“I wonder if I should be concerned my hands made such an impression. Just for the record, I don’t swing that way.”
“Of course you don’t. Because you’re involved with Bianca Cartwright.”
He snorted. “Who told you that? Her? She’s twelve shades of crazy triple-dipped in psycho.”
“I don’t doubt that. I’ve looked over her psych reports.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
John folded his arms over his chest. “Well, she mentioned you a lot. Seems like you played with her heartstrings a little bit. That wasn’t nice.”
“Oh, come on.” Jacob rolled his eyes. “She’s a crazy bitch, I knew it the minute I met her. All you have to do is take one look at the scars. She has them all over from where she’s cut herself. You’d be surprised how many guys think it’s sexy, when she’s in a corset and a garter belt.”
“Why would you bother getting involved with a crazy bitch?”
Jacob gave him a quizzical stare. “Well, everyone knows the crazier they are the better fuck they are.”
John pushed back from the table. “You pretended to be her boyfriend because you didn’t want to stop sleeping with her?”
He shrugged. “I was never her boyfriend. We just messed around. I bought her things to make her happy at first, because I’ve got a lot of money, but we ended a long time ago. I have no idea why she’d bring me up in therapy. I didn’t even know she went.”
“That’s a really romantic story. You know what you don’t have a lot of?”
One thick, professionally threaded eyebrow arched.
“You don’t have a lot of intelligence. I don’t have her therapy records. All I’ve got are two-year-old psychiatric hospital records.” He shuffled the papers and stuffed them back into the folder. “Regardless, we have a problem. I’m sure Bianca’s told you about what happened to her when she was a teenager.”
“Is that a crime, listening to some sob story?”
“So she told you about it?”
“Not much. But something must have happened, to fuck her up like that. She was crazy in bed.”
“She wanted you to be rough with her.”
“If you call asking me to make cuts all over her—and I mean all over her—with razor blades rough, then yes.” Jacob crossed his arms over his purple satin shirt, a defiant smile tugging at his lips. “Bianca was a dream come true. Only girl I’ve ever been with who likes being called a dirty whore. Other chicks would slap me for doing that.”
“Judging from your arrest record it’s a safe bet you’d slap them back.”
“Hey.” He spread his hands wide, palms-up. “No charges, no foul.”
People who wore a lot of purple were said to have delusions of aristocracy, since back in the day, common folks hadn’t had access to indigo dyes. John could see with Jacob Ivashkov, that theory was dead-on.
“So, for the sake of clarity, you’re involved in a rough, sexual relationship with Bianca Cartwright?”
He heaved out a sigh. “I didn’t do anything she didn’t ask for.”
“I’m sure her wanting such odd things in bed brought up a few questions.”
“She didn’t get any questions from me. I don’t judge.”
“Really? You never put those pieces together, or you just never cared enough to ask? Not many normal women like being called a dirty whore.”
He shrugged. “Some women get off on being submissive. Masochists, whatever.”
“What you’ve described isn’t submissive, it’s damaged. It’s not like she wanted to role-play being a schoolgirl who needs some disciplining by her headmaster.”
“Sounds kind of hot, though. You think Lisette would be down?”
John bent to crack open his briefcase and pulled out a few files. “You have a white Escalade registered in your name. Did you know my dead girls were transported to the dump sites in a vehicle matching that description?”
Jacob gave another world-weary sigh and rested his cheek on a fist. “There’s a lot of white SUVs in LA. My uncle bought a whole fleet and gave them to the higher-up employees for business.”
“Is your father proud of you?”
Jacob’s face turned from an expression of boredom to confusion. “Why wouldn’t he be?”
“Apart from being a loser, you’ve never shown any ambition. Your family’s been supporting you from day one. Your sisters have accomplishments; several. But not you. I’d think your father would be ashamed.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” Jacob scoffed. “Is this you trying to get under my skin? You’ll have to dig deeper.”
“Not too deep. You’re shallow as a puddle.” He fished a photograph from the folder in front of him and slid it across the table. “Do you know someone named Caroline McKay?”
Jacob’s jawline tensed, and he pushed the photo back. “Those records are supposed to be sealed.”
John traced Caroline’s blonde hair with the edge of his pinkie. “Bianca and Caroline McKay could be sisters. Caroline went to your highschool. President of your class, but you know that. She was a minor when she was dumped in front of a hospital, raped, beaten, and half dead. Her name was never released, but she was assigned a patient number. The only reason I know her name is because of the corresponding death certificate. Caroline was the only teenaged girl who died that day, in that hospital, so the dots weren’t hard to connect. She spoke a little, after she woke up from the coma for a few minutes. Gave some names.”
“Then you’ll know I wasn’t one of them.”
“I know you weren’t convicted for being one of the attackers. Just shy of your eighteenth birthday. Your friend wasn’t so lucky, was he? He’d already turned nineteen. Nothing an attorney could do for him, but your uncle still tried. A whole team of lawyers couldn’t keep him out of prison, but they worked wonders for you. It is amazing, the fact you got off without even a slap on the wrist. I suppose if God makes miracles, it stands to reason Satan would have a few of his own.”
“You’ll be in a lot of trouble for unsealing those records,” Jacob said with a stiff smile. “You’ll also be hearing from my attorney.”
“Of course I will. But I never got access to those records, I just added two and two. A tech analyst saw you had a sealed juvenile record and did some digging for crimes of a sexual nature that occurred in LA around the time you were a minor. Austin McIntyre, your friend in highschool, graduated one year ahead of you. You two were on the wrestling team. Your names were in the paper a few times. I didn’t need your records to figure out you were buddies.”
Jacob leaned over the table, clasped hands pressed into his chest. “I’m still trying to figure out just what the fuck a case over fifteen years old has to do with Bianca. She’s who you wanted to speak to me about.”
“I’m thinking you never really lost that taste for blood you got with Caroline. And getting caught up with Bianca only reminded you of how much you missed it.”
“Your hypothesises are getting old.”
“It’s hypotheses.” John pushed back from the table’s edge, crossing his arms over his lapels as he examined the ceiling. “I’m thinking you, with that giant brain of yours, thought of a wonderful plan to cash in on the horrible thing that happened to Bianca. Girls like her, who’ve gone through traumatic things, come out of it craving control, because they lost every shred of it. The only thing that makes them feel better is when they get that power back. You showed her how to do that, didn’t you? The same thing you did to Caroline. Only this time you could get paid for it, provided you covered your ass accordingly.”
“I’m assuming you’re implying I’ve got something to do with this freaky blog you claim she’s running. I don’t.”
John nodded. “I figured you’d say that. You should know that I’ve got access to some of the best hackers in the world. The Bureau recruits them. You know, the whole, ‘if you can’t beat them, hire them’ thing. I’ll find out one way or another.”
Jac
ob cleared his throat and tapped the face of his gold Cartier watch. “I came to try to help. I was told this was just a couple questions, and that I’m not under arrest. If that hasn’t changed, I’ll be leaving. I’ve got plenty of work to do.”
“Why did you come without being dragged in? Anyone else and I might buy the ‘I’m just being helpful’ excuse, but you’re not the helpful type. Maybe you thought you’d be able to piece together what we know. Find out how far we’ve gotten in our investigation.”
“Last I checked, being helpful wasn’t a crime.”
He was lying, John could see it in the vein pounding at his temple. “You can put me off for a while, but I’ll still be here, asking annoying little questions that might raise a few eyebrows.”
Jacob paused in the threshold of the door, one hand wrapped around the knob. “Direct those questions to my attorney from here on out.”
SEVENTY-EIGHT
“Doesn’t it make you jealous, him watching other women?”
She runs her fingers beneath her hairline. I wonder what she’s doing, until she lifts a red layer and blonde hair tumbles over her shoulder. She tosses the wig aside. It looks like a baby Chewbacca, skittering across the floor.
“Jealous?”
“Yeah. You’re engaged, but he uses the cameras to get his rocks off.”
Wheels turn behind her eyes before she shrugs. “It’s not like he’s cheating. Every man looks at other women. I don’t mind if he watches as long as I’m the only one he cares about.”
I pull my knees into my chest and wrap my arms around my shins. “You’re more understanding than I’d be. If my boyfriend spent all his time watching videos of other girls, I’d leave him.”
She drags her fingers along a smear of crusted brown blood on the floor. “Is that what you think I should do? Leave the only person who cares about me? He’s my whole world. I’m his, too.” She taps the face of her cell phone. “Emails all the time just to tell me how much he cares.”
“I’m just saying, it’s not something I’d put up with. You must love him a lot, to overlook stuff like that.”
She pokes the toe of my Vans. “I love him more than a lot. I’d bleed myself dry for him.”
I don’t want to argue, but it doesn’t seem like she’s capable of bleeding herself dry. Those scars from failed suicide attempts kind of prove it.
“I’ve done everything for him.”
There’s something about the way she says everything that raises the hair on the back of my neck. “I believe you,” I say, since she’s defensive, like I’ve accused her of lying. “Love makes us do crazy things.”
Her hair swings forward when she examines the rounded edge of her nails. Without the wig she looks so much like Abby, it’s disturbing.
SEVENTY-NINE
John situated himself in Lisette’s surprisingly comfortable desk chair after Jacob Ivashkov had stormed out of the homicide department.
He was weighing the pros and cons of another espresso versus black tea, when the office door blew open, ushering in the racket of detectives and the scent of mingled vanilla and menthol cigarettes.
“I thought I told you to go home?” he asked, as Lisette closed the door.
She waved him off and sat in the chair opposite him. “I did go home. I even slept for a few hours. I saw Jacob in the elevator on my way up. He said something about how I should wear a plaid skirt for him. I probably don’t want to know, right? Did he give you anything?”
“The sneaking suspicion he knows more than he’s letting on. He’s been sleeping with her, at the very least.”
She knotted her arms over her rumpled wife beater. “Did he give you the old ‘crazy chicks are better in bed’ line? It’s one of his favorites.”
“At least he’s predictable.” Who cares if they’re better in bed was John’s question. They weren’t worth the headaches if you had to sleep with one eye open and worry about slashed tires come morning.
He handed her the file containing the Caroline McKay information. “I’m going to see what I can do about getting warrants for his phone records and club. Once we’re inside, I’ll take pictures of the surveillance cameras and ask Stacy if the setup matches what she thinks the webmaster has on the blog. With any luck, he’ll have something illegal in his office, and we’ll get cause to arrest him.”
EIGHTY
She strokes the diamond on her finger the same way I stroke Stripes’s head. “Love is an odd animal. We can’t help who we fall in love with, right? I suppose the heart knows something we don’t.”
I can’t imagine this man she’s with loves her—I doubt anyone involved in the torture and murder of multiple women knows the meaning. He can probably say the words and understand the dictionary definition, but the feelings can’t possibly be present. He’s emotionally colorblind. “Did you ever think maybe the heart is just stupid, or wrong? Blinded by lust, or…I don’t know, swept up in a moment?”
She smiles. It actually looks sincere. “No. Love may be inconvenient or inappropriate, but I don’t think it’s wrong. How can it be? It’s one of those intangibles.”
It’s not like you’re the supreme authority on the subject, I want to say. But I don’t. I’m no authority, either. The only man I’ve been in love with is Jack.
I didn’t even know I was for a long time; couldn’t make sense of the mingled hope and horror. So happy, but scared it would all abandon me. Like I was bumbling along, spinning the plates of my life, until I’d realized a whole bunch more had appeared, ready to crash down on my head.
The knowledge I’ll never see him again is too horrible to fathom.
Bianca frowns at her cell phone. “I never get service in here,” she complains conversationally, like we’re in some dark back corner of a restaurant by the bathrooms. Like it’s some minor inconvenience, never mind the fact I’m here, held hostage without a clue or a hope or a prayer.
“What do you need service for?” Not that it matters at this juncture, but I must have been correct in my assumption we’re underground. “Another video?”
“I don’t get internet in here, sweetheart. Those videos are uploaded afterward. My responses to his love notes.”
Bile creeps up my throat. That’s why Abby died? For some travesty of a love note?
She waves her phone around like she’s willing bars to appear. “I might have to leave for a little while.”
The second she stands up, I’ll rush her. Punch her in the face. The fact I’ve never punched anyone in the face before is moot. What’s the rule? Don’t tuck your thumb into your fist? Or thrust your palm under the nose to make it puncture the brain?
Her hand disappears in her purse and comes out with the Taser.
Plan foiled.
EIGHTY-ONE
Lisette stormed through the front doors of Garden of Eve, flashing her badge at the bouncer. John didn’t bother digging his credentials out as he followed.
The platinum strands woven through her blonde ponytail caught in the dim lighting, easily the brightest thing in the hallway, before they rounded a dark corner into the main lounge.
Lisette snagged the nearest waitress by the strap of her fuchsia mesh top. The tray of martinis she carried sloshed, olives riding waves of vodka, when she shot Lisette a bewildered look. “Tell someone to turn this shit off.” She held her badge in one hand and jammed her thumb at the pounding speakers.
Jacob Ivashkov swung through the double doors that led to his office and shook his head, stopping behind Lisette as she bent over to snatch a cigar from a patron’s hand with a snarled “it’s fucking illegal to smoke in here, numbnuts.”
John didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or not, watching Jacob admire the way her jeans molded to precisely the right places.
“You know how much I’ve dreamed of seeing you bent over in front of me, but this smells like harassment.”
She looked up from the beer glass she was stubbing the cigar out in. “This,” she straightened up and slammed a warra
nt Jacob’s chest, “is an inconvenience. I’m working my way up to harassment. Maybe I’ll come back tomorrow for fucking brunch and shut this shit down just for fun.”
Jacob unfolded the warrant and scrutinized the judge’s looping signature. “I’ll set up a waffle bar if you promise to wear something slutty.”
John wondered briefly if he should say something—but what? Lisette could hold her own, and though admittedly, he found it amusing to watch her verbal sparring, he did not find the sparkle in Jacob Ivashkov’s eyes entertaining. In fact, he would have liked to pluck them out with a pair of curved pincers, but that would be assault, and it turned out assault was illegal.
“Don’t fuck with me, dumbass.” She poked Jacob’s chest. “I’ll turn this place into a goddamned convent if you’re gonna play coy.”
Jacob tucked the warrant into his back pocket. “If you wanted to see me again, you could have called. I know you’ve got my number somewhere. Tucked under your pillow or in your underwear drawer. You wear thongs, I can tell. No panty lines.”
Her eyes flicked toward the doors as a parade of uniformed officers and CSU techs carrying canvas bags trickled in the lounge. She started down the hallway to Jacob’s office. “I’m going to make as big a mess as possible when I fuck up your office, Jake. I hope Daddy doesn’t keep his expensive china in there.”
John gestured in the direction Lisette had left when Jacob finally registered his presence. “After you.”
“You again, huh?”
John nodded, though the question scarcely needed answering. Obviously it was him again by virtue of the fact that he stood there. “Me again.”
Jacob eyed Lisette pulling back her knee to kick in his office door. “I’d think working with her would cause a lot of inconvenient boners.”
“I’d think you’d better clam up before I dream up some bullshit offense to charge you with.”
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