lenses perched over a sharp beak of a nose.

Did he have something to do with Madison Tyler's abduction?

Did he know where she was?

I showed him my badge, introduced my partner and myself.

"Yes, I'm Paul Renfrew," said the man at the door. "You're the detectives who were here a few days ago?"

I told him that we were, that we had some questions about Paola Ricci.

Renfrew invited us inside, and we followed the natty man down the narrow hallway, through the green door that had been padlocked when we'd last seen it.

"Please. Please sit," Renfrew said, so Conklin and I each sat on one of the small sofas at right angles in a corner of the cozy office as Renfrew pulled up a chair.

"I suppose you want to know where I was when Paola was abducted," Renfrew said to us.

"That'd be a start," Conklin said. He looked tired. I suppose we both did.

Renfrew took a narrow notebook from his breast pocket, a thin daybook of the type that preceded handheld computers. Without prompting, he gave us a short verbal report of his meetings north of San Francisco in the days before, during, and after Paola's death, along with the names of the potential clients he'd met with.

"I can make you a photocopy of this," he offered. On a one-to-ten scale, ten being a three-alarm fire, the gauge in my gut was calling out a seven. Renfrew seemed too prepared and well rehearsed.

I accepted Renfrew's photocopy of his schedule and asked him about his wife's whereabouts during the same period.

"She's taking a slow tour through Germany and France," Renfrew told me. "I don't have a precise itinerary because she makes it up as she goes along, but I do expect her home next week."

I asked, "Do you have any thoughts about anyone who would have wanted to hurt Paola or Madison?"

"None at all," Renfrew told us. "Every time I turn on the television, I see another news story about a kidnapping. It's a virtual epidemic," he said. "Paola was a lovely girl, and I'm deeply distressed that she's dead. Everyone loved her.

"I met Madison only once," Renfrew continued. "Why would anyone do anything to such a precious child? I just don't know. Her death is a terrible, terrible tragedy."

"What makes you think Madison is dead?" I snapped at Renfrew.

"She's not? I just assumed… I'm sorry, I misspoke. I certainly hope you find her alive."

We were leaving the Westwood Registry when Renfrew's administrator, Mary Jordan, left her desk and followed us to the door.

Once outside in the dank morning air that was saturated with the smell of fish coming from the nearby market, Jordan put her hand on my arm.

"Please," she said urgently, "take me somewhere we can talk. I have something to tell you."

Chapter 87

WE WERE BACK AT THE HALL fifteen minutes later. Conklin and I sat with Mary Jordan in our cramped and grungy lunchroom. She clutched her container of coffee without sipping from it.

"After you left a few days ago, before Mr. Renfrew got back from his trip, I decided to poke around. And I found this," she told us, taking a photocopy of a lined ledger sheet out of her handbag. "It's from the Register. That's what they call it."

"Where did you find this, Mary?" Conklin asked.

"I found the key to the Renfrews' private office. They keep the Register in there."

I phoned the DA's office, got ADA Kathy Valoy on the phone. I filled her in, and she said she'd be down in a minute.

Valoy was one of those people who actually meant it when she said "a minute." She came into the lunchroom, and I introduced her to Mary Jordan.

"Did Sergeant Boxer or Officer Conklin ask you to retrieve these materials?"

"No, of course not."

"If you were asked by anyone to provide these materials," Valoy said, "that makes you an agent of the police, and we have to exclude the book this came from as evidence if there's a trial in the future."

"I did this all on my own," Jordan told the ADA. "So help me, God."

Valoy smiled, said, "Lindsay, we have to have lunch sometime." She waggled her fingers and left the lunchroom.

I asked Mary if I could see the paper, and she handed over a spreadsheet with headings across the top line – PLACEMENTS, CLIENTS, FEES – all entries dated this current calendar year.

The list of placements was made up of female names, most of them foreign. The clients' names, for the most part, had a "Mr. and Mrs." prefix, and the fees ran into the low five figures.

"All these girls were placed with these families this year?" I said.

Mary nodded, said, "Remember, I told you that a girl named Helga, one of the registry's na

"I remember."

"Well, I looked her up in the Register. Here she is," she said, stabbing at the page with a forefinger. "Helga Schmidt. And the people she was working for are here, too. Penelope and William Whitten."