Private L.A. (Private 6)

“They’re granting us blanket immunity in advance. I’m supposed to see a copy of the document by nine.”

“What do they expect us to do that they can’t?”

“I’m not sure they know,” I admitted. “Whatever it takes to get No Prisoners behind bars.”

“They should be forming a task force or something. Put a hundred men on it. Bring in Cal Justice investigators. Bring in the FBI.”

“City, county, and state are all cash strapped. I guess they see Private as the cheaper alternative. And they don’t want to cede authority to the bureau.”

“I still don’t like it.”

“I don’t either, but I gave my word, said we’d do it.”

Silence.

Another call came in. Mo-bot. I told Del Rio I’d call him the minute I heard anything from Chief Fescoe, hit ACCEPT, said, “Maureen.”

“Cynthia Maines just showed up in our lobby,” Mo-bot said. “She’s demanding to know why we’ve been calling her cell phone nonstop and screwing up the first vacation she’s had with her boyfriend in almost a year.”

Chapter 25

AT TWENTY-EIGHT AND five-foot four in a pale-gray dress with pearls and black pumps, Cynthia Maines was a hyper, articulate, and forceful woman who’d attended the University of Southern California’s famous film school and been hired almost immediately upon graduation as the Harlows’ personal assistant and eventually coproducer.

“So you must have been intimately involved in the details of Saigon Falls,” I said early in the conversation, setting a steaming coffee cup before her. She and I and Mo-bot were in my office.

“Is this why you’ve been calling me?” Maines asked in disbelief. “Look, I had a firm deal with Jen and Thom. I was to get three full weeks off, and it’s only been like four days and they’ve got you calling me nonstop? I’d like to know what’s going on. I’ve tried their cells, the ranch, and the apartment lines, and no answer.”

“Because they’ve disappear

ed,” I said.

Her head snapped back as if she’d been popped in the nose.

“What?”

“They’re gone,” I said. “Somewhere between the hours of six and eight p.m. three days ago, all of them disappeared except the dog, who we found terrorized in the help’s quarters. Where have you been the last few days?”

Maines seemed more than dazed, suddenly lost, groping to find her way through what I was telling her.

“Mammoth Lakes,” she said in a dull voice. “I was up there with Philip, my boyfriend. We rented a house and … what are the police telling you? Why isn’t it all over the news? Facebook?”

“Because no one knows, outside of the help; Private; and Sanders, Camilla Bronson, and Terry Graves, all of whom hired us to find you and the Harlows.”

Maines stared off for several seconds, then looked at us. “This is for real? I’m not being punked here?”

“It’s for real,” Mo-bot said. “Got any idea where they might be?”

“I know where they were supposed to be,” she replied. “They’d scheduled six days at home alone on the ranch. They wanted family time. And Thom was going to begin editing everything shot in Vietnam. Jennifer was going to work the logistics of the last scenes to be filmed at Warner in a couple of weeks.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” I said.

“I don’t know,” she insisted. “They could be anywhere. Where’s the jet?”

“In its hangar at Burbank,” Mo-bot replied.

Maines shook her head. “Then I have no idea. They could be anywhere, but that’s not really true. I mean, someone would see them.”

“Exactly,” I replied. “There is someone who claims to have seen Jennifer and Thom in Mexico the day before yesterday, very, very drunk.”