by Lucy Farago
Gone was his southern smile. In its place was a slow, wicked grin, reminding her of what they’d done on the couch.
“I think you should go.” She headed toward the front hall. “I have a lot to sort out.” She wiped a hand over her cheek, now dry of tears. “I need to make plans for Sonya’s funeral.” And figure out what to do with my parents.
In her fantasies, the headlines had always been in bold print. “Evangelist’s Daughter, Peddler of Sex.” That would pull the rug out from beneath him and his sanctimonious sermons. She cringed at her own childish, self-destructive daydream.
“It’s very generous of you, paying for the funeral.”
She made it to her front door and reached for the handle. “Sonya was the only dancer I had whose family lived in Vegas. They knew she danced and supported her decision—as long as she danced for me. They don’t have much and couldn’t give her everything she wanted.”
He took her arm as she opened the door. “You paid for her school, so they liked the free ride?”
“No, it wasn’t like that. She didn’t care whom she danced for. She enjoyed it. But she was getting into situations she couldn’t get out of. She got arrested. Her parents heard about me through the police and came to me for help. Horace got the DA to back off if she worked with me. And one of my conditions was she go back to school. It was a no-brainer, jail time or a better life still doing what she loved.”
“I’m starting to understand.”
She opened the door. The bright sun reflected off the mirror behind him and she had to shield her eyes. “Understand?”
He put himself between her and the sun. Pulling her hand away, he drew her closer and brushed his lips over her forehead. “You’re reaching women who wouldn’t otherwise look for help.”
She smiled. He’d gotten it half right. But if she wasn’t careful he’d discover the truth, that she was a fake. “Something like that.”
“You know, you can trust me. And to prove it, I’ll help you with your parents. I’ll deflect the press, steer them away from the club and from you. I’ll call in some favors.”
“That’s generous of you.” She’d take all the help offered, even from him.
He nodded. “I mean it, Maggie. Anything I can do, call me.” He leaned in and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “Especially if you need a shoulder to cry on.” He gave her a heartwarming smile that made her insides hum, then left.
She waited at the door until he drove off, then shut the gate. She was getting too cozy with him. How many more barriers would the man have broken through had her mother not called? Warning bells should have gone off in her head. Instead, she’d cried in front of him—in his arms.
After locking the front door, she returned to her living room and picked up her cellphone, once again looking at Heather’s photo text. This was what she needed to focus on, not Mr. Chocolate. She swiped at a stubborn tear. Beck turned her brain to mush, not to mention what he did to the rest of her. Mush wouldn’t help the rest of her girls.
Right now, she couldn’t deal with him, or her conflicted emotions. Her life in Tweedsmuir was long behind her. She was a grown woman and she could handle her parents. They were descending on her world, and for their sake it couldn’t be the one she truly lived in. As much as she hated to, she’d have to stay away from the club. The press couldn’t be allowed to connect Maggie to her father.
The kisses and the man would have to go on the back burner.
It had taken all of Christian’s willpower not to call Maggie, opting instead to give himself time; time away from her and time to focus on this case. In the three days since he’d last seen her, he’d retraced the last two victims’ footsteps, coming up with a few clues. He was almost certain the killer had been following his victims, methodically choosing one dancer then staying a few steps behind her. Had he known Miss Mackenzie had been in school writing an exam and checking out her grades?
Had he lured Sonya Baxter to the casino, perhaps knowing it would be easy for the police keeping her under surveillance, to lose her in the hordes of gamblers? The videotapes placed her there at a particularly busy time of night—alone. Had she known him?
Narcissistic behavior is common among serial killers, but things were changing. The guy had always chosen more secluded areas to kill. Now he’d taken a risk, and shortened the time span between victims. Maggie flashed into his mind. The killer didn’t seem to care if the police knew he was targeting her dancers. Was he telling them he was smarter, or sending a message? Christian’s temples throbbed. Was Maggie the next victim?
He’d spent every night thinking about her. Murder had brought them together, but what the hell kept drawing him to her? Sure, she was beautiful, but he should be capable of controlling his dick. At least long enough to find this sick bastard.
He could tell himself he needed more answers solely for the benefit of the case, but what would be the point in lying? It was personal. This morning he’d put a call into Sheppard. For now, he had to see Cooper.
On his way into the police station, Christian nodded to an officer who was on his way out as Christian was going in. He knocked once on the office door and waited for Cooper to look up from his usual stack of files. Did the man ever put anything away?
“Come in,” Cooper said, motioning with his hand.
Christian grabbed a chair and pulled it close, leaning a forearm on the desk. “Okay, I want the truth.”
Cooper sat back, tipping his head to let Christian know he had no idea what he was talking about.
“What’s the whole story behind Maggie? With this last victim, I’m starting to think she’s somehow connected. But how, and why? I keep bouncing back and forth.” He made a balance scale with his hands. “On one hand the club, the other … something far more personal.”
The lieutenant scrubbed his hand over his face with a soft groan, his five o’clock stubble a soft rasp. He’d drawn the same conclusion and didn’t like it any more than Christian.
“So I have to ask,” said Christian. “The feds think there’s a link to her daddy. That somehow this killer knows who she is. And the initial he’s carving into his victims may not be a letter, but a cross.” The agent in him wouldn’t let him rule it out, but the kid who’d seen his sister walk out and never return told him the feds were wrong.
“If so,” he continued, “then maybe he was digging into the reverend’s past and discovered his wayward daughter. Maybe he doesn’t like her father’s connection to the club. And this is his way of severing it. But I need to know, is there anything in her past, anything I haven’t dug up, that could have drawn the attention of this psycho?”
Christian’s cell rang before Cooper could reply. Sheppard, returning his call. For once, he was glad for the interruption. Maybe he’d get real answers.
“Hang on, Cooper, my boss.” He stepped out of the office and walked toward a far corner, keeping his eyes on the other three officers at their desks.
Pressing his phone to his ear, he pushed talk. “What did you find?”
“Hello to you too.”
“I’ve been trying to reach you for days. I’m in no mood for niceties.”
“Sorry, I was dealing with something.”
“Something or someone?”
Sheppard laughed. “Same thing. Look, you want to know what the team found or you want to be lippy to the guy who signs your paycheck?”
“Talk.”
“All right. Both victims lived in the same condo.”
“I know. The feds believe he was tracking them from there.” That could be right.
“It’s possible. I’ll give you one guess as to who owns the building.” Somehow he didn’t need a guess. “The feds know she’s the owner?”
“Of course. They’re not totally useless.”
Having been an agent, he didn’t consider them useless. His boss on the other hand …
“Is it public knowledge?” Would the killer have known?
“She wasn’t trying to h
ide it.”
He didn’t like where this was headed. “It doesn’t link the previous victims.”
“No, but something changed; altered his path to kill two women in Vegas.”
“True enough. What else?”
“Are you sitting down?”
Shit, what now? “Out with it.”
“She’s the reason Juan Desilva is behind bars, the anonymous informant the papers talked about. But she wasn’t an informant. She was a victim.”
Christian felt the blood drain from his face. His mouth wouldn’t work as fast as the questions he wanted to ask. Mix that with wanting to throw something, or kill someone and he was dumbstruck.
Lucky for him, his boss saved him the trouble and continued, “Diamonds weren’t the only commodity he dealt in. And Ms. Anderson had the misfortune of stumbling into his storage facility.”
“What are you talking about?” Christian asked, increasingly frustrated.
“Women and girls. His favorites were the non-English-speaking kind.”
“Are you telling me that Desilva had Maggie and was planning to trade her?” He felt sick, the mere idea making his blood boil.
“I don’t know all the details. But she managed to get the cops to look for her—and find her. Christian, he had a gun pointed to her head when the cops swooped in, and she’d been badly beaten. She’d gotten in the way of Desilva sampling his cargo, so he turned on her instead.”
Christian pulled out a chair beside one of the desks and plopped his ass down.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Had Desilva raped her? He was afraid to ask. Couldn’t ask.
“She’s lucky. Because if the cops hadn’t found her when they did, what they found wouldn’t have been pretty. He’d already killed two of the women.”
Christian was beginning to breathe a little easier. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cooper standing in the doorway of his office, having come to see what was taking Christian so long. As Cooper and Maggie went way back, if anyone could tell him what had possessed her to do something so stupid, it might be Cooper.
“Anything else?” Christian asked Sheppard.
“You said she’d never heard of ICU?”
“That’s what she led me to believe.” She’d had no reason to lie.
“Her friend has. Wendy Harper hired Nick Corfu.”
Christian remembered Maggie’s phone call from the other day. Thanks, Nick. Call me when you reach Vegas. “What for?”
“To track down a deadbeat who’d snatched his kid. The police couldn’t find him. So these women decided to take matters into their own hands. Shannon Joyce signed the check.”
He wanted to smile, but was still too pissed to go that far. But he had to hand it to the four musketeers. “Is that it?”
“For now. If I get more, I’ll call you. Look, Christian, we’ve been friends a long time. I know why you took this case and how professional you’ve been about it.”
“But?”
“But, is Miss Anderson …”
“What—” Christian lowered his voice as an officer approached his desk to use the phone. “What about her?”
“You’re getting personally involved.”
“What role are you playing now, father or shrink? You don’t know shit.”
Sheppard grunted. “Really? It’s always been Miss Wilson, Miss Horee, Mrs. Fretos, even Miss Wiseman. The women you’ve been assigned were always kept at arm’s length.”
“Get to the point, Ryan,” agitation getting the better of him.
“When did she become Maggie?”
Christian had ignored Sheppard’s accusation; largely because he couldn’t refute it, but also because he didn’t want to think about it. Hadn’t he thought the same thing himself?
But now he had more important things to do. He returned to Cooper’s office.
“Maggie and I go back over eight years. She’s quite a woman,” the warmth in Cooper’s voice and his respect for her was indisputable. “Maggie and her don’t-fuck-with-us posse came to Vegas for a vacation. Maggie ended up working in one of the local bars for the summer.”
The lieutenant’s tone sobered and he explained an incident with a runaway Maggie had found. Reminded of his sister, Christian felt a cold chill run over him.
Many people thought they could handle a dead body until they came face to face with one. Make it a dead kid and it’s a whole different kind of hell.
Cooper stirred the coffee in front of him, tossing the plastic stir stick into the trash. “She worked at the shelters for a while, the drug rehab centers. She has this natural talent for getting people to listen to her. Shit, she was young,” he said, regretfully. “When Maggie puts her mind to something …”
“You couldn’t stop her if you tried?” Christian had seen that side of her. She and his sister seemed to share that annoying quality. He’d admired Claire for knowing what she wanted and letting nothing get in her way. It didn’t surprise him that Cooper couldn’t control Maggie. No one had been able to control his sister either.
“Something like that. She went as far as drawing out pimps scrounging the streets for fresh, naïve girls too scared to call home and too hungry to say no. She gave us little choice. With or without our help, she pretended to work the streets, kept her ears and eyes open, and earned the trust of the local prostitutes, and the contempt of many pimps and drug dealers. She got herself in whole lot of trouble. Luckily, I managed to find her before finding her wouldn’t have done her any good.” He took a sip of coffee and released a contented sigh. “Almost forgot how much I love the brew.”
So Cooper had saved Maggie’s life. How different would Christian’s life be had his father found Claire in time? “Are we talking about her and Juan Desilva?”
“Should it surprise me you managed to get into closed police files?”
As Cooper wasn’t really looking for an answer, Christian let the question go. “We’ll get back to whatever possessed her to do something so dangerous later, but right now, could Desilva have something to do with these killings?” He didn’t think so, but he needed to ask.
“He’s behind bars. And he’s the sick kind. He’d want to be there in person. He was none too happy with Maggie. She cost him money, lots of it. No one else would target Maggie. She’s dealt with plenty of losers, but none of them big time enough to pull this off.”
“The feds think her father is the target, not Maggie.” And while Cooper had no ill will toward the Reverend, if they were right and Christian wrong, then he’d rather entertain the possibility this was tied to religion, than the alternative. True enough, the killer might go after Hopewell, but Ryan had assured him he wouldn’t get close enough. Maggie, Christian would take care of.
“You know, if the feds find out you have a mole …” Cooper warned.
“And for Maggie’s sake, you’re not going to tell them, are you?” His boss would have his ass and Christian didn’t want to give him any reason to chew it out.
“What do I care if they have a leak? But I’ll tell what I do care about. I care about Maggie. So I have to ask. What’s the deal with her?”
Chapter Twelve
“Okay, Shannon, go to court. How about we meet tomorrow, say lunch?” Maggie sat on her couch, the phone between her shoulder and ear, her hands busy with the laces on her running shoes.
“Sure, no problem. I’ll be done with this by then.”
“Great.” Her phone rang. “Hang on, I have a call on the land line.”
“It’s all right. I’ll let you go. See you at noon.”
“Sure.” She hung up and answered the second call.
“Maggie, we have a problem. She’s on the run.”
Maggie didn’t need to be told who was on the run. Hannah. Why couldn’t she wrap her head around the one condition the courts had ordered?
Hannah had a knack for smelling authority. She’d lived on the streets for a year before she’d been arrested her first time. Her mother had kicked her out when she was twelve. That’s
when Hannah had met her pimp, Devan. The police busted her and the court was going to send her to a juvenile detention center. Seeing the money Hannah was making, her mother had eagerly offered to take her back.
“What is it you want me to do?” Maggie asked. She’d been working with Chelsea House for the last six months as a favor to the director, but even then it had been in-house only.
“Find her.”
Maggie cleared her throat, trying to fake out her body from the panic attack already thumping her heart into overdrive. She stood and rolled her shoulders. It did nothing. She forced slow breaths silently into her mouth.
“She’s been spotted around Harry’s Bar, but every time I send someone out there she disappears. Harry doesn’t know my new workers so he’s not talking either. The kid trusts you. She told her therapist she’d be better off on the streets than cooped up in a house with rules no one gave a shit about. She doesn’t mean it. Her so-called mother paid her a visit yesterday. Would you like to bet that waste of human skin was missing her cash cow? It’s six o’clock. You have a two-hour window.” Rita, the director of Chelsea House, sounded panicked. “After that I have no choice but to report her. She has a meeting with her probation officer tonight.”
“Maybe that would be for the best.” She remembered Horace pointing out that secure custody would at least keep her off the streets. In some instances it was the right solution. But she knew in Hannah’s case it might do more harm than good. It killed Maggie not to help, just as she was afraid it would kill her if she did.
“You don’t mean that. All the work we did, you did, could unravel.”
“I haven’t been on the streets in years,” she reasoned, never having told Rita the real reason she’d quit working for the county.
“It’s like riding a bicycle. Please, Maggie, she might come out of hiding if she sees you.”
Runaways usually ran to familiar ground, regardless of the danger. If they’d been on the street too long, they chose to fight the evils they knew rather than battle the ones out of their control. An illusion they created for self-preservation, no matter how harmful.