by Mel Comley
She walked out to watch Candy and Rico come through the front door. Candy’s usually pale cheeks were full of color. She’d left an innocent and returned a woman. Maybe that resolved one of Val’s issues—she wouldn’t have to spread her legs for Rico anymore.
Rico stopped midstride, his eyes widening as they stared at her face. His voice cold, he asked, “Who did this?”
“Your brother.”
She watched his hands clench and unclench. “Samael was here?”
Val nodded. “The mess John and Elisa created upset him. You know how he feels about punishing the people who upset him. I wish now we hadn’t killed them quite so quickly. The pleasure of killing them might have appeased him. I could use your help to bandage this, and give me a shot for the pain.”
Rico raised a hand, rubbing the scars on his face, but he remained silent.
“We won’t let that bastard get away with this.” Candy rushed to her side. “We’ll punish him.”
Val reached out a hand and stroked Candy’s face. “Sweetie, not only can we let him get away with it, we will. You have a lot to learn about the business side of our endeavor, and I want you to live long enough so I can teach you. The best advice I’ll ever give you is if you meet him, do exactly what he wants you to do.” She turned toward the stairs leading to her bedroom. “And, Candy darling, don’t ever upset him. We won’t be working today, so you should get some rest. Rico, I prepared a shot. It’s on the bathroom sink. Grab some bandages, please.”
~
Candy waited for Rico to return. She was too wired to sleep, even if she tried. The bedroom door opened and closed, and she moved to the foot of the stairs and watched him descend. “How is she?”
“She’s sleeping.”
“I assume your brother is our boss?”
“Yes.”
She approached him and gently touched the scars on his face. “Did he do this to you?”
“It was a long time ago.”
“Tell me about it.” Candy took his hand and led him to the couch. “Tell me about Samael.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Waiting for Tamara to finish her shower, Alex nibbled on a piece of toast as she read the notes Blake had made earlier. The chief’s idea of meeting at headquarters every morning was slowly looking like a pipe dream. The calls from him and Commander Frost had everyone hopping to get dressed. Tamara came out of the bedroom, her hair still slightly wet. “You ready?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be. Do you want to drive since you know where we’re going?”
Tamara grinned. “I’d love to, but my heavy foot usually has Reefer hugging the dashboard. Not sure how you’d feel about that.”
“I’ll drive.” Alex grabbed her keys. “So where are the guys heading today?” She’d overslept and missed most of breakfast.
“They’re meeting Derek at the station to interview the police officer whose DNA was found inside one of the murdered girls.” Tamara handed her a note. “Nobby said not to forget to lock up and turn on the security cameras and alarm system.”
“As if I would. Did he drink his juice before he left? I know he hates it, but I think it’s helping.”
“That and some strange-looking green sprouts. If that’s a normal UK breakfast, I’ll put off visiting there.”
Alex rubbed Dixie’s head, gave Cinders a quick peck on the head, and punched in the code for the security system Reefer had installed for them. She’d missed her morning run with Dixie and would have to make it up to her when she got home. “You guys be good.”
Her gaze strayed to the apartment as she locked the door and walked to the car. Maybe the fact that Reefer and Morgan had gone there to shower this morning would take away a little of the creepiness the next time she was there.
“Move it, Fox. We’re on the clock.”
Alex opened her car door and climbed in. “I miss Crimshaw already.”
“I programmed your GPS, so all you have to do is follow the directions.”
Alex stifled a groan. Now I really miss Crimshaw. The GPS was one thing they’d both agreed on. She hated it. The voice made her skin crawl. “Couldn’t you just tell me where to go?” Alex started the car, pulled onto the highway, and set her cruise control.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” Tamara said. “I’ll turn off the GPS if you turn off the cruise control.”
“You don’t like cruise control? Why?”
“Makes my nerves on edge.” Tamara laughed. “I guess we’re both a couple of control freaks, only in different ways. You don’t like a machine telling you what to do, and I don’t like a machine controlling the speed I’m traveling. Have we got a deal?”
Alex hit the off button on the cruise control. “Deal.”
“Take a right at the next stoplight and go straight about twenty miles.”
Alex pulled up to the stoplight, turned right, and checked the odometer making a mental note of the distance. “So tell me about this couple before we get there. I had a pretty hard time not knocking Mrs. Hardy’s teeth down her throat. And why are we interviewing them again? I thought you said Mrs. Granger didn’t report her daughter missing.”
“Derek ran Duke MacIntyre through the system. He was arrested on charges of molesting a fourteen-year-old girl last year. Unfortunately, the charges were dropped by the mother, who was dating MacIntyre at the time. The girl he molested was our victim number three, Janice Brockhurst. Mother made a positive ID this morning.”
“Scum,” Alex mumbled, glancing at the odometer. “We’ve come about fifteen miles. Is there anything I should be looking for?”
Tamara shook her head. “It’s a trailer park on the right. You’ll see it well before we get there.”
Alex drove straight, and the trailer park came into sight within minutes. “So how do you want to play this? Good cop, bad cop?” She slowed and turned into the main driveway.
“First trailer on the right. Doesn’t look like MacIntyre’s here.” Tamara shot her a grin. “If Mrs. Granger won’t tell us where he is, we don’t need a good cop.”
Alex followed Tamara up the steps to the trailer door. She knocked loudly and called out, “Mrs. Granger, police. Open your door, please.”
Tamara knelt to examine a small stain on the porch. “Alex, doesn’t that look like blood to you?”
Alex stared at the spot. “Does it?”
Tamara stood, reached for the doorknob, and turned it. “Does to me, which gives us probable cause.” She pulled her gun and pushed the door open slowly. “Mrs. Granger? Mr. MacIntyre? Anybody home?”
“I don’t think there’s anyone here. Maybe we should call and get a warrant.”
Tamara walked through the trailer then stopped at an open doorway. “Looks like they packed up and left in a hurry. This place is even nastier than it was the last time I was here.”
Alex frowned, a pain starting deep inside her gut. “Why would you pack up and leave if your daughter is missing and this is the only place she knows to come home to?” She paused, letting her thoughts turn into words. “Unless you knew she was never coming home.”
Tamara holstered her gun. “So do we look around or call it in?”
“I’m for looking around first.”
Tamara entered the bedroom. “I was hoping you’d say that. I’ll start in here; you can take the kitchen.”
Alex wished she’d brought gloves or at least hand sanitizer. Tamara had called it right by saying the place was nasty. How could anybody live like this? Her skin started to itch as she watched roaches crawl in and out of the dirty dishes in the sink. There wasn’t any place to hide anything, except in the refrigerator. Alex opened the door, gasped, and closed it again. “Tamara, I think you’d better come in here.”
Tamara joined her immediately. “What’d you find?”
Alex opened the refrigerator door again. “I think I found part of the missing organs.”
“Son of a bitch.”
~
Reefer, Nobby and Morgan stood outside the interrogation r
oom, watching Commander Frost read Officer Wade Durrell his rights.
“Doesn’t look like a killer, does he?” Nobby rubbed his jaw and shook his head. “Sure hate it when it’s one of our own.”
“We don’t know yet if he is,” Blake said.
“Shit, Blake, his DNA was inside the girl. How else would it get there?”
“Maybe the same way Patterson’s sperm got on Alexandra.” Blake turned away from the mirror. “Why don’t you two do the questioning, and I’ll watch.”
The three walked into the interrogation room together, and Derek Frost nodded at them before he left. Blake pulled a chair into the corner to observe.
Reefer sat down at the table. “Why did you do it, Durrell?”
“Do what?” the officer replied stubbornly.
Nobby dropped a picture in front of him. “Why’d you kill her, sport?”
Officer Durrell ignored the picture. “I didn’t do anything.”
“We’ve got evidence, Durrell. You have to know that, or we wouldn’t be here,” Reefer said.
His face paled. “What evidence?”
“Your DNA was inside her.” Reefer crossed his arms, leaning back in the chair. “Did you kill the other girl, too?”
“Like fuck I did, Detective. I had sex with the girl, but I didn’t kill nobody, so you ain’t got any proof of that.”
“Right now, a group of officers are searching your home, your personal vehicle, and your squad car, looking for that proof. Why don’t you make it easy on yourself and tell us what happened?”
Nobby dropped the second girl’s photo in front of him. “Found them together, so figure you must have killed both.”
Durrell’s eyes darted around the room as if he were about to try to escape.
“I wouldn’t go down that route if I were you, mate,” Nobby warned him. “Just tell us what happened.”
The line of questioning went on for over thirty minutes. Durrell swore blind he hadn’t done anything except have sex with the one girl, and Reefer and Nobby reworded the questions, trying to trip him up.
“It was a one-time thing. My wife and I have been having problems. I slept with this girl, but I swear I didn’t kill her.”
“Go easier on you if you just admit it. You got any questions, Blake?”
“Where did you find this particular girl?”
“It’s an online club. A friend of mine put me onto it. She looked kind of young, but she was willing and eager.”
Reefer’s interest spiked instantly. “Does this club have a name? What’s this club advertising?”
Durrell remained silent for a few seconds as he collected his thoughts.
Nobby slammed his hand on the table, startling not only Durrell, but Reefer, too. “Enough stalling, Durrell. Just tell us.”
He exhaled a long sigh. “The club has no name; it’s a discreet website.”
“Okay, and what do you get at this exclusive club?” Reefer asked.
“Girls… young girls after a good time.”
Nobby pointed at the picture. “A good time? Does she look like she had a good time?”
“No. Not exactly. I mean, I don’t know. She was fine when I left her.”
“So you went online, set up a meeting, and met where?” Blake asked.
“At the home connected to the website.”
“Which is where?”
“Here in NYC.”
Nobby slapped him across the back of the head. “That much we gathered. We need the address.”
Durrell chewed his bottom lip. “That’s on camera, you old bastard. I’ll have your badge.”
“No, son, I’m going to take your badge. Now give us the damn address.”
He glared up at the camera and told them the address.
“That’s the Second Chance Home, isn’t it?” Blake asked.
Durrell looked down at his hands. “It might be. I never noticed the name of the place when I arrived. It was the first time I’d ever been there.”
“So what happens?” Reefer asked. “Do they supply you with a room, or do you have to leave the premises and find your own accommodations?”
“We pay good money for the girls, so they supply the room.”
“Are the girls compliant in this, or are they drugged in any way?” Reefer asked.
“I don’t know. She seemed pretty amenable to me. I didn’t rape her, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Reefer ground his teeth together. “That’s reassuring. So tell us how this website works, in your own words. I have a pretty fair idea, but I’d like you to clarify all the same.”
“You have to know somebody that’s been there. They recommend you on the website, then you choose a girl you want to have sex with. After that, you pay, make arrangements to turn up at the house, and the girl is brought to you in one of the rooms upstairs.”
“How long does each session last?” Blake asked.
“You get thirty minutes with the girl.”
“And how do you pay?”
“Everything is paid by cash to the person that recommended you. They split it with the proprietor. That’s why it’s so expensive.”
“Who was your contact?” Nobby asked.
Durrell hunched down in the seat. “I want my lawyer now.”
Blake crossed the room and pulled a chair up to the table. “Officer Durrell, you have the right to have an attorney present, but every ounce of evidence we have points to you as the killer. We walk out of this room, we’ll be charging you with murder. You’ll be tried, and with just the small amount of evidence we have, you’ll be convicted. If you’re telling the truth, you need to give us something we can sink our teeth into to make us want to look in another direction.”
“I can give you the website. Now that I’ve been there, I can recommend someone else.”
Blake went to the door. “Reefer, can you get a computer with Internet access in here?”
“No problem. Let’s go out and talk to Commander Frost.”
~
“So what do you think, Morgan?” Derek Frost asked, as the four of them watched Wade Durrell pace the small interrogation room.
“I think he’s telling the truth. He had sex with her, but he didn’t kill her.”
“All right. Reefer, get your computer and get in there, but I want the name of the person that recommended Durrell. If it’s another police officer, we may have a real problem here.”
They walked into the interrogation room, and Reefer set up the computer, brought up the web browser, and turned the screen around to Durrell. “Show us the website.”
Durrell tapped a few keys. “Shit.” He tried again. “I swear to God, it was here. It’s been taken down or something.” His eyes sought out Blake’s. “You gotta believe me—there was a website.”
“I do believe you, Wade, but without the name of your partner, friend, whatever you want to call him, I’m going to recommend to Commander Frost you be charged with murder,” Blake said.
Durrell sighed. “Corey Graves, but he ain’t the one at the top.”
“That’s Alex’s old partner,” Nobby said. “So who is at the top?”
Durrell hung his head. “Former Commander George Patterson.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Alex stuck her phone in her jacket pocket and turned to where Tamara was instructing a young officer in cordoning off the area with crime scene tape. “Forensics are on their way, and Commander Frost is sending out officers to comb the neighborhood and interview anyone who will talk to them. This trailer park is notorious for a quick shut down, and they don’t care much for law enforcement. The APB went out on MacIntyre’s truck, and the chief wants us to check out a pig farm.”
Tamara frowned, and Alex gave her a subtle nod toward the car. She’d been advised not to talk about why they were checking out a pig farm. Plus, she wanted to get out of there before the neighbors came out in droves and started asking questions no one could answer.
Alex started the car, waited until T
amara was belted, and backed out of the driveway. “What time is it?”
“Almost eight thirty. Why?”
“Because the pig farm is in Ghent, a three-hour drive, unless you know a shortcut.”
“Why the hell are we checking out a pig farm in Ghent? Let someone local do that.”
“They already have. They found Candy Granger’s backpack in a pen, along with several body parts and other items.”
“Shit.” Tamara turned away from her toward the window. “We had them, and we let them go. We should have taken both of them in yesterday, when we had the chance.”
“On what charge, Tamara? It isn’t a crime for your child to run away. If it was, we wouldn’t have enough jail space to hold all the parents.”
“Kids run away for a reason.”
Alex heard the pain behind the words. “Some of them do, I’ll give you that. Some don’t like rules, and parents have rules. My sister and I thought about it several times when Mum and Dad wouldn’t let us have our way. We never did it, but we thought about it. According to the data we have, there are something like two million runaways a year. All of them couldn’t possibly be bad parents, Tamara.”
“I hate the fucking statistics.”
Alex turned onto the Taconic State Parkway. Fortunately, Ghent had been the destination of one of Nobby’s Sunday excursions he’d dragged her along on. The countryside was beautiful.
“What’s wrong with Nobby?” Tamara asked.
Alex hesitated. She and Blake knew, and of course Chief Brown, but Nobby had kept his cancer a secret from the rest of the team. However, she suspected most of them knew. “You should ask him that question.”
“He isn’t here, so I’m asking you.”
“I’m sorry, Tamara. I’m not comfortable with telling private things I’ve been entrusted with.”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot, like whatever it is the Escape Artist is telling you. You’re good at keeping secrets, aren’t you, Fox?”
Alex slammed on the brakes and pulled to the side of the road. Tamara was itching for a fight, and Alex had had about enough. “What the hell is wrong with you, Tamara?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t give me that—you’ve been trying to start a fight for the last five minutes. If you’ve got something to say, say it.”