Hollywood Taken Read online

  Robin and I discussed Daniel’s video message well into the night. He’d tried to be encouraging, telling me that maybe Daniel’s message had ended because of a malfunction of the camera. I knew that was unlikely. I couldn’t keep the thought out of my mind that Harlee Ryland had tracked down my brother and murdered him. The only solace I had was that Daniel’s video had somehow made it to Robin’s front door, giving me hope that he might still be alive. What happened made it all the more imperative that I talk to Ryland, but I wasn’t hopeful since I hadn’t heard from Cynthia McFadden after she’d promised to call John Greer.

  I tried to put those thoughts out of my mind as Bernie and I arrived at the station the next morning. On my way to my workstation, I saw that Jessica was packing up her desk. I went over and asked her what was going on.

  Jessica asked me to take a seat, then said, “I made a complaint about Hank making unwanted sexual advances toward me.”

  “Really?” I glanced around, not seeing her partner. “Don’t tell me they’re making you transfer because of him.”

  “No, it was my idea. I’ve decided I need new surroundings, so I put in a transfer to Harbor Division.”

  “I’m sorry to see you go. What about Hank?”

  “The last I heard, he was telling Van Ness he’s innocent and trying to get partnered with Jenny Goldfarb.”

  “Jenny from around the block?”

  She nodded. “One and the same. I heard she’s not only been around the block, but involved with half the officers in the department.”

  I saw that Olivia was waving to me from the door of the lieutenant’s office. I told her I’d be right there, then looked back at Jessica. “I’m going to give the captain my opinion about Hank being partnered with Jenny.” I stood, feeling sorry for Jessica. I doubted anyone would give her a going away party. “Let’s try to get together for lunch before you go.”

  “Thanks, I’d like that.” I saw that her eyes were heavy as she added, “I’m glad we’ve finally become friends.

  After Bernie and I joined Olivia in the lieutenant’s office, we chatted with Leo and Al for a moment. Jenny and Molly then joined us and Bernie trotted off to a corner when the lieutenant arrived. Byrd wasted no time giving us the bad news.

  “The DA took a preliminary look at everything last night. We’ve got forty-eight hours to put the case together on Laura Allman or she walks. The media is all over this, especially because Lance Worman and his assistant are involved, and, if they all walk, the powers that be won’t be happy about it.”

  “Laura Allman is the key to breaking things open,” Olivia said. “She knows who Matrona is, but is apparently so afraid of her that she’d rather go to jail than talk.”

  “Maybe she is Matrona,” Al said. “It could be that she knows our case is weak and is just playing out her hand.”

  “I agree that she might know we don’t have enough for the DA to charge her, but I think she’s covering for someone.”

  Leo spoke up. “Maybe we need to go back over the facts, see if we’ve missed something.”

  “Let’s just hit the high, or low points,” Byrd said, looking at Jenny and Molly. “We’re burning daylight on this.”

  The lieutenant had a whiteboard recently installed in his office, that he referred to as the murder board. Our crime analysts went over and began laying out the facts and a time line of events.

  Jenny, who had a rosy glow about her like she’d recently spent some time at the beach, put our victim’s name and identifiers on the board and began the summary.

  “Our investigation began with the murder of Anna Levkin, age nineteen, an au pair from Odessa, in the Ukraine. She went to work for Ben and Laura Allman in February of this year. We know that the Allmans went through a placement agency called APN, but as it turned out Anna was in this country illegally, on a forged J-1 visa and an altered passport. When those documents expired, she obtained a driver’s license as an undocumented person.”

  Jenny put that information on the board next to Anna’s name, then added the name Jason Murray to the display, drawing an arrow from Anna’s name to his. “Less than two weeks ago, Anna was seen entering the Crosby Hotel with an unknown man, possibly Murray. She was strangled, sexually assaulted, and a fresh tattoo with the designation M-5 was placed above her breast. A subsequent analysis of her cell phone, revealed there were several deleted messages with calls to burner phones. Analysis of some of those restored calls revealed Anna had been in touch with her mother in the Ukraine and wanted to come home. There were also messages indicating Anna had been hooking up with several men, probably under threats from Murray.”

  Molly took over. “In time, we realized that Jason Murray, or someone working with him, had taken control of Anna’s cell phone.” Jenny wrote Felicia Darrow’s name on the board as Molly brushed her auburn hair back and continued. “Anna’s best friend, eventually told us that Anna said she was being used for sex by Murray who had forced her into prostitution under threat of releasing sexually explicit photos of her on the Internet. Darrow said that Anna had sent her a message that she wanted out of what she referred to as the game. She also said that Anna had seen photos of other girls who had been killed, each marked with a tattoo containing the letter M, followed by a number.”

  Leo spoke up, mentioning that an interpreter had looked at Anna’s phone and eventually confirmed she was meeting men, at the urging of Marcus, an aka for Jason Murray.”

  “Then there’s the Allman’s daughter, Brook,” Jenny said, adding her name to the list and taking up the summary again. “She also eventually implicated Murray as possibly forcing Anna into sex acts, but denied knowing anything more.”

  Al chimed in. “And Murray eventually got what he had coming. He was murdered using a method of Russian torture. His phone revealed that he had sexually explicit photos and videos of both Anna and Zoe Saldana, as well as calls to burner phones.”

  “And, as we know, Zoe committed suicide behind similar circumstances to Anna’s,” I said, as Molly put her name and date of death on the board. “She left a suicide note, telling her parents that a woman who called herself Marsha and a man named Marcus were blackmailing her into sex acts. Terry Wilson, a student at city college where Anna and Zoe had attended confirmed that Murray used the moniker Marcus and was recruiting girls for sex, including Zoe and a girl named Donna. We eventually learned that Donna Roberts was also a student at city college, sextorted into prostitution like the other girls. Donna admitted working her way up to the higher end clientele, including an A-list actor.”

  Jenny took over again as Molly updated information on the murder board. “Chloe Foster, the placement worker for Anna at APN, eventually admitted that about three years ago Ben Allman came to her agency looking for an au pair. Foster told Allman that her parents were from the Ukraine, something that got his interest. She said Allman eventually took control of her phone and obtained sexually explicit pictures of her. He used the photos to blackmail her into finding girls from the Ukraine and Russia and to falsify their immigration paperwork.

  “Foster said Allman used Murray and others, who were called Matchmakers, to find girls they helped sextort into prostitution. She told us the newest girls in the game were called Daisies. As the girls would eventually work their way up in the game, they became Angels or Swags, hooking up with high-end clients that were referred to as Rollers. Foster also told us the name of the game is Prank. She said the game’s controller is someone named Matrona.”

  Molly added two names to the board, saying, “We eventually learned that a paparazzi named Lance Worman and his assistant Vasilisa Popov were also involved in the game. Popov eventually told us that Worman worked with Ben Allman, and said she believes the identify of Matrona is known by Laura Allman.”

  “Which brings us full circle,” Lieutenant Byrd said. “Back to Laura Allman who’s not talking.” He looked around the room. “So, where do we go from here?”

  “Maybe we take another crack at Allman,”
Al said. “I still think she’s Matrona and she thinks she’ll eventually walk.”

  Byrd looked at the rest of us, raising his silver brows.

  I gave him my opinion. “Laura Allman spent a night in jail, so we can see if that motivated her to talk, but I’m not hopeful.”

  “Any other ideas?” he asked, looking at Olivia and Leo.

  When the room was silent, he said to Leo, “Why don’t you, Al, and Olivia go back to Allman, see what you can get. We’ll regroup when you get back.”

  “What about me?” I said.

  After the others had left the office, Byrd closed the door closed and said, “It looks like Bronson had a change of heart. You’ve been cleared to talk to Harlee Ryland.”

  My pulse quickened. “I’ll give Joe Dawson and call and make the arrangements.”

  “No need. Dawson’s on his way. He should be here in about ten minutes.”

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  “You didn’t have to come all this way,” I told Joe a half hour later as he drove me to Metropolitan Detention Center, or MDC, in downtown Los Angeles. “I don’t need a baby sitter.”

  Joe smiled, cutting his eyes to the review mirror and eyeballing Bernie. “I know, but I figured you needed a dog walker.”

  Bernie, maybe sensing he was the topic of discussion, pushed his big head up from the back seat and I ran a hand through his fur.

  “So, what’s new with you?” I asked.

  “Just out there saving asses.” Another smile. “Not kissing them.”

  “You never change.”

  “And you?”

  I thought about my police chief. “Working with asses.”

  He laughed. “That’s my girl. So, you survived Napa okay?”

  “Back from exile and back in the thick of it.” I took some time, telling about my current case, the sexploitation of undocumented girls, and the game called Prank. “It feels like we’re close to finding the head of the game, but can’t quite get there.”

  “Sounds familiar. Stick with it, something will break.”

  We rode in silence as Joe pulled off the freeway in downtown Los Angeles. He then said, “By the way, your reporter friend is very persuasive.”

  “Cynthia?”

  “Yeah. Greer agreed to twist your chief’s arm thanks to her, but he wants something in return.”

  “As in?”

  He took a breath, cut his eyes to me. “Even though Harlan is dead and Harlee’s on ice, the Swarm is still out there. See what you can get out of her on the other players.”

  “I’ll try, but you know what, or I should say, who, we’re dealing with.”

  He nodded. “I know. It’s just that Greer thinks this is our chance to kill the Swarm.” He smiled. “Use your bug spray, kid.”

  “Consider it done.”

  The MDC, was a part of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, located on Alameda Street, two blocks from the U.S. District Court. It housed both male and female inmates pending trial. The building had a distinctive design, making it look like a high-rise office building, with rooms rather than cells, and none of the traditional iron bars. There were, of course, areas that were an exception to that design, including the high security wing where Harlee Ryland was being housed.

  After telling Joe that I would text him when I was finished, he let me off in front of the building and I made my way inside the secure perimeter of the prison. I moved through various checkpoints until I got to the high security area. That’s when I learned Harlee Ryland was not there.

  “Your inmate is on ADX status,” an African-American guard named Jerry Druthers told me. “That means she’s being sent to an undisclosed supermax prison as soon as arrangements can be made. In the meantime, we’ve got her in our fail-safe section.”

  “What’s that?”

  He smiled. “You’ll see.”

  Druthers led me down a series of corridors until I got to a room the size of a small warehouse. It had a series of interlocking cages, each one leading to another.

  As we moved through the maze with two other guards, Druthers said, “The design is meant to control any potential access to an inmate. Each guard has a key that opens a cage adjacent to the next one. No one guard can access an inmate, without assistance from the other. It’s similar to what’s used in ballistic missile silos.”

  After being led inside what seemed like an endless series of cages, we stopped in the center of the maze where I was told to take a seat and wait. Several minutes passed while I heard the jangle of keys as they brought Harlee Ryland closer to my cell. I was startled when a door clanked open and I realized that Harlee was a couple cages away from me. As she was brought into the cage adjacent to mine and secured to a table with chains, her eyes locked onto me.

  The last time I’d seen her, Harlee Rylan had been a striking woman, with long dark hair and caramel-colored eyes. The few days she’d been in custody appeared to have changed her. Ryland’s complexion was sallow, her hair matted. I had the impression she’d given up on her appearance, maybe knowing that she would never again see the light of day.

  “It’s your show,” Druthers said to me as he moved out of my cage and the guards locked the door behind him.” He glanced at his prisoner. “Good luck.”

  “Bitch,” Harlee spat at me after Druthers was gone. Her tone was brittle, her eyes full of hate. “I guess you know my grandfather is dead.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” I said, even though I wasn’t and had no sympathy for her.

  Laughter split the air. “I’ll bet. Save your breath.”

  I had been filled with anxiety about meeting with her, now those feeling turned to anger. I despised Harlee Ryland and decided to make no attempt to hide it.

  “I’m here because of Daniel,” I said, locking eyes with her. “Where is he?”

  There was more laughter. “We’ll get to that soon enough. I understand you talked to his adoptive mother.”

  I nodded. “She told me that you killed Daniel’s mother...your own mother.”

  Her dark eyes fixed on me. “It was required. I’m glad she’s dead.”

  I was horrified. It again hit home that I was dealing with a cold-blooded sociopath, who had no sense of remorse or compassion.

  “Who required it?” I said.

  “My grandfather, of course. It was all about paybacks and protecting the Swarm.”

  I shook my head. “You’re sick.”

  “Maybe, but who are you to judge? Look at yourself. Your father was a cheating liar, who stole from my grandfather. He deserved to die.”

  “So you say.”

  She smiled. “Daniel’s father being your adoptive father is an interesting relationship. It makes us related by circumstance, rather than biology. I think that’s special. We’re like sisters.”

  “We’re as far from being sisters as anyone could ever get. Let’s get back to Daniel.”

  “Not yet. The last time we met, you wanted to know about your biological father.”

  My pulse raced. “What do you know about him?”

  She hissed out a long breath and smiled. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

  I put my hands on the iron bars and leaned closer to her. We were now less than three feet apart. “Tell me, please.”

  Harlee studied me for a long moment. “Why do you care about him? He abandoned you as a child, just like everyone in your life has walked away.”

  What she’d said struck home. I steadied my nerves and said, “That might be true, but I still need to know the truth.”

  She yawned. “I’m tired and really don’t want to talk about him.”

  I studied her for a long moment. It was apparent that secrets were power for her and I wasn’t going to get anything more about my father.

  I remembered Joe telling me about John Greer’s request. “Tell me about the Swarm. Who’s in charge now?”

  A half-smile played on her lips. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  “Try me.”

  She soft
ened her tone. “There’s a new recruit who is moving into position to become a power player.”

  My eyes narrowed on her. “Who are you talking about?”

  Her smile grew wider. “Someone you know.”

  I released my hands from the bars and shook my head, both out of anger and pity. “I think you’re just playing games.”

  She lowered her voice. “Come closer.”

  I took stock of what was happening, realizing that I might never have a chance to talk to her again. I grasped the bars again and leaned in.

  Her face was slick with perspiration, her eyes wide. “I know about Daniel’s video tapes, how he told you that he would be dead if you received them.”

  My heart against my ribcage. “Where is he?” She didn’t respond. “Answer my question. What happened to my brother?”

  Her voice was soft, just short of a whisper. “Daniel is alive.”

  “You’re holding him prisoner, aren’t you?”

  The smile was still there as she shook her head. “No. He’s one of ours now.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Ryland leaned closer to me. Her dark eyes were like the entrance to a forbidden world that was both terrifying and sinister. “Daniel has been turned. Your long-lost brother is now under my control. He’s the new player, moving into a position of power.”

  My fingers tightened on the iron bars as my voice rose. “You’re lying.”

  Her smile was full of power and superiority as her words pierced my heart. “Daniel is now part of the Swarm.”

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  “I don’t think I’ll ever see my brother alive,” I told Joe.

  He’d picked me up at the detention center and drove to a nearby small park between a couple of office buildings. Bernie led us over to a stand of trees where I’d told Joe everything Harlee had said.

  I went on. “If what she said is true, it means Daniel will be used in their terrorist activities. It also means that he has a target on his back.”

  Joe pushed a hand through his short hair that I’d noticed had a few more streaks of gray since I’d last seen him. “Maybe she’s just playing you, trying to get under your skin.”