“He told me he knew what I’d done, and said that if my old company filed charges there was no chance I would avoid going to prison for at least a couple of years. Then he told me it was possible he might be able to take care of things, if I was interested.” She paused. “I have a cousin who went to prison. He wasn’t the same when he was released. It changed him. Hollowed him out. I was scared to death that would happen to me. So, why wouldn’t I be interested?”
“And in exchange for this?”
She hesitated. “He wanted me to do something.”
“Set Elyse up.”
“No. No, not at all. I mean, I guess that’s what he really wanted, but that’s not how it was presented to me.”
Logan waited.
“Mr. Andrews said all I had to do was move in with some girls in Westchester, and keep an eye on one of them while pretending to be a student.”
“Elyse?”
“Yeah.”
“Did he tell you why he wanted you to keep an eye on her?”
“Not exactly. He just implied that she might have been involved in something she shouldn’t have been. You know, kind of like what I had been doing.”
“What did you think this ‘something’ was?”
“Honestly, I didn’t care. Mr. Andrews said he’d make sure the case against me was dropped, and told me he would even pay me a salary while I was doing the job for him. That sounded a hell of a lot better than going to jail.”
“Doesn’t sound like you think that now.”
She looked out the window and didn’t respond.
“So you’ve been watching her since January?” he asked to get her back on track.
“They…had to get one of the other girls to move out first,” she finally said. “That took a few weeks. Then they made sure I was ready, and I answered the ad for a new roommate.”
That was three months, plus the planning time before it, and more time getting Angie ready. This was no spur-of-the-moment action.
“So what did they have you do?”
“I was supposed to become friends with her, but we didn’t exactly click, so…” She shrugged. “We hung out sometimes, but not very much. I just kind of kept tabs on when she was around and who she talked to.”
“And who did you give the information to? Ryan?”
She laughed. “I didn’t even know Ryan was part of it until last week. He moved in about a month after I did, when the people next door moved out. But, apparently, Mr. Andrews didn’t think it was necessary to let me know who he was right away.”
“So you reported to Mr. Andrews directly.”
She shook her head. “No. Aaron.”
“How?”
“He’d come over every once in a while. We pretended like he was an old friend of mine.”
“And him hitting on Elyse and Joan? That was part of the plan, too?”
“I don’t know. I just went with it.”
Logan sat for a moment, shaking his head. “Once you were there, did you seriously think Elyse was involved in anything illegal? I mean, come on. You’ve got a brain, don’t you? You must have realized something weird was going on.”
“I tried not to think about it, okay?” she said, defensively. “I just did what I was told so I could get my life back.”
“At the expense of someone else’s.”
She said nothing for a moment, then, “Did they really kill Anthony?”
“Well, tell me this? Was Anthony the kind of person you’d think might take his own life?”
“Suicide? No way.”
“Then, yeah. They killed him.”
“But why would they do that?”
“I thought maybe you could tell me.”
“I have no idea.”
“None at all?”
“No.”
“You did say he was with Elyse when they took her.”
She thought for a moment. “Yeah. Maybe he tried to stop them. I don’t know.”
“Ryan and Aaron, were they like you? Doing jobs to get their names cleared?”
“We never talked about it, but I don’t think so.”
By then they had transitioned from the 405 to the northbound I-5. If they kept going they’d soon be out of L.A., on their way to Bakersfield. No longer worried she’d jump out, Logan exited the freeway, then reentered it going south, taking them back the way they’d come.
“Tell me about when she disappeared,” he said.
“I already told you I wasn’t there.”
“But you knew about it.”
“Only after it happened. Anthony picked her up, and they went out to dinner. An hour or so later, Ryan came over and told me she wouldn’t be coming back, and I had to play dumb, act