Dear God, some days life was easier looking down the barrel of a rifle than dealing with stubborn cops. “I’m trained for this sort of situation. And you’ll be there to reassure her.” He turned on his heel to go grab his stuff. He unlocked the door to his office and reached inside for his windbreaker.
A truculent voice followed him. “Fine. We should go in separate vehicles. I’m going to the local outdoors shop afterward to ask about the rope. I’ll be gone until lunch. You’ll miss the morning meeting.”
“They sell outerwear?” he asked, shrugging into the thin layer of Gortex that was currently the only thing protecting him from the insane cold.
“What?” She looked at him like he’d begun speaking Punjabi.
“This outdoor shop. They sell jackets like yours?” he asked.
She raised her hands in what-the-fuck surrender. “Yes. Of course they do.”
“Then I’m coming with you. Let’s go.”
Chapter Ten
Erin didn’t know what had changed, but Darsh seemed less angry and disapproving than he had the day before. She wished he’d go back to being bitter and judgmental because, no matter how good-looking the outer package, the former was an easy combination to resist.
The man in question looked up at the mullioned windows with English ivy creeping up the side of the chimney. “Pretty swank student accommodation.”
Wearing a charcoal suit, blue tie, and crisp white shirt, gold badge on his hip and weapon in its shoulder holster, he didn’t look like a guy who’d slept in a chair. He looked like a professional federal law enforcement officer and just as attractive in a suit as he was in tactical clothes.
Dammit.
Erin knocked on the red front door of the elegant brick house. They were on the west side of town, on a small hill where a lot of faculty and university administration lived. The door opened, and a woman with short, straight, dyed brown hair appeared. Her gaze went from Erin to Darsh and back to Erin. She didn’t look happy.
“You spoke to Rachel?” she asked.
“Yes, Dr. Knight. About an hour ago. She asked if I could come see her today.”
The woman’s hand went to the cross she wore around her throat. “I thought you’d have called yesterday. To reassure her.”
Darsh shifted on his feet.
“I’m sorry I didn’t. I was swamped.” And hoping they could arrest the perp ASAP so she could put this woman’s daughter’s mind at ease. “This is Agent Singh from the FBI’s Behavior Analysis Unit. May we come in?”
Rachel’s mother took a reluctant step back and opened the door. Erin stepped into the hallway with its elegant black and white tiled floor. She wiped her feet on the mat, and Darsh did the same, both on their best behavior. She’d told him to let her do the talking, and so far he was following instructions. She had the feeling he would cooperate for as long as it suited his cause—following the route of least resistance, or spinning her a line to get what he wanted. Like telling her he was a Marine rather than an FBI agent when she was at that training course at the academy. She should resent him for that, but as he’d reminded her on several different occasions, it was trivial in comparison to her deception.
“You can wait in the study. The fire’s lit.” The mother indicated they go on ahead. Erin had been here on several occasions and knew the way.
“Donald went to work. I stayed home for Rachel…just in case.” The woman trailed off as if she didn’t really know what to do. “I’ll fetch her.” She turned abruptly and left them alone in the hallway.
“The dad is a professor in the Physics Department. Mom is a prof in Ancient Languages,” Erin murmured as she led them toward the study.
“But the attack didn’t happen here, right?”
“No. Rachel was assaulted in her dorm on campus. She moved home afterward.” Erin wasn’t sure if he’d read Rachel’s account of the rape yet or not. She assumed he’d at least read the courtroom testimony.
Damn, she hated rape trials.
They’d no sooner arrived in the father’s study than she heard footsteps behind them, and they both turned. Rachel Knight wore pink pajamas, a purple dressing gown and fuzzy slippers—she looked about twelve. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her nose splotchy. Her footsteps slowed as she caught sight of Darsh.
Her mother touched her arm. “He’s with the FBI. If you don’t want to talk to him, I’ll ask him to leave.”
Rachel held Erin’s gaze, silently asking if she should trust this stranger. Erin nodded. She knew what it felt like to have your confidence shattered. She’d never been raped, but she’d been attacked. You were never the same afterward. Never as trusting.
“It’s okay, Mom.” Rachel patted her mother’s arm.
“Do you want me to come in with you?” her mother asked, clearly trying to figure out what was the best thing to do to help her daughter.
Rachel took her mom’s hand and squeezed. Erin was relieved to see their relationship was still strong. “Erin’s here. I’ll be okay.”
Her heart clenched.
Rachel skirted both Erin and Darsh as she entered the room, heading to a wingback chair that sat in front of an open fire. The girl curled up her feet beneath her and gripped the armrests like she was getting ready for a rollercoaster.
Erin chose the other chair and took a seat on the edge, leaning forward. “Rachel, this is Agent Darsh Singh. He’s a behavioral analyst from the FBI.”
Rachel examined him as if she could see secrets if she probed the surface deep enough. Erin knew for a fact people didn’t work that way.
“I’m sorry I missed your call last night,” she began. “When I got home I basically passed out.”
Rachel’s fingernails bit into the worn leather of the chair. “I wanted to ask you how this could happen? I wanted to know if it was the same guy?” Her fingers flexed, marking the leather. “But that isn’t possible. Drew Hawke is still in prison, right?” Fear shone bright in the girl’s blue eyes.
Erin nodded.
“But did you check? Did you actually check? Because convicts sometimes get let out erroneously.” Rachel’s voice rose in agitation.
Erin opened her mouth to reply, but Darsh beat her to it. “I checked. He’s still in Riverview.”
Riverview was a medium security facility. Even though the DA had pushed, apparently two rapes weren’t quite heinous enough to warrant a spot in maximum security. Some days, Erin wondered what was.
Rachel let out a loud whoosh of breath, and her grip on the armchair eased a fraction. “Okay. Good.”
Erin cleared her throat. This was more difficult than she’d imagined. She shifted the folder she carried to the side. It had been so easy to grab the photos of the rope from her desk, but showing it to this girl who’d suffered so much at the hands, not just of her attacker, but the town and the justice system…she couldn’t do it. Not yet. She couldn’t disrupt the fragile peace that settled over Rachel’s features.
Darsh moved closer to Rachel and introduced himself again. He stopped moving as soon as the girl tensed up. “I’m assisting Detective Donovan with the investigation into the murders, but wanted to ask you a few questions about your rape.”
“So it’s true?” Rachel’s eyes widened. “He tied the girls to the bed the same way he did to me and Mary?”
Mary Mitchell was the other girl Hawke had been convicted of raping last year. Erin knew the women had been in touch after their ordeal on the witness stand. Erin cleared her throat. “I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation, Rachel. I’m sorry.”
The girl huddled deeper into her purple dressing gown, looking miserable and angry.
“What are you studying?” Darsh asked.
“I was in kinesiology but I switched after…” She swallowed noisily then laughed harshly. “I thought I’d gotten over saying the word. After I was raped. Raped. There. I said it. Twice.” She pressed bloodless lips together. Her fingers released the chair to clasp one another in her lap. “I switched to biology because there were too
many athletes in Kin and,” her voice wavered, “they weren’t very nice to me when they heard what I had to say about Blackcombe’s star quarterback.”
Darsh sank to the floor in front of her and crossed his legs. Erin knew what he was doing. Trying to appear as unthreatening as possible. But he was still six foot three inches of solid male, and Rachel Knight was still a fragile rape victim.
“I read the statement you gave the police and your testimony in court. They were pretty hard on you in there,” he said. “You were very brave to do what you did.”
The girl drew her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her shins. “They made out I was so desperate for a boyfriend I’d say anything to get attention. They said I ‘chose’ Drew Hawke as my rapist because it was more acceptable to be raped by someone like him than some loser.” Her lip curled with distaste.
“I’m sorry the process sucks,” Darsh said quietly.
A smile flashed across the girl’s face. “Me, too.”
“I want to go over a few things, but only if you’re comfortable. I’m not going to push you, but obviously our priority is finding the person who killed these two young women.”
“I heard one of the victims was Cassie Bressinger?” said Rachel.
Darsh nodded. The names had been released to the media. “Cassie Bressinger and her roommate, Mandy Wochikowski. Did you know either of them?”
Rachel pressed her lips together and shook her head. “I mean, I saw them at the trial when I testified, but I didn’t know them. I was thinking it must have been awful to know your boyfriend did that to another woman. Especially if you loved him. No wonder she didn’t want to believe it.”
Darsh agreed. “You’d never met Drew Hawke prior to the rape?”
“No.” She huddled into her pajamas. “I saw him on the football field like everyone else, obviously. And I saw him at a party once. He and his football cronies were bullying this poor guy. A friend of my roommate Jenny’s boyfriend. He was wasted, so they stripped him naked and wrote ‘faggot’ in black marker on his back with an arrow pointed downwards and ‘Do Me!’ printed on his buttocks.” She shuddered. “They were horrible. I should have called the police then. I heard they did that sort of thing regularly. You know, stuffed guys in lockers. Bullied other kids, tried to get girls drunk so they’d have sex with them. Someone intervened and dragged the poor guy away. Jenny and I left and never went to another party at a frat house again.” She pressed the cuff of her dressing gown against her mouth.
“Can you talk me through the night you were raped?” asked Darsh.
Erin held her breath.
Rachel’s eyes went huge. “Reading about it wasn’t enough?”
He gave the girl a sad smile. “I know it’s hard, but it might give me a better idea exactly what happened to you compared to reading what the lawyers wanted to get out into the courtroom. Lawyers aren’t normal people.”
“And trials aren’t normal places,” Rachel agreed. “I’ll talk to you, but only if you tell me something personal about yourself.”
“Like what?” A curious smile played on his lips.
“The worst thing that ever happened to you.”
He lost the smile.
Rachel had made Erin do the same thing. It was the only reason Rachel still trusted her. She’d told the girl her awful secret, the one few people knew. Maybe she should have lied, but for all Rachel’s youth there was an earnest quality about her that was hard to resist.
Darsh looked thoughtful for a moment then he nodded. “But it’s not necessarily the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“It has to be,” Rachel insisted.
“Some people have got more to choose from than others.”
Erin sat up straighter. She’d forgotten this guy dealt with gruesome crime on a daily basis. “I can leave if you wish…” She went to rise from her seat.
Rachel’s eyes went wide with alarm.
Darsh shook his head, and she knew he wouldn’t do anything to risk losing Rachel’s tenuous trust.
“It was just before the fall of Baghdad in 2003.” Erin hadn’t expected him to start there, but maybe she should have. War was grim and being a Marine was obviously very important to him. “I was in an overwatch position on top of an old warehouse beside the Tigris River. I’d just put one of Saddam’s Republican Guard out of commission after he’d aimed an RPG—a rocket propelled grenade—at a bunch of Marines on the ground. He was totally out of the game, but that RPG was still on the rooftop available for any enemy combatant who wanted to pick it up, so I kept an eye on it while scanning for other targets.”
Erin held her breath. She hadn’t known he was a sniper.
The clock ticked loudly on the mantel. He paused, clearly back on that rooftop looking down his scope. “For a few minutes nothing happened, and I started to relax. Then this little boy comes running out onto that rooftop. He was about five or six years old, no shoes. Brown sweater, blue shorts, jet-black hair. Beautiful kid. Clothes and skin were covered in a fine dust from all the rubble.” Darsh’s eyes went very far away. “My scope was so good I could see a scratch on the kid’s cheek that was still bleeding. I sat on the roof with my spotter and we’re both muttering ‘don’t do it kid, don’t touch that fucking weapon.’”
Rachel was mesmerized, holding her breath. Erin wasn’t far behind.
“So I have my crosshairs centered on his small chest, and he starts dragging the RPG out of the dead soldier’s arms. My spotter is silent. He knows I have all the calculations I need to make that shot. We both know that once I pull the trigger, that kid is dead, and no way am I going to let him kill Marines on the ground.” He swallowed noisily. “The RPG is a heavy sucker, but that little kid is frickin’ determined. His mouth is moving, but I’m too far away to hear what he’s saying, and I can’t read his lips.
“I’m praying for some sort of divine intervention. He doesn’t try and lift it, instead he starts dragging the weapon to the doorway, and my spotter gets on the radio to our CO to see if we have permission to take him out.” He laughs a horrible sound. “Of course, they say yes because that RPG is a deadly weapon, and they have troops pinned down in that area. I exhale, start the slow pull on the trigger. One pound. Two pounds. And this kid is a fraction of a second away from meeting his maker when my spotter points out that there’s a guy hiding behind the doorway, shouting out instructions.” Darsh caught Erin’s gaze, and she saw the anger in those black depths. “Imagine using a child that way? Anyway, I can see the guy’s arm. I know my bullet can penetrate the mud brick of the house, but it’s a risk, and I’m weighing every aspect of this scenario between heartbeats. I take the shot, and the guy falls dead across the doorway. I move immediately back to the kid, finger taking up the slack as soon as I have him on scope. But he’s dropped the RPG and runs over to the dead guy in the doorway and steps over him so gingerly.” Darsh’s eyes were far away, flinching with internal regret. He shook his head. “I doubt he’ll ever forget the sight of blood and gore.”
“The boy lived?” Rachel asked.
Darsh nodded. “For then at least. Who knows what happened to him later.”
Erin realized her heart was beating so hard she could hear her pulse pounding in her ears. “Would you have shot him?” she asked, because she needed to know.
“Yes.” Obsidian eyes regarded her blankly. “Those soldiers and Marines on the ground were my friends. A lot of them had wives and kids back home. I wasn’t about to let them lose a father or a husband because I couldn’t do my job.” He nodded sharply. “Damn right I’d have taken him out. Once he picked up that RPG he became the enemy. War isn’t pretty. There’s no time for sentiment.” He blinked a couple of times, coming back into the room. “But I’m glad I didn’t have to.” He looked down at his clasped hands.
Rachel released a shuddering breath. “I think that counts as a worst memory. I’m glad you didn’t shoot the boy.”
Darsh nodded. He’d passed her little tes
t. “Me, too.” His lips moved into a smile, but his eyes didn’t lose their haunted look.
This was a man who had layers upon layers of stories to tell about death if he wanted to—which he obviously didn’t. No wonder he’d pretended to be something he wasn’t when they’d met at that bar—he probably shed that skin on a regular basis just to avoid situations like this one. Maybe it had nothing to do with deception and everything to do with preservation.
“Will you tell me about the night you were raped, Rachel?” he asked.
Erin braced herself even though she’d heard the story many times before.
Darsh sat quietly on the rug in front of the fire, hyperaware rather than relaxed.
Rachel started speaking. “I shared a room with Jenny—the girl I mentioned earlier—in Rathbone Hall. It’s one of the older dorms, girls on one floor, guys on the next, so we were used to having people in and out all hours of the day and night. Students wedged the doors open all the time so they didn’t get woken up by friends coming over and ringing the buzzer. Security was nonexistent.” She glanced around as if cataloguing whether or not she was safe. The presence of two law enforcement officials didn’t seem to calm her.
She licked her lips and blinked rapidly. “I went to bed at around ten. Jenny had gone to a party and was planning to spend the night in her boyfriend’s room as his roommate had gone home for the weekend. They were going to have sex for the first time.” This had all come out at trial.
“You weren’t seeing anyone?” asked Darsh.
Rachel’s smile was bitter. “Haven’t you heard? I’m too ugly to have a real boyfriend.”
The words made Erin bristle. “You know that’s not true. It’s what the defense team went with because there wasn’t anything else for them to attack. Being raped is not a reflection on you.” The words came out more forcibly than she’d intended, and Darsh looked at her with an odd expression in his eyes.
He turned away. “So you’d spent the evening doing what? Candy Crush? Facebook? Watching TV?”
“I watched a couple of episodes of Friends on Netflix. If Jenny was there we’d have watched a horror movie, but I was too scared to do that when I was alone. Ironic, huh?”
Cold Hearted (Cold Justice Book 6) Page 12