by Rachel Caine
And when they do, everyone believes.
It’s a short ride to the address that Sam gave the taxi driver, and we glide to a halt in an industrial area that looks thriving. There are multiple-story office buildings, but Imaging Solutions seems to be a small operation located in a multistore strip mall. I pay the taxi driver from my diminishing stash of money and follow Sam to the store.
Inside, the place smells sharply of chemicals and ozone. The carpet is a basic industrial, with no padding beneath; there’s a faux wood counter, a register, some colorful posters about various services for signage and printing. I can hear the grumble and chatter of machines from behind a wall; there’s an open doorway to the left that leads to the work area. The wall is fitted with a row of glass blocks, and through the watery distortion, I see people moving back there.
The door has sounded a bell, and now a young man emerges from the back, wiping his hands. He’s wearing a short-sleeve white shirt and black tie, and even his haircut looks conventional and straight out of the 1950s. “Hello, folks,” he says. “How can I help you today?”
Sam says, “We’re looking for Carl David Suffolk.”
The young man smiles. “Well, sure, but he’s at work right now, so we don’t allow any visitors in the work area—”
“I’m not a visitor,” I tell him. “I’m his sister. There’s been a family emergency.”
“Oh. Oh, sure. Okay. Let me go get him—”
“I’ll go with you,” Sam says. As the manager turns away, he whispers to me, “Go around back in case he runs.”
“I hope everything’s all right,” the manager says. “Mr.—?”
“Suffolk,” Sam lies easily. “I’m his brother. And you are . . . ?”
“David Roberts. I’m the assistant manager.”
“Great. Thanks, Mr. Roberts.”
Roberts flips up the counter where it’s hinged, and Sam walks around the corner with him. The second they’re out of sight, I exit at a run and race around to the end of the strip mall, down the alley, and around the drab back. It’s lined with dumpsters and loading docks, and as I run, I count off stores. Luckily, most are labeled at the back doors. When I find Imaging Solutions, I slow down. No trucks at the loading dock at the moment.
The rolling garage door is closed, and so is the solid metal door next to it, but as I reach the foot of the steps, the door bursts open with a bang, and a hefty white man in his midforties bursts out. Like Roberts, he’s wearing a short-sleeve white shirt and black tie; unlike his boss, he hasn’t been as careful with it, and there are smears of black toner around his waist. He looks pale and frantic, and his eyes widen when he sees me standing there blocking the steps. He spins, but it’s too late. Sam’s come out of the door behind him. He closes it and says, “Carl, let’s be smart about this—”
I don’t even have time to yell a warning, though I see it coming; Carl lunges at him. Sam dodges with the ease of a matador, and Carl barrels past. He stumbles. Sways.
And then he falls off the dock with a howl of panic.
He hits on his back, and the impact dazes him; he’s still lying there when we reach him. He seems okay, and when Sam offers him a hand up, he takes it. “Anything broken?” Sam asks. “How’s your head?”
“Okay,” Carl says. “I’m okay. I’m—” The shock snaps, and he realizes his situation. He stumbles back, but he’s limping, and Sam and I look at each other as Suffolk starts a lumbering, lurching run for slow-motion freedom.
I say, “Hey, Carl? Look, just give it up. Don’t make me shoot a kneecap off you.”
Suffolk turns. He seems ashen, and for the first time, he looks at each of us in turn, with real focus. When he gets to me, his face changes. It turns malignant, as if some demon has drifted to the surface and altered his skin. His forehead reddens. He lowers his chin, and his eyes have a cold delight in them that makes me want to step back. I don’t.
“You,” he says softly. “You’re his bitch.”
And then he lunges for me, and because I didn’t step back, I’m easily in his range. I think he intends to knock me down, and I’m ready for that.
I’m not ready for a full-on killing assault.
His hands close around my throat, and without any hesitation at all, he starts a crushing pressure. This isn’t a game, and it isn’t tentative. He intends to kill me. My rational mind breaks into a white storm of panic. I can feel myself being lifted right off the ground by his strength, and the pain, the suffocating panic of my lungs laboring for air, robs me of any kind of real thought at all.
I hear a whisper in my ear. It’s as clear as if he’s standing next to me. This is how you die, Gina. Melvin’s voice. It seems to have been an eternity already. I try to fight, to twist, I try to keep my neck muscles stiff against his crushing grip, but I know that’s only going to prolong my agony.
Melvin’s voice comes again. It takes a long time, strangling someone. Three or four minutes at least. Maybe longer.
It seems like an eternity, but it’s only been seconds, I realize; I see Sam punching Suffolk, solid blows to his kidneys. Suffolk doesn’t even notice. His rage has become armor.
Shoot him, I want to scream at Sam. For God’s sake . . .
I scrape my toes along a hard surface. My flailing fingers catch onto something soft. I thought I was trying for his eyes, but this isn’t his eyes, it’s a lip, and I dig my fingernails in and pull and twist as hard as I can. I hear a bellow as loud as thunder wash over me . . . but his hands don’t relax.
It’s getting darker. I can hear tissues crunching, compressing. I’m listening to my body break.
And then, suddenly, I’m falling. My flailing feet hit the ground, but my knees are weak, and I tip backward as they give way. I’m pulling in a sweet, burning breath even as I fall.
Sam catches me.
I collapse against his chest, and his arms go around me to hold me upright until my knees steady, and all I can do for a moment is pull in air, push it out, even though it hurts. Once my body has its demands for breath satisfied, I start to take it all in again.
Carl Suffolk is down on the ground, bleeding from a head wound. There’s a pipe next to him. Sam clocked him hard enough to finally break through that shell of rage.
“Gwen?” Sam asks me. “Can you breathe?” He sounds scared. I manage to nod, though I’m sure the bruises around my throat are going to be black in a couple of days. I swallow. Nothing feels broken. If Suffolk had managed to collapse my larynx, snap my hyoid bone, I’d be beyond anyone’s help. I think he almost managed it.
The rolling back door of the business is up, and there is a crowd of white-shirted employees—men and women both—staring out at us from the loading dock. Roberts shoves his way through with a phone in his hand. “Yes, right now!” he’s saying. “I need police right now. One of my employees is being assaulted—”
“Uh, sir, that’s not what happened,” one of his employees says. “He attacked her!”
“I always said he wasn’t right in the head,” one of the others says, and more nod. “Creepy asshole.”
“All right, all right, settle down!” Roberts says. His face is flushed, and he’s clearly out of his depth. “Let’s let the police settle this—”
“Back inside, folks!” calls a deep, cheerful voice, and I look back down the alley to see Mike Lustig, of all people, striding toward us. He’s wearing an FBI protective vest and windbreaker, and he’s got his badge prominently displayed; it catches the low western light and flashes like real gold. Behind him, he’s brought two other agents, who look stone-faced and dangerous. They’re all in sunglasses against the glare of the setting sun. “Roll that door down. Go on now. Thank you for your cooperation. Nobody leaves. I’ve got agents on the front. Just sit tight.”
He sounds so incredibly self-assured that Roberts ushers his people back inside and rolls down the door without so much as a protest. I can see him curiously peeping out the window, phone still in his hand. Probably on with the local po
lice again.
“Jesus, son, you clocked him good,” Mike says, crouching down next to Suffolk. The man’s groaning and stirring. “Going to have to get him checked out before we do anything else.”
“Trust me,” Sam says. “Cuff him first.”
“This guy?”
“He choked Gwen half to death,” Sam says. “That’s why I used the pipe.”
Mike looks up at me, and his face goes still for a moment. Then he nods. “Okay,” he says. “Cuffs it is. Closest emergency room, and then the nearest field office. Nobody say anything until we’re on the record. Gentlemen, you go get everything that he touches in there. Computers, printers, desk, every goddamn thing. I want it all. If the manager fusses, call me.”
I send a frantic look at Sam and manage a rough whisper. “But Rivard wanted us to—”
“I know,” he says. “I gave Suffolk Rivard’s message. He opened it and ran for it. Nothing else we can do.”
“Have you got the envelope? What did the message say?”
Sam produces it from his pocket. It’s been torn open.
There’s nothing inside.
Claiming federal agent privilege skips the ER waiting list and gets us immediate attention from a doctor who pronounces me okay, except for the pain, swollen vocal cords, abrasions, and a neck that will look like I’d survived a hanging for the next couple of weeks. He thinks I’m lucky to be alive. I do, too.
X-rays and a head CT scan reveal that Suffolk has a mild concussion, thanks to either his original fall to the ground or Sam whacking him soundly on the head, but either way he’s released, as am I, and half an hour later we’re in a plain interrogation room at the FBI’s Wichita field office. The old days of reinforced one-way glass are gone. These days it’s cheaper to mount multiple cameras in the room that capture every angle of the conversation.
I don’t get a seat at the table. Me, Sam, and our escorted-visitor badges get to park ourselves in the monitoring room with an FBI staffer who lets us watch as Lustig sits down with Carl Suffolk. There’s a good half an hour of chitchat, lulling Suffolk into a sense of security, before Lustig looks up at the camera and says, “Would you please run that video we talked about for Mr. Suffolk now?”
The tech in the monitoring room, who’s only glanced up long enough to see our prominent visitor badges, presses some buttons, and a flat-screen TV in the interrogation room begins to show something I can’t make out, but I can see it running on a separate screen here in the studio. I’ve never seen what’s being shown, but it’s obvious on the face of it that it’s . . . horrific. And familiar.
It’s video taken in Melvin’s garage, before the wall was broken. Before his secrets were out. I recognize everything, down to the oval braided rug on the floor.
There’s a woman standing on the rug with her hands bound and a metal noose around her neck, and for a frozen second, I thank God that this time it isn’t Sam’s sister. I think it would break him if it was.
Lustig pauses the video on a close-up of the young woman’s face. She’s a pretty blonde, with big, pleading, terrified eyes. I recognize her. It’s my husband’s fourth victim, Anita Jo Marcher.
“Every once in a while, our teams stumble over some really dark shit,” Lustig is saying to Suffolk. “We all know about the child porn—and yes, Mr. Suffolk, we’ve got your phones, tablets, and computers, work and home. Everything with your digital fingerprints on it is about to get autopsied. That ship has sailed all around the world. Clear?”
Suffolk doesn’t say anything, but he nods. He’s back to looking pallid, lost, and completely helpless. I’d feel pity for him if I hadn’t seen the demon under his skin. If I didn’t still feel the scraping burn of his fingers around my neck.
“So tell me where this particular video came from,” Lustig says. “Doesn’t seem your usual perverted taste.”
“I don’t know,” Suffolk mumbles. But I recognize the way his chin goes down, the way his eyes take on a hard, dark shine.
“Sure you don’t. By the way, your work computers were clean, but funny thing, we found this video on a thumb drive in your desk at work. You watch it on the computer sometimes when you’re on the night shift all by yourself? You just like to keep it on hand for dull moments there, Carl?”
Suffolk’s chin is working up and down now, like behind those closed lips he’s practicing a biting motion, again and again. He doesn’t blink. And he doesn’t answer.
“Maybe you haven’t thought this through, but either you’re going to jail today for federal charges of possession and distribution of child pornography, or you start playing let’s-make-a-deal like your damn life depends on it. That time would be right now, my man. This minute. Who provided this video?”
Suffolk suddenly looks away. Up toward the camera. “Is she watching?”
“Who?”
“Her.”
Lustig doesn’t say anything. Suffolk stares at the camera, and it feels like I’m right in the room, feet away from him.
“You fucking bitch,” he says. “He should have killed you, too. I hope he does now. I hope he films every bit of it because if he does, I’ll pay to watch that shit. You hear me? I’ll pay to watch!” His voice rises to a scream at the end. I have no idea why he hates me so much, but I feel it like acid burning my skin.
Mike Lustig doesn’t move. Doesn’t even so much as raise an eyebrow. His body language continues to be loose, open, relaxed. I don’t know how he does it. Once the screaming stops, the silence stretches for a long moment before Lustig says, “You let me know when you’re done with your tantrum. I can wait. ’Cause guess what? No matter who else is involved, nobody’s sitting here but you. Nobody’s going to be doing hard federal time but you, unless you start answering some questions. So tell me. Where’d you get this video?”
Suffolk has gotten quiet. Staring down at the table. The demon has gone back to its lair, somewhere deep inside. He fidgets, looks uncomfortable, and finally, he mumbles one word. “Absalom.”
“Uh-huh,” Lustig says. “And?”
“Absalom sold me the video. I sold stuff to them, they sold stuff to me. You know. A market exchange.”
“How?”
Suffolk lifts one shoulder and lets it fall, like a sulky kid. “I paid in Bitcoin. That got me a link.”
“So you’re not part of Absalom. You’re just a customer.”
“And a supplier.” He gives Lustig a sudden, unsettling grin. “I get discounts.”
“What do you supply?”
“You know.” He shrugs again. “Retouched photos. Edited videos. Commission stuff.”
“We’ll have a long talk about that in a bit, but let’s keep moving. So who do you know in Absalom, then?” Another shrug. No answer. “How about the name Merritt Van Der Wal? You know him?”
“Nope.”
“Napier Jenkins?” I’ve never heard either of these names, but I can only assume that he’s making them up . . . or he already uncovered more Absalom members without us. That’s probable.
“No.”
“How about Lancel Graham?”
The hesitation gives Suffolk away. He hadn’t expected that name, and of course he knows it. We all know it. I flinch all over at the name, but I keep my focus on Suffolk. “Don’t know him, either.”
He should. That name, of all of them, absolutely ought to ring a very loud bell for him.
“Carl, I’m disappointed in you. I know you know Lancel Graham, because you didn’t buy that damn video with Bitcoin from Absalom. You got it straight from Lancel Graham, copied right off his hard drive. You know we can track that digital footprint, right? You’re not stupid. So now you’re going down for a federal slam dunk of criminal conspiracy, and possession and distribution of child porn, plus you’ll be enjoying the great state of Kansas’s tour of its legal system for conspiracy to murder.”
“I never murdered anybody!”
“Roll the other one,” Mike says, then looks up at the camera. The tech in the room with me pr
esses buttons, and a new video begins. Same set, but subtly different simply because of the proportions of the room it’s crowded into. This one, I realize, was filmed in the cabin basement up above Stillhouse Lake. Lancel Graham’s place. It’s his re-creation of Melvin’s torture chamber . . . and there’s a girl shown in this one, too.
The girl with the butterfly tattoo, the first one Graham killed and dumped in the lake to implicate me in her murder. I catch my breath, because I remember her from around town in Norton. She sat across the restaurant from me and Lanny as we ate cake, and she’d been a normal, smiling, sweet young lady.
I’m seeing her last, awful minutes on earth in this video.
The tech shuts it down once it’s made an impression, and I realize I’m shaking. I turn away so I don’t have to look at the freeze-frame of her face.
Mike Lustig is saying, in the same calm voice, “That video is Lancel Graham murdering his first victim, and the time stamp tells me you had it on the same thumb drive before the second young woman was killed. So yeah. Conspiracy to murder, Carl. I don’t think you’re going to see a computer screen again before we’re all jacked into the net by our brains. Unless you want to talk to me.”
Suffolk is shaking, I can see it. He’s a sadist and a coward, and he knows damn well that all of those charges could be leveled at him, and possibly more.
He’s also dangerous. The way he went after me, the unhesitating way he choked me, tells me it isn’t the first time he’s tried to kill someone. It might actually be the first time he’s failed.
“I don’t know anything about Absalom,” Suffolk finally says, and Lustig sighs and starts to kick his chair back. “Except a couple of names, that’s all! Just some names. Screen names, not even real ones. You know. Graham made some side deals with me, that’s all. He and I had . . . common interests. We swapped videos. I didn’t know he was the one killing those girls! I thought he got ’em from somebody else.”
“Sure you didn’t. Let’s start with screen names,” Lustig says, shoving a pad of paper and a felt-tip marker across to him. “And throw in anything else you can come up with that might save your ass from twenty-five to life in a federal penitentiary, too. Because I can predict with a fine degree of certainty how pleasant that vacation stay’s going to be for you. Bet you can, too.”