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“Rien? You know you’re not supposed to call me at this number,” Jake hissed into the phone.

“Hey, Jake, good to talk to you too.”

“Seriously, Rien—”

“Remember that time you almost got caught by your girlfriend with a body in your trunk and I drove it down to the dock for you?” I nodded to a woman walking her poodle as she passed by me.

“Rien, don’t—”

“I’m calling in the favor, Jake.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone. I could hear Jake shutting a door, and then his voice came back on the phone.

“Hell of a time to call, Rien. I’m in the middle of a big investigation. The whole lab is swarming with police right now, and not just the L.A.P.D. asshats. What do you want?”

“Can you run a search for me?”

“That’s it? That’s why you called me here?”

“It’s important. I need you to run a search on Susan Steadhill. Mask it. I don’t want anyone knowing you pulled the file.”

“Susan Steadhill?”

“There’s feds involved. I need to find her before they do.”

“I know there’s feds involved.”

“What? How do you know that?”

“What do you think the investigation is for? She’s a federal witness and they lost her. It’s all supposed to be very hush-hush.”

“I pinky promise not to tell anyone,” I said. “But if you hear about a lead, let me know. And pull that file.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Anything. Everything. And while you’re at it, anything you have on Sara Everett.” Saying her name into the phone felt wrong. I don’t know why. I shouldn’t trust anyone, not in my line of work. But it felt bad to mistrust her, for some reason. Jake was talking, but I hadn’t heard a thing he said.

“Sorry, what?” I asked.

“That’s one of the girls.”

“What?”

I stopped cold on the sidewalk. Two joggers scowled at me as they swerved around me onto the grass. How did Jake know about Sara?

“That’s one of the girls who went missing this past week. Your boss was the one who contacted me, that Vale guy. Creepy dude, even for a fed. He had me run them all.”

“What do you mean, run them all?”

“All females eighteen to thirty-five. Thirty-two missing persons matching that description across America. Three of them were the L.A. area, though. She was one of them.”

I licked my lip. My mouth was dry.

“Listen to me. Don’t tell Vale anything. Don’t tell him that I was here. If you can, find a way to drop Sara Everett from his roster.”

“Hey, I’m not getting involved.”

“Jake—”

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