by J. A. Jance
She stood in the impenetrable darkness with her heart pounding in her chest. Lucas would pass her position first. That would mean she would have the first opportunity to tackle him. He was young and had not yet reached his full growth, but with a history of weight lifting, he might be far stronger than he looked. Based on that, Joanna knew she needed to take him by surprise and come after him with overwhelming force.
From the way he was scrabbling along, occasionally crying out in pain and cursing as he slammed into some unexpected obstacle, Joanna realized they were in luck. Lucas really was running blind. He had been in the dark far longer than she and Jaime had, especially since they had just extinguished their flashlights. That meant his eyes would be better adjusted and his vision would be marginally better than theirs would be. But if Lucas was more comfortable in the dark, that gave Joanna a chance to turn light into a weapon.
With that in mind, she tightened her grip on the business end of the new Mag-Tac LED flashlight Butch had given her for Christmas. Fingering the device in the dark, she located the switch that would activate the strobe light function. For someone who had grown accustomed to moving in utter darkness, she hoped the flashing strobe would be both blinding and disorienting. The problem was, it might disorient her as well. She hoped that Jaime, farther away from the light, would be somewhat less affected. He was Joanna’s second line of defense.
Lucas was much closer now, running headlong in her direction. She heard his breath coming in ragged gulps. She waited until she was sure he was almost on her. Even then, she counted to three before she pushed the switch on the strobe and stepped away from the sheltering rock wall. He came bearing down on her, dancing in awkward jerks like some devil made incarnate before stumbling to a sudden stop. That was the moment when Joanna switched on the full beam of the powerful flashlight, shining it directly into his eyes. Blinded, he took a single swing at her, but he didn’t come close to connecting.
That one missed blow provided all the incentive Joanna needed. Brandishing the heavy flashlight like a club, she swung it through the air and grunted in satisfaction as her very first well-aimed blow connected with Lucas in a dull, bone-breaking thud. He tumbled to the ground like a crumpled rag doll.
“Great work, boss!” Jaime exclaimed, coming out of hiding and aiming his own flashlight at their fallen quarry. “You nailed him.”
“Keep an eye on him,” Joanna ordered. “I need to check something.”
When Joanna knelt down beside Lucas, she shined the light on his face at the stream of blood flowing from the cut her flashlight had left on his cheekbone. He was still wearing the same blue track suit that she had seen him wearing on several earlier occasions. It was far worse for wear now—torn, tattered, and stained with a layer of reddish dust. Reaching for the sleeve, she pulled it up, baring Lucas’s forearm. The web-scape of scratches marring the pale skin were exactly what she had expected to find. The wounds appeared to come in several layers with the older ones scabbed over while some of the newer ones were still draining. When Joanna pulled up the second sleeve, the damage on that arm mirrored what she had seen on the first.
She shoved him hard in the ribs. The blow wasn’t hard enough to do any damage, but it was enough to rouse him. Lucas groaned. His eyes blinked open.
“Where is she, you worthless punk?” Joanna demanded, shouting the words into his face. “Where’s Ruth? What have you done to your sister?”
By then two flashlights were trained full on his face. Lucas squinted up at Joanna through the moving beams of light. “I’m not talking to anybody,” he said with a sneer. “I don’t have to.”
Joanna realized then that it hadn’t been just an illusion cast by the flickering strobe light that had made Lucas Nolan look like a devil. He really was.
Afraid she might be tempted to hit him again, harder this time, Joanna stepped away. “Cuff him, Jaime,” she ordered.
From far up the tunnel, they heard the pounding sound of another set of approaching footsteps. “It’s okay, Matt,” Joanna called into the darkness. “We’ve got him in custody.”
By the time Matt arrived, Jaime had Lucas in restraints and on his feet. The look of pure hatred Lucas aimed in Joanna’s direction was meant to make her squirm with fear. It served only to make her mad as hell.
“Let’s read this piece of garbage his rights and get him out of here. Then we need to figure out what the hell he’s done to his sister.”
CHAPTER 30
BY THE TIME THEY MADE IT BACK TO THE SUBWAY, A CROWD HAD gathered on the plaza. As officers and medics converged on the scene, so did everyone else. Sliding down the concrete bank to get into the ditch had been easy. Getting back up and out was not. A fire department crew equipped with ropes appeared on the scene.
Using a rope and pulling herself hand over hand, Joanna was the first to emerge. Then two firefighters along with Matt Keller and Jaime Carbajal formed a human fire brigade and passed Lucas up to the surface. As soon as he appeared, handcuffed and with blood streaming down his cheek and onto his filthy track suit, his mother managed to slip through the perimeter of officers.
“What have you done to him?” Rebecca screeched, her voice echoing off the canyon walls. “What have you done to my boy?”
Joanna planted herself in Rebecca’s path and barred the way. “Your son is under arrest,” she announced. “At the moment we’ll be charging him with two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, driving without a license, and reckless driving. I expect additional charges will be forthcoming.”
“He’s only a boy. You can’t do this to him,” Rebecca objected. “You can’t!”
“This is a police matter,” Joanna insisted. “Please step back.”
As Matt and Jaime came up out of the hole, Rebecca made one further attempt to push past Joanna and reach her son. Joanna stiff-armed her.
“I told you to move back, Mrs. Nolan,” Joanna warned. “If you don’t, you’ll be placed under arrest right along with Lucas and charged with interfering with a police officer.”
Matt placed a firm hand on Rebecca’s shoulder and steered the still-protesting woman away from the action. Meanwhile Alvin Bernard turned to Joanna. “What assault?” he asked.
“Matt and I were approaching Lucas’s house when he tried to run us down with a vehicle. If Matt hadn’t jumped for his life and pulled me along with him, we’d both be dead meat by now. We’ll hold him on those charges for now, but what you really need to know is there are scratches all over his arms. I sent the crime lab a sample of Rebecca’s DNA. Her profile came back as the mother of the male human whose DNA was found on our wounded cat.”
Alvin’s jaw dropped. “I thought we were looking at Ruth for all this,” he said.
“Believe me,” Joanna said. “So did I.”
“So is Ruth in on it or is she another victim?”
“Good question. It could be she’s an accomplice, but I doubt it. It’s more likely that she’s another victim, too, and we need to find her. I asked Lucas what he had done with his sister. He refused to answer.”
Joanna paused before continuing. “What’s happening to the wrecked Mazda?”
“I believe a tow truck is on the scene. Why?”
“Have Fred Harding go over that wrecked car with a fine-tooth comb. I have a feeling that’s how Lucas smuggled Ruth out of the house—in his mother’s car. Jaime was on his way to get a search warrant on the house before I pulled him into the tunnel. Judge Moore is involved in some kind of meeting at the Copper Queen. I’ll have Ernie take charge of the search warrant paperwork and handle that. Once Judge Moore signs off, Ernie and Matt can execute the warrant. I’d like to have Casey Ledford in on that as well. She’s great for fingerprints, but she’s also good at crime scene investigation.”
“I take it you think Lucas attacked his sister in their house?”
“I’d bet money on it,” Joanna said.
It took time to sort out the logistics. The medics examined Lucas’s bleeding jawline and p
ronounced that, although he would most likely have “a helluva headache,” a trip to the ER wasn’t necessary. Instead, the boy was hustled into a Bisbee PD patrol car and driven off to police headquarters, accompanied by Jaime Carbajal. Since Matt’s vehicle was still parked outside Rebecca Nolan’s house up the canyon, Ernie took Matt with him while Joanna summoned Casey.
Vehicles and people dispersed. At last Joanna’s car was the only one still there, parked haphazardly next to the subway with the flashers on the light bar still blinking. She was about to leave when Moe Maxwell approached. She hadn’t noticed him in the crowd, but when she saw him, she was saddened to see how haggard and lost he looked.
“Someone said you arrested Lucas Nolan. Did he do it?” Moe asked. “Is he the one who murdered Junior?”
This was still an active investigation. Moe was a grieving relative. Even so, Joanna had to be circumspect in her response. “Maybe,” she said. “Matt and Ernie are on their way to Lucas’s house to execute a search warrant.”
“Tell them to look for a rabbit’s foot,” Moe said.
“What rabbit’s foot?”
“Doc Winfield returned Junior’s personal effects to us last night, and that’s the only thing that’s missing—Junior’s lucky rabbit’s foot. He had it in his pocket when he first came to live with us. He always carried it in his pants pocket during the day and in his pajama pocket at night.”
“Thank you for that, Moe,” Joanna said, climbing into the Yukon. “If anything comes of this, we’ll let you know.”
As she turned the key in the ignition she found herself uttering an unlikely prayer. “Please, God, let Lucas Nolan be stupid enough to keep trophies.”
She was driving around Lavender Pit when Butch called. Not wanting to mention that someone had deliberately tried to run her down, Joanna tried to put him off. “I’m pretty busy right now,” she said.
“I’m sure you are,” he agreed, “but I thought I should let you know that I’ve just skimmed through some of the later stuff in Ruth Nolan’s blog. It’s unusual in that the earliest stuff is what shows on the welcome page and right after. The first entries are all sweetness and light, but along the way, it morphs into something much darker. You need to read from the back to find the most recent stuff, and that’s downright ugly. She refers to the newer material as a collection of ‘short stories.’ Reading between the lines, you can tell it’s coming from someone raised in a totally dysfunctional family. Plenty of physical violence. The father is depicted as a religious lout. The mother sleeps around. And the brother is drawn as a sweet-faced kid who would as soon knife you in the back as look at you. There are plenty of hints that both the kids may have been subjected to sexual abuse.”
Joanna was aghast. “That’s all in the blog?” she asked.
“That and more,” Butch answered grimly. “This is Dear Diary with a really ugly twist. The difference between the first posts and the most recent ones is glaring. I think there must have been some kind of adult oversight when the posting first started. The later entries have little or no adult editorial input, and no adult savvy, either. As I said, the newer, darker posts take some navigating to find. Even so, they garner a lot of attention—four thousand or so readers per entry. From the names on the comments, I’d say there are a lot of kids out there paying attention to Roxie’s Place.”
Joanna knew the statistics. Most of the kids who run afoul of law enforcement had some sort of sexual abuse lurking in their backgrounds. As Joanna pulled into the lot and parked in a visitors’ slot next to Chief Bernard’s aging sedan, she asked, “Was there anything in the most recent posts about what’s been going on with her this past week?”
“Nothing that jumped out at me. Why?”
“We believe Lucas Nolan may be responsible for his sister’s disappearance. We’ve just taken him into custody. I’m on my way to talk to him right now. Is there anything in the posts that refers to problems between the brother and the sister?”
“Not that I noticed,” Butch said, “but if you like, I can go back through the entries again. If I see something, I’ll call.”
“Thanks.”
Inside the reception area at Bisbee PD, a clerk buzzed Joanna through a locked door and into the back of the building. She made her way to the booking area, where a solidly built matron was processing Lucas. Already clothed in an orange jumpsuit, he deposited his other clothing on the counter. When the matron reached for it, Joanna intervened.
“Please use gloves for that,” she insisted. “It’s possible that shirt contains important DNA evidence. I want all of Mr. Nolan’s clothing placed in evidence bags, and I want the scratches and bite marks on his arms—all of them—swabbed for possible evidence as well—one swab and one bag per scratch.”
The matron glanced at the complex road map of scrapes and scratches covering Lucas’s forearms, then she gave Joanna a scathing look. “Are you kidding? All of these? Do you have any idea how long that will take?”
Joanna shrugged. “I don’t care how long it takes,” she replied. “I’ve got all day, and so does he.”
“You’re not going to find anything,” Lucas boasted.
“I’m a cop,” she cautioned. “Are you sure you want to talk to me?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Lucas said. “I’m a kid. What are you going to do to me? Send me to jail? Big deal. At least there they’ll give me three meals a day and I won’t have to cook them myself.”
“Look,” Joanna said. “The prosecutor will be here before long. He’s the one who decides what the charges will be. If you tell me where to find your sister, I might be able to persuade him to give you a better deal.”
“Screw you,” Lucas jeered at her as the matron lined him up for his mug shot. “If you’re so interested in Ruth, find her your own damned self.”
Alvin emerged from his office and beckoned to Joanna. He led her inside and closed the door before he spoke. “I just spoke to Fred, my CSI. He got to the scene of the accident in time to take a look at Rebecca’s sedan before the tow truck pulled it out of the ditch. He found a single strand of purple hair in the trunk of the vehicle and something else, too. A patch of something that appears to be vomit. He cut that part of the rug out. Our lab is a joke. I told him to take the hair and the piece of contaminated carpeting out to your CSI people at the Justice Center.”
Joanna nodded.
“Of course, you understand that you, Jaime, and Matt will all need to be interviewed about what went on in the tunnel.”
“Yes, I do,” Joanna said determinedly, “but not right now, not until after we find Ruth Nolan.”
Turning her back on Alvin, she left him standing in his office and went back to booking, where the matron was taking Lucas’s prints. As Joanna entered the room, she took her phone from her pocket, switched it to record, and set it down on the counter. Lucas was staring at Joanna. The presence of her phone didn’t seem to faze him.
“Be sure to collect a DNA swab from his cheek, too,” Joanna reminded the matron as she returned Lucas’s hard-edged gaze.
“Your sister told me about you,” she added, lying through her teeth. “She told me that you like to torture animals in your spare time. You know, burn them, cut them, shred their ears—that sort of thing. Is that true, or is she making things up?”
“My sister’s a liar,” Lucas said venomously.
“In her blog, she claims she’s been molested.”
“I already told you. Ruth’s always been a liar.”
“You’re saying she hasn’t been molested?”
“I didn’t know she put it in her blog. She pretended our dad molested her so we could leave Gallup with our mom. She hated it there.”
“I thought you told me yesterday that she was fine with Gallup—that you were the one who hated it there.”
“I guess I was mistaken.”
“Either that or you were lying. Or are you lying now?”
Lucas pursed his lips and didn’t answer. The matron had swabbed
his cheek and was starting to work on his arms.
“You don’t like your sister very much, do you?”
Again there was no reply.
“So here’s the deal,” Joanna said. “You’re sitting here charged with a couple of felonies. Right now there’s a chance you’ll be tried as a juvenile and get off with being locked up until you turn eighteen. I understand that you despise your sister. I get that, but I doubt you’d want to hurt her. Help us out here, Lucas. Tell us where she is.”
“What happens if I don’t?”
“If your sister dies, all bets are off. Chances are you’ll get tried as an adult and be sentenced to twenty years or so. Tell me about Junior Dowdle.”
The sudden change of direction seemed to catch Lucas off guard. “What about him?”
“Did he like your sister too much, maybe?” Joanna asked. “Did he have a crush on her? Were you jealous of him?”
“Junior was stupid,” Lucas said. “Dumb. Why would I be jealous of him? You think that’s what happened? I killed him because I was jealous of him? That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Lucas started to laugh then, a laughter that was utterly devoid of humor. When the hollow cackle ended, he glared at Joanna in sneering insolence.
“You’ve got nothing,” he declared. “Nothing at all. I’m not telling you a thing.”
Joanna knew that she had pushed him as far as she could. He had already been read his rights. This wasn’t an official interrogation, but if he called for a lawyer, it would all be over, and she wouldn’t be able to continue the conversation. Wanting to prevent that, Joanna walked away. Using a back entrance, she let herself out into the parking lot. Once inside the Yukon, she locked the doors and then sat there with her eyes closed, taking deep breaths and trying to think.