He closed his eyes, panting. His hands reached for the navel ring in his own abdomen. The thrill that he had something of Angie’s in him began to diminish. Tears fell, but he didn’t feel them.
Why didn’t you kill her, Daddy? If you’d killed the bitch, she wouldn’t have called the cops and had you taken away.
Five years had seemed like forever, but it really wasn’t.
Only death was forever.
SEVEN
NICK THOMAS SAT UNCOMFORTABLY in his wooden desk chair, rubbing his sore knee. He slipped on reading glasses and read the reports stacked precariously high on his desk.
He’d never before let the paperwork get this far out of hand. What a difference a year makes.
He watched the deputies outside his office window as shifts changed. The casual glances in his direction. The concerned look on the faces of some; the wariness on the faces of others. He’d been back on the job seven months, but no one had forgotten what had happened last May. Nick found himself glancing at the calendar more often now, as the anniversary of the Butcher’s last hunt approached.
The Butcher wasn’t the only reason he kept looking at the calendar. Three weeks from tomorrow was the deadline to file for reelection, and he still hadn’t made his decision.
Frankly, he had no right to be sheriff. He should have resigned after he screwed up and lived to talk about it.
He didn’t think he could do it. Not again. He’d screwed up, and his error of judgment had not only almost cost him his life, but the lives of citizens he had been sworn to protect.
At the same time, he’d learned about both himself and the nature of violence in a way that could only benefit him as a sworn officer. He was torn. Though none of his relatives had ever been in law enforcement, being a cop seemed to be ingrained in him. He didn’t know how to do anything else.
Pulling his hand from his aching knee, he picked up a pen and signed reports, barely giving them the attention they deserved. Damn knee. He’d tossed out the painkillers as soon as he’d left the hospital last year, hating the ethereal feeling the medication gave him. He dealt with the pain. To remember? As punishment? Whatever, he preferred the pain to the vagueness that came over him when on medication.
One day at a time.
His phone rang, startling him. It was his private line. Few people called on it. Glancing at the clock, he saw that more than an hour had passed since he’d sat down. Had he really been staring at the same piece of paper for an hour? What was wrong with him?
He grabbed the receiver. “Sheriff Thomas.”
“Nicky, it’s Steve.”
His brother. He hadn’t talked to Steve in months. The last time they had had a real conversation had been just after Nick had been released from the hospital last summer. Nick had swallowed his pride and asked Steve if he had a couple weeks to come up and help. Steve had declined. He was taking summer classes at the university. When he offered to come up for a weekend, Nick said no. He hadn’t wanted to entertain his brother, he had wanted someone to talk to.
He’d ended up dealing with the aftermath of the Bozeman Butcher alone, and maybe that had been for the best.
“Nick? You there?”
“Yeah. What’s up?”
“Well, I need some help.”
Steve? The Desert Storm war hero and savior of an entire school of Kuwaiti children asking for help? Steve, his brother who never asked for anything since he could do everything himself?
“You need my help?”
“The police have been here. They think I killed someone.”
Nick didn’t say anything, couldn’t say anything. Steve? A murderer? Impossible.
“Nick?”
“What happened?” Nick asked.
“My ex-girlfriend was murdered. The police talked to me twice already, and they’re coming tomorrow to take my computer and search my apartment.”
“Do they have a warrant?”
“I didn’t do it! I told them to take anything they want. If it helps them to find Angie’s killer—”
“What did your attorney say?”
“Didn’t you hear me? I said I’m innocent. I don’t have an attorney. I don’t need an attorney.”
Nick closed his eyes. “Steve, call an attorney. Have someone present when the police arrive tomorrow to take possession of your computer. It’s your right.”
“I did call someone. I called you.”
“I’m not a lawyer, Steve.”
“I need your help. Please. The cops think I did it. They haven’t arrested me, they don’t have anything on me, but I can tell by the way they look at me that they think I killed Angie.”
Nick rested his forehead on his palm, unsuccessfully trying to squeeze the tension from his growing headache. If the police thought Steve was guilty, there had to be some evidence to back it up.
Dammit, Steve, what have you gotten yourself into?
“Where are you now?”
“My apartment.”
“Get an attorney.”
“If I get an attorney, they’ll think I’m guilty.”
Nick said slowly, “They think you’re guilty now.”
Silence. Then, “Nicky, I really need your help.”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Steve didn’t say anything for a long minute, then: “Angie had a restraining order against me. It didn’t mean anything,” Steve continued quickly. “Really, she was just mad at me because I told her to be careful because she was hanging out with the wrong people, putting too much personal information online.”
“I don’t understand. People don’t get restraining orders for no reason.”
“Look, I just need you, okay? If you can’t help me, I don’t know who to go to. Please come. I don’t have anyone else.”
Nick found himself listening to a dial tone.
Slowly, he replaced the receiver. Steve suspected of murder. It didn’t make sense. Nick couldn’t see Steve killing a woman because she jilted him.
Nothing that Steve had said made much sense to Nick. His ex-girlfriend got a restraining order against him, then ends up dead. Yeah, if he were investigating the case, Steve would be at the top of the list of suspects. Maybe that’s all this was, the detectives looking at the most likely suspect—ex-boyfriend. As soon as they cleared him, they could track down other ex-boyfriends, friends, colleagues.
Still, Nick really had no choice but to go to San Diego and do everything he could to help Steve. Isn’t that what brothers do? Stand by each other?
These last few years they’d grown apart, living more than a thousand miles from each other, but now Steve had asked for help, and Nick would do anything he could.
He called in Deputy Lance Booker. Last year, during the Butcher investigation, Booker had been an overeager rookie. Today he was a solid cop. Violence and murder did that to you. Proved what you were made of. Or proved what you lacked.
“I have a family emergency,” he told Booker. “I’m authorizing you to take over as acting sheriff until I return.”
Booker looked surprised, but didn’t say anything. Nick was breaking protocol, though he hardly cared at this point.
“If Sam Harris gives you shit, don’t take it. I’m telling everyone you’re in charge. You have my cell phone and pager if you need me.”
“Yes, sir.”
Though as undersheriff, Sam Harris was second in command, the sheriff had the authority to appoint any deputy as acting sheriff in his absence. Harris had taken over when Nick disappeared last year and had played the press and the politicians into thinking that he’d single-handedly stopped the Butcher instead of jeopardizing the investigation.
Nick wasn’t about to give him that control again.
Nine months ago he’d faced a serial killer and lived, no thanks to Sam Harris.
For thirteen years, a killer had terrorized the college town of Bozeman, Montana. The Bozeman Butcher—as the press had dubbed him—kidnapped, raped, and tortured college women. But if tha
t wasn’t enough, he released them naked in the woods to hunt them down like animals. Twenty-two women, dead.
Last year after the Butcher struck again, Nick called in the FBI and together they worked the case, getting closer to identifying the Butcher. But Nick couldn’t claim credit for ending the Butcher’s reign of terror. Instead, he’d made a huge error in judgment and ended up being held captive. He’d needed to be rescued instead of doing the rescuing.
That was all water under the bridge, of course. The Butcher was dead, his victims avenged, and Montana State University, where the depraved killer had found most of his victims, was back to normal. But Nick’s concussion and subsequent infection from being held captive had weakened him to the point where he wondered if he could ever again be an effective cop.
The doctors said it was his joints—the ligaments swelled with use and put pressure on the joints that had been ravaged by infection. A type of arthritis. Surgery might help. Nick had an operation three months after the attack, yet he still wasn’t the man he’d been nine months ago.
Nick didn’t see any other option but going through surgery and rigorous physical therapy again, even against the odds. He couldn’t live like this forever. But his doctor, whom he trusted, insisted that he had to wait at least another month before repeating the surgery. Usually, patience was Nick’s strong suit. Not now, not with the chance of regaining full mobility within reach.
“There are no guarantees, Sheriff,” his doctor had told him during his last check-up.
“There never are,” he’d replied.
But if he wasn’t able to regain his strength, could he hand the reins of the sheriff’s department to a man who had so blatantly abused his power? Harris was dangerous and the last person Nick wanted to see as sheriff, but Nick wasn’t sure he was up for an election battle.
Not only wasn’t he confident of victory, he didn’t know if he wanted to win.
EIGHT
“LET’S CHECK OUT THAT JOURNAL SITE Abby gave us.”
It was almost noon. Carina and Will had spent the entire morning talking again to Angie’s mother and grandmother, then hitting the university and speaking with her academic advisor, stopping by the Sand Shack to interview employees about Angie and her relationship with both Steve Thomas and Doug Masterson, then finally spending two hours unsuccessfully trying to track down Masterson’s current whereabouts.
They learned Angie had a 4.0 GPA, everyone liked her, she worked hard at the Shack, no one had seen her use drugs, and no one admitted knowing about her online journal.
Steve Thomas was seen as a “nice guy.” Doug Masterson elicited stronger reactions. People either liked him a lot, or thought he was creepy.
Now they finally had time to read Angie’s online journal while waiting until Patrick Kincaid in e-crimes and Jim Gage in forensics were able to break free and join them at Steve Thomas’s apartment.
Thomas’s cooperation was definitely a plus at this point, which made Carina wonder if he was really innocent or just playing them. She opted for playing them. If he had killed Angie, it hadn’t been in his apartment. Otherwise he’d never let them inside. If he’d tracked her online, it hadn’t been on his computer, or he wouldn’t be so free to give them access to it. Unless of course he was a total idiot, which Carina didn’t rule out. Many criminals thought the police wouldn’t figure it out. Fortunately, the cops were usually smarter than the criminals. It was just a matter of time, patience, and asking the right questions.
Will sat on the edge of Carina’s desk while she logged onto the Internet and brought up Angie’s MyJournal page.
At first, nothing jumped out at them. On the right was an avatar, a photo icon of something brownish that Carina couldn’t make out. She leaned closer.
“Will, tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re not.”
“Damn.” The avatar, which was Angie’s personal calling card in cyberspace, was a close-up of a nipple.
“Think it’s hers?”
“Read the text.”
They stared at the computer. Carina didn’t consider herself a prude, but the sexual content in Angie’s journal was detailed enough to make a sailor blush. And glancing at Will, she saw that he was equally uncomfortable.
The last entry was dated February 10, the day before she disappeared.
This morning I woke up horny. You know how it is, you have this great sexy dream with a couple guys and then the damn alarm rings and you just know the vibrator isn’t going to satisfy. So I went over to T.S. He’s on my way to class, he always wakes up with a rock-hard dick, and he never says no.
She went on to describe exactly what “T.S.” did to her in great detail.
“Holy shit,” Will muttered. “What was she thinking?”
Carina shook her head.
They skimmed the journal entries. Every entry had dozens, even hundreds of comments. Most from men posting lewd pictures of themselves.
You’re so hot, come over to my place.
I’ll show you what rock hard really means.
I’ll fuck you like you’ve never been fucked before.
“Winners, all of them,” Carina said irritably. “And she thought this was fun?”
“Young and stupid,” Will said.
Angie Vance, straight-A student, had been playing a dangerous game that may have gotten her killed. Any number of sexual deviants could have been after her, men who thought she’d be into whatever sick fantasy they had. What if one of these men had tracked her down? What if she’d said no? Would that have set him off, knowing she’d slept with all these other guys, why not him? Would he then have stalked her, kidnapped her, killed her?
They skimmed the entries for any comments related to Steve Thomas or Doug Masterson. They found several entries they believed referred to each of them.
On Monday, she wrote:
D.M. is cheating on me. I suppose it shouldn’t bother me, but I’ve been faithful to him since we started sleeping together. How do I know? The smell of sex. I know what D.M.’s bed smells like after I’ve fucked him. I went over last night without calling and the scent wasn’t mine.
Was that why my mother kicked my father out of the house? She came home and smelled another woman?
Well, all bets are off. If he can screw around, so can I. I sometimes wish things didn’t end the way they had with S.T. because he’s exactly what I need right now. D.M. was rough and tumble, a hard, fast fuck that made me scream. S.T. was slow and easy, patient, like a tightening spiral until I quietly exploded.
Sometimes a girl needs to be fucked. Sometimes a girl needs to be loved.
“Sometimes,” Carina mumbled, “a girl needs a good shrink.”
Will looked at his notes. “Mrs. Vance said Angie’s father left them when she was a toddler. Think she’s looking for a surrogate daddy?”
“Hell if I know, but I have friends without a dad in their lives, and they don’t sleep with multiple partners twice their age.”
Farther down the journal they found this interesting entry:
January 19. Okay you jerks out there. You know who you are. Let me tell you what it is. If you think you can scare me into needing your protection, you have another think coming. S.T. this means YOU. I don’t need you and I don’t want you. Stay away from me because it’s all in your head, got it?
The restraining order was dated January 20.
“It sounds like she knew Steve was reading her journal, presuming he’s ‘S.T.,’ ” Carina said.
Will pointed to the screen. Photos. “Click there, Carina.”
She did and immediately thought they’d accidentally hit a porn website.
Under the heading “Dicks I’ve Loved” were close-up pictures of male genitals in various states of arousal.
Under the heading “Me, Myself, and I” were close-up pictures of the female anatomy. No face shots, but there was no doubt as to what the pictures were.
One picture stood out. Angie’s breasts, pushed close together by her
hands. The red rose tattoo on the top of the left breast matched the tattoo on her dead body.
Carina turned away, surprised at her anger and deep sadness. She wanted to throttle Angie, yell at her, ask her what in the world was she thinking? But Angie was dead at eighteen with no chance of learning from her mistakes.
“Excuse me, Detectives.”
Carina faced Sergeant Fields.
Sergeant Fields glanced at the screen and paled. He had a sixteen-year-old daughter. “The vic?”
“Yeah.”
“Shit, my daughter has a MyJournal page. Just for her friends, but…I think I need to have a talk with her. Make sure she’s being safe.”
“Talk to Patrick and you’ll learn there’s no way to be a hundred percent safe,” Carina said.
“No way to be safe in anything these days,” Fields said. “I just don’t understand why a smart, pretty girl like the vic would put stuff like that out for every scumbag to see.”
“They think it’s a joke, or fun,” Carina said, still unnerved by what they’d discovered. It wasn’t that she was naive, she knew what people did online, in chat rooms, the child predators, the pornography. It was making the connection between Angie Vance, dead; Angie Vance, alive; and Angie Vance’s wild and reckless lifestyle. Her supposedly secret lifestyle.
Carina’s thoughts instantly brought down a veil of guilt. Angie hadn’t deserved what happened to her. Irresponsible, yes; but she was practically a kid, dammit, and she shouldn’t have had to suffer violence any more than any other woman who walked the streets of San Diego, saint or sinner.
“What’s up, Sarge?” she asked Fields.
He flipped open his notepad. “Daniels called to say that Thomas arrived home a few minutes ago. Diaz reported that he talked to Masterson’s employer and he took a week’s vacation at the last minute. Called in Sunday saying he needed the time. Guy’s ready to fire him, he does this all the time. And for Hooper,” he handed over a note, “Deputy District Attorney Chandler said your presence will be required in court—that would be the San Francisco Appeals Court—Friday eight a.m.”
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