Latent Danger

by Lori Ryan

  He looked again at the piles of names on the table in front of the detectives.

  Shauna’s cell phone rang and she stepped away briefly to answer it before waving to Zach. He followed her out of the room.

  “We need to go back. Liz Gordon just walked into your squad room and asked to see me. She won’t talk to Ronan.”

  Zach walked out feeling like they’d accomplished very little on their trip, but what could they do? If Liz could offer anything that might help, they needed to get back there and see her.

  They found Liz waiting with Ronan at the bank of chairs by the elevator on the third floor of New Haven Police Department Headquarters. She’d been given a soda, and Ronan sat quietly a seat away from her, but she looked anxious.

  “Liz? Is everything all right?” Shauna asked.

  The girl fidgeted, glancing between the two of them, then settling her eyes on Shauna. She reached in her pocket and pulled a note from it.

  In block letters read the words: Talk and you’ll choke too, bitch.

  Zach looked up to find Liz looking unsure, as though she didn’t know if she should have given it to them, or maybe like she felt bad for bothering them. He suddenly remembered that behind his niece’s blustering teenage ’tude, there was always vulnerability.

  “Have your parents seen this?” He asked, taking her gently by the elbow and leading her into the same interview room they’d used when she came in with Kate. The girl had seemed to be the stronger one when she was there with Kate, like she’d been helping Kate come forward. This time, she seemed a lot less confident.

  She blanched at his question. “My parents are still away.”

  Zach blinked and saw Shauna have a similar reaction. He’d assumed her parents would come home as soon as they found out girls her age were being killed. Girls from her school. Girls she’d once called friends and could maybe still consider friends of the family. What the hell was wrong with these people?

  Shauna breezed over that, but Zach knew she’d seethe later. “Can you tell us where you found the note?”

  “It was on my back steps. I went to let my dog out this morning and it was there. There was a rock sitting on it.” Liz twisted her hands in her lap and Zach felt for her.

  Gone was the tough girl who’d tried to act like nothing bothered her at their interview on campus. Now, she looked almost like she was twelve and about to cry because her parents weren’t there when she needed them. From what he could tell, they probably hadn’t been there for their child for a long time.

  “Do you usually let your dog out in the backyard every morning?” Shauna asked and Zach knew what she was thinking. She wanted to know if whoever left it had knowledge of Liz’s schedule and movements.

  “Yes. Fiona sleeps with me so the staff doesn’t let her out when they come in. I let her out when I get up. Then the gardener takes her for a walk later in the day, after I leave for school.”

  Zach wondered what the chances were that Fiona was an impeccably trained guard dog, maybe a German Shepherd or a Malinois.

  “You said when the staff comes in? I thought you had full time staff living with you?” Shauna asked.

  Liz shook her head. “The cook lives in an apartment over the garage, but all of the other staff come in for the day or as needed.”

  Zach guessed she was almost eighteen. It seemed reasonable to leave her for a weekend here or there, but for months on end? What would that be like for a teenager? It was a miracle she didn’t throw parties every weekend. Hell, forget every weekend—every night. He wondered if child services had ever been involved with this family.

  “Do you have any idea who might have left the note? And what they meant when they warned you not to talk?” Shauna asked gently.

  Liz nodded, a little too quickly, like her nerves were taking control of her movements. She bit her lip and looked away.

  “We can help keep you safe if you talk to us, Liz,” Zach said. And we’ll get your fucking parents back in the damned country to care for you properly, he thought, but didn’t voice his opinion.

  “I told Kate,” she said quietly. “I think she must have told him.”

  “Told who?” Shauna prompted.

  “Sawyer. I mean, Jonathan Sawyer,” she said as if remembering to identify him properly with them instead of with his nickname.

  Zach stopped talking now. He’d let Shauna lead the rest of the talk.

  “Can you tell me what you told Kate?” Shauna asked.

  “Only that he asked me to come to the clubhouse sometimes when the other kids weren’t hanging around, that’s all.” She raised a shoulder. “It wasn’t a big deal. It’s just, well, after hearing what happened to Adrienne when he had her at the clubhouse, I thought he might be trying to...um, you know.”

  Shauna nodded and Zach remained still.

  Shauna tapped the note Liz had received where it sat on the table in front of them. “Do you recognize this handwriting at all?”

  “I don’t know, maybe.” Liz looked at it and shrugged her shoulders. “It could be Jonathan’s but it’s not how he writes. I mean, he doesn’t write in all caps like that.”

  “Have you seen Jonathan’s writing?” Shauna asked.

  “In class, sure. We were lab partners once in science for a semester.” She frowned down at the paper again. “I think it could be his writing.”

  She looked up at them again and Zach had the feeling she was close to crying. This girl had to be used to burying her feelings with parents like hers. “I don’t want to go home. The cook is there and all, but I mean, I don’t think I want to be there alone.”

  Zach could see how the girl would feel alone even with someone on the property with her. She’d mentioned a cook and the gardener. He wondered if there were others.

  “It’s all right, Liz,” Shauna said. “We’re going to get in touch with your parents and get them home. I’ll stay with you at the house until they can arrange to get here. Do you know where they are right now?”

  “Japan.”

  Zach was about to assure Liz they had Sawyer under surveillance when he realized the kid must have at least gotten out his back door and over to Liz’s house without being seen. He stood, leaving the room. He needed to get the cops tailing Sawyer to split up so one of them could cover the back of the property.

  Then he was going to call Liz’s parents. If he had to get on a plane and drag those people home from Japan himself, he’d do it. And he’d have a word with them, too, when he saw them about what the hell it meant to parent a child.

  Shit, it killed him seeing people treat their child like that. His brother, Luke, and him counted their blessings every damned day that they had Naomi in their lives. They’d learned early on how quickly life could be taken from you and how precious it is to have someone in your world to love.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  “You taking her home?” Zach asked under his breath when Shauna left Liz sitting in a chair across the bullpen and came toward him. The girl looked remarkably calm now.

  “Yeah. If we had the budget to have patrol on her house, I might do that, but we don’t. Besides,” she said, looking over at the girl, “with no one in the house with her at night, I wouldn’t feel right.”

  “I had the surveillance team knock on the door and asked to see Sawyer. They’ve confirmed that the whole family is inside. I told the team to split up and cover the front and back of the property as best they can. They said there’s a side street they can sit on and watch the back of the house with binoculars. It’s the best we can do.”

  Zach’s desk phone rang and he answered it while Shauna waited.

  She looked at him with raised brows when he hung up.

  “That was Dr. Kane. Candice had no signs of sexual activity but there was Rohypnol in her system. No GHB.”

  Shauna only shook her head and he knew how she felt. It was a baffling change for their killer. Of course, it also supported the idea that Sawyer was only involved in the rapes, but not the kil
ling. Maybe now that Sawyer wasn’t involved, the partner was continuing on his own.

  Zach searched for a reasoning that would fit. “Maybe the killer is working with Sawyer? And whoever his partner is isn’t interested in sex?”

  “Impotent?” Shauna suggested. “Or a woman?”

  “It’s possible. We haven’t looked all that carefully at Sawyer’s mom, although, if it’s her, she’s a hell of an actress. I really thought she was genuinely surprised her son was involved with all of the girls when we interviewed Sawyer.”

  Shauna nodded. “I thought so, too. Still, we should see where she was at the relevant times. Rule her out, at least.”

  Zach looked over to Liz Gordon. The girl was watching them intently, but looked away when she caught his gaze.

  “Maybe we should see if the captain can approve a detail for her until we catch...” he almost said this guy, but realized it was more likely they were dealing with at least a pair of people, and he wasn’t convinced both of those people would be male, at this point.

  Shauna nodded. “I still want to get her home now and stay with her until her parents get back. Besides,” she turned away from Liz and stepped into Zach’s space, speaking low so no one could overhear, “I have a feeling Liz might know more than maybe she even realizes she does. She lives next to Sawyer. Maybe there’s more that she’s seen than she even recognizes. I’d like to try to get her to relax more with me. Maybe she’ll open up.”

  Zach gave a nod. Shauna handed him a piece of paper with two names and a phone number. Brent Gordon and Anna Elizabeth Kenworth-Gordon. Liz Gordon’s parents. Leave it to the mother to have four names.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Until Shauna spoke, Zach hadn’t even realized he’d been frowning at the paper. “I don’t know,” he said, rubbing a hand over his chest. “Just thinking. I can’t shake this feeling that there’s a connection we can’t see somehow.”

  “I wish I could say I thought you were wrong,” Shauna said, “but I don’t. We’re missing a connection. And it must be a connection that’s not easily seen from anyone on the outside. Not family, not the school. But it’s there.” She looked back to Liz. “We just need to find it.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Kate’s hands shook as she waited in the hallway outside the locker room. She could hear the practice wrapping up. She just had to stay strong about this for the next few minutes. They would cave fast.

  The clatter of the team coming couldn’t be mistaken. She slipped further back in the doorway she waited in.

  “Taylor, you need to get your shit together before the season starts,” one of them said. She recognized it as Kyle’s voice. “We’ll get our asses handed to us and lose our standing if you keep playing like that.”

  “Hell no, he doesn’t.” That was Mike Davies. “Sawyer will be cleared and back in school before the season starts. The cops will have to admit he couldn’t have killed the girls. He has witnesses.”

  There was grumbling and all of them talking over each other as half the team argued Sawyer would be back in no time and the other half said they thought his family would move away after the scandal.

  It struck Kate that not a single one of them seemed to realize Sawyer had committed rape and would be standing trial for that, whether he was a murderer or not. Or, if any of them realized it, they didn’t speak up. No one in that building was speaking up for Carrie and Adrienne.

  Kate closed her eyes. She was standing up for them.

  She heard the boys file into the locker room and the door slam shut.

  “What’s that smell?”

  Kate jogged to the door and slid the metal chain she’d brought through the handles, wrapping the length around several times before bolting it in place.

  “What the fuck? What is that?”

  There were more voices, more questions, but Kate ignored them. She called in through the door.

  “It’s lighter fluid and there’s a lot of it!” Her voice shook but she cleared her throat and shoved past the nerves. She was speaking for her friends now. Speaking for Sawyer’s victims. “I’m going to light it if you don’t all start telling the truth about what Sawyer did and where he was when my friends were killed.”

  There was cursing and a lot of noise as she saw dark forms through the frosted glass panes of the door. They were rattling the door, trying to push through, but she knew they couldn’t break the chains. The glass was covered in metal mesh so that wouldn’t be an escape route for them either.

  They didn’t know it, but she didn’t plan to hurt any of them. There was a small amount of lighter fluid sprinkled in the room, but it was well away from the door. She’d also sprinkled a lot of plain water around. She’d made sure that the trail of fluid they saw coming around the edges of the room and out the door—the ones she would supposedly light—were water only and that the lighter fluid was well away from sources of flame.

  She just needed them to smell it, to think she would do it. To think they might be trapped in there with a fire if she did.

  “Kate? What’s going on?”

  Kate whirled to see Geoff Edwards, Adrienne’s uncle, coming toward her.

  The guys in the locker room began to shout and the racing her heart had been doing a minute ago kicked into high gear. If she thought her heart might break right through her chest before, now she was sure of it.

  She pressed her back against the doors and held the lighter in her hand up, flicking it to start the flame. “Stop! I’ll light the room if you come closer.”

  Mr. Edwards put a hand out, but she backed away. “Kate, everyone’s looking for you. Your parents are worried about you.”

  Kate lifted her chin. “Well, as you can see, I’m fine.”

  He shook his head, his eye moving from her, to the door behind her, then back to her again. “I don’t think you’re fine, Kate. I think you’re upset, and you’ve every right to be. You’ve been through a lot.”

  He stepped closer, hand outstretched like he could pacify her, but she didn’t like how close he was getting. She didn’t like the feeling that he was boxing her in.

  She raised the lighter higher. “No! Don’t you want them to tell the truth, too? Don’t you want this for Adrienne?” Kate didn’t understand him. How could he not want them to be forced to tell the truth?

  She thought, then, of the detectives’ questions about any adults hanging around Sawyer’s clubhouse. Mr. Edwards was never at the clubhouse, but he was at the school and in the hockey buildings a lot. More than any other board member. Kate couldn’t remember seeing any other board member hanging out on campus with the kids the way he was. Most of the members of the board were distant people you saw the names of around campus, but didn’t see much of as a student.

  Why was he always there?

  Kate began to shake again. She wanted so badly to close her eyes and have this whole thing over with. Not only this moment, but all of it. From the moment she got that first phone call from Carrie’s parents asking if they’d seen her. All the time as she watched one friend after another disappear and then...

  She couldn’t think about what had happened after their disappearances. “Stop,” she said again, only this time it came out as a whisper and she couldn’t hear it over the shouting in the locker room behind her.

  She shoved the lighter hand toward Mr. Edwards as if she could strike him with it somehow, but all it did was make the flame go out.

  This was all wrong. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. All she’d wanted was to get the hockey players to tell the truth, to stop covering for Sawyer.

  Kate sank down to the ground, shaking so hard she couldn’t hold onto the lighter anymore, couldn’t keep her knees beneath her anymore. Then there were hands on her and someone was pulling her up and she felt like she was watching a movie. None of this could be happening.

  None of it.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  The Gordon home was every bit as large as the Sawyer estate next door.
It had an older feel to it, though. In fact, Shauna couldn’t help but expect to see a ghostly figure watching out of one of the third floor windows. She could swear she felt eyes on her as she followed Liz’s car up the drive.

  As a cop, she never ignored that feeling, but she did have to admit, she thought this time she was just letting her imagination run wild. The house looked too much like the setting of a horror movie to stop her brain from going there.

  She glanced up at the house again before getting out to approach Liz. She’d instructed Liz to wait for her in the car. Liz rolled down the window now.

  “Liz, is anyone in the house?” Shauna asked.

  The girl looked at her phone screen for the time. “Yes. The cook should be in there getting ready for dinner.”

  Shauna had a flash of a long formal dining table with only Liz seated in the middle of it, empty seats stretching out on either side of her. “All right. Sit tight here. I’m just going to check the house and then I’ll come out and get you. You keep the car running and the doors locked.”

  It was likely overkill, but Shauna didn’t care. She didn’t want any surprises.

  She rang the bell and introduced herself to the cook, who ended up being a small thin woman who might have been in her fifties with a fit frame. She looked like she could easily run ten miles.

  Shauna explained what was going on and, after the woman looked over Shauna’s shoulder for assurances from Liz, she let Shauna into the house.

  Clearing a house like that took some time, but Shauna had the chance to scan the grounds and check that the back doors and windows were secure. She also walked through the second and third floors of the house quickly.

  When she was finished, she poked her head into the kitchen. “Ms. Tiede?”

  The woman looked up from a pan where she was sautéing something that smelled fantastic.

  “Yes?”

  “I just wondered if you could tell me what’s up on the third floor?”