by Tara Brown
I shrug. “Mild winter. All it did was rain this year, not a lot of snow. Rapids might have been less, giving poor Ashley a chance. Something he clearly never expected.”
“This really was the worst of the worst, eh?” She taps a finger against her lips. “I wonder if that river is where the others are? Girls like Steph who would have gotten in the way of his story or planning? Or girls who didn’t fit into the cellar lifestyle. People like him have been proven to habitually dump bodies the same way.”
I nod. “Look at Samantha Barnes and her father.”
“Aye.” Angie runs her fingers down the page. “And how strange that all the other girls are all dead when we got there.”
“It is strange.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Almost as if he somehow knew we had found Ashley, even though no one leaked the information of a girl being found to the press.”
“Yeah, that’s true.”
“And there’s the DNA. The forensics said that the girls have DNA all over the damned place—fecking blood and all. That room was all about the vaginal fluids, and they have apparently found fluids from seven other girls too. But as far as he was concerned . . . I wonder if the way he knows Ashley survived the river is the same way he knows how to clean a scene. Maybe we need to think about the possibility that he killed off all the girls and cleaned his DNA off the scene because he’s a uniform or a Fed?”
It hits me right in the guts. She’s completely right. “Seriously! You are probably dead on. And had it not been for the fact uniforms found her and the FBI came in instantly to take over the scene, he might have been able to kill her off in the hospital. But the moment the FBI took over, no one was going into the room without security. So even if he was a uniform he didn’t stand a chance.” I shake my head.
She turns off the recorder and nods. “That is all a strange coincidence.”
“Where is the file going now?”
“We’re stuck with it. None of us have been taken off. I have heard nada about transfers to the next thing. It seems to me until they have some answers, this is our gig for now. At least you won’t be going to Manhattan for a while.”
I glance around, wanting a subject change from Manhattan desperately. “Well, then I guess we should see if any of the other information triggers anything in my mind or makes sense to us. Have you seen the rest of the intel on the guy who owned the cabin? The one who was dead a couple of years ago?”
She winces. “That’s another nearly dead end. Whoever our Mr. X is, he’s a smart asshole. The family who own the cabin are useless for us at this point, as far as I can see.” She lifts a huge folder off the desk and slides it my way. “Interesting reading, to say the least. The owners are about as scummy as it gets.” She cocks an eyebrow.
“Great.” I drag the folder to me and open it. The first page is a picture of the cabin. I flip past it, shivering with memories.
“So why don’t ya want the military gig now?” she asks as she scans the page. “There must be something behind you taking it and now looking ready to back out.”
I shrug but don’t answer, pretending to be looking at something.
“No, ya have to tell me.”
I don’t lift my gaze from the photos of the garage and the cabin as I scan. “I don’t think I ever really wanted it. I said yes because it was what Dash wanted and I knew that; he wants us to be two office workers who start at nine and are off at five. He wants normal. But I’m not sure I do.” Something catches my eye. I narrow my gaze, staring at the bedroom photos. The bed that was there, the one Mr. X cuffed Ashley to when he masturbated on her, is different. I remember the frame being metal and the headboard being scratched up from the cuffs. This one isn’t metal. “Did we shoot all the bedrooms?” I flip through the pictures, but none of the rooms have the railings I’m looking for. “Where’s the metal bed?”
She gives me a look. “What metal bed? Don’t think we aren’t going to finish this conversation, but what metal bed?”
“The black frame with the scratch marks. It was a queen-sized bed in one of the rooms.”
She glances over the desk at the photos and scowls. “I don’t recall a metal bed.”
“One of those bed frames is brand fucking new.” The time frame is off in my head.
“Brand new last spring when he took her?”
I shake my head. “I—she never saw the bed again. So it was bought sometime between last winter when she was on it and this fall when she escaped.” I pause. “If I had to guess I would say he brought the bed and replaced it when he knew he was going to bring her there. He had to clean up the things in his place she had touched. She slept on that bed, she clung to it with her wrists handcuffed there. She was on that bed. She was sitting on the couch, but a thorough vacuuming would remove the evidence. She ate from the dishes, but everything goes in the dishwasher. So he replaced the bed with that one.” I point at the wooden bed with the dark stain. “It’s that room. I recognize the view from that room and the curtains.”
She whistles. “Ya might possibly be redeeming yourself with this one.”
I open my mouth to defend our work, but this whole mind run has been a cock-up from the start. Acid stirs in my stomach when I look at the bed. “Don’t tell anyone what we found. The way he cleaned up the house and fixed everything and killed the girls with poison makes me wonder if we somehow have a leak with the police department.”
She frowns, furrowing her barely-there ginger brows. “All right, but just so ya know, I am not going door to door with ya on this shite. I’m a doctor, not an investigator.”
I roll my eyes. “I’ll go by myself.”
“Ya think that’s a good idea?”
“I do. The fewer people involved, the less likely it is to get fucked up again.”
I need to stop cussing so much.
16. See a man about a bed
The Coal Arched bed frame is here.” The man points at it, giving me a weird look. I follow him across Barrel & Barn at the University Village Shopping Center. I never come to places like this, ever, but if by some random unluckiness I do, I always try to look homeless. Pressure sales are not my thing, and coming in here like you might have ten dollars to your name is a bad idea. Barrel & Barn is one of those stores where you look at things that will make your house so much homier until you happen upon the price tag. Then you vomit and buy whatever you need off Craigslist like sensible people.
“Why are you so dressed down?” Dash leans in, probably wondering why we are bed shopping since he had demanded we buy a new one when he moved in with me. His diva ways really should have revealed his blue blood sooner.
I sip my latte and smile. “They harass you less if they know you’re poor.”
“Dear God, why didn’t you say something? I would have changed. Are they going to harass me?”
“Yeah, most likely.” I nod at the pretty salesgirl in the corner. “Especially her.”
“Great!” He grimaces but I ignore it and drag him over to the bed, away from the pretty girl. We round the corner, and I stop dead in my tracks; it’s exactly the bed.
“What is this? I don’t even understand why we had to come back to Seattle, let alone here. Honestly, why are we at Barrel & Barn? This store is so—”
“Expensive?”
His eyes narrow. “Uhhh, yeah. Okay.”
“You were going to put it down for being a place where peasants like me shop, weren’t you?”
He opens his mouth and then snaps it shut.
“I wouldn’t shop here, just so you’re aware.”
He nods. “Well, good, the furniture is subpar and would likely need repairs or replacement—” He pauses. “Wait, why wouldn’t you shop here?”
I blink, stunned at his snobbery. “Not even trying to keep that shit locked up anymore, huh?” I point at the two-thousand-dollar price tag next to him on a small round dining-room table. “Because that’s more than one of my paychecks.”
He blinks staring at it. “Are you being seriou
s?”
I stare at him deadpan. “You want to go joint account with me so we can both laugh when I get paid?”
“You mean you’ll finally agree to let me buy you things?”
“No, and since I met your parents, extra no.”
He laughs like I’m kidding, but I’m not.
An older salesman strolls over to us, but he looks through me at Dash. “We have some lovely end tables that just came in from Africa—rubberwood, and very charming.” I don’t know what that has to do with anything, so I make an attempt to ignore them both and stare at the bed that’s been haunting my dreams.
“Oh, I don’t need any end tables, thanks.”
“They are exactly the right size for any room in the house, no matter the living room or recreation-room size. They will fit, I guarantee it.”
Dash cocks an eyebrow. “You guarantee they’d fit in any room? That’s a boastful recommendation.”
I roll my eyes and leave them there to haggle out whether we are buying new end tables for our townhouse in DC. Dash of course is wearing high-end clothing and very expensive shoes, making him a direct target for the sales people. He says he wears expensive shoes for the support, but I think he just can’t bring himself to wear some poor-people shoes. He won’t dress down, at all. I always thought it was cute before, the way he looked so put together. But now I see it’s bred into him. When I bought Toms in the summer, just some canvas boat shoes for bumming around in, he nearly stroked. I thought I was spending a ridiculous amount on shoes. He couldn’t believe I would wear canvas shoes and tried to convince me to buy some sensible Italian shoes at eight hundred dollars a pair. It’s like dating a college girl with a shoe fetish.
The thought flits about in my head as I walk to the bed where I once saw an actual college girl handcuffed. It’s identical, and up close it’s creepy. The feel of the cold metal makes my skin burn.
I don’t even know how to be near it without losing my mind. I swallow hard and turn back, sending a text to Angie.
Barrel & Barn, University Village Shopping Center, has the bed in stock. I bet it was purchased from here. I’ll get some videos for surveillance if I can and purchase dates for the bed. But I need you to make it rain with creds! Send in the bigwigs to force the hands of these hipster punks so they give me what I want. Get me the president of fucking Barrel & Barn if you have to.
I turn and leave Dash still bartering with the man who has now managed to get Dash over to the end tables. I can see the price tag from here. It’s not pretty. Unfortunately, the pretty saleslady I pointed out, young pretty saleslady, has been sucked into the conversation with Dash and the other salesman now too. She’s mostly giggling and toying with her hair like a nimrod. I almost hope he buys the damned tables and gets them on sale because she is lost in his dreamboat doctor crap.
Lord knows I have been lost in it too, from day one. Dreamy and funny and sexy. Best kind of doctor. If we played fetish or role-playing games I’d never let him change from being the doctor, but we don’t.
I turn away, leaving the three of them to argue rubberwood and furniture buying.
I’m not here for that anyway.
I am seeking out the most important looking person in the store. I snigger when I find him, noting he is of course a hipster. In an urban store like this one the lead salesman behind the counter always will be.
His probably fake eye glasses, skinny jeans, and sweater with a plaid shirt beneath make me suspect he is going to be fun to speak with.
I stroll over, watching him with a steady gaze as he looks up from his binder, giving me a snooty smile. He patronizes before I’ve even opened my mouth. “The salespeople are over there. I’m sure when they’re done, one of them will help you.”
“No, I think you are the one I need to speak to.” I smile, with a little patronization of my own, and continue to walk toward him.
He sighs, aggravated by my very existence. But he has no idea what I have been through, how much sighing and patronizing I can take without it wounding my delicate self. He pushes his glasses up and tilts his head. “If this is a complaint, you’ll have to wait for the manager to be in.”
I shake my head, stopping when I get to the desk. “I’m Special Agent Spears, and I need to ask you a few questions.”
His jaw drops. “I think I need—”
“Identification, sure, why not.” I pull my wallet out and flash the badge I almost never show anyone. It’s not even real, technically. It’s government issue, but I am not entirely FBI. I’m not entirely one thing or another, but I have some form of credentials for every single country in the free world.
He swallows hard. “Th-there must be some sort of mistake. You must be in the wrong store.”
I stare at him blankly. “You think I make mistakes?” I glance at his nametag. “Mark?”
He shakes his head, and I can see just how nervous he is.
“I need to know every single sale you have had, whether in store or an online purchase where the person picks it up here or even has it delivered somewhere, for that bed. The Coal Arched bed frame. Queen-size only. And your surveillance footage for the days when one was bought.” It took me three hours to find the stupid bed. I used Google Image search until my head was spinning, but now we know exactly the bed it was. The uniqueness of the frame saved me from spending the rest of my life searching.
Mark’s shoulders slump, and I can see he’s going to try the old “pawn it off on someone else” or ask me to come back later to pick it up. I smile wider as the phone next to him rings. I know it’s Angie coming through with credentials. I know she’s made some kind of magic happen.
“Excuse me.” He instantly perks up, lifting a finger and answering. “Barrel & Barn, Mark speaking.” His face drops, his cheeks flushing. “Oh, hello, sir. Of course.” He swallows hard, nodding, as if that will help, and then not speaking for several moments. The phone clicks loudly, and with a shaking hand he puts it back on the counter.
I sigh, looking back at Dash and the sales team. He has them all laughing and smiling. It makes me want to stroll over there like the little rain cloud I am. The girl’s face will be precious when she realizes that hot and charming man is dating this little hobo in a hoodie and ripped jeans.
When I look back Mark winces. “So do you have particular dates?”
“I do.” I nod. “Who was that on the phone?”
“One of the Ottos from Hamburg, Germany. The owners of Barrel & Barn. He said the vice president of the United States had called him personally and said I am to—to oblige you in everything.”
“Sounds about right.” I lean in a little. “Dates are November 2014 through to let’s say November 2015. One year exactly. And I need you to be fast, very fast. By the time that guy buys whatever crap they’re selling him, I need to be ready to walk out of the store. Oh, and give him the store discount so he thinks he’s getting a deal. It’ll kill him if he doesn’t get one after all that charming he’s doing.” I turn and stalk back to the mini party midfloor. When I glance back, Mark is scurrying like a little weasel.
As I approach, the girl’s brows draw close. She cocks one of the perfectly manicured things and eyes me up. I nudge Dash like we are buddies, not wanting to kill his sale. “So, rubberwood.”
“African rubberwood.” He corrects me and then frowns. “Don’t you think it looks a little damaged here on the corner?”
I purse my lips and shake my head. “I think that is the thing they do to make it look that way. Like it’s old already, but it’s new.”
The salesguy claps his hands together victoriously. “It is, indeed, distressed to appear antiqued.”
Dash looks disheartened. “They distress perfectly good furniture as a fad?”
The guy’s face falls.
“It’s all the rage,” I comment dryly, glancing back again to check on Mark and the scurrying.
“She is absolutely correct. It is all the rage. And we only have five of the tables. They would be the
only set in Seattle.”
“Unless you order online.”
The guy’s love for me wanes. “Right.” His lips move like he might try a different tactic, but I look over at Dash and shrug. “Just get them. You can have them delivered to the house. I’m sure if you buy all five they’ll give you a deal because five is such a randomly odd number. They don’t want one table just chilling here.” I am completely joking since we live on the other side of the country.
But my version of joking is always lost on people.
Dash’s eyes light up, and the guy’s fill with worry. He glances at his boss, the ass manager at the counter. “I’m sure we can work something out.”
The sales team scatters as Dash turns and pulls me into his embrace. I stiffen, not loving the PDA at all. I don’t mind an arm around my shoulder, but wrapped around my waist is a whole other thing. “You are a smart girl.”
I roll my eyes. “So I know how to get things on sale. It’s not an admirable trait. It’s a necessity because I am poor. You may not be, but I am.” I tilt my head, trying to pull back even more. “Wait, if your brother is getting everything, does that mean you’re poor too and have to live on wages?”
He shakes his head. “No. That’s not how that works at all.” He smiles. “I can’t believe I got a discounted price. My father and mother would be appalled that I negotiated a price on warehouse furniture, but I did it.”
“Yes, you stooped pretty low.” I manage to step back, but his hands are huge and strong, forcing me to stay.
“I feel a rush from it. It was exciting.” He presses his lips to mine, ignoring the lack of enthusiasm I’m flashing. He kisses, oblivious to my not kissing back, and pulls back. “Let’s go arrange for shipping them.”
“You realize you have no longer gotten them on sale and the store in DC could have sold you the same tables, right? Now you’ve paid some insane amount of money for them. You should just back out. They can’t make you buy them.”
He wraps a hand around my mouth. “Shhhhhh.”
When we get to the counter, poor Mark is sweating. I’ve clearly asked him to do the hardest thing since inventing the telephone. His eyes dart at Dash, no doubt assuming he’s a mark or a spy or a Fed too, but not sure which. But then Dash speaks: “I would like to buy the tables at a discounted price because of the odd number.” The salesguy rounds the corner and slaps down the tags and gets Dash to start filling out the forms for delivery.