Breathe Your Last: An addictive and nail-biting crime thriller (Detective Josie Quinn Book 10)

by Lisa Regan

  He looked over the rim of his glasses at Josie and Noah. Neither of them spoke. The Chief took a step closer to their desks. “So I told him it was Walsh, and he told me I was full of shit and threw me out of his office before I could float our drug idea. Watts!” He looked over at Amber. “I know you’re eavesdropping ’cause that’s all you damn do around here. None of this gets out to the press, you got that?”

  She nodded.

  Chitwood said, “What’ve you two got?”

  Josie recounted her conversation with Patrick for the Chief. When she finished, he said, “Well, don’t sit here staring at me. Get the hell up to campus and see what else you can find out! Go, go, go.”

  At the campus police station, Josie and Noah found Chief Hahlbeck in her office. Josie explained what Patrick had told her about the videos circulating on campus the year before.

  Hillary frowned as she clicked away on her computer. “As you know, that was before my time,” she said. “But if any report was made, it should be here in the system.”

  It took several minutes before she hit on anything. “This is a complaint made by Patrick Payne about a lewd video taken of a potential student.”

  She clicked a few more times and printed the report for them. There wasn’t much to it. There was a copy of a handwritten statement by Patrick where he described the video and how he had received it, as well as the previous three videos. The second document was a typed report from the prior Chief stating that Patrick’s report was “unfounded,” and that no other complaints had been made about it— including from the subject of the video. The report went on to say that, after viewing the video, he was of the opinion that it was impossible to verify if the woman in the video was even a student, noting that the video was clearly not taken on campus.

  “This is all?” Josie said. “There aren’t any other reports or complaints about any of the videos?”

  Hillary shook her head. “I’ll run the searches again, but no, I don’t see anything else. That’s it.”

  Noah said, “Do you have a copy of the video?”

  Hillary clicked a few more times, her frown deepening with each one. “It doesn’t appear that my predecessor made a copy of the video. Or if he did, he didn’t save it into our system. I’m really sorry.”

  “What about the cheerleader?” Josie asked. “Pat said that the girl in the second video was a cheerleader and that she got in trouble with the squad after the video circulated.”

  “Well, that wouldn’t be within our purview. For that, you’d have to contact the cheerleading coach. I can tell you where to find her, if you’d like?”

  “Yes, please,” Josie answered just as her cell phone chirped. She took it out of her pocket and punched in her passcode to find a text from Patrick.

  No one I talked to still has copies of any of the videos. Sorry.

  Disappointed, Josie typed back: Thanks for trying. What about the name of the girl in the last video? Did Brenna tell you?

  His reply came back within seconds. Her name is Robyn Arber. She goes to Bloom U now. Brenna said she’ll talk to you but only you. Robyn starts her shift as a waitress at Rose Marie’s at noon.

  “Shit,” Josie said. She turned the phone to Noah so he could read the text. If she wanted to be in Bloomsburg by noon, she’d need to leave immediately.

  “I’ll take the cheerleading coach,” Noah said. “You track down Arber.”

  “Okay, great. Chief Hahlbeck, could you just look up a name for me in your system? Robyn Arber?”

  “Sure thing,” Hillary said, tapping at her keyboard. After a solid minute of searching, she found nothing.

  “It’s okay,” Josie said. “I didn’t think she’d be in your system.”

  Thirty-Three

  Josie arrived in Bloomsburg just before noon. It was a quaint town, like Denton on a smaller scale, with beautiful historic brick buildings lining its well-tended Main Street, which led from the Bloomsburg Fairgrounds right up to the university’s Carver Hall, the college’s iconic red-brick edifice with white pillars holding up a portico and above that a domed clock tower. A few blocks from Carver Hall, Josie found Rose Marie’s tucked away in a parking lot behind the buildings that faced Main Street. A single door stood beside a hedgerow. Beside it was a black dry-erase board listing the day’s specials. After feeding the parking meter in the lot, Josie went inside, telling the hostess she needed only a table for one. The restaurant was nearly empty, with just one guy seated at the bar and one table on the right-hand side of the large open floor plan occupied by a couple in their twenties. The hostess seated Josie near them. “I was hoping to talk with Robyn,” Josie told her.

  “Robyn’s the only waitress on right now,” the hostess said. “She’ll be right with you.”

  Josie opened her menu but didn’t peruse it. A few minutes later, a young woman appeared at the other occupied table. Her blonde hair was pulled into a tight bun, and she was dressed all in black, her jeans and T-shirt clinging to her curvy form. A large name tag over her right breast proclaimed that she was, indeed, Robyn. She smiled warmly as she took the couple’s order, but that smile slipped from her face when she approached Josie’s table.

  “I’m Detective Quinn,” Josie told her.

  “I know who you are,” Robyn said. “I’ve seen you on TV before.”

  She folded her arms under her breasts and waited for Josie to speak.

  “I need to talk to you about the video that was taken of you last year in Denton while you were a student at the university.”

  “I know why you’re here,” Robyn said. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you. What is it that you want to know?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me what happened,” Josie explained.

  “What happened? I don’t remember any of it. I was at a party with friends and the next thing I know, I’m naked in my bed and there’s some horrible video of me on every phone on campus. It was humiliating. I knew I had to have been drugged. I know I had a couple of drinks at my friend’s house, but not that much. Even if I had been drunk, I would have been throwing up or stumbling or passed out. Not… doing all that horrible stuff in the middle of town.”

  “Did you report it?”

  “Not at first. I was so embarrassed. I didn’t know what to do. I kind of hoped that if I ignored it, it would just blow over. I mean, if you had seen it…” She shuddered. “But then one of my professors apparently saw it.” Her face reddened at the memory. “At first, he was, like, scolding me for it. I broke down in his office and told him that I didn’t remember it at all. That’s when he said I had to report it. I was in the Secondary Education program. He was my advisor. He said I wouldn’t want something like that out there because it could ruin any chances I ever had at getting a job. That put me into a panic.”

  “Did you go to the police?”

  Robyn scoffed. “The campus police? Are you serious? No. Listen, I had friends who got roofied, all right? They went to the campus police and those douchebags did nothing. They were all like, ‘well, if you can’t remember anything, who are we supposed to arrest?’ Like it was the victims’ job to investigate. No way was I going to the campus police with this unless I had some proof of who did it. Even then, I wasn’t going to bother with them. I was going right to the real police.”

  Josie said, “You filed a complaint with Denton PD?”

  “No. I never got that far. Once I figured out who did it, I couldn’t—he begged me not to involve the police. I accused him of date-raping me, but he swore he never touched me. He said he didn’t even give me a date rape drug, just something he learned how to make from the dark web or something like that. I asked him if he was the one who took the other videos. He admitted it. He said he was just having fun. It was an experiment. He thought it would be funny, and he never planned to hurt anyone.”

  “What was his name?” Josie asked.

  “You really need to know his name?”

  “Yes,” Josie said. “I really do. This is impor
tant, Robyn, or I wouldn’t be here.”

  Robyn leaned in toward Josie and whispered, “You have to understand, he’s the Dean’s son, okay?”

  “The Dean of Students?” Josie asked. No wonder there was no campus police report, no follow-up to Patrick’s complaint.

  “Yes, and believe me, the Dean wanted this to go away. Badly. I’m not even, like, supposed to talk about this ever, with anyone.”

  Josie raised a brow. “Did you sign a non-disclosure agreement?”

  “No.”

  “Then you can tell me his name now, or I can look it up when I get home.”

  “It was harmless. Everyone agreed,” Robyn tried.

  Josie found it hard to believe that any reasonable person could think that the video was somehow harmless. She also found it deeply disturbing that any person would think drugging someone without their knowledge or consent under any circumstances was just fine.

  “Even you?” Josie asked. “Did you agree?”

  Robyn’s mouth snapped shut.

  Josie waited a long moment, but the girl didn’t speak. She was one of the few witnesses Josie had ever interviewed who was able to withstand the uncomfortable silence. Josie said, “What if I told you that there is a possibility that this kid you’re talking about didn’t stop? That maybe he stopped taking videos, but he didn’t stop doing what he did to you to other people and that now a girl is dead?”

  Robyn’s fingers fidgeted with her name tag. “No. That’s not possible. He wouldn’t. He promised. That was part of the deal.”

  “The deal?”

  Robyn’s name tag fell from her shirt. She quickly grabbed it up, holding it in both hands. “When I found out it was him, and we talked, I told him that I couldn’t just let it go—especially since the video was already out there on campus and my advisor knew about it. We came to an agreement which included me not going to the police. My parents were completely on board with that. My dad thought that if we pursued it criminally, it would become a matter of public record, which would mean that even more people would see the video, and the main thing I wanted was for the video to go away.”

  “His name, Robyn,” Josie prompted.

  Robyn’s eyes shifted to the front of the dining area, but neither the hostess nor the bartender were paying her any mind. The couple nearby were engrossed in a private conversation. One of her index fingers pressed into the point of the pin on her name tag, drawing a tiny bead of blood. “Doug,” she said. “Doug Merlos. His dad was the one who arranged our agreement. He brought my parents in, even though by that point they wanted me to transfer to another school, get a fresh start, which was fine with me. Thank God no one ever posted the video anywhere—that I’ve seen—but you can’t unring a bell. Plenty of people saw it at Denton U. So I came here this year. I actually love it here, so I’m glad I made the change.”

  “What was the agreement, Robyn?” Josie asked.

  “Doug got expelled. He was no longer able to set foot on campus, had to stay away from me and most importantly, he had to destroy any copies he had of the video.”

  “That’s it?” Josie blurted out. “Robyn, what he did to you was a crime. He should be in prison. He should also be on the sex offender list.”

  Robyn sighed. “But, like, I was underage drinking that night.”

  “So?” Josie said. It was hard not to jump out of her seat and shake the girl. “Regardless of that, what he did was wrong. You understand that it’s wrong to give someone a drug, especially an illicit drug, without their knowledge or consent, right? It’s also dangerous. What if you had some kind of underlying medical condition? He could have killed you.”

  Robyn threw her hands up. “Whoa, lady. I don’t need this, okay? What’s done is done. I agreed to talk to you because Brenna’s a friend of mine, and she said you were a good person. I would never have agreed if I knew you were going to be all judgy.”

  Josie took a deep breath and tried to slow her racing heart. The couple nearby shot her and Robyn dirty looks. She lowered her voice when she spoke next. “Robyn, I’m very sorry. I’m not judging you. I didn’t mean to sound that way. Also, the statute of limitations has not expired. You could still press charges.”

  Robyn started to walk away. Quickly, Josie caught her wrist. “Please. Robyn. I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry. I’ll stop. Just—can I just ask a couple more questions?”

  It killed her to clamp her mouth shut. Everything she wanted to say blasted through her mind. Who were the adults in Robyn’s life who had allowed things to be handled this way? Her parents, the Dean, her advisor? What had they been thinking? How could they have let Doug Merlos get away with something so violating? Josie shuddered to think that he might have gone from making disturbing videos to actually killing people. If he had been properly dealt with at the outset, would Nysa Somers still be alive? Would Clay Walsh still be in good health?

  Robyn stared at her and then twisted her wrist from Josie’s grasp. “What?”

  “Did you know Doug before he made the video?”

  “I had a class with him. We traveled loosely in the same social circles, so yeah, I knew him.”

  “How did you figure he was the one who took the video?” Josie asked.

  “My plan was to talk to everyone I could find who had been at the party. I started by talking to people I knew—including people I knew but didn’t know well, like Doug. Before I even had a chance to talk with him, someone else I spoke with mentioned that she had seen Doug following me down the street after I left the party. Then I confronted him, and he came clean right away.”

  “That’s good investigative work,” Josie noted, internally flinching at how difficult it must have been for Robyn to track down the person who had violated her by herself. “Do you know if he knew the people in the other videos as well?”

  “He said he knew of them, whatever that means. I think he just picked people at random. Like I said, he swore it wasn’t malicious.”

  Josie took out her phone, swiping and tapping until she found the picture of the sticker. She showed it to Robyn. “Does this look familiar to you?”

  Robyn’s skin turned to ash. Josie tried not to show her excitement. Clearly, the girl recognized the sticker. Robyn drew herself up straight, carefully pinned her name tag back onto her shirt, and pulled her phone from her jeans’ back pocket. Josie waited for her to speak, not sure if she was about to walk away without another word or if she just needed more time before she answered the question. But then she placed her phone on the table in front of Josie. On the screen, a video had been queued up. The still showed a street that Josie recognized from Denton. Several feet ahead of the camera was the back of a woman in a short red skirt and halter top. Not just any woman. Robyn Arber.

  “That video is three minutes and thirty-seven seconds long,” Robyn said, her voice carefully modulated to reveal no emotion whatsoever. “What you’re looking for appears at one minute and sixteen seconds.”

  “You know the exact second?” Josie said.

  The life in Robyn’s eyes shuttered away. “I know every second in that video. Every horrifying second.”

  Josie felt a weight on her shoulders. You didn’t get to know every second of a near four-minute video unless you watched it a lot. Maybe even every day. Quietly, Josie said, “I may need this video for evidence in our current case, Robyn. I would need your permission to make a copy of it.”

  “Whatever,” said Robyn. “I really need to get to work, so if you’re going to order, be ready when I come back.”

  She walked away, back to the other couple, plastering on a smile. Josie looked down at her phone and with a stomach full of cement, pressed play. The video was exactly as Patrick had described. When Doug Merlos instructed Robyn to look up her own ass, she calmly contorted every which way, trying to do so. Doug’s laughter was uproarious. He lost control of the phone. It wavered and tumbled, showing nothing but blackness rotating with the glare of a streetlight. Then it stopped, a finger covering the lens. He
must have caught it before it dropped to the ground. The finger came away, showing blackness. As the phone moved away from the black, it revealed itself to be a canvas messenger bag. In the corner of it was a white circle. Josie set the video back and let it play twice more before she captured the second in which the white spot came into view. When it did, it was clear she was looking at the cracked skull sticker.

  Josie didn’t watch the rest of the video. It felt wrong to do it in the same room where Robyn Arber was working, putting on a fake smile and serving people wine and food. Instead, she sent it to her own phone and from there, sent it to the rest of the team, along with Doug Merlos’ name. By the time she got back to Denton, they’d have a location on him, and Josie was going to be the first one of them to knock on his door.

  She pulled two twenties from her jacket pocket and put them on the table. Then she placed Robyn’s phone face down over the top of them. She panned the restaurant but didn’t see Robyn anywhere. On her way out she told the hostess, “Please tell Robyn thank you.”

  Thirty-Four

  There was still no word on the goodies I had distributed randomly. It didn’t make sense. Why weren’t more people dying? At the very least, more people should be acting strangely enough for the police or the news to pick up on it. What had I done wrong? Or maybe it wasn’t my fault at all. Maybe the product just hadn’t been distributed as I had hoped. That was the problem with being invisible. Everything was easier and went more smoothly when I had direct contact with the victim, like the first time I used the drug. I remembered sitting in my car, hands shaking with excitement. They trembled so badly, I almost spilled the powder. Once I got it into the paper coffee cup, I used a stirrer to dissolve it completely. No chunks. No residue. Best of all, no odor. I capped the cup and looked around, relieved none of the drug had gotten on the console or the seats. It was potent and extremely dangerous, which was what made it so much fun. My feet tapped against the floor mat while I waited for him to emerge from the building. For a few minutes I worried that the coffee would get cold before he came out, but then he was there, striding through the double doors, clipboard under his arm like always.