Chapter Thirty-Two
Roarke turned on the sidewalk and continued walking, past break-dancers and vendors with buckets of red roses and heart-shaped balloons, and he looked at the shop fronts as if he were window-shopping.
The glass reflected the street and sidewalk behind him. He walked more slowly, staring into the windows, scanning the reflections for his pursuer.
One window after another, the decorations were all roses and lace hearts and lingerie. And finally the penny dropped. It was Valentine’s Day. He hadn’t even noticed the date.
He forced his mind away from a brief, painful memory of Rachel—
And then he spotted her, a specter in the glass.
Erin.
She was still too thin, her olive skin stretched tight over high cheekbones, her hair now chopped off into a feathered cap. But the last time he’d seen her she’d been in the midst of some kind of self-destructive breakdown, dazed, suicidal. She was much more pulled together now, edgy, focused, intent.
He paused in front of the nearest shop, staring into the window display . . .
And then he turned on his heel and strode straight across the sidewalk toward her.
She wasn’t able to duck into a doorway this time. He saw a quick look of dismay on her face, immediately replaced by a forced look of pleasure. She walked toward him.
“Agent Roarke. It is you,” she said, stopping in front of him.
“You were following me,” he said shortly.
“Yes, I thought I saw you coming out of the courthouse. I wasn’t sure.”
To her credit, she had a good cover story ready. He didn’t believe her. How many messages had he left since she’d disappeared? She could have called him back any time.
“Erin, I’ve been trying to find you for—” He’d almost said “months,” but the truth was it hadn’t been more than six weeks. He suddenly felt old. “I’ve called your house, talked to your roommate. Called your brother in Japan.”
“Last month . . . was a bad time,” she said obliquely. “There were some things I was working out. It’s better now. That’s why I was trying to catch you. I wanted to thank you for taking care of me that night—”
More lies. Maybe Janovy had let her know he was coming down, and sent her to find him, watch him. But he didn’t have time for this. Not anymore.
“I need to get a message to Cara,” he said over her.
That brought her up short. She answered warily. “We’re not in touch. I haven’t seen her since the jail—”
He ignored that. “You need to tell her she’s in danger. There’s a police detective named Ortiz. Out of Palm Desert.”
Her face went still. “I remember Ortiz.”
That surprised him. Erin had been—how old when Ortiz began his pursuit of Cara? Not even ten.
“What do you remember?”
“He came to our house, when Cara was visiting. Asking questions . . .”
“He’s still coming after her.”
He told her, briefly. About the “Rape Cara Lindstrom” forum. The bounty.
Erin visibly paled as he talked. “Okay,” she said explosively, and he stopped speaking. “Okay, I get it.”
“I don’t know if they’re serious,” he started.
“Don’t you?” she slammed back at him. “Really?”
“Then you’ll want to contact her.”
“I told you, we’re not—”
He interrupted her again. “Cara stole my phone.” His mind went unbidden to the night on the beach in Santa Cruz. To how she’d gotten the phone from him. He forced himself away from the thoughts. “I believe she still has it, not with her, but somewhere. I haven’t disconnected the number. If you leave a message, she may get it.”
He fished for one of his old business cards and extended it to her. Erin looked at it without taking it.
“Why don’t you call?” she asked, pointedly.
“I have.”
He had. He’d tried. There was never an answer, of course. But the line was live. It was his familiar mailbox message.
Her face was stormy, conflicted. “Why shouldn’t I think this line is tapped?”
“It’s not.”
She was more and more nervous. “That’s not something I can ever know, though, is it?”
“I guess not. But. Take it anyway. Please. Someone should warn her. Someone she can trust.”
She took the card, stood holding it. She suddenly seemed very young.
He touched her arm. “I have to go. Take care of yourself, Erin.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Back at the apartment, Jade found Kris at the kitchen table, nervously smoking cigarettes, a bottle of vodka open in front of her.
“Didja get it?”
Kris opened her hand, revealed the eight-ball, a baggie of white.
Crystal courage.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Jade muttered.
Kris had sprung for blow, not meth. Jade needed the clarity that coke would give her.
She cut the powder on a piece of glass and they did some lines before Jade went in to dress. It had been almost two months since she’d gotten high and the blast took the top of her head off.
It made dressing feel like one long orgasm, the teasing slide of silk on her naked skin.
It seemed like a long time since she’d dressed up to do the street. The feeling was white hot.
Then she saw the shadow in the mirror. He was standing behind her.
Danny.
Those long black dreads, leather pants tight on his hips, steampunk jacket.
He looked into the mirror, smiled, whispered, “You like that? That feel good, baby?”
She spun around, her heart racing.
Ohgodohgodohgod. It wasn’t a dream. He was there.
He winked at her. “Thass the hot mama I like to see. Thass my girl. Where you been, baby?”
He snapped his fingers, like you would to a dog. “Come to Daddy, now.” He whistled softly.
“No . . .” she mumbled.
And then he was gone.
She stumbled on too-high heels, sat down hard on the bed, her heart heaving.
Nothing. Nothing. Never there. He’s dead.
She forced her breath to slow.
I’m in charge, now.
This time no one was shoving her out there. This time she was working for herself. And she was going to do some damage. The frat rat was going down.
She stood.
When she stepped out of the bedroom, the living room/kitchenette was thick with smoke from the cigs Kris had been chain-smoking.
Kris looked up . . . and her face was priceless. Completely stunned.
Jade had chosen a glittery bodysuit with a snakeskin pattern of gleaming greens, pinks, purples, silvers, and plenty of peekaboo cutouts. It was camouflage: the bodysuit perfectly concealed her tats. Anyone looking at her would see the skin and the sparkle, not the art. But it was also a kick-ass costume. She’d slicked her hair to her scalp with glitter gel and painted her face with luminous greens and purples and silvers. Sparkly fuck-me heels made her legs seem about a mile long. She looked like an exotic snake.
She did a slow, slithery slut walk in front of Kris, pivoted for the full effect. “So?”
Kris looked genuinely knocked out. “You look fantastic. Scary great.”
Jade stopped to look herself over in the mirror. “It’ll get the job done.” She walked over to the table, looked down at the remaining coke. “Where’s the other?”
Kris reached into a jeans pocket, pulled out another baggie of several pills.
Jade took the glassine bag, removed two of the pills, and started to crush them down.
“Let’s get this party started.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Her head is throbbing. Her body is throbbing. There are rock walls, ice, and snow all around her. She is half buried in it.
She has never been so cold in her life. It galvanizes her because she knows in
the final stages of freezing to death, you feel warmth, not cold. There is still time enough to survive.
She breathes in, and pain stabs her chest. Her ribs, she thinks. There is blood trickling down her cheek. She is quivering, aching. But she is alive. And she can move.
She tilts her head to the gray sky.
She is on a ledge, staring up a sheer rock wall. The cliff edge where she had been fighting the hunter is at least thirty feet above her.
The rock slab must have broken off and slid straight down the cliff face until it crashed on the ledge.
Which means . . .
Adrenaline shoots through her in a jolt of liquid fire and she sits upright.
No more than ten feet away, two dark shapes are sunk into the soft snow. The two hunters are with her on the ledge.
Alive? Or dead?
Her eyes widen and she scans the ground around her. In the white of snow, she spots a dark shape like a flashlight: the Taser. She stretches out a hand toward it . . . agony knifes her chest.
Too far.
But she reaches down her side to her boot with a trembling hand, grasps the handle of the knife she has concealed there.
She crawls through the snow toward the first shape, fighting the fire in her chest. She raises the knife and stabs it through the hunter’s throat, feels the warm blood cascading over her trembling fingers. The warmth, the movement of the blood tells her.
Alive. Not for long now, but it means the other—
She feels a hand grab her ankle, toppling her from her knees, dragging her backward in the snow. Pain stabs through her ribs. She kicks out at the second hunter, kicks his face savagely.
He grunts a curse. His arm flails in the snow, feeling for the rifle that has landed three, four feet away.
“Bitch. You bitch. You can’t . . . can’t . . .”
She can. She does. Stabs her knife straight through his throat, and watches the blood gushing, black against the white of snow.
She pulls herself shakily to sitting in the snow between the bodies, panting. The adrenaline is white hot, exhilarating, canceling her pain.
But as her breath slows and she looks around her at the towering cliff walls, the truth overcomes her.
There is no way off this ledge.
Survival rises up in her, an instinctive NO to the dark that jolts her to her feet. She stands, swaying on shaking legs.
But then she pauses, as another thought emerges through the panic.
Freezing to death, now? After everything?
To let go of the fight. To be free of this for all time. To surrender herself to the canyon, its implacable mercy.
No more.
The thought floods her with a strange peace.
I’ve fought. I’ve fought as hard as anyone could fight.
She is so tired. So very tired.
Her legs shudder and fold underneath her. On her knees now, she gazes out over the bleak, timeless, terrible beauty of the canyon.
Yes. Here. I’m ready.
And now she lies back into the snow. No longer cold, but soft, like a blanket. Soft, pure, clean. And surrenders herself.
Her last thoughts before the dark are of Roarke.
Chapter Thirty-Five
He drove the rental car like a maniac, burning up the roads, feeling he was racing against some invisible clock.
In this desert place, so close to where Cara had killed her first man, he thought of the child she had been.
The five-year-old slashed by a monster. The twelve-year-old condemned to youth prison for the offense of defending herself against two predators. The fourteen-year-old who faced off against a serial rapist and killer—because no adult was aware enough to see the monster under their noses.
No one had protected her. And for that reason alone, he was not going to allow this monster to get his hands on her.
He drove toward the rising moon.
He knew Ortiz lived in Palm Desert; he knew his address. Singh had compiled a file for him when Ortiz was a suspect in the serial rape case Roarke had been drawn into out in the desert.
What he hadn’t known was that Ortiz lived on a golf course.
There were many in the area, but that didn’t mean they were affordable on a lawman’s salary. It was surprising.
Roarke stopped his rental car on the dark street outside the sprawling landscaped complex.
A security gate barred the entrance.
Maybe that means you should keep out.
Instead, he put the car in gear, drove up to the guard booth, and flashed his credentials wallet at the retirement-age guard. He put all the authority of the Bureau into his voice. “I’m here to talk to the grounds manager.”
And when the guard reached for the phone, he said, “Don’t.”
The guard hesitated, but nodded, and raised the gate. “Make a right on the second cross street. Manager’s house is at the end on the right.”
Roarke followed the directions and turned down the short block, then circled back to find Ortiz’s address, a condo in a two-story triplex. He parked at a distance, headlights off, and surveyed the front of the building. There was an SUV in the carport labeled with Ortiz’s number.
Ortiz was home.
And now what?
Insane scenarios flashed through Roarke’s head. Storming up to the house, demanding entry, seizing the man . . .
And what? What could he actually do?
Arrest him for illegally obtained and ambiguous posts on the Internet?
Beat the living shit out of him?
If Roarke bided his time, there might be a case here. Abduction and transportation across state lines for the purposes of sex. Reckless endangerment. They were all offenses that fell under FBI jurisdiction. However, the victim in question was also a fugitive. A fugitive who was not his case anymore.
He tried to calm himself, to think.
It’s not like Cara was actually in there. Ortiz would never bring a hostage to his own home.
And the poster had said only: “We have eyes on her.”
But that was hours ago.
Have they caught her by now?
He turned off the engine, stepped out of the car into the dry desert air. He kept to the shadows as he moved around the side of the triplex toward the course. He wasn’t much of a golfer, but he knew how these golf communities were laid out. The houses backed up to the green. And people were paying for the view, which meant walls of windows and glass doors.
He stayed close to the building and edged out to see what the setup was.
The sprawling fairway was softly, dramatically lit, landscaped with huge old pepper trees. Grassy hills and sand traps were manicured to perfection.
And sure enough, all three of the condos in the unit had small patios with just waist-high walls separating them from the golf course. As he’d hoped, the condo had sliding glass doors, designed for an unimpeded view of the green.
But that view went both ways. The rooms inside Ortiz’s condo were dark, but Roarke could see a hunched shadow seated at a table in the dining area between the small open kitchen and the living room.
Ortiz was bent to the keyboard, tension in his neck and back, typing furiously. Roarke caught a flash of Ortiz’s face, illuminated by the light of his computer screen.
Watching him, Roarke felt some relief. He was there, he was alone. Cara was safe from him, at least for now.
“We have eyes on the bitch. Watch this space.”
Was there some ambush being planned? Were they taking her down right now?
To deliver her to what?
But Roarke knew. The titles of the forums said it all.
He’d met Ortiz, had faced his irrational anger, had seen up close his obsessive rage that Cara was still free. The blasphemy of a woman killing men, killing men for cause, had deranged him. The forums proved there were any number of men like him.
The profile of online trolls was dire. Psychologists had found high levels of all four traits of the so-called “da
rk tetrad”: narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadism. And the more these men indulged their sadistic fantasies online, the more likely they were to cross that line from fantasy to practice. If the target of Ortiz’s rage had been a journalist or politician, Ortiz would have harnessed those like-minded men to troll, stalk, harass, threaten her into silence. But Cara had no address, no online presence. She was immune to the ordinary mental torture of trolling. So Ortiz had plans for actual physical torture.
As Roarke watched Ortiz typing, his gut was roiling. Was he even now arranging for Cara’s “delivery”?
His disgust and rage built until he was afraid he would cross a line, force entry into the house, do all kinds of criminal damage. He turned from his view of the glass doors, the aquarium of filth, and moved into the darkness of the golf course.
He stopped under the shadowy fronds of a pepper tree and caught his breath, tried to calm his racing thoughts.
Remember, Singh is watching Ortiz, too. If there’s a way to intercept messages, she’ll find it.
But all he could think was—
It’s not enough.
So under the feathery shadows of the tree, he picked up the phone to call Cara Lindstrom, the mass murderess, the object of any number of manhunts.
He didn’t identify himself. He was sure he wouldn’t have to. And he didn’t say her name, though it filled his mind as he listened to his own voicemail greeting on the other end.
Then he spoke.
“Wherever you are, you need to get out. There are people coming to get you . . .” He could barely swallow through the tightness in his throat. “Please let me know you’re all right.”
He disconnected before he could be tempted to say more.
Almost immediately the phone buzzed. He stared at it, for a moment not breathing, unable to move.
It couldn’t . . . could it? It couldn’t be.
He lifted the phone . . . and saw Singh’s name on the screen.
He clicked through to her voice.
“I have been monitoring the forums. There has been no more online activity from the hunters since then.”
Along with the insane relief, Roarke felt the weight of his own indefensible behavior. “I don’t want you to—I’m not asking you to do this, Singh. I don’t want you to do anything that you feel is—outside the lines.”
Hunger Moon (The Huntress/FBI Thrillers Book 5) Page 12