Trail of Echoes by Rachel Howzell Hall Page B

to find Tori alive this time. Still chasing hope like the French boy chasing that goddamned red balloon.

 
    17
    OurTimes was located on Crenshaw Boulevard, a mile from trail 5 in Bonner Park. The building did not exude the confidence and importance of downtown’s historic Times building with its murals, chevrons, and stainless steel. OurTimes lived in a single-story brown structure with smoked-glass windows and a modest sign tagged with BPS and crossed-out 40NHC .
    Colin had remained at his desk—I needed to handle Syeeda alone. And, now, I climbed out of the Crown Vic, the headache still thriving despite Advil chased by Diet Coke. The woody aroma of barbecue from the joint across the street rode atop the drizzle from gathering storm clouds. The cold air helped ease the headache, but the respite would be very temporary.
    Because Mike Summit, OurTimes ’s assistant editor in chief, all fake spray-tan and preternatural black hair, met me in the lobby.
    â€œSpeak of the devil,” he said.
    â€œThat’s Detective Devil,” I corrected.
    Mike and I had met many lives ago: I was a uniform, and he worked Metro. He was a poseur even then. Too scared to lift the city’s skirt and gape at the ugly, the scary, the what-the-fuckery that existed there. He didn’t like me much, although we hadn’t hung out together long enough for him to make a proper assessment. Ten minutes together, and I had assessed him plenty: dull, stupid, and humorless on his best days. The waxed Vandyke beard, the silver wire-rimmed glasses, the snakeskin boots, the lisp … His affectations grew like eyelashes—one flitting away only to be replaced by a thicker, shinier one.
    â€œI’m here to serve and protect,” I announced. “And you do what again?”
    Mike rolled his eyes. “You haven’t changed, I see. This way.”
    We didn’t speak again until we had reached a cold, dark cubicle next to a roaring copier. He pointed to the dank space. “Syeeda’s on a conference call. You can hang here for now.”
    I placed my bag on the desk. “Something wrong, Mike Summit?”
    His cheeks colored. “Other than the fact that you’re a power-hungry, badged thug in jack boots? Other than the fact that you beat Eli Moss—?”
    â€œAre we talking about the same asshole who tried to burn down my house with me in it?”
    â€œOther than the fact that you beat him to a pulp and got away with it?” he continued. “Other than the fact that the missing-girls story is my story and that I’m the one who initially reported on it months ago?”
    I glanced at the flickering light above me—the fluorescent tube was filled with fly and termite corpses. “Yeah. Other than that.”
    â€œOther than the fact that you are here right now because you’re friends with Syeeda?”
    I smiled. “Other than that, too.”
    â€œNarcissism, pure and simple,” Mike lisped. “I’m not gonna pretend otherwise. You know, Syeeda treats you with kid gloves. I had my own ideas—in particular, the lack of interest of law enforcement in this case, but did she want to hear them? Hell no. She had already decided to be sympathetic to you and your crew, who just stand around and sip coffee all day and let girls go dead and missing for days and weeks and months at a time.”
    I shrugged. “You got me. Girls are dead when I’m standing anywhere near them.”
    â€œAs far as I’m concerned,” he continued, “this is my assignment. I won’t say that this is reverse-discrimination, but I strongly suspect that it is.”
    â€œGet off the cross, Mike. People need the wood. And also? It’s nepotism, not ‘narcissism.’ And your way with words is probably why Syeeda is handling this story. That and the fact that you came to the Jungle that one time when we found the blue-haired hooker in the alley? It was