Bob Clausen snorted with disgust. “A cat can’t change its spots. Once a self-absorbed, selfish little snot, always one.”
Anna stiffened, cheeks burning. “Jaye’s neither self-absorbed nor selfish, thank you very much.”
“Bob didn’t mean that.” The other woman wrung her hands. “But you didn’t live with her, Anna. She was very strong-willed, oftentimes defiant. When she made up her mind about something, she did it, consequences be damned.”
Anna held on to her temper, but just barely. “You have the kind of childhood Jaye had, you sure as hell better be strong-willed. If you’re not, you don’t make it. Period.”
The Clausens exchanged glances. Bob opened his mouth to retort, then snapped it shut. Without a word, he turned on his heel and returned to the den and the television show he had been watching.
Fran watched him go, then turned back to Anna. “We’ll call you if she shows up or…or if we hear anything.”
In other words, scram. Anna decided she would do just that—after she did a little more digging. Something about this whole thing just didn’t feel right to her. It didn’t make sense.
“Would you mind if I took a peek at Jaye’s room?” she asked.
“Her room?” Fran glanced toward the den, though Anna was uncertain if she was worried that her husband was listening or if she was looking for his moral support. “Why?”
“I guess I just want to…see for myself that she’s gone.” She lowered her voice. “Please, Fran. It would really mean a lot to me.”
The other woman hesitated a moment, then relented. “All right. I suppose it won’t hurt.”
Fran led the way, waiting outside in the hallway while Anna went into Jaye’s room. Like so many teenagers’ private domains, this one looked like a small hurricane had struck.
Anna picked her way to the center of the room and stopped, emotion overwhelming her. It smelled like Jaye, like the light, girlish perfume she favored. Across the chair in the corner was the tangerine-colored sweater Jaye had worn the last time they’d gotten together, on her nightstand sat three empty Diet Coke cans and a stack of CDs. Anna crossed to them and flipped through the pile, a lump in her throat. Anna recognized several as Jaye’s favorites. If she had run away, why hadn’t she taken any of them? Jaye owned a portable CD player; she rarely went anywhere without it.
Anywhere but school. Personal CD players had been outlawed at the beginning of the term. Jaye had been incensed and had written an outraged letter to the school administration.
Anna glanced at the floor. There at the foot of the bed lay a library book, three bright-colored scrunchies, a candy-bar wrapper and the Dr. Marten shoes she’d used her own money to buy.
She loved those Docs. She had saved up four months to get them, gone without all luxuries, even the Mochasippis she claimed she couldn’t live without.
Anna swallowed hard and moved her gaze over the room and its contents, searching for something that would convince and reassure her. Or an irrefutable something that would send her into a total panic.
She found it tucked under Jaye’s mattress: a slim, tin box full of mementos. Jaye’s mother’s wedding ring. A photograph of her mother as well as a snapshot of the woman holding baby Jaye in her arms. Jaye’s birth certificate and the two poems she had written last year that had been published in her school’s annual literary magazine.
A picture of the two of them, pink-cheeked and smiling, arms around each other’s shoulders.
Anna picked the photo up, tears pricking the back of her eyes. She remembered the day this had been taken, remembered it clearly. It had been shortly after she and Jaye had really become friends, after the last of Jaye’s walls had come tumbling down. The spring day had been beautiful, bright and sweet and kissed by the heat of the sun. They had gone to the zoo and spent the day laughing at the animals’ randy springtime antics, eating junk food and simply enjoying each other’s company.
Aching at the memory, Anna carefully laid the snapshot back in the box. No way Jaye would have willingly left all these things behind. They represented everything about her past that she wanted to remember.
With the realization, fear speared through her. Real and icy cold. If Jaye hadn’t run away, where was she at ten-thirty on a school night?
Anna fitted the lid back onto the box, scooped it up and carried it out to where Fran Clausen waited. “Did you see this?” she asked the woman.
“That?” She looked at the box, her expression uneasy. “What is it?”
“Jaye’s memento box.” Anna removed the lid and showed the woman the box’s contents. “It was tucked under her mattress.”
Fran made a fluttery, nervous gesture. “So?”
“So, no way would Jaye have knowingly left these things behind. She didn’t run away, Fran. Something’s happened to her.”
The woman paled. “I find it hard to believe—”
“Did she have a bag with her this morning?”
“Just her book bag, but—”
“I didn’t see any of her textbooks in her room. Why would she run away and take her textbooks but leave this? If she had planned to run away, wouldn’t she have filled her book bag with the things she would need, clothes and shoes, her toothbrush, her mementos? Come on, Fran, she wouldn’t run away with nothing. She wouldn’t.”
“For God’s sake!” Bob Clausen roared, stepping into the hallway. “Stop badgering my wife!”
Anna faced him, heart hammering. “I’m not trying to badger her. I just want her to see—”
“Accept the fact that Jaye’s gone and leave us be.”
“Have you talked to Paula?” Anna asked, referring to Paula Perez, Jaye’s social worker. “I think she needs to be told Jaye’s—”
“We’ve already talked to her. She thinks Jaye’s run away. In fact, she came to that conclusion before we did. If Jaye’s not home by midnight, Paula’s reporting her missing to the authorities.”
“But she didn’t know about this,” Anna said, motioning to the box of keepsakes. “She couldn’t have because you didn’t even know.”
“Call and tell her. I don’t give a flip.”
“Yes,” Anna said softly as he began to turn away. “It does seem as if you don’t give a flip.”
Bob Clausen froze. He turned slowly to face her. “What did you say?”
Anna hiked up her chin, hiding how intimidated she felt. Bob was built like a mountain and right now he looked as if he would enjoy throttling her.
“You’re Jaye’s foster parents. I find it…odd that you’re not more concerned about her.”
His face mottled. “How dare you waltz in here and lecture us! How dare you suggest—”
“Bob,” his wife begged. “Please.”
He ignored her and took a threatening step toward Anna. “Don’t you get it? We’ve been through this before. You haven’t. Girls like Jaye don’t hang around. The minute something doesn’t go their way, they’re history. They leave without a word to the people who cared for them. Period.”
He took another step toward Anna; she instinctively backed up. “I’d like you to leave now.”
Anna looked beseechingly at the other woman. “Please, Fran…I know Jaye. She’s my friend and…she wouldn’t do this. I know it.”
The woman backed away, expression closed. “If we hear anything from her, we’ll call you.”
“Thank you.” Anna tightened her grip on Jaye’s keep-sake box, unwilling to let it go—although she wasn’t quite sure why. “May I keep this for her?”
“In this situation we’re supposed to turn all of Jaye’s belongings over to Social Services.”
Anna swallowed hard. That sounded so ominous. So final. As if they were discussing the belongings of someone who had passed. “Please. I’ll make sure Paula gets it. I promise I will.”
The woman hesitated a moment more, then agreed. The Clausens walked Anna to the door, standing guard and watching as she walked away, box clutched to her chest. When Anna reached h
er car she glanced back to see Fran and her husband exchanging furtive glances.
In that moment, Anna was filled with dread. It stole her ability to move or think; in that moment, she was incapable even of unlocking her car and climbing inside.
As she stood there frozen, gaze fixed on the couple, a single question kept playing in her head: What had happened to Jaye?
CHAPTER 17
Thursday, January 18
11:50 p.m.
Jaye awakened with a groan. Her head and back ached and her mouth felt dry and dirty, like the inside of a ditch after a month with no rain. She moaned and rolled onto her side. A sour smell filled her head and she opened her eyes.
And remembered. Walking to the bus stop. Looking over her shoulder for the old pervert. Grinning because she had given him the slip. Or so she had thought. In the next moment she had found herself being dragged behind an azalea hedge before something was forced over her nose and mouth. She remembered her terror. The silent scream that sounded in her head.
Her world going black.
Jaye scrambled into a sitting position, heart racing, breath coming in small gasps. She darted her gaze around the dimly lit room, seeing at once that she was alone.
Jaye breathed deeply through her nose to calm herself, her survivor instincts kicking in. Stay cool. Figure it out.
She was sitting on a foldout cot. The mattress was bare, soiled from use. Jaye pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling. The only other piece of furniture in the room was a folding lawn chair, one of those flimsy aluminum and nylon web ones. Located against the far left wall was a single sink and commode. Beside the toilet sat a roll of toilet paper, on the sink a new toothbrush, tube of toothpaste and a towel.
Jaye choked back a sound of despair and shifted her gaze. The plaster walls were cracked, what was left of the faded wallpaper water-stained and peeling. The room’s one window had been boarded over, slivers of dim light peeked around the edges of the crudely nailed one-by-fours. Directly across the room from the window lay the door.
Jaye scooted off the cot and tiptoed to the door. She reached cautiously for the knob. Her hand shook. She remembered a horror flick she had seen a couple of weeks before. In it a girl in a similar position had tried to escape; as her fingers had closed over the knob, it had become a writhing snake.
That had been a movie. This nightmare was for real. And she had to find a way out.
Swallowing hard, Jaye grasped the knob. It was cool, smooth and unyielding against her palm, and she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Saying a silent prayer, Jaye twisted it.
The knob didn’t budge. Tears flooded her eyes and she blinked them back, scolding herself for hoping for a miracle. What kind of kidnapper would have left the door unlocked? The criminal equivalent of Dopey?
She would just have to find another way out, the hard way. She lowered her gaze, noticing what she hadn’t before: that one of the door’s panels had been replaced with a pet door.
Jaye knelt and examined it. It looked to be newly installed, unmarred by even one scuff mark. She pushed against the panel, finding it latched from the outside. Jaye pressed harder, felt it begin to give, then drew back, frustrated. She could kick it open, but she couldn’t fit through the opening, so what was the point?
She stood and turned to face the boarded-over window. She crossed to it and pressed her face close to the cracks between the boards, hoping to get an idea of where she was. She saw immediately that it was night, that the light seeping around the edges of the boards was artificial, provided by a nearby street lamp. She couldn’t place anything else.
But she could hear—the muffled sound of traffic and music, of people talking.
People! Someone who would hear her call out and come looking. Or contact the police.
“Help!” she called, excited. She pounded on the boards. She screamed again and again, pausing between cries to listen. The conversations from somewhere beyond her prison didn’t change tempo. No one came looking for her. No one answered her cries for help.
They couldn’t hear her. They were too far away.
Frantic now, she turned and raced to the door and began to pound, kick and scream. Her voice grew hoarse, her hands sore and arms weak. Still she cried out, until her pleas became feeble mewls of despair.
Finally, exhausted, she sank to the floor and sobbed.
CHAPTER 18
Friday, January 19
The French Quarter
Her name had been Evelyn Parker. She’d been beautiful, well liked, fun-loving. A regular of the downtown club scene. She’d worked as a hygienist for an uptown dentist and had resided in the area of the city called the Bywater.
She had died on her twenty-fourth birthday.
“Hell of a thing, getting whacked on your birthday, eh, Malone?” This came from Sam Tardo, one of the evidence collection team. “And don’t touch anything, we haven’t done the body yet.”
Quentin grunted in response to the other officer and squatted beside Evelyn Parker. He moved his gaze over the victim, looking for something that might have been missed: a button or scrap of paper, spots of blood, a footprint.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Terry asked, stooping to get a better look.
Nancy Kent. “Yeah.” Quentin frowned. Evelyn Parker was a beautiful strawberry blonde; she had been out clubbing the night of her death. It looked as if she had been raped, then suffocated. And like Nancy Kent, Evelyn Parker had been found in an alley behind a club.
“Captain’s going to be pissed.” Johnson rolled his shoulders. “Like it’s our fault or something.”
“Who found her?” Quentin asked.
“Jogger.”
Quentin looked up, frowning. “What’s a jogger doing in an alley?”
“Chick runs early. Brings her golden retriever along. For protection, she says. Anyway, at the alley entrance the dog goes nuts. She decides to check it out and gets more than she bargained for.”
“Walden take her statement?”
“Yeah.” Johnson jerked his thumb in the direction of the club. “He’s with the bar owner now. So, where’ve you guys been? Me and Walden practically have this thing solved already.”
“Kiss my ass, Sleeping Beauty.” Terry made a sound of disgust. “Didn’t you hear? While you and Walden were snug in your beds, me and Malone were in the Desire. Drug-related triple homicide.”
A downtown housing project, the Desire was the most dangerous piece of real estate in New Orleans. Life expectancy for a cop who wandered in alone was slim to none. Life expectancy for the folks who lived there wasn’t much better.
“Lucky you.” The other officer shrugged deeper into his coat. “I’ll take a French Quarter alley over the Desire any day.”
Walden called to his partner from the bar doorway. Johnson excused himself, and Quentin returned his attention to the victim. Unlike Kent, this woman had put up a good fight. There were contusions around her face, neck and chest. She had been wearing skintight jeans and from the looks of them and the twisted position of her body, the perp had had a hard time holding her down and getting them off. They were bunched around her knees; her panties torn away.
Quentin glanced at Terry to comment on the jeans, but swallowed the words, noticing for the first time how tired his friend looked. How bloodshot his eyes were. How quiet he had been.
Quentin frowned. He and his partner had been at the Desire for the past few hours, before that Quentin had been home, sleeping. Where, he wondered, had his partner been? “You okay?” Quentin asked.
“As well as can be expected with no home to go to and no sleep.” He rubbed his eyes and swore. “I’m getting damn sick of this shit.”
The evidence team moved in and they stood to give them room to work. There wasn’t much left for them to do here anyway. Next step was sorting through the physical evidence, immersing themselves in Evelyn Parker’s life and the night of her death.
Quentin drew his eyebrows tog
ether. He looked at Terry. “I don’t think she was raped, Ter. No way could this perp have penetrated her with those jeans around her knees. So unless he took the time to try to get her jeans back up, I think he gave up and just killed her.”
“Goodbye DNA.”
“Exactly.” They started out of the alley. “Which will make the likelihood of linking the cases with physical evidence a lot more difficult.”
“Near impossible.” For a moment, Terry was silent. “Which doesn’t help me out.” He swore. “I hope they don’t try to pin this shit on me.”
Quentin stopped and looked at his partner. “Why would they?”
“Because of Nancy Kent, of course.”
“But you were cleared.”
Terry shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, mouth twisting with bitterness. “Yeah, but this changes everything. They’re going to revisit every suspect from the original homicide. You know that. Expect us to be called in the minute we hit headquarters. Shit.”
Quentin hoped his partner was wrong, but admitted he probably wasn’t. “When the captain asks where you were last night, what are you going to tell her, Ter?”
“The truth. That I was at my crappy-ass apartment. Alone and nursing a bourbon. Before that, I was with Penny.”
They exited the alley and angled toward their vehicles, parked side by side along the curb. “Any progress convincing her to let you move back in?”
“Move back in?” Terry laughed, the sound bitter. “What? And ruin her good time? Life’s a party for her. She’s fucking one guy after another, apparently making up for time lost married to me.”
It wasn’t just his partner’s ugly words that stunned Quentin, but their tone as well. The venom behind them. “No way,” Quentin said softly, thinking of his friend’s wife. Quentin couldn’t picture the woman he knew her to be—a devoted wife and conscientious mother—sleeping around.
“Hell of a thing,” Terry said, all but spitting the words. “She won’t let me, her husband, near her, but she’ll share her goodies with every Tom, Dick or Harry who comes around.”
Dark and Twisted Reads: All the Pretty GirlsA Perfect EvilBone Cold (A Taylor Jackson Novel) Page 81