by Marie Force
Was she so absorbed in the homicide case that she hadn’t heard what he said about their son being a potential witness? “Oh, okay.”
“See you soon,” she said before the call ended abruptly.
What the hell?
* * *
Sam took a long last look around at the crime scene, cursing her damned ethics. Where had they gotten her but tossed off the case? “Yes, please,” she said in response to the chief’s offer of a ride. “I came with Cruz.”
“Let’s go.”
“Talk to the maid,” Sam said under her breath to her partner.
“Got it. Will do. And I’ll keep you posted too.”
Sam nodded and went up the stairs, furious with herself and the situation and Brooke too. Yes, she was pissed with Brooke for whatever she’d gotten herself into, which was now impacting Sam’s career. And then it occurred to her that following up with Brooke’s school had nothing at all to do with the homicide investigation. She’d look into that angle the minute she was free of the chief.
When they were in his car and driving away from the crime scene, Sam vibrated with tension and an overwhelming sense of impotence at having been yanked off a case that should’ve been hers.
“I didn’t have any choice, and you know that,” Farnsworth said. “Your people are very well qualified to handle this case. They’ve learned from the best.” After an uncomfortably long period of silence, he let out a deep sigh. “So you’re not speaking to me now? Is that how it’s going to be?”
“You didn’t have to take me off the case. I said there’s a chance Brooke was there. Until we prove she was actually there, why can’t I be involved?”
“Because there’s a chance, Sam. Come on. You know I’m right. I can’t risk our case being compromised by a potential personal connection with the lead detective, especially with Bill Springer’s kid as one of the vics.”
“Ahh, so now we get to the heart of the matter.”
“You know I’m doing the right thing. If you weren’t emotionally involved, you’d see that too.”
“I’m going to look into how Brooke managed to leave school last night and try to track her movements. I’ll do it on my own time with my own resources.”
“And you’ll share whatever you uncover with Sergeant Gonzales.”
Since he didn’t forbid her from running her own investigation into what had happened to Brooke, she nodded in agreement. “Yes.”
“I know you want to be right in the middle of the homicide investigation, but you should take this planned week off and spend time with your family. Tracy will need you, and so will Brooke. And with your dad’s surgery early next week, you’ve got a lot on your plate. Take a break, Lieutenant. We all need one every now and then.”
She wondered how he expected her to relax and enjoy a vacation when her niece was lying in the hospital after nearly overdosing on drugs and booze and possibly being sexually assaulted—all while she was supposedly at school out of state.
And then she took the call from Nick about what Scotty had witnessed, and things got impossibly worse. She worked hard to hide her reaction from Farnsworth until she knew more about what Scotty had seen and took a look at the pictures that had shown up online. If she tipped her hand to the chief before she knew more, that part of the investigation would no longer belong to her either.
A surge of nausea caught her by surprise when she imagined her naked, violated teenage niece on display for the world to see. Not to mention the fact that her son could be dragged into the middle of a homicide investigation, which was her worst nightmare come true.
The chief parked at the curb outside her house. “I’m going over to see your dad while I’m here. What does he know about Brooke?”
Drawn out of her own upsetting thoughts, Sam said, “I’m not sure. I haven’t seen him yet.”
“I’ll let him tell me then.” He looked over at Sam. “If there’s anything I can do for you or your family over the next couple of weeks, you know where I am.”
He was speaking to her now as her beloved Uncle Joe. “Yes, I know. Thank you.”
“It’ll be okay, Sam. It always is.”
While she wanted to believe he knew best, she wondered if or when anything would be okay again for her niece or her sister’s family.
The chief headed for her dad’s house while she dashed up the ramp to home. She found a subdued father and son on the sofa in the family room watching Sports Center.
Nick muted the TV when she came in.
Sam sat next to Scotty.
“I guess you want to know what I saw last night,” he said as she hugged him.
“First, I want to know if you’re okay.”
“I’m worried about Brooke, but I’m okay.”
“The good news is she’s going to survive.”
“That is good news.”
“Do you feel like telling me what you saw?”
Scotty nodded, and Sam met Nick’s concerned gaze over the boy’s head. All the anger she had felt toward him since their argument dissolved the second her gaze met his and saw nothing but love and concern coming from him.
“I was wondering if you guys were back from the hospital, so I looked out a couple of times, checking to see if Nick’s car was there. I wished I’d gone with you so I’d know what was going on.”
Nick laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I’m sorry you were worried. I promise I’ll always tell you if there’s something to really worry about, okay?”
“You’re not the one who’s usually hurt,” he said with a roll of his eyes in Sam’s direction.
She poked his ribs, which made them all laugh and eased their tension.
“Anyway,” Scotty said, picking up the story, “I looked out for the last time around eleven twenty-five.”
“How do you know that was the time?” she asked.
“Because I’d just checked my phone to see if you’d texted me.”
“We didn’t text because it was late when we left the ER, and we were hoping you were asleep by then,” Nick said.
“I was waiting to hear something. When I looked out, there was a car in the street. The back door was open and two people carried something up the ramp and put it at our house. I couldn’t figure out what they were doing, so I watched really closely. One of them was tall, and the other was short. When they came down the ramp, they got in the backseat and the car took off before the door was even closed. I remember thinking that was really dangerous.”
Sam’s heart beat fast with fear when she realized Scotty might’ve seen the people who’d committed murder at the Springer house. “Did you see their faces?”
He shook his head. “It was too dark, and I was blinded by the headlights. I could just see dark shapes more than anything.”
Sam was actually glad he hadn’t seen their faces. She didn’t want him any more involved than he had to be. “So the car came down Ninth toward Skip’s house?”
“Yeah, it was facing me.”
“Could you make out what kind of car it was?”
“I think it was an SUV. Maybe a black one, but I couldn’t really tell for sure cuz it was so dark.”
“This is really good info, buddy. Thanks for letting us know what you saw.”
“Will it help you to find the people who hurt Brooke?”
“I hope so.”
“I left the pages up on the computer,” Nick said.
“I’m going to check it out.” She took a good look at him before she got up. “How’re you feeling?”
“Sore, but nothing to worry about.”
“Let me see.”
“Sam—”
“Show me.”
Sighing loudly, he lifted his T-shirt to reveal hideous bruising on his left side.
Sam and Scotty gasped at the sight.
“Holy cow,” Scotty said. “That’s gross!”
“Thanks, pal,” Nick said with a laugh he seemed to instantly regret.
Sam shook her head with dismay. “It looks awful.”
“The pain pills are helping. Try not to worry about me. You’ve got enough on your mind.”
When she thought about getting up and walking to the office to view pictures of her niece doing God knows what or having God knows what done to her, Sam felt sick all over. But the pictures might provide some much-needed insight into Brooke’s whereabouts last night, so she had to look at them. And there was no time like the present.
On leaden legs, she went into the study, sat at Nick’s desk and hit the space bar to bring the computer to life. She clicked on the browser, and Brooke’s Facebook profile popped up to reveal several pictures of Brooke, naked and altered. They’d been posted by an account called WilsonSeniors, and there was no mistaking it was her, even with her eyes only partially open.
She scrolled down to the next posting, a video, clicked on it and instantly regretted it when she realized someone had actually recorded Brooke having sex. It was obvious that she was so out of it she probably had no idea what was happening to her, which meant she hadn’t been a willing participant.
Leaning in closer, Sam recognized the blue plaid comforter under Brooke from the back bedroom at the Springer house. She covered her mouth to hold back a moan at the sight of another naked boy smacking his erect penis on Brooke’s face while the first one continued to have his way with her.
“Dude, don’t choke her,” the first one said between thrusts. His words were slurred, but the fact that he was still able to perform indicated he wasn’t as far gone as Brooke was. “She’s pretty wasted.”
“You don’t get to have all the fun. Hurry up, would you?”
Sam got to watch the second boy do her and nearly vomited when a third appeared to take his turn. All the while they slapped her face with open hands and erect penises. Tears rolled down Sam’s face unchecked as the horror unfolded before her.
She had the presence of mind to save the video to a flash drive along with the other pictures before she read the hundreds of comments that had been posted. They ranged from “You had a party and didn’t invite me?” to “Brooke Hogan has always been a nasty slut” to “I thought Brooke was a lesbo now that she’s stuck at an all-girls school” to “I want my turn.”
After she’d taken screen-shot copies of everything from the pictures to the comments, she called Tracy.
“Have you heard anything?”
“How is she?”
The sisters spoke over each other.
“She’s the same,” Tracy said. “Still asleep.”
“I need her passwords for her social media accounts.” Sam had Brooke’s email address, but wouldn’t know where to begin to guess her passwords. “Do you know them?”
“I know what they were when she started the accounts. I bet she’s changed them.”
“What were they?”
“AbbyEthan22.”
Sam typed that in and got shot down. “Damn it. That’s not it.”
“Will you tell me why you want to know?”
“I wish I didn’t have to.”
Tracy gasped. “Is there stuff posted about her?”
“Yes. Pictures, videos...”
“No,” Tracy said with a moan.
“If I could get into her account, I might be able to get some more information about who posted this shit.”
“Could you take it down altogether?”
“Not without access to the WilsonSeniors account, which is where it came from.”
“This is a nightmare. Everyone will know. We have to do something, Sam!”
“I’m doing everything I can, Trace. I got taken off the homicide case because I was forced to tell Uncle Joe that Brooke might’ve been there.”
“You told him that? There’s no proof she was there!”
“I’m looking at proof that she was, Trace. I think two of the guys are Hugo Springer and Michael Chastain, who are among our victims at MacArthur Boulevard.”
“Oh my God,” Tracy said.
“Hey, Sam, it’s Mike.” This came after some jostling on the other end of the call. “What the hell is going on?”
Sam brought him up to date on what had been found online.
“This can’t be happening.”
“I’m so sorry, Mike. I’m doing all I can from my end, but my hands are somewhat tied because of a possible connection between Brooke and the homicide at MacArthur.”
“What connection could there be? She was stoned out of her mind! You saw her!”
“She was there, Mike. The video puts her at the scene. I recognize the comforter from the bedroom where three of our victims were found.”
“Son of a bitch,” he said softly. “This is going to destroy Tracy.”
Sam had already had the same thought herself. “I’m doing all I can. I’m trying to figure out Brooke’s passwords to get into her accounts.”
“I had a conversation with her about that last winter,” he said. “I told her to make sure they weren’t something stupid like the word ‘password.’ She lit right up, and we laughed over how I’d guessed that she’d done something stupid. That was before everything kinda blew up on us. We were still laughing together then.”
Sam typed in the word “password” and gained entry to Brooke’s Facebook account, where she quickly removed the offending posts and disabled the account. She did the same on Twitter and Instagram. “That worked. I took her offline on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Do you know if there were any others?”
“Check Vine and Tumblr too.”
“Jeez, I’ve never even heard of those.”
“You will before long with a teenager in the house.”
“All right, I’ve deactivated those too. Nothing posted there, thank goodness.”
“Thanks, Sam.”
“I’m going to figure out who did this, Mike. Have no doubt about that.”
“I know you will. I’ve got to go take care of Tracy. She’s beside herself. She so doesn’t deserve this after all she’s done for Brooke.”
“You’ve both given her everything.”
“And this is the thanks we get.”
“You’re upset right now, and for good reason, but try not to leap to any conclusions until we know more.”
“I’m trying.”
“Call me when she wakes up. Don’t let her talk to anyone before she talks to me.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
Sam closed her outdated flip phone and sat at the desk thinking the whole thing through as a detective rather than a distraught aunt.
“It must be bad if you didn’t mess with my desk,” Nick said when he came up behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders.
“It’s as bad as it gets. There was video of her having sex with three different guys.”
He blew out a deep breath. “Was she an active participant?”
“Hardly. She was out of it.”
Nick turned the desk chair so she faced him. “What’re you doing here rather than out chasing down a murderer?”
“I was taken off the case because of the potential conflict of interest.”
He sat on a footstool, and Sam caught his grimace as his body made contact with the furniture. “Because of Brooke.”
“Yes.”
“But?”
“But what?”
“You said earlier I don’t know you at all, but because I actually know you better than anyone, I’m asking what you’re planning to do.”
That earned him a small smile.
“I’m not sure yet. The chief was unusually stern with me when he took me off the case, so I have to be careful.”
“I bet it wasn’t easy to tell him you might have a conflict.”
He knew her too well. “It wasn’t.”
“But you told him.”
“With some encouragement from Gonzo.”
“It was the right thing to do, Samantha.”
“If my niece gets dragged through the mud, and I’m unable to protect her, will you still think it was the right thing to do?”
“If your niece was somehow involved in the murders—and I doubt she was, based on how out of it she was when we saw her—it wouldn’t be your place to protect her. You’d be putting your own career—and neck—on the line, and I’m particularly fond of your neck.”
“If I supposedly did the right thing disclosing, why do I feel like total shit about it?”
“Because this awful thing has happened to someone you love, and you’re completely powerless to fix it. Welcome to my world.”
“It’s a sucky feeling.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Farnsworth took me off the homicide case. He didn’t say anything about Brooke’s case.”
“Which may be wrapped up in the homicide.”
“And it may not be.”
“So you’re going to run your own investigation into what happened to her.”
“That’s the plan.”
“And if it intersects with the homicide?”
“I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.”
“You’re taking a big chance with your career and your reputation.”
“What would you have me do? Turn this over to someone else and hope it gets done right? What if it gets bungled and she ends up charged for a murder she couldn’t possibly have committed when she was out of her mind on drugs and booze?”
“If that’s the case, how could she be charged?”
“I just watched a video that put her at the scene of a crime in which everyone else who was in the video is now dead. What if we can’t find the people who brought her here and Springer tries to pin the whole thing on her because she got out alive? What if he tries to say she was faking being stoned while they raped her, and then she lost her shit afterward and killed the whole lot of them?”