Chapter 4 - THE PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR
The man Mrs. Gable had called was waiting for us on her porch when I pulled up. He was in his late fifties, with a shaved head, a scar running down his left cheek, and arms like tree trunks covered in faded prison tattoos. He wore a black leather jacket even though it was seventy degrees out, and he was cleaning his fingernails with a switchblade that snapped open and shut with a sharp, menacing click. “Elias, this is Jax Colton,” Mrs. Gable said, not bothering with niceties. “Jax spent twenty years in San Quentin for armed robbery. Got out five years ago, got his PI license, and now he specializes in cases the cops won’t touch. Mostly because he’s willing to do the things they can’t. Jax, this is Elias Harris. The man I told you about.”
Jax looked me up and down, his eyes cold and assessing. He snapped the switchblade shut and tucked it into his jacket pocket.
“Construction worker,” he said. It wasn’t a question. “Good with your hands. Angry. Scared. That’s a dangerous combination, Harris. You sure you want to do this? Once we start down this road with Vance, there’s no turning back. He doesn’t lose. Not in twenty years. Not since that girl in Fresno.”
“I’m sure,” I said. “He’s got until tomorrow at four to get within ten feet of my daughter. After that? I don’t care what happens to me. I only care that he never hurts another kid again.”
Jax grunted, like that was the right answer. “Good. Let’s go inside. Mrs. Gable already sent me the camera footage. I’ve watched it twice. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover if we want to be ready by tomorrow.”
We sat at Mrs. Gable’s kitchen table until almost two in the morning. Jax spread out photos, court documents, and printouts from what he called his “private database”—information that definitely wasn’t available to the general public.
“Marcus Alan Vance,” Jax said, tapping a mugshot of Vance from 1998—drunk and disorderly, hair a mess, eyes bloodshot. “Fifty-two years old. Grew up rich in Atherton. Daddy was a surgeon, Mommy was a socialite. Never had to work for anything in his life. Graduated from UCLA Dental School in 1998. Moved to Oakhurst in 2008, bought the clinic from the old guy who retired. Married twice. Both ex-wives live out of state now. Neither will talk about him. Funny, that.”
He flipped to another page. “We already know about the 2014 acquittal. Sixteen-year-old Lila Martinez. Accused him of digital penetration during a filling. Vance’s lawyer—Jimmy Rooker, the best defense attorney in the Central Valley, costs five hundred dollars an hour—destroyed her on the stand. Brought up her shoplifting record from when she was twelve. Texts she’d sent to her friends about older guys. Made her look like a liar. Jury bought it. Lila dropped out of school two months later. Moved to Oregon with her aunt. Haven’t been able to track her down yet, but I’m working on it.”
“Any other accusers?” Mrs. Gable asked, sipping her third coffee of the night.
Jax nodded grimly. “Three that I’ve confirmed so far. All former patients. All between fourteen and seventeen when it happened. None of them went to the police. Two moved away. One’s still here in Oakhurst—works at the Starbucks on Main Street. Name’s Chloe Bennett. Nineteen now. Vance assaulted her when she was sixteen. Her parents wouldn’t believe her. Said she was just trying to get attention because Vance refused to give her free braces.”
He slid a photo across the table—a pretty girl with pink hair and a nose ring, wiping down a coffee machine. “I talked to her yesterday. Before Mrs. Gable even called me. I’ve been building a file on Vance for six months. My niece was in his waiting room last year. He tried to get her alone for a ‘private consultation.’ She ran out crying. Her parents didn’t do anything. But I don’t let people fuck with my family.”
His voice was flat, but the knuckles on his right hand were white.
“So here’s the play,” Jax said, leaning forward. “Tomorrow at four, Vance expects Josephine to show up at his clinic. Private exam room number three. That’s where he takes them. Soundproofed. No windows. He keeps the door locked from the inside. We can’t stop her from going—if she doesn’t show, he turns Rebecca in for the embezzlement. But we can make sure that whatever happens in that room tomorrow? Every second of it is recorded. Audio and video. High quality. Admissible in court.”
“How?” I said. “He’ll search her. He won’t let her bring a phone in there.”
“He won’t search her hair,” Jax said, pulling a small plastic bag from his jacket pocket. Inside was a tiny device, no bigger than the head of a pin, attached to a thin wire. “This is a nano-camera. Highest quality on the market. Used by the CIA until they started selling surplus on the dark web. We hide it in a hair clip. Josephine wears it in her hair tomorrow. The camera faces forward, picks up everything Vance does. The wire runs down her back, connects to a transmitter in the waistband of her underwear. Vance would have to strip her naked to find it. And even if he does... well, that’ll be on camera too.”
My stomach turned. “You want to use my daughter as bait.”
“I want to use the fact that Vance thinks he’s already won,” Jax corrected. “He’s arrogant. That’s his weakness. He thinks he controls everything—Rebecca’s embezzlement, Josephine’s fear, the sheriff’s department. He never expects the quiet little fifteen-year-old to be wearing a wire. And once we have him on tape admitting to the blackmail, admitting to what he’s done to all those other girls? Even his sheriff buddy won’t be able to save him. The FBI will get involved. This becomes a federal case. Vance spends the rest of his life in a cell with a guy named Bubba who thinks dentists are cute.”
He looked at me, his eyes hard. “But it’s your call, Harris. If you say no, we’ll find another way. But it’ll take longer. Weeks, maybe months. And I can’t promise he won’t hurt Josephine in the meantime. Or find another girl to replace her when he gets bored.”
I thought about Josephine under that bed, whispering “I won’t let them destroy me.” I thought about her standing up to Vance in the living room, calling him out on his lies. My daughter was braver than I’d ever been. Braver than I was right now.
“Okay,” I said. “But I’m going to be there. Outside the clinic. If anything goes wrong—if he so much as raises his voice to her—I’m breaking that door down. I don’t care about the evidence. I don’t care about anything.”
“Fair enough,” Jax said. “Mrs. Gable will be with you. Backup. And I’ll be inside the clinic, in the waiting room, posing as a new patient. If anything goes sideways, I’m through that door before Vance can even reach for his drill.”
We spent the next hour going over every detail. Jax would meet Josephine at school tomorrow before she left, show her how to wear the camera, talk her through what to do. “Let him talk,” he’d tell her. “Get him to admit to the other girls. To the blackmail. Don’t fight him unless he hurts you. Just keep the camera pointed at him.”
Mrs. Gable would drive me to the clinic. We’d park across the street, watch the front door. Jax would be inside, wired too, listening to everything.
At three in the morning, I finally left Mrs. Gable’s house. I drove home, parked in the driveway, and sat in the truck for a long time, looking at the dark windows of our house. Somewhere inside, Josephine was sleeping. Rebecca was probably drinking herself to sleep. And Vance was in his big house on Maple Street, sleeping like a baby, convinced he had all the power.
Not for long, I thought. Not for much longer.
I went inside through the back door, quiet as a mouse. I walked past Josephine’s closed bedroom door and paused. For a second, I almost knocked. Almost told her everything. That I knew. That I was sorry. That I was going to fix it.
But I didn’t. Jax was right. If Vance suspected anything, he’d disappear. He’d jump bail, move to Mexico, start over somewhere else with a new name and a new clinic full of new victims.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow it would all be over.
I went to the master bedroom. Rebecca was passed out on her side of the bed, an empty wine glass on the nightstand. I didn’t even look at her. I grabbed a pillow and a blanket from the closet and went downstairs to the couch.
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I didn’t sleep at all that night. I just lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, replaying every moment of the camera footage in my head. And I made a promise to myself, to Josephine, to every girl Vance had ever hurt:
Tomorrow, I’m not just a construction worker. Tomorrow, I’m the worst thing that ever happened to Marcus Vance.
