Gathering Dark by Candice Fox (best life changing books txt) 📕

“Tasik,” she said again as she arrived. “I’m Jessica Sanchez. Third floor. We did our weapons cert together last November?”

“Oh, right.” Tasik looked down at her, at the people around them who were slowly waking to her presence. “I remember. Commiserations on the … uh.”

Jessica waited, forced him to finish.

“The video.” He shrugged. “Complete bullshit. Nobody needs to be caught out like that. Those guys should have turned off their cameras.”

“Thanks.”

“You looked good, if you don’t mind me saying,” he added. “It might be some consolation. Everybody agrees. You were red hot.”

“It’s no consolation,” Jessica said. “At all. Can we get down to business? I want to talk to you about a missing person. Dayly Lawlor.”

“Oh, yeah.” Tasik turned and sat on his desk, rubbed a hand over his blond stubble. “Isn’t that a mess.”

“What kind of mess?”

Tasik shook his head. “That was a good girl, you know? Some kind of animal studies person. Steady job. No jacket. Then she falls off the wagon for some reason and gets all wrapped up with a bunch of lowlifes. Probably daddy issues. It usually is.”

“Which lowlifes?” Jessica sat beside him.

“It’s like this. A few months ago I was doing a ride-along and write-up on a young patrol officer going for a promotion. I’m in the back of a wagon and my guy pulls over this rolling hotbox on Sunset jammed with idiots. We got Trammon Willis and Sean Sykes in that car, a couple of other meatheads, and this kid I’ve never heard of, a girl. Dayly Lawlor.”

“Willis and Sykes are Crips.”

“Yah,” Tasik said.

Jessica thought, watched the officers going by outside the window.

“So the guys all eat whatever drugs they’ve got on them as we’re pulling up behind them,” Tasik continued. “The driver’s bugging out, hard. I was sure it was all just a waste of time. But then my guys look in the trunk and they find a duffel bag with two AR-15s in it.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Yeah.” Tasik nodded. “The driver tried to do a runner. Bolted, got taken down by some teenagers standing outside a boxing gym in a citizen’s arrest. They split his head open like a coconut on the pavement. Hilarious. We look, and there’s worrying stuff in the bag besides the guns. Wads of cash. Five ski masks. Five kids in the car; five ski masks. That doesn’t look great, does it?”

“What does Dayly say about it all?”

“Well, when I finally get her to stop crying, she tells me she knows nothing about the bag. For once, I believe what I’m hearing. She says she was just catching a ride from one gathering of bottom-dwellers to the next. Says she didn’t even know she was at a Crip party.”

“All the blue do-rags didn’t clue her in?” Jessica asked. Tasik rolled his eyes.

“Anyway, the kid is losing her mind. Keeps telling me she’s never been in trouble before. She’s right to freak out, too. They booked the four guys. They’re going to trial. Sean Sykes was on probation. He’ll go back for seven years if they pin this on him.”

“So, what, you think the morons in the car have asked her to take the rap for the guns because it’s a first offense? She said no and now they’re after her?”

“Everybody but Sykes bailed on the charges.” Tasik shrugged. “It’s one of the theories I’m working on. Pinning the bag on Dayly would be an easy out for them.”

“What other theories have you got?”

“What’s your interest in this case?” Tasik glanced at his watch.

“You had someone come in and inquire about it. Blair Harbour.”

“Right.” Tasik nodded. “That was weird. She’s that rich bitch who popped her neighbor over in Brentwood. You know her?”

“I bagged her,” Jessica said.

“Yeah, well, she’s friends with Dayly’s mother, I think. Came in trying to make anonymous inquiries. I told her to fuck off.”

Jessica waited for more. There was none. Tasik picked up his backpack.

“And it was Dayly who stole Blair Harbour’s car that night.” Jessica watched Tasik carefully. “You knew that, right?”

“What? No. Harbour didn’t mention that. I’ll have to track that down, see if the car has been found,” he said. “Who told you that?”

“Harbour.”

“You’re talking to her?”

“She came trying to make inquiries. I told her to fuck off.” Jessica smiled.

“Wise choice.”

“So what did you do with the kid on the night you picked her up in the car full of douchebags?”

“I didn’t book her,” Tasik said. “I told the guys to hold off. She seemed to me like a kid walking the line, you know? So I didn’t want something stupid like this to be the thing to tip her.” He rubbed his face, tired. “Maybe I was being too soft. Just a week earlier, I had a real tear-jerker dropped on me. This kid I’d been watching circling the drain for a while got pushed in front of a train by his supposed best friend. It was over a bag of dope. Victim had just got accepted into Harvard. Can you believe that?”

“Crazy.”

“These people”—he shook his head—“they’re animals. Once you get in among them, you’re part of the group. There’s no escape. You start limping and the rest start moving in, wanting their share of meat. They’ll pick off their own if they have to. They’ve got the herd mentality and the scavenger mentality.”

“Right,” Jessica said. She was thinking about predators and prey, about Ada Maverick watching Sneak swim laps in the pool.

“Harbour and the mother will only have popped up to get their share of whatever Dayly’s into before the girl goes off the radar completely. Me? I think the kid’s probably dead in the desert somewhere. But you never know. Maybe she’s in New York or something, starting over.”

“Can I have a copy of the file? Just so I can put it to bed.”

“Be my guest.” Tasik handed her a stack of papers from the desk. “But let me warn you. You don’t want to get involved. Nothing good can come from these people.