by Leslie Wolfe
Elliot grinned. He could play the game the kid wanted, as long as he wasn’t whistling up the wind. “Sure is. Not half bad either.” His jacket and hat kept the rain away, but his jeans were getting soaked.
“Yeah, but Ford?” He obviously wasn’t a fan.
“Specially built for the cops. It’s called the Interceptor.”
Brent ambled around Elliot’s vehicle, not minding the rain, studying it, seemingly unimpressed. “Isn’t this just like the Explorer?” The hair gel he was applying so generously must’ve been waterproof.
“On crack,” Elliot laughed. He picked up a wet piece of straw from the side of the perfectly manicured Barcenas lawn and chewed on it. He was getting sodden in that miserable toad floater, and he could bet the spoiled brat was doing it on purpose, just to have a good laugh with his friends afterward. He withdrew under the porch roof. “I have a few questions for you.”
“Can I look inside?” Brent asked, sticking his face against the driver-side window.
“Knock yourself out,” Elliot replied, swallowing a curse as Brent opened the door. “Uh-uh, can’t climb behind the wheel, sorry.”
Frustrated, the kid slammed the door shut a little harder than was necessary and approached Elliot on the porch. Probably no one had told him no that entire month. “What do you need? I’m busy.”
“Tell me about Julie Montgomery. She’s your girlfriend, right?”
The smug grin returned. “One of them, anyway. What do you want to know?”
“Anything you can tell me to help us figure out who took her and killed her mother.”
He shrugged, then pulled out an electronic cigarette and took a quick drag that lit its tip in electric blue, without the slightest concern his parents might see him. A sickly sweet scent of cinnamon and vanilla filled the air before a gust of wind thankfully blew it away. “She was quiet and withdrawn; didn’t say much. She didn’t put out either. To me it wasn’t much of a loss if she moved away.”
“Moved where?”
“San Francisco.” He pursed his lips, visibly angered by something. Elliot waited. Brent had the self-control capability of a geyser; he was bound to blow up sooner or later. “That night, Monday, her mother was going to take them all to San Fran, to start a new life or something. And Julie, she wasn’t very bright. She was, ooh, all heartbroken about it, like someone actually wants to live in this shitty hole of a town.”
“Why the past tense?”
“Huh?”
“You spoke of Julie in past tense.” Elliot’s patience was wearing thin. Why anyone would want to date him was beyond comprehension. “Why is that?”
“What, you actually think she’s coming back? Seriously? Don’t you watch Criminal Minds, or something, to learn about these things?” He scoffed and turned his back to Elliot for a long moment. Another cloud of sweet vapor engulfed them briefly. “That girl’s toast, man. Some dude is having a ball with her, giving it to her all she can take.” A lopsided, lustful grin blooming on his face made Elliot want to slap him unconscious.
“Do you know why she didn’t want to move to San Francisco?”
“I asked, but she didn’t make any sense, something about here being her home and some other crazy shit like that.” Another drag from his vaping device. “One crazy bitch, I’ll give you that. Took after her mother. That one was the craziest yet.”
“Cheryl?”
“She was changing boyfriends like a bitch in heat. I would’ve tapped that one myself,” he’d lowered his voice to a conspirative whisper, “if you know what I mean. The bitches were hot as hell, both of them.”
“Tell me about the men she was dating,” he asked between clenched teeth.
“Julie and I were happy when she was screwing the science teacher. We’d stare at the guy in class until he’d feel guilty and give us straight As. Easy as pie. He must’ve been scared we’d tell his wife or something.” He gazed into the distance, now engulfed by darkness, streaks of rain reflecting the porch light falling under an angle like their own personal meteor shower. “Honestly, if he would’ve as much as given me a B plus, just once, I would’ve told her.” He laughed, seemingly thrilled with his own deviousness. “But no, dear old Cheryl had to dump that guy, and started fu—” Elliot glared at him. “Um, dating someone else.”
“Do you know whom?”
“Julie said something about him possibly being a distant relative or something. I wondered if that was even legal, but they weren’t really relatives. Not by blood anyway.” He puffed again, churning Elliot’s empty stomach. “Of course, this dude was married too, from what I’d heard. Not very smart, the late Mrs. Coleman.” He laughed quietly, a cold, heartless laugh that chilled Elliot’s blood. “Or maybe she wanted them like that, to get the action, but not the day-by-day shit.”
“Was Cheryl running away from this man or his wife?”
He shoved his hands into his jean’s pockets, and put one bare foot up on a yellow Adirondack. “Dunno. All I knew was that Julie didn’t want to get out of this hole and move someplace cool, like San Fran, which makes her a complete idiot. This is Mount Chester, middle of nowhere. Hello?” He gestured dramatically, spreading his arms out as if calling on an invisible crowd. “What am I missing?”
“When’s the last time you saw Julie?”
“Monday night, when I drove her home after the movies. It was raining worse than now, if that’s even possible.” Not a trace of hesitation before he’d replied. “She was crying the whole damn time, as if I’m out to hear her whimpers. I wanna have a good time, man. That’s why I’m springing for the movie and the dinner and all that shit. You know what that’s all about,” he elbowed Elliot in his ribs with a low, loaded laugh. “I wanted to get to third base that night. Instead, what do I get? The damn crying, and all sorts of bullshit about feeling guilty, about what she’d done. Maybe she ran away, who the hell knows.”
Brent Barcenas was giving him the creeps, but maybe he was on to something. Had Julie done something that brought terrible consequences?
“Did she say what she’d done, exactly? What was she feeling guilty about?”
The boy shrugged, his broad shoulders stretching the fabric of his T-shirt. Black with a brown-and-white imprint, it read, MY PEOPLE SKILLS ARE JUST FINE. IT’S MY TOLERANCE TO IDIOTS THAT NEEDS WORK.
“No idea.” He scoffed again, then plunged his hands back into his pockets. Barefoot in that cold rain, he must’ve been freezing, but was too proud to admit it. His toes had turned bluish white. “What, you think I cared? Screw that, man,” he walked away from Elliot, as if his proximity infuriated him. “I ain’t got time to waste.” He pulled out his phone and gestured with it. “Plenty more where Julie came from, and some are willing to make this little man happy.” He patted his crotch then winked at Elliot. “Anything else? I’m missing my show.”
“No, we’re good, thanks.” He handed him a card. “In case you remember anything else.”
He slid it in the back pocket of his jeans and went inside, slamming the door behind him without as much as an acknowledgment. By his attitude, at almost eighteen, Elliot didn’t give him more than five years before he’d end up wearing his handcuffs, or some other cop’s. The question that remained was, for what crime? Was Brent Barcenas a killer? That was highly improbable; he seemed all hat and no cattle. But he was a no-account person, born sorry and raised even sorrier. In the future, could he become a rapist, a stalker, or a wife beater? Perhaps. He seemed to have the right combination of genes and education for it, unless his parents suddenly awakened and put some horse sense and some core values into the young man.
Rushing through the rain toward his SUV, Elliot wondered what Kay would’ve said about Brent. The thought of her brought a smile that lingered on his lips for a while, even as he started his engine and tapped through the list of names displayed on the media center until he found the one he was looking for, an old colleague of his from the sheriff’s department in Austin, Texas.
The man di
dn’t pick up, but Elliot left him a voice message.
“Hey, bud, I need a favor from you, and I need it faster than small-town gossip. Can you track down any college kids from California who might’ve been on the Austin Vipers Lacrosse team?”
38
The Guerreros
It was still raining when Kay reached the Guerrero residence. After a few hours of relative silence, thunder rolled though the valley renewed, sending muffled echoes against the hills, while lightning illuminated the dark skies in blinding flashes of light.
The Guerreros lived far from the highway, their old ranch tucked against the hillside, the only one north of the winding road. Kay had driven across several smaller bridges on her way from the interstate—a couple of them barely a few inches above the swollen river, the first ones to give if flash floods continued. Hurricane Edward must’ve been the slowest-moving storm in history, its bands endlessly renewing their load of water over the Pacific as the four-hundred-mile-wide storm spun and whirled, slowly, menacingly.
She checked the time before ringing the doorbell. It was getting late, but the lights were still on in the living room, and she could hear the TV, loudly playing the Spanish commentary of a soccer game.
A woman in her forties opened the door, quickly running her hand over her hair and clothes, as if to check if she was presentable enough to receive guests. She had kind eyes with dark circles underneath and long, straight, black hair held back by a hoop band that gave the illusion of braiding.
“Yes?” she said, seeming ready to rush back indoors to safety, as if startled by Kay’s presence.
She showed her badge. “Detective Kay Sharp with the sheriff’s office. Mrs. Guerrero?” The woman nodded. “I wonder if I could ask you a couple of questions.”
She stepped aside, letting her in.
Unlike the Costins, the Guerreros were a large family, three generations sharing the home. The dining table was large, with eight chairs around it, one with an untouched plate set in front of it, while the rest had been used. A preteen girl was clearing the mess, carrying only a few dirty plates at a time, careful not to drop them, then scraping the leftovers and rinsing them in the sink before loading them into the dishwasher. The air was thick with the smell of guacamole and fajitas and mouthwatering spices.
“Isela, quien es ella?” an older man asked. He was seated on a recliner in front of the TV, the upholstered arms worn out to the weave.
“Es policía, papa,” she replied, then smiled apologetically. “My father doesn’t speak English very well.”
The man sprung from his chair as if he were still twenty and approached Kay with a determined gait. “Did you find our Stephania?” He seemed to struggle to articulate even the simplest words.
“No, I’m afraid we haven’t, but we’re looking into new evidence.” Déjà vu. It felt as if she were talking with the Costins all over again, shattering the same hopes, kindling the same fears, fueling the same tears. Only there were more of them to disappoint.
“We always set the table for her,” Isela said, seeing where Kay’s eyes were wandering. “Maybe one day our prayers will be answered, and she will join us for dinner again.” She wiped the corner of her eye with her apron.
“What new evidence?” another man asked, most likely Stephanie’s father, Mauricio. He’d been standing in the hallway, as if frozen by Kay’s appearance. Now he approached slowly, nervously, his gaze elusive like a fearful deer’s in the hunter’s sights, ready to bolt at the tiniest rustling of leaves. He grabbed Kay’s hand between both of his. “Do you think I’ll even see my little girl again?” Kay realized he wasn’t afraid of her; he was anxious at the thought of bad news, of having to endure the worst pain a father could ever live through.
The water in the kitchen sink was turned off, and a heavy silence filled the room. The girl had fallen still, holding a plate midair between sink and dishwasher, listening with her mouth agape.
Kay lowered her eyes for a brief moment. “We have no way of knowing, Mr. Guerrero, but we’re doing the best we can.”
He let go of her hand and seemed to have aged ten years in the span of a second. His back hunched and his arms fell limp alongside his thin body. His eyes wandered into nothingness, as his chin trembled ever so slightly. “What do you need to know?” His voice was filled with unspeakable sadness.
“Tell me everything you can remember about that day.”
“What I can remember?” he scoffed bitterly. “I’ll never forget a single moment of that cursed day.” He clasped his hands together, wringing them hard. “We were waiting for Stephanie to come back from work. She’d just finished school that year. Martinez, a friend of ours, gave her a job waiting tables at his diner. She was happy, saving her money for college, proud to be a grownup and work her first real job.” He sniffled and turned his face away from Kay for a brief moment. “Then she didn’t come home one day. That day.” He pressed his forearm to his mouth, as if to stifle a sob. Isela had drawn closer, touching his shoulder while hiding behind him, as if Kay was menacing, dangerous. “El día en que dios nos abandonó. The day our Lord forsook us.”
“Sí, sí,” the old man said, then crossed himself quickly.
“She just vanished, on her way back from the diner, three years ago this past Saturday,” Mauricio continued. “She was nineteen, my little girl. She’s twenty-two now,” he added, his eyes lit by fierce belief fueling his hope for her return. “Three years,” he sobbed, covering his mouth with trembling hands. “Ay, Dios mío.”
Kay had read the case notes, but she was looking for something more, the things that don’t normally get documented in records and reports. Emotions, perceptions, gossip, the hindsight vision that is rarely wrong.
“What were your thoughts at the time? Was there anyone you suspected? Any idea who would’ve wanted to harm your daughter?”
Mauricio stared at the scuffs on the floor for a beat. “We asked everyone, we banged on every door. I printed flyers at my office and put them on all the trees between here and the diner. Martinez still has the flyer up on his wall.”
“Did anyone see anything?”
He shook his head, defeated. “It was as if we angered God somehow. It rained so badly that day, I—”
Kay stopped listening, icicles running through her blood. Rain again? She didn’t think much when the Costins had mentioned rain; in the fall, rain was quite common for Mount Chester before it turned to snow and lined the versants with perfectly white powder glimmering in myriad diamonds, the kind of snow skiers from around the world traveled to enjoy. What were the odds of yet another abduction in the rain? The Northern California coast is famously dry, rarely adding up to more than ten wet days each year, but those always happen in the fall, fueled by hurricane remnants, during what the locals call the rainy season.
“So sorry, Mr. Guerrero, please run this by me again. You were saying, it was raining hard that day?”
“Just like now, or even worse,” he said.
“Worse,” Isela intervened. “I remember we were afraid our house would be taken by the floods coming down from the mountain.”
Was rain a forensic countermeasure for the unsub? Did he purposefully wait for rain to prey on the victims, knowing witnesses would see very little from underneath umbrellas, focused on the difficult traffic, or just staying inside behind closed curtains? Could it be a part of his MO? She frowned, considering the implications and her next steps. She had to verify and make sure it wasn’t just a fluke, but if other abductions had also happened during heavy rainfall, she had to consider rain as a critical element of the profile. Somehow, weather seemed to play an important role in his very precise execution. Not only did he patiently wait for the right weather—if that was the case—but had the self-control over his killing urges to wait for the right circumstances—out of his control—and seize the opportunities the moment they presented themselves. The unsub’s apparent lack of control over the circumstances of each abduction didn’t support the pow
er or control sadist scenario; the power sadist is, by definition, an extreme control freak. All facts, while some still needing verification, pointed toward the mission-driven profile, regardless of how much she believed it didn’t quite fit.
Kay handed Isela and Mr. Guerrero each a business card. “In case you remember anything else, I’d appreciate a call.” She thanked the Guerreros and left, quickly climbing behind the wheel of her car. Engine running and blowing warm, dry air against the fogged-up windows, she typed a text to Elliot. Meet me for dinner at Hilltop. Then she shifted into gear, eager to get there and do some more research—this time into weather patterns.
Before she could peel off from the curb, a chime got her attention, barely noticeable over the hypnotic cadence of the wipers. A message from Elliot said simply, On my way.
39
Ritual
He recalled his first sacrifice, the one that had torn his heart out of his chest, the one Mother had chosen for herself, despite his commitment to lay at her feet a pure and innocent life, worthy of her with every fiber in her pristine body.
He still remembered how he feared her wrath then just as he did today, afraid of her as much as he was in awe of her, knowing her pain; her gaping wounds could ruin everything, swallow everything, burying him alive.
Just like today, rain had carved deep into Mother’s flesh, entire versants falling, carried downhill by flash floods, taking lives with them—people, children—swallowed by the restless, swollen waters never to be seen again, as nature screamed around them in thunder and the roar of maddened winds.
He’d struggled to understand Mother’s will, to read her thoughts, but had failed, speeding day and night trying, but never succeeding. He’d begged her to make it simple for him to deliver, to obey her, to give her what she needed to be healed, but his prayers had been left unheard.