Chapter 51
BY NOON I was running on fumes, riding shotgun with Cruz driving the company Suburban. Justine was in the backseat. So were Sci and Mo-bot. Behind them were stacked boxes of forensics gear.
“I don’t believe the Mexicans,” Justine said for the fourth or fifth time. “The Harlows are down there, Jack. Or were.”
“I’m not saying they aren’t, or weren’t,” I replied. “But the kids can tell us more. And then we’ll decide if we need to go back to Mexico.”
Cruz barreled us into the Beverly Center parking lot ten minutes after Sanders called to say that we would find the children on level six of the luxury shopping mall, near the top of the Macy’s escalator and the Apple Store.
I caught up with Dave Sanders, Camilla Bronson, and Cynthia Maines on the escalator between levels four and five two minutes later. The Harlows’ lawyer was talking on his cell phone, head down, intent. The personal assistant looked like she’d been crying. The publicist wore dark sunglasses and scanned everywhere around her.
“Ms. Maines,” I said. “Surprised to see you here.”
“Camilla called last night,” Maines replied. “She thought I should be here.”
“Familiar faces,” Camilla Bronson said, still looking all around.
We rode the escalator to level six in a pack. Sanders spotted the children first. All three were sitting in wheelchairs, backed up against the wall beside the bustling Apple Store, directly across from the Traffic boutique. They had iPhones in their hands and stared at them like zombies.
“Malia!” Maines cried. “Jin! Miguel!”
But of the three, only Malia, the Harlows’ oldest adopted daughter, raised her head toward her parents’ personal assistant. Malia had high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes, which were bleary, red, cried out. She blinked at Maines a second, then said in a little girl’s voice, “Why are we here, Cynthia?”
“Oh, dear God,” Maines said, rushing to her, tears boiling down her cheeks. She embraced the girl. “You’re safe, Malia. You’re going to be okay. You’re all going to be okay. Jin? Miguel? I’m here. Cynthia’s here now.”
The other two children just continued to stare at the phones in their laps.
“They’ve been drugged,” Justine said.
“I agree,” said Mo-bot, and moved forward, carrying a medical kit. Over the years, she had somehow found the time to earn her EMT’s license, handy at moments like this. “We’re going to want blood samples.”
“Here?” Camilla Bronson said, horrified. “No. Get them out of—”
“Mamá?” Miguel said suddenly. The boy’s head had come up. Over the years he’d had several operations on his cleft palate, which made him look different from pictures I’d seen. He gazed around in bewilderment. “?Dónde está mi mamá?” He began to whine, and shook his arm violently free when Mo-bot tried to touch him. “Where’s Mommy?”
Jin began to cry as well.
Up until this point, Sanders had stood off to one side, unnerved by the children’s stupor. But now he saw that patrons leaving the Apple Store were looking at the upset children in the wheelchairs.
“Camilla’s right,” he said to me through gritted teeth. “We’ve got to get them out of here before—”
“Is that them?” cried a familiar skewer-sharp voice I’d heard just the night before. “The Harlow brats?”
I turned in shock. Bobbie Newton was leading the charge off the Macy’s escalator. She had two cameramen in tight tow.