A/N: This chapter contains adult themes and some strong language but is far from the unvarnished truth that is the reality of the subject matter.

Chapter Fifty Five:

"Take forgiveness, take a prayer, take the deepest breath

Take the answers in your heart

When you wake up and the world is cruel and cold

My love follows you where you go.

Future like a promise, you're a city of Gold

Stubborn in your bones and Jesus in your soul

Seeing you stand there, staring at the unknown

I won't pretend that it's not killing me

Watching you walk away slow."

My Love Follows You Where You Go, Alison Krauss & Union Station

Tuesday, November 18, 1997 – Los Angeles, CA

It was late afternoon when Angela Kim passed Enos on her way to the break room and asked several times if he wanted some coffee. He was so deep in thought he apparently didn't hear her. With a sigh, she looked over at Thompson who just shook his head, motioned for her to forget it and move on, then kept one eye on Strate and the other on De Pina. She wasn't giving any indication she had noticed but that didn't mean she hadn't.

For the last fourteen days, and in sharp contrast to the chaotic week before that, Strate had been quiet, docile even. He stayed at his desk, never asking to be taken off light duty, performing whatever task was put before him, no matter how trifling, and had been religiously obedient to doctor's orders. When asked, he simply said he would just be glad when he got his badge back. Then he and Thompson would meet in the evening at Kay's after shift to work on piecing together what happened to Kate after she was abducted.

It was apparent that he had recovered physically. He'd undergone his psyche evaluation yesterday to determine if he was emotionally and psychologically ready to go back out on the streets with a badge and a gun and he was waiting for the results.

But Thompson noticed that Inez watched him as though he was a bomb; tick, tick, ticking away until the moment of that one last tick, just before the explosion. Strate had been staying with Kay since the day Daisy Duke left. He had pegged De Pina as a scrappy fighter, hanging in there until the last, not giving up. But she seemed to be keeping a respectable distance. 'Maybe he was wrong about her emotional investment in Strate.'

When nothing went boom, Thompson went back to his report while Enos used extreme prejudice to erase the life out of something he had written on the piece of scrap paper in front of him and then burned another file onto disc.


When Mollaret had been the procurer of Kate's upper crust clients, he'd been known as Etienne Baptiste Hebert. That was the name and identity under which Inez and Enos had served the warrant and made the arrest in March, 1988.

The warrant that was originally issued for Hebert was based on Kate's eyewitness statements and evidence she had gathered at the time. He'd been her pimp, her controller, and eventually the object of her campaign to do whatever it took to stop him from his side activity, using and abusing children in the dark world of the pornography trade. It was only later, when the warrant was issued and they searched his rooms and office that the extent of his criminal activity was evidenced.

Faced with charges of child molestation in California in 1988, Hebert jumped bail and fled to Canada. Conviction on felony charges of child pornography and sexual abuse of a minor, both federal crimes, would have carried a likely penalty of up to fifteen years in a state prison that housed murderers and other bottom feeders with one mutual hatred of 'chomos.' Prison could be a living hell for pedophiles. Other inmates, many of whom had children on the outside, saw it as a badge of honor to return the abuse. For those without children or on the lower rungs of the ladder, killing or beating senseless a child molester meant moving up the prison hierarchy.

When he was arrested in Quebec under the name of Baptiste Arceneau for drug trafficking, there were no extradition applications filed. He wasn't recognized as the subject of an outstanding warrant in California, USA, nor were his fingerprints cross referenced in any shared database. Few existed in 1989 and those that did were not computerized or shared in a way that would connect the dots. He had done jail time, but not for the most heinous offense.

Now that it was strongly suspected Kate had been carried over state lines on commercial transport, the LAPD was working with the FBI to build a profile on Mollaret, aka Hebert, aka Arceneau. Having sprung fully grown under the Hebert alias from a small town on the Mississippi coast, he had moved his way toward New Orleans in 1981. The FBI was still working on his original identity but the consensus was that he obviously preferred French Acadian or Cajun names and Baptiste seemed to be a common factor in the names he chose.

Under the alias Arceneau, Hebert had been released from the Quebec prison five months ago. The LAPD file picked back up from there and backtracked his arrival in Los Angeles, where Hebert had now become Mollaret at the end of July, with both means and opportunity. Enos was able to fill in some of the blanks for the profile as it pertained to motive and Hebert's connection to Kate Broussard. It had been personal against Kate, and for good measure, against him. The profile they had assembled over the past two weeks was a textbook case of drug fueled paranoia and payback.

Hebert and Kate already had history before she arrived in L.A. He'd been the manager of a shabby-chic, trendy restaurant in the Faubourg Marigny district of New Orleans where she was a waitress in 1983. After having established a sexual relationship with Katie, as she was known then, Hebert lured her out to L.A. with the promise of a better life and more money in Hollywood. She had talent, he had 'connections' and could get her into the movies.

"Kate was only sixteen and a half years old," he told agent Carlsen. It was still hard for him to say without a hitch in his voice. Adding insult to injury, the statute of limitations for Statutory Rape (carnal knowledge of a juvenile under the age of seventeen) was ten years and had run out nearly four years ago.

It was even harder for him to recount to Carlsen how Kate's life had spiraled out of control after she met Hebert. He and Kate had not discussed it again after she'd confessed to him what her real occupation was and how she'd come to be a highly paid, highly demanded prostitute. The only thing that changed the way he looked at her after that was that he thought she was the strongest person he had ever known.

And that strength is what kept Enos believing she was alive and because the blood spatter that was found in her apartment, although as yet unidentified, wasn't hers.

He'd read and re-read the files and transcripts a hundred times, trying to find one more needle, one more straw. Next up was the coroner's report on Mollaret.

Death by sudden asphyxiation. Toxicology reported enough crack cocaine in his system to have disoriented him so that when he opened the office door, the acrid smoke and carbon monoxide overwhelmed his respiratory system, likely killing him within seconds and then, within thirty seconds, his body was hit with an explosive backdraft. Either way, the son of a bitch was dead. The crack, with its devastating effects on long-term users was probably what fueled the maniacal way he had first stalked, then abducted Kate.

From endless interviews and interrogations, Enos and Thompson had pieced together Mollaret's increasingly irrational obsession to take revenge on Kate. She had dared to defy him, had made him run, had made him lose everything he had so painstakingly built. Apparently the only impediment to that end was Enos Strate, the lowly Georgia hillbilly probie cop that had helped Kate take him down.

During his explanation to Agent Carlsen, Enos had been careful never to refer to Kate's sister, Mignon. He hoped it would not come up. If it did, he would have to lie to a federal law enforcement officer and say he knew nothing about a sister. It was the one promise to Kate that he could keep and on his father's grave, he would keep it. That secret was on a need to know basis. To date, there was only one other person who both needed to know and to whom he would entrust that kind of knowledge.

Enos could barely force himself to read the transcripts of Squiggy's interrogations, of which there were several, without wanting to pay him a personal visit. But they had only been able to hold the little maggot for forty eight hours. With Mollaret dead, Squiggy had no problem going back on the street. Once released, he had disappeared into the ether.

It mattered little now how Hebert had managed the abduction. That was simply a part of the record – the one under LAPD jurisdiction. What mattered now was what he had done with her afterward.

Together, Enos and Thompson had figured that part out. At least they had a good lead. Kate was alive, and somewhere in Western Asia or Eastern Europe. No longer under LAPD jurisdiction. That was something he would share with the FBI and Interpol.


When Captain Mallory came back at 4:10 p.m. from his afternoon meeting, he called Inez into his office and closed the blinds.

"So, what's the verdict?" she said settling herself in the chair across from him.

"The psychologist cleared Strate for active duty. Gun, badge, everything." Mallory sat down behind his desk, unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled two service weapons and a detective's badge.

Turning his attention back to De Pina, he said, "You look," he hesitated, "I was going to say surprised. But it's more like disappointed. Something you want to share, Inez?"

"No, sir."

"You're sure."

"Yes, sir."

"You don't look sure. Do you think Strate somehow 'hornswoggled' the shrink?"

"No, sir. It's not that."

"Then out with it. He's probably out there on pins and needles. No reason to make him wait longer than necessary to get him back to work. We're light one good detective on the street."

Inez fidgeted with her fingernail, then got up and walked to the door. "I'll tell him you want to see him."

Mallory, who didn't miss much that went on in his division didn't stop her or call her back, but he knew something was up and that he probably wasn't going to like it.


Leaving a disappointed, but resigned Captain Mallory in his office, service weapons and badge still on the desk in front of him, Inez followed E into the elevator. They both maintained a silent, professional distance until the doors opened and they made the distance to where his truck was parked.

She had been silent too long. That boom Thompson was looking for had been building all day and she was determined not to let another minute go by without trying to talk him out of what he had just done. It wasn't too late. All he had to do was go back into Mallory's office and pick up his badge.

But before she could beg him to un-quit, he bent down, pulled her up into his arms and whispered in her ear, "I have to do this. You know that."

All she could manage was to nod her head into his shoulder and hold him until she was able to let him go.


A/N: 'Chomos' is a term used by inmates in some prisons to refer to child molesters.

*Hebert is pronounced 'A-bear' – it is the most common Cajun (Acadian) surname in Louisiana

*Arceneau is pronounced 'Ar–sen–oh' and is the Acadian French spelling used before the deportation of Acadians in Canada who ended up in South Louisiana and whose ancestors are now known as Cajun (derived from slurring the French pronunciation of Acadian) In Louisiana of today, the name is usually spelled with an 'x' at the end.

*Mignon is pronounced "Min-yohn' with the last 'n' nearly silent.


A/N:

1034. KIDNAPPING—FEDERAL JURISDICTION

Federal jurisdiction over kidnapping extends to the following situations: (1) kidnapping in which the victim is willfully transported in interstate or foreign commerce; (2) kidnapping within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States; (3) kidnapping within the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States; (4) kidnapping in which the victim is a foreign official, an internationally protected person, or an official guest as those terms are defined in 18 U.S.C. § 1116(b); (5) kidnapping in which the victim is a Federal officer or employee designated in 18 U.S.C. § 1114; and (6) international parental kidnapping in which the victim is a child under the age of 16 years.