Chapter Ninety-One
Roarke’s feeling, just a feeling, was that Singh and Cara did it together.
Singh had gotten the same message that he had, the photos of Cara bloodied, bound. And she had gone on her own to the coordinates. She had gotten to the House of Missing Persons before Roarke and Epps. She had followed the directions, had taken them with her, had gone to rescue Cara.
Except that Cara hadn’t needed rescuing.
There had been no hunters at the motel. The two dead guards that Roarke and Epps had come across had no IDs on them, but the agents had identified them through fingerprints. They were not the men who had been communicating with Ortiz from northern Arizona. Those hunters and their truck were still missing.
It was Roarke’s guess that the hunters had never captured Cara at all. He’d asked Lam and Stotlemyre to analyze the photos of Cara from his phone, and the techs agreed that while Cara showed real signs of severe bruising, the “blood” was not the color of real blood. Roarke believed that the hunters were long dead, and she had staged the photos herself. The truck—well, that would be found eventually. Or not.
The two live men Roarke and Epps had taken down had been customers, waiting in line. Federal prosecutors intended to offer them reduced charges on conspiracy to commit rape and conspiracy to distribute pornography, in exchange for a detailed timeline of all of Ortiz’s plans and access to all of the forums where the conspiracy had been concocted.
Besides the two dead guards, there had been only Ortiz and his young camera operator inside the lobby.
It wasn’t a stretch to think that Singh and Cara had arrived at the derelict motel at approximately the same time.
That Cara had already dispatched the guards in her signature manner.
That left the two customers, Ortiz, and the camera operator.
Cara had taken more men down before, on her own. And the customers had been unarmed, probably disarmed by the guards. Throughout extensive questioning, the customers swore they hadn’t seen either of the women.
The young man behind the equipment would have been entirely useless in a fight. Ortiz was the only real problem.
And Cara and Singh had decided to take him down together—why?
Because Singh had reached that point of no return . . . had seen enough from Ortiz in the rape forums, in the setup of his grotesque plan, that she was willing to help Cara take him down, if not kill him herself?
Possibly.
But maybe there was something more at stake. More precisely, someone.
There was evidence of another woman’s presence on the scene: blond hair that did not match Cara’s found on the platform in the lobby, mixed with Ortiz’s blood and viscera. Of course, Ortiz could have brought that hair in on his own body.
But given that there was potentially a lot of money involved with his little venture into rape porn, maybe he’d brought a stand-in. Just in case. And maybe that had given some extra urgency to the need to shut Ortiz and his operation down. Roarke could see Singh making that decision on the spur of the moment.
So why this elaborate story? Why not just say that there had been a hostage, and that joining forces with Lindstrom was the most likely way to effect a rescue?
Because in the real world, Cara was a mass murderess, a wanted fugitive. Singh’s mandate as an agent would be to arrest her. Trusting her would be insane. Teaming up with her was not only impossible to explain, it was out of the question.
But then—what? Cara had tied Singh up and left her, and Singh had lied about it—to save herself? To protect Cara?
Or to avoid having to testify against Cara at a later date?
Maybe.
But Roarke’s thoughts were increasingly worrisome.
What if there was something more to this? Another step that Singh had planned?
He didn’t know what Epps believed, and he didn’t know why Singh was lying.
But they had no time to find out, because once Reynolds had heard the details of Singh’s conversation with the woman from Bitch, the SAC was instantly on the phone to the director, who insisted on seeing Singh personally.
Her ordeal had given her a window into Bitch, and as far as the Bureau was concerned, that was the only priority.
She was already on a plane to Washington for the meeting.
Chapter Ninety-Two
She waits on a hard sofa in the gleaming hall of FBI headquarters, outside the office of the director. She wears her sleek and formal business suit. Her back is straight. Her service weapon is heavy on her hip.
Her eyes are open, but her focus is inside, on her breath. The slow, rhythmic inhale and exhale. Grounding her. Preparing her.
The director’s assistant has just informed her that the chief strategist will be sitting in on the meeting.
In her mind are the words that Lindstrom whispered to her outside the derelict motel.
“A woman can put a stop to the Great Pretender.
“A woman who wears the white man’s skin.
“Who can walk the corridors of power . . .
“They have woven a web. Cut one thread and the whole will unravel.”
She adjusts her coat over her arm, over the Glock on her hip.
Then she jumps . . . as someone sits down on the bench beside her.
Roarke.
“Singh,” he says softly, and she has to look at him. The steady, masculine, honest presence—so familiar, so trusted . . .
“Don’t do it,” he says. Not a demand. Rather, a plea.
“Do what?” she asks, through the irrational pounding of her heart.
“Don’t do this. We have to believe there’s hope.”
“Is there?” she answers, barely audible.
“We’ll fight. We’ll all fight.” He meets her eyes with his dark ones. “I beg you. Give it one month. If things . . . if it’s gotten worse, I swear I’ll be there with you.”
He waits. She swallows through a dry mouth. In her head she hears the pulsing of her own blood.
“Not today. Not like this,” he says softly.
He looks into her face. And she feels the weight of the world balanced between them.
The young, clean-cut agent who is the director’s assistant steps out of the double doors at the end of the corridor and briskly approaches the visitors’ bench.
“Special Agent Singh, the director will see you now—”
He stops as Roarke rises from the bench, extends his credentials.
“Agent Singh was called away. I’m ASAC Matthew Roarke. I can brief the director instead.”
The assistant frowns, hesitates . . . then nods. “I’ll inform the director, Agent Roarke.” He turns, walks back down the corridor.
Roarke sits back down on the bench, shaky with relief.
He rests his head on the back of the bench. And hopes with all his being that he was right.
I have to make it right.
We all have to make it right.
Acknowledgments
A million thanks always to:
My awesome editors, Megha Parekh, Liz Pearsons, and Charlotte Herscher, and the rest of the team at Thomas & Mercer who have continued to support and enrich this series: Grace Doyle, Sarah Shaw, Jacque Ben-Zekry, Anh Schluep.
My agents, Scott Miller, Frank Wuliger, and Lee Keele.
My priceless early readers: Diane Coates Peoples, Joan Tregarthen Huston, Eric Huston, and Wendy Metz.
My producer team: Tucker Tooley, Jason Barhydt, Al Munteanu, Claudia Schorr, Ingrid Pittana, David Scharfenberg, Hannah Grossmann, Christian Parent, and Gregoire Gensollen.
Lee Lofland and his Writers Police Academy trainers/instructors—Dave Pauly, Katherine Ramsland, Corporal Dee Jackson, Andy Russell, Marco Conelli, Lieutenant Randy Shepard, and Robert Skiff—for forensics, investigative, and tactical help.
R. C. Bray for his terrific narrative interpretations of the books.
Timoney Korbar, Amanda Wilson, Adam Cruz, and the WriterSpace team for brilliant publi
city support.
Robert Gregory Browne, for the series cover concept.
The initial inspiration for the Huntress from Val McDermid, Denise Mina, and Lee Child, at the San Francisco Bouchercon.
My writing group, the Weymouth Seven: Margaret Maron, Mary Kay Andrews, Diane Chamberlain, Sarah Shaber, Brenda Witchger, and Katy Munger.
Webmistresses Madeira James and Jen Forbus at Xuni.com.
Tracy Fenton, Helen Boyce, Teresa Nikolic, and the administrators and readers of THE Book Club, who’ve been so supportive on the other side of the pond.
Craig Robertson, for a million things—including making it through another double book deadline without killing each other.
I love to hear from readers! Visit my website at http://alexandrasokoloff.com to contact me, join my mailing list, find me on social media, and win cool stuff.
Afterword
Don’t write about politics” is a warning every novelist hears at writing conferences.
I couldn’t disagree more. In fact, I’m not interested in reading or writing books that aren’t about politics.
I wrote Hunger Moon at a pivotal point in US and world history. Not only that, for anyone following the timeline of the Huntress series, the events of Hunger Moon fall precisely at a pivotal point in US history.
So as an author, I had two choices. I could either invent a world in which the election of 2016 never happened, and never had volcanic repercussions in the FBI and on American democracy—or I could write about the real world.
My series has always existed in a fictional world that is a reflection of this one. And I’ve never shied away from politics in my real life. I wasn’t about to in the middle of a national and international crisis.
In Book 4, Bitter Moon, Roarke and Cara both go off the grid in January, meaning they miss the inauguration of 2017. They both come back into the world in February to find American democracy has been upended. Hunger Moon takes place at an exceedingly dark time in American history. The characters in the book all react to those times and circumstances. They deal with the situation as it is/was then. I have hope for the future, but I can’t predict what will happen, and the book doesn’t attempt to.
But we need to remember this time as it was, so that nothing like it ever happens here again.
My plea from previous books remains the same. I have not in any way exaggerated the horrific and unacceptable national rape kit backlog, the bureaucratic failure of the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, the criminal mishandling of rape complaints on college (and high school) campuses, and the inadequacy of resources to prosecute traffickers of children and teens. Now more than ever we must all make it our responsibility to educate ourselves about what’s really going on in our own communities and on the federal level, and find ways to help and to hold authorities accountable, from spreading the word through social media to volunteering with, advocating for, and donating to organizations that pick up the slack.
I donate every month to Children of the Night, MISSSEY, Thorn, and the Covenant House, which rescue and work with homeless, trafficked, and sexually exploited teens; to EROC, End Rape on Campus, which supports college rape survivors who have been failed by the insufficient and often deliberately obstructionist investigations of local police departments and the students’ own campus administrations; and to Planned Parenthood, which works tirelessly to ensure that every child is planned, wanted, and cared for. If you’d like to learn more about these organizations and others in your country, state, and community, I have links to places you can start on my website, http://alexandrasokoloff.com.
About the Author
Photo © Israel David Groveman
Thriller Award–winner Alexandra Sokoloff has been called a “daughter of Mary Shelley” by the New York Times Book Review, which also praised her books as “some of the most original and freshly unnerving work in the genre.” She was nominated for the Bram Stoker, Anthony, and Black Quill Awards for her supernatural thrillers The Harrowing, The Price, The Unseen, and Book of Shadows. Her Huntress/FBI thrillers series (Huntress Moon, Blood Moon, Cold Moon, Bitter Moon, and Hunger Moon) earned a second Thriller Award nomination and is in development as a TV series.
Alex writes original screenplays and novel adaptations for numerous Hollywood studios, and she is the author of three writing workbooks—Stealing Hollywood, Screenwriting Tricks for Authors, and Writing Love—and the acclaimed blog ScreenwritingTricks.com. She has also penned erotic paranormal fiction for The Keepers trilogy and The Keepers L.A. quartet. She lives in Los Angeles and Scotland with crime author Craig Robertson.
Hunger Moon (The Huntress/FBI Thrillers Book 5) Page 27