CHAPTER SEVEN
Detective Rachel Carter had the look of someone who'd seen too much and stopped being surprised by any of it.
She sat across from Kari in a cramped interview room at L.A.PD's Missing Persons Unit, a paper cup of cold coffee untouched beside her elbow, her eyes sharp despite the exhaustion that lined her face.
The room itself was a study in institutional neglect.
Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, one of them flickering in a rhythm that was already giving Kari a headache.
The walls were painted a shade of beige that might once have been cheerful but had long since faded to something closer to despair.
A water stain in one corner suggested maintenance requests went unanswered here.
"So let me make sure I understand," Carter said, leaning back in her chair and folding her arms. "You're a tribal police detective from Arizona, you have no jurisdiction here, and you want me to open a missing persons case on an adult woman who's been gone for two days and has a history of running away. "
"That's the gist of it."
Carter was in her mid-forties, Kari guessed, with short gray-streaked hair and the kind of no-nonsense demeanor that came from decades of police work.
She wore no jewelry except for a simple watch, and her blazer had the slightly rumpled look of something that had been lived in for too many hours.
Everything about her suggested competence worn down by chronic understaffing and impossible caseloads.
"You know how many missing persons reports we get in this city every year?" Carter asked.
"I can imagine."
"Twelve thousand. Give or take. That's about thirty-three people every single day who someone thinks have vanished.
" Carter picked up her coffee cup, seemed to remember it was cold, and set it back down.
"Most of them walk back through their front doors within forty-eight hours.
Runaways who change their minds. Spouses who needed a break.
Adults who decided to ghost their families for a while.
The ones who don't come back..." She shrugged.
"We do what we can with what we have. Which isn't much. "
"I'm not asking you to drop everything and search for Tayen. I'm asking you to listen to what I've found and tell me if it sounds like nothing."
Something in Kari's tone must have registered, because Carter's expression shifted from weary dismissal to reluctant interest. She uncrossed her arms and leaned forward.
"Alright, Detective Blackhorse. I'm listening. But I've got a meeting in twenty minutes, so make it count."
Kari laid it out as concisely as she could.
Tayen's disappearance the same day her aunt reached out.
The deleted Glimmer account that had been active for eighteen months.
The roommate's revelation that other models from Elite Vision had vanished without explanation over the past year and a half.
A girl named Amanda who'd been Tayen's friend, who the agency claimed had gone back home but whose roommate didn't believe it.
"The roommate said Amanda was scared before she left," Kari continued. " Scared of what, she wouldn't say, but something had her spooked. And now Tayen's gone too, right after Amanda."
Carter's expression had been changing throughout Kari's recitation, looking less skeptical, more intrigued. At Amanda's name, she turned to her computer and typed something, her frown deepening as she read what appeared on the screen.
"Amanda Escalante, by any chance?" she asked.
"I don't know her last name. The roommate just called her Amanda. Said she was one of the Elite Vision models."
Carter turned the monitor so Kari could see.
A young woman's face filled the screen, part of what looked like a police report.
Dark-eyed and beautiful, with high cheekbones and full lips.
Kari recognized her immediately from Tayen's Glimmer photos, where Amanda had appeared in several group shots at industry events.
"That's her. That's the girl who disappeared."
"She didn't disappear." Carter's voice was flat, carefully neutral in a way that suggested the information she was about to share was significant.
"Amanda Escalante was found dead two days ago in her apartment.
Apparent drug overdose. Patrol handled it as a routine OD.
Case came through my desk yesterday because she was young and from out of state, so we had to notify next of kin in Arizona. "
The words hit Kari like a physical blow. Dead. Not missing, not relocated, not gone home to wherever she came from. Dead.
"The roommate didn't know," Kari said, her mind racing through the implications. "She said the agency told her Amanda went back home. That she'd decided modeling wasn't for her. She had no idea Amanda was dead."
"The agency told her that?" Carter's eyebrows rose. "Escalante died two days ago. Why would the agency be telling people she went home instead of telling them the truth?"
"I don't know. But Tayen disappeared the same day Amanda died. And now Jade—Tayen's roommate, another Elite Vision model—has no idea her friend is dead. The agency is actively lying to their own people about what happened." Kari leaned forward. "Detective, something is very wrong here."
Carter was quiet for a moment, scrolling through the Escalante file. The fluorescent light above them flickered again.
"There's something else," Carter said slowly. "The responding officers noted that the paramedic on scene had concerns about the pills."
"What kind of concerns?"
"Said the bottles were arranged too perfectly on the nightstand, like someone had placed them there deliberately.
The suicide note was typed and printed, which isn't unusual, but the language seemed off to him.
Too formal, too detached. Not the way someone in that kind of emotional state usually writes.
" Carter scrolled through more text. "Officers wrote it up as speculation from someone unfamiliar with how these things usually look.
Said the modeling industry is full of eating disorders, substance abuse, depression.
Another tragic casualty of an unforgiving business. "
"But the paramedic disagreed."
Carter nodded. "His name is Victor Ruiz. He's been on the job fifteen years." She looked up from the screen. "Fifteen years of responding to overdoses, suicides, accidents. That's a lot of experience to dismiss because it doesn't fit the convenient narrative."
Kari thought about her mother's files, the seventeen cases Anna had documented. How many of those deaths had been investigated by officers who saw what they expected to see? How many had been closed as accidents or natural causes because that was easier than asking uncomfortable questions?
"Is there any way I could talk to Ruiz?" she asked.
"I can get you his contact information." Carter closed the file and looked at Kari directly.
"Look, Detective Blackhorse. I can't officially open a case on your missing girl.
She's an adult, she left voluntarily once before, and two days isn't nearly enough time to assume foul play, especially in a city this size.
Half the people reported missing here turn up within a week with stories about spontaneous road trips or new boyfriends or mental health breaks. "
"But?"
"But the Escalante death bothers me now that you've given me context. An agency lying to people about how one of their models died. Another model vanishing the same day. A veteran paramedic who thought the scene was staged." Carter drummed her fingers on the desk. "That's a lot of coincidences."
"What are you suggesting?"
"I'm suggesting that you're welcome to keep looking for your cousin's niece.
You're not breaking any laws by asking questions, as long as you don't misrepresent yourself as having authority you don't have.
And if you happen to find something that connects Tayen's disappearance to Amanda's death, or to other missing women from that agency.
.." Carter slid a business card across the table.
"You call me. Day or night. That's my cell on the back. "
Kari took the card and tucked it into her wallet. "I will."
"One more thing." Carter pulled up another file on her computer, typing with the rapid efficiency of someone who spent most of her life in front of screens.
"Elite Vision Modeling. I knew I'd heard that name before.
Give me a minute." She scrolled, typed again, scrolled some more.
"Here. Three years ago, a complaint was filed against a photographer who worked frequently with Elite Vision models.
Blake Montgomery. Several young women alleged he was aggressive during shoots, made inappropriate comments, touched them without consent, created a hostile working environment. "
"What happened to the complaint?"
"Dropped. All four women withdrew their statements within a month of filing.
Said they'd misunderstood his artistic process, that the industry was just more intense than they'd expected, that they didn't want to damage his career over a misunderstanding.
" Carter's tone made clear what she thought of that explanation.
"All four of them. Same language, almost word for word. "
"Someone coached them."
"That's what the investigating officer thought, but without anyone willing to testify, there was nothing to pursue.
Montgomery's still working. Still shooting for Elite Vision, among other agencies.
His reputation in the industry is that he's difficult but brilliant.
" Carter closed the file. "You know what that usually means. "