Dying For LA by Ian Jones (top fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

up at the camera and the other man wasn’t clear but his build was like Byeon.

‘There are more; we got these shots from Seattle PD.’

She passed round more prints, there was a mugshot of Kong, standard, and then two other photographs, one of him running down a street; the picture taken from high up and then another of him walking with two other men, taken from a patrol car camera. Kong was on the left, and the man in the centre looked similar to Byeon. It could be.

‘Also, Byeon had an old greyhound ticket in the pocket of his jacket. From Sacramento, dated October,’ Judy told them.

Warner whistled.

‘So, he been here four months? Maybe all of them came in from out of town?’

‘Plenty of time to start making friends,’ Keane stated.

‘For sure,’ Warner added.

‘And we got one more thing, which is again about Kong, indirectly. His record shows an associate in Seattle, one Rico Perez, Puerto Rican, thirty-two. He’s got a record for armed robbery among other things. Now this is only interesting for one reason. The PD got called to a fight at a bar in Echo Park, five or six guys involved. Perez was detained but released. This was end of January.’

‘So Perez is here in the city?’ Keane asked.

‘Seems so, well at least last month he was.’

They all looked at each other.

‘We need to find this Perez,’ John said.

‘Four million people in the city, give or take,’ Keane said ruefully.

John nodded.

‘I get that, but it’s a start. If he was detained, he would have given his details, right?’ he looked at Judy, who triumphantly produced yet another sheet of paper.

Keane looked at it.

‘Lynwood, that figures,’ he said.

Warner stood up, chair creaking as his bulk moved out.

‘What are we waiting for?’

Sammy kept looking at her mobile, but eventually gave it up. She would have to be patient, let Frost do his thing, whatever that was. She was tired, she had been working until three in the morning and back in the office at eight. She looked across at Simon who was busy tapping away on the keyboard of his PC.

‘I’m clocking off for a while,’ she told him.

He gave her a big smile.

‘No problem.’

‘If Moran asks, tell him to go fuck himself.’

He laughed.

‘I won’t be doing that, but I’ll think of something.’

She blew him a kiss and walked out the newsroom, and across reception, anticipating the whole time that Moran would appear and start giving her a hard time. But he didn’t, and she rode the lift down to the car park under the building. She climbed in her BMW and got going, heading home.

She was renting an apartment in Pomona, and she liked it well enough, apart from the journey. But today was pretty clear, the rush hour had not yet started so she made good time. Once inside she kicked off her shoes and went in to the bedroom, standing in front of the mirror, scrutinising herself, something which she had been doing every day for as long as she could remember. Her reflection looked back at her, well presented, perfectly made up.

She would never admit it but Moran’s open hostility had shaken her badly. She had been well aware of her power over men since she was a teenager, and used it well, she was always confident and assured. Her second divorce had been difficult, not because of personal feelings or any sense of loss but because it had been so loudly played out in public. In fact, she had read about her impending divorce before anything had even been said between them. Of course, she and Jason had gone out and said all the right things, they loved each other but decided this was the only way forward, they would always be very good friends etc., but this was the best thing for both of them. Please could everyone respect their privacy during this difficult time, etc. The reality was they had nothing in common, the initial fire had quickly died away and they both had numerous affairs. She hadn’t taken any of hers seriously at all, they had been a welcome distraction from her unhappy home life at the time, but Jason had decided he wanted a twenty-three-year-old pole dancer more than he wanted her. She had taken the LA Plus job because the timing was perfect and Indianapolis was suddenly way too small. Looking in the mirror she thought about Jason, the first time in forever, they had met when The Colts were flying high and he was the star, described in hushed terms as the best fullback in the NFL. She interviewed the team several times and it had seemed almost inevitable, the spark was obvious. When they got married, she was thirty-five and she had believed this was it, her life was mapped out. She had been happy, excited. A year in and everything was different already, but they made it work. Kind of. Publicly, anyway. Or so she thought.

But she realised too late that deep down she had known early on. They had both had.

She sighed and took off her dress and hung it up in the wardrobe carefully, then returned to stand in front of the mirror again, critically looking at her reflection, now in her underwear. Forty-three years old, and in the public eye for twenty-four of them. Body of an eighteen-year-old Jason used to tell her. No plastic surgery, and she didn’t have to hit the gym much. But she wasn’t feeling so good about herself anymore. She had moved here to start again, in a city where there was a long line of people just waiting for her to fail, and Moran was right at the front.

She needed to prove herself, that she wasn’t just a pretty face. As that clearly wasn’t working.

If she could find this British guy, that would do it. She wouldn’t need to feel so second rate. They had done a great job in the aftermath of the Metro attack, she