She rises, puts on fresh clothes, goes outside the cabin into blinding sun and white snow. The sky is icy blue, cloudless.
The ancient voice whispers in her head.
You cannot stay here. It is no longer safe for you. And it is not your land.
And there is the prophecy.
She pulls the phone from the pocket of the parka.
Just as in her dream, or whatever it had been, the phone is not locked. Inside is a wealth of information.
She goes back inside the cabin, builds a fire, and sits with the phone to read.
Chapter Forty-Seven
The morning after a rager was never a pretty sight.
Roarke and Epps stood in the middle of Camino Embarcadero and surveyed the party detritus up and down the block. The blizzard of red plastic beverage cups on the sidewalk, in the yards, stuck in bushes. Drying pools of vomit. Scattered clothing. Crushed velvet bunny ears.
“Fun times,” Epps said sardonically.
Yeah, fun times. If you like binge drinking to unconsciousness, waking up in a pool of your own or someone else’s puke.
Roarke said a silent thanks to the void that he’d left those days far behind him, that by whatever twist of luck or karma he’d escaped the alcoholic gene.
The agents walked through the debris on the street toward the Tau house. The Valentine theme was in the decorations: red ribbons and red lights still hung from palm trees and bushes. Deflating heart-shaped balloons flapped in the wind.
Is Valentine’s Day significant, somehow? Roarke wondered.
Beyond that, the particular trouble they were going to have with this investigation was glaringly apparent: the party had been a huge, four-house event. People had been wandering freely from house to house all night long. And to other houses all through Isla Vista, no doubt.
They turned through open gates into the K-Tau patio, walking past a soft drink machine, sound equipment, dildo-shaped light sticks.
Roarke stepped closer to a bush to get a look at a crimson bit of material. It was a red velvet thong. Various other pieces of lingerie hung on another hedge nearby.
He turned, pointed it out. “Looks like someone’s been collecting trophies.”
Epps’ face tightened. They’d seen photos of similarly adorned trees along the California border, where coyotes had hung underwear taken from female victims. The men called them “rape trees.”
As the agents waited on the front porch, Roarke pulled out his phone and sneaked another look at the dummy email account. Nothing more from Ortiz or the hunters. Was this good news or bad news? He had no time to think before a sleepy pledge opened the door.
Inside the house was more party carnage. More red cups. The floor was sticky with spillage. Some angel wings were draped on a chair. Red cellophane dangled limply from the lights.
Roarke imagined someone halfway conscious had stashed away the beer bongs and any drug paraphernalia. There had been some basic attempt to clean up, but not by professionals—Epps had said he’d sent orders to stop all cleanup. It was, after all, a potential crime scene.
Downstairs in the dining room, several dozen frat brothers were seated at rows of rectangular tables. Tablecloths had been thrown over the surfaces, but the floors were still tacky.
Looking over the assembled faces, Roarke could see the telltale signs of paralyzing hangovers. Concealing sunglasses. A greenish tinge under the tans. Dry mouths and shaky hands. All the joys of the party life.
He moved to the front of the room and began. “I’m sure you’ve been told that I’m Agent Roarke and this is Agent Epps. First off, we need to know: Is there anyone else from the house that you can’t find?”
One intrepid member stood. He looked as shaky as the rest of them, but gamely stepped up to answer questions. “We’ve texted and messaged anyone we haven’t seen today. All accounted for.”
“And what’s your name?”
“Alex Foy, sir. Chapter vice president.”
Chain of command, Roarke thought. “Was that your idea, Alex?”
“Kirk Sandler asked me to.”
Roarke felt Epps shift beside him.
Foy continued. “We’ve all already talked about it. No one’s seen Stephens or gotten any texts or messages from him today.”
“All right. What we need to establish is a timeline. When was the last time anyone saw Stephens last night?”
The young men looked around at each other.
“Did anyone see him after midnight?”
The brothers shifted in their chairs. Finally Foy spoke. “It’s hard to say what time anything was after a point.”
Then a hand went up: a brother with longish, curly black hair. “I came in at maybe quarter to twelve. He was playing beer pong.”
Roarke nodded at him. “That’s good. Does anyone remember seeing him after that?”
More shifting, no responses.
“Did you see Stephens with any one girl in particular?”
No response.
“Anyone?”
No response.
Roarke felt ire rising, but kept his voice calm. “Listen, guys. You’re not doing him any favors by holding out. The more we know about what went on, the better chance we have of figuring out what’s really happened here.”
Then, just as with the family, the agents went through a series of the usual questions. “Was he beefing with anyone? Were there any fights that night? Did he insult anyone? Did anyone threaten him?”
All answers in the negative. So Roarke got more specific.
“This was a Valentine’s party. You guys have any special games lined up?”
He might have been imagining it, but it seemed to him that the room got just a little bit more still.
“Just the usual,” Foy replied. “Best costumes get free drink tickets, that kind of thing.”
“There’s a hedge by the front door with ladies’ underwear hung on it. What’s that about?” Roarke looked around the room. “Whose underwear is it?”
Foy was the first to speak up, defensively. “No one’s. It’s just decoration, man. It was a lingerie party . . .” His tone implied “Get it?”
“Was there a photographer last night?”
Foy gave him a condescending look. “No one official. No need. There’s always gonna be pictures.”
“Then we want to see everyone’s photos of the night. Anything you have. Costume photos taken at the door. Private photos and videos. Things posted to Instagram and Tumblr. No one leaves this room until we get all of it, so get to work.”
The guys at the tables started pulling out phones.
Roarke added, “And one more question before you get going on that. Does anyone here think that Stephens being missing has anything to do with the vandalism of two nights ago? The dummy hanging from Storke Tower?”
There were a few surreptitious glances.
“Anyone?” Roarke repeated, his voice harder.
Still silence.
Roarke looked around at the gathered brothers. “Here’s what’s tiresome. You’re all lying. You know it. We know it. We all know it.”
He looked to Foy. The young man’s face was a polite blank.
“And you need to get this. Your friend, president, dudebro, whatever he is to you—may well be in serious shit. And hey, one of you might be next. So somebody has to step up to the plate here—”
He was interrupted midsentence by the buzzing of his phone in his coat pocket. He fished it out, glanced at the screen. Singh.
His adrenaline spiked. He stepped aside, turning his back on the assembled brothers, and put the phone to his ear.
“Yes.”
“Chief, you need to turn on the television. Now.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
The smell brought him slowly back to consciousness. A musty, mold-like stench. Old wood. Dirt. Something scratchy against his face. And a faint greenish smell, too. There was something vaguely familiar about it, a throwback to childhood.
He was freezi
ng, and hungover as fuck. And then he moved, and felt something hard and cold around his wrists.
His eyes flew open.
Dark. Thin slivers of light high above illuminated floating motes of dust.
He was in a stall. In a horse barn. Lying in a pile of moldy straw. A lump of dry horseshit right beside his face.
“What the fuck?” he raged, jerking up to sitting. The chains linked to the cuffs around his wrists snapped him back.
He was chained to the wall. And he was naked.
In his disorientation, a freaky thing happened. Half-digested memories of Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, Randy Kraft sped through his brain. And for a moment, his bowels turned to water and he felt primal terror.
Because once in a while . . . just once in a while, rape happened to men, too.
Adrenaline shot through him as he realized he wasn’t alone. Two tall shadows loomed above him. Too tall to be real. With white blurs of faces . . .
He scrabbled back, frantically focusing. “Fuuuuuck.”
The chains snapped tight, stopping him.
Through the pounding of his heart he finally realized what he was looking at. Two figures sat on the chest-high gate of the stall, dressed in dark capes with hoods—and wearing skull masks.
Jade stared down at Topher from behind her mask.
It had been hard not to just do him right there in the Basement, while he was passed out. Take care of him once and for all. But it was names Kris wanted, so names were what they were going to get. Jade had put the knife away and texted Kris to bring the car to the end of the block and come down to the deck outside—it was easy enough to do from the park side where they’d been that afternoon.
Then she’d roused old Toph with a few blasts of coke—woke him enough to get him on his feet so she and Kris could walk him right out the sliding glass doors. That was the beauty of roofies, after all—as any rapist frat boy could tell you. Total compliance.
They didn’t even have to take him out to the street: the sandy trail ran behind the park, along the whole edge of the bluffs. They took him for a little walk, with the moonlight pouring over the waves below them, and the euphoric tingle of the coke and the thrill of it. At the end of the block they veered off the trail and walked him straight to the car.
And in no time he was passed out again in the back seat. But of course they tied him then.
And now that they had him, helpless, chained, Jade felt good.
Get yourself a taste of how it feels, you prick.
The skeleton creatures were very still, looking down on him.
“I think he just pissed his pants,” one said to the other.
A feminine voice, for sure. And that made him mad as hell.
“You cunts,” he raged. “You are in such fucking trouble you don’t even know.”
One of them laughed shortly. “Really, dude? Hold on—who’s the one in chains here? That would be you.”
“My dad is going to roast your sorry asses.”
“You think Daddy can help you?” the figure jeered. “How’s he even gonna know what happened to you?”
The other one added, “Do you even have any idea where you are, loser?”
His mind scrambled to remember anything, anything at all about the night before, or how he’d gotten there.
Nothing but a blank.
“Total blank, huh? Yeah, roofies, what a bitch, right?” one of them taunted.
“I wonder what else he doesn’t remember?”
“Anything coulda happened. Anything at all. Isn’t that right, Toph?”
“I’m gonna kill you,” he snarled. But he could hear how slurred his speech was, still. Damn, his head hurt like hell.
The taller one suddenly sounded hard. “Whoa. Really? Maybe you better think before you run your mouth.”
Her words turned into a buzz as a wave of nausea overcame him. He leaned over and vomited into the hay beside him.
He could hear laughter above him. “Aw, little Tophie is sick. Went whoopsie.”
He finally pulled himself back up to sitting, using the chains around his wrists.
“You bitches . . .” he coughed out, weakly.
One turned to the other, in exaggerated surprise. “Did he just call me Bitch?”
“He did just call you Bitch,” the other answered.
“Well, good. He knows our name.” The skeleton-thing leaned forward, glared down at him. “These Bitches are the boss of you. You hold zero cards here. So you’re gonna want to do exactly what we say. Or it could go real bad, real fast.”
“A couple of girls? What are you gonna do, rape me?” He gave them a leer. “Bring it on.”
On the stable wall, Jade felt Kris stiffen beside her, with a short, sharp inhale of breath. Jade stared down at their captive . . . and felt a blinding rage. Because that was it, wasn’t it? It was what they couldn’t do. It was never the same. It would never be the same at all. Rape him? She didn’t even want to touch him. The sight of him, naked, only made her want to be sick herself.
She shuddered . . . feeling her bile rise.
And for a moment it was her down there in the straw, chained to a post . . . while DeShawn brought guys in, one after another.
She felt a scream rising from the depths of her being . . .
She bit down on her lip hard enough to taste blood, forced the memories away. She lunged forward, sneered down through the skull mask at Topher.
“Us—rape you? In your dreams. But there are lots of pervs who’ll pay good money to get a piece of a pretty frat boy.”
She stared down . . . and saw him hesitate. A fierce triumph blazed through her. You be afraid, for once. You fucking better be afraid.
She taunted him, relishing the power. “How fun would that be? Since gang rape is your thing, right?”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” he muttered.
But she’d seen him flinch. And his eyes were wary, now.
Jade nudged Kris, who was still frozen, mute, beside her. “Hell, yeah, we could do that. We could make some serious money off your tender ass. What does the Bible say? ‘An eye for an eye, an ass for an ass’? Something like that?”
She made her voice hard.
“You think about that, while we go make some calls.”
They both slid off the top of the gate, dropped out of sight on the other side of the stall, leaving Topher alone in the darkness of the barn.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Roarke and Epps stood in the library of the Tau house, watching in disbelief as the president, with his usual preening bombast, announced his nomination for the Supreme Court vacancy.
Everyone had expected a nominee who would be virulently antichoice.
What Roarke hadn’t been expecting was a pro-rape appointee.
Not Judge Blackwell, the judge Roarke had just seen in San Diego.
This was worse.
Judge Neville Armstrong was a grotesque example of institutional misogyny. Women’s groups had long been keeping lists of his comments about rape survivors and his light sentences and outright dismissals in rape cases.
He’d been forced to resign from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court after a firestorm of criticism rained down on him in response to his remarks that “ninety-nine percent of rape reports are false.”
His most infamous ruling, although far from the only outrage, was in a case against a fifty-eight-year-old man accused of raping a thirteen-year-old girl. The defendant had images of child abuse and bestiality on his computer. Thanks to Armstrong he’d walked free with a suspended sentence.
In his comments, Armstrong had declared that the thirteen-year-old victim, who had been sexually abused by a family member, was “predatory and sexually experienced,” and that she was “leading the defendant on.”
A thirteen-year-old.
And this was the guy the new administration was going to try to ram onto the Supreme Court?
Roarke felt, not for the first time, that he’d slid
into some kind of alternate reality. He could only begin to imagine how that feeling would be magnified for a woman.
It was so blatantly misogynistic, it seemed like farce.
And there was no doubt that Armstrong would be confirmed. With a Republican majority in Congress, the votes were there.
This is the ticking bomb, Roarke thought. This is what is going to set it all off.
And even as he thought it, the news changed. On screen, the anchor looked concerned as he read the copy. “Responses to the nomination have been instantaneous and ominous.”
Beside Roarke, Epps’ phone pinged with a text message. Roarke looked to him.
“Singh,” Epps said, and showed Roarke an embedded link.
The two agents huddled around the phone and Epps clicked through the link.
A grainy video with a black backdrop appeared on the screen.
A skull-masked figure in a black lace dress was seated at a table with piles of paper in front of it.
It looked up, and spoke in a creepy, haglike, computer-generated voice.
“This abomination of a nominee will not be tolerated.
“We are Santa Muerte. We are legion. We are done. We will bring about the death of rape culture by any means necessary. A rapist will die every day until these conditions are met.”
The skeleton lifted a sheet of paper and began reading a list of demands in that nerve-jangling hiss of a voice.
“The nomination of Neville Armstrong is withdrawn and he is permanently removed from the bench.
“Every rape kit in the country is tested and all results entered into the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program Database.
“All accused rapists on our list are removed from high school, college, and university campuses.
“All judges on our list are removed from the bench.
“All convicted rapists and abusers on our list are banned from the NFL and NBA, and accused rapists and batterers are suspended.”
The skeleton figure looked up from the sheet of paper.
“We have the names. We have the addresses. We will make the lists public so the world knows who they are. Even now, the guilty are being watched, stalked, monitored. Some have been captured. Some have already been killed.
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