Violated

by Arnold, Carolyn

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It sure as hell seems like it does.” I turned around now, my breath labored from aggravation. Maybe if I focused on Malone and Abbott, I could calm down. “What did you make of that guy?” I asked Zach.

  “He’s changed from the time when he was friends with Malone, that much is obvious,” Zach started, sounding grateful for the topic change. “He really doesn’t know who killed his friend, and he doesn’t seem to accept that he is gone.”

  “You caught that, too?” I said, referring more to Abbott’s belief in the afterlife.

  Zach laughed and looked over at me in the passenger seat. “Oh, you didn’t want to know my opinion of him in regards to the case? You mean his feeling the presence of the dead?”

  “Do you think he’s reliable?” I wasn’t going to admit that he’d freaked me out, at least not out loud.

  “Just because he lives life in his own way doesn’t mean he’s not reliable,” Zach pointed out.

  “You did see his eyes? How they were all glazed over and distant-looking? It was like he was possessed.”

  Zach shrugged. “It’s all about a person’s background and perspective. I found Abbott to be credible, Brandon.”

  “Me too,” Sam spoke up from the backseat.

  Somehow, I must have managed to go out of body, because I hadn’t yet hit the man.

  -

  Chapter 19

  JACK’S CALL CAME THROUGH WHEN we were still in the lot at Abbott’s building. He’d called Zach’s phone, and Zach put him on speaker.

  “We’ll catch up on the specifics later, but I wanted to let you know that Paige is being released into my custody.”

  Zach and I smiled at each other. I glanced at Sam, and he was leaning forward.

  “They’re finally seeing that she didn’t kill him?” Sam’s question was directed to Jack.

  There were a few seconds of silence before Jack responded. “One step at a time. But given what the coroner confirmed, there are too many similarities between Malone’s and Hall’s murders to be a coincidence. We’ll need to keep digging, but in the meantime, how did you make out with Abbott?”

  “Abbott said that Malone was a homosexual and that he did rape people,” I summarized.

  “And Abbott prostituted himself,” Sam added.

  “That opens up a field of suspects,” Jack said, sounding hopeful.

  “Except for the fact that Abbott toasted his brain cells and has no idea who could have done this to his friend,” I said.

  “I’m going to get Paige now, but then we’ll be going to watch the camera footage at the hotel. After that we’ll go into Hall’s house to have a look around ourselves. I want you guys to head over to the Budget Motel. Find out anything you can. Maybe something will shake loose.”

  “We’ll go right now,” Zach said.

  Jack disconnected without saying good-bye, and Zach punched the Budget Motel into his GPS app and set his phone on the console.

  Sam sat back again. I couldn’t understand what his problem was. He should be celebrating the fact that Paige was being released.

  “I thought you’d be happier,” I said as I shifted and looked at Sam in the backseat.

  “Call me reserved.”

  “So you think she’s guilty? Because that’s the only way she’s not free for good.”

  His eyes were steely. “Of course not. But I also find it hard to believe Grafton’s letting her go so easily.”

  I wasn’t about to admit that I had just thought the same thing. “All he had was circumstantial.”

  “You don’t think I know that?”

  “You’re just worried this might not all work out,” Zach intercepted.

  “Exactly.” Sam held eye contact with me a bit longer and then turned to look out his window, but not before I saw the pain in his eyes. He genuinely cared about Paige. Maybe their relationship wasn’t as casual as I wanted to believe.

  “I wish that I had the faith you guys seem to have,” Sam said. “But the DNA evidence points to Malone’s killer being male. Obviously, with Ferris, they have reason to believe it was a woman.”

  Neither Zach nor I said anything, but Sam’s eyes took on heat. Anger? I wasn’t sure why.

  “I have a question for you, Brandon,” Sam said.

  “Shoot.”

  “Did Paige use her one call on you?”

  His question caught me off guard. I coughed, choking on saliva.

  “Did she?” Sam repeated.

  I straightened, looking back out the windshield, but caught Zach widening his eyes.

  “It doesn’t mean anything that she—”

  “So she did?” Sam was shaking his head. “I thought so. Unbelievable.”

  “I’m her coworker,” I explained.

  “Oh, you’re more than that.”

  “Excuse me?” The hairs were rising on the back of my neck. If he kept pushing my buttons, I couldn’t be held accountable for my behavior. But I wasn’t going to allow myself to get sucked into this little drama he was trying to create. “She knew I could help her. Maybe she didn’t want you involved.” The latter came out of its own volition.

  Sam was quiet for a few seconds. “It’s too late for that.”

  Zach pulled into the lot for the Budget Motel. To call the establishment a sleazy dive gave it more credit than it was worth. A hole in the lobby window had been patched with plastic sheeting and sealed with tape. The lettering on the roof was simply MOTEL, as if the full name would have cost too much.

  I got out of the car before it even came to a full stop in the parking spot and took off toward the lobby. I needed to get away from Sam and his attitude.

  Two doors slammed shut and I heard Zach’s and Sam’s footsteps on the pavement behind me, but I kept on moving.

  Bells chimed when I opened the lobby door. No doubt it was to wake the clerk when things were slow—and I had a feeling it was slow a lot. Its busiest hours were probably lunch for cheap and cheating spouses of the working crowd, and late at night for elicit shenanigans that would be found repulsive in the light of day.

  A tall, slender man came out of a back room. Midforties. Half-mast bloodshot eyes. Dark circles beneath them. Drug addict.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  I flashed my FBI credentials. “We’d like to speak to Brett,” I responded.

  Brett was the eyewitness from the night of Hall’s murder, the one who had seen the woman Hall had been with.

  “I’m him,” the guy said slowly.

  “All right, Brett.” I pulled out my phone and brought up a crime scene photo of Ferris Hall from his neck up. “Tell us anything you can about this man.”

  “Yeah, I knew the guy. He was murdered here two nights ago.”

  A spark of hope lit inside me. “You knew him?”

  “That’s what I said.” An odd-sounding snicker. His face fell quickly when I glared in response. Brett continued. “He came here— Hey, who are you guys?”

  I pulled my badge and cred pack out. Again. “We’re with the FBI.” I’d included Sam by default, though I wished I had corrected the oversight the moment the words came out.

  “The FBI are on this?” Brett’s eyes were actually showing some life to them now. I wouldn’t go so far as to say intelligence, but more like a state of fandom.

  “Just tell us more about this guy. He came here a lot or just from time to time? Once a week, twice a month?” I prompted verbally and accompanied it with a roll of my hand.

  “Every week mostly. He’d always pay in cash, and he always checked in late at night. Say, anywhere between ten to twelve.”

  “Was he usually with someone?”

  “He was always with a woman. Different women.”

  “And the one he was with the night he was murdered? What did she lo
ok like?” I knew the answer, according to the file, but wanted to hear what Brett said.

  Brett held up his hands. “Wow, I still can’t believe this happened, ya know. I mean it’s not like every day a guy’s found—” Based on the squeamish expression on his face, he was trying to tamp down a mouthful of bile.

  I turned around to gather the patience to continue—plus, I couldn’t stand the thought of witnessing this guy puke—and I found myself looking straight into Sam’s eyes. I faced the clerk again. At least it seemed he had composed himself.

  “The woman, Brett?” I asked again.

  Brett shrugged. “She had curly hair and waited in the guy’s car.”

  I remembered the report saying that Hall’s car was found here and confiscated and was being scoured for evidence, but I didn’t recall any mention of her being in the vehicle.

  “She was in his car?” I asked, indicating my phone and implicating Hall.

  “Yeah.” Brett bobbed his head and looked at me like I was the crazy one.

  “Were you able to get a good look at her?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  He guesses so?

  “It was nighttime, but you could see her clearly in the car?” I pressed.

  “Ah, yeah.”

  I was having a hard time accepting how “clearly” he seemed to remember. I played along anyway. “Hair color?”

  “Dark.”

  I glanced at Zach. “Dark?”

  “Are you sure that it was dark?” Zach asked.

  “Yeah,” Brett said.

  “One more question. What time was it when you saw them?” I asked.

  “I can’t help you there.”

  I pointed to the cash register. “You don’t have a receipt or something you could look up?”

  Brett shook his head. “Like I said, he paid cash. That means it’s off the books.”

  I slapped my card on the counter. “If you think of anything else that might help us, call me.”

  Out in the parking lot, Zach looked at me. “The file just said the woman had long curly hair.”

  “It looks like something shook loose,” Sam interjected.

  Now he’s on Jack’s side…

  “I don’t remember any record of the woman being in his car, either,” I added. “We’re going to have to call Jack and let him know.”

  -

  Chapter 20

  PAIGE SHARED A CELL WITH a drunk and a crackhead. The former had snored all night, and the latter had thought he might have a chance with her, but she’d handled her fair share of his type in the past and she’d gotten him to back off without inflicting bodily harm. She’d even made him think leaving her alone was his idea.

  Since she hadn’t been able to sleep, she’d had a lot of time to think. Even though she knew she was innocent, everything was just stacking against her—her motive, her change in travel plans, the GPS in the rental car, the nosy neighbor. She sure as hell hoped the team was making progress connecting Ferris’s murder to the other one Jack had mentioned or it could take even longer to get her out of here.

  Her mind skipped to her parents. They never needed to know about the stint she’d done behind bars in California. It was bad enough she’d disappointed Jack and that he’d carted the entire team out here.

  Then there was Sam. Whatever she had going with him was probably over now. She’d write it off as another failed relationship, but she’d never been good at holding on to men. Catching them was easy, but somewhere between the bedroom and her waking life, romances tended to fall apart on her. And she’d admit that most of the time it was her fault. It wouldn’t be any different this time.

  Sam devoted his life to upholding the law, and she had unlawfully entered a man’s home. And she should have used her one call on him, but as long as she was reconsidering past choices, she wouldn’t even have set foot in California, let alone ask him to come with her. It had been impulsive, driven by the need to right what had happened to Natasha. Of course, all this thinking was futile. The past couldn’t be altered any more than the future could be predicted.

  God, this was really happening. She kept wishing that she was in some sort of a nightmare, but the sour smell of puke and perspiration reaffirmed this was definitely reality.

  She glanced at the clock on the wall across from the cell. 10:30.

  Footsteps coming down the hall toward her drew her attention. She recognized the sound of the soles and the gait—Jack.

  He rounded the corner with Detective Grafton, who had a scowl on his face. That alone was enough to give her hope, but it was the slight bob of Jack’s head that brought her joy. She was free to go.

  Grafton snapped his fingers at the guard and had him unlock the cell. She wanted to hug Jack but maintained her professional distance.

  “You are released into Agent Harper’s custody…for now.” Grafton stared her in the eye, but she managed to muster the strength to rein in her emotions. “But don’t think you’re off the hook yet. I will find out the truth.”

  “About that,” Jack said, “why don’t you come with us back to the Hyatt. I have an appointment with management there at eleven.”

  “About?” Grafton asked.

  Paige turned to Jack, also curious.

  “They have a little video for us to watch,” he said.

  Grafton rolled his eyes. “Oh, should I bring popcorn?”

  -

  Chapter 21

  THE OUTSIDE NEVER LOOKED AS good to Paige as it did right now. Actually, she never would have even counted freedom as simply being outside before. Personal liberty was apparently something she had taken for granted up until the past twenty-four hours.

  She’d collected her items from the property clerk’s office, and it felt good to have her holster back on her hip and the weight of her Glock inside it. Jack was driving a rental he must have picked up. The Toyota she’d rented had been returned to the rental company, and to her knowledge, Grafton was working to secure a warrant to access the tracking device on the car. Seeing as she was here with Jack, maybe that had fallen through.

  But even though she had been released, there was a niggling in her soul that made it hard to accept. She knew she wasn’t guilty, but she also knew how tenacious Grafton had been in pursuing her so far, and he wasn’t going to fully let her go until he had proof that she didn’t do it. So much for this being a case of innocent until proven guilty. Grafton had condemned her.

  Still, Jack managed to work things out enough to get her released to his custody. She looked over at him as he drove them to the Hyatt before she pulled down the visor to look at herself in the mirror. Awful. Her eyeshadow was smeared and her mascara had bled out around her eyes, making her look like she was going to a Halloween party. She pulled a tissue from a box in the console and worked at dabbing her face into at least some submission.

  “How did you do it?” she asked, looking over at him.

  He glanced at her briefly. “Do what?”

  “Get Grafton to let me go.”

  “There are too many similarities between Hall’s murder and that of a man named Kyle Malone.”

  “But I thought you said a man killed the other victim.”

  “The DNA left behind confirms that much, but everything else seems too coincidental. Malone’s mouth was duct-taped, so was Hall’s. Then you have the mutilation, which was slightly different.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Malone’s penis was shoved up his anus.”

  Paige’s stomach churned, and she saw the disgust on her face when she turned from Jack back to the mirror. Her makeup was still smudged, but it was a little neater than it had been before. She finger-brushed her hair, and as she did, she caught the image of the necklace around her neck—Natasha’s necklace.

  “Yes, this is quite the case you’ve got us involved in,�
� Jack said.

  “What about the Rohypnol? Was a dose left behind on Malone’s abdomen, as well?”

  “Yes, and since it’s still locked up in evidence, they will be analyzing its chemical makeup to see if it matches the one left with Hall. It could be a stretch, though, as there are six years between the murders.”

  “Six years?” She shifted her body to face Jack. “So what was the killer doing all that time? Has Nadia found any other similar cases?”

  “None.”

  “So the unsub wasn’t able to kill for some reason,” she began. “That, or his victims weren’t found.”

  “Both are possibilities.”

  “Where did you say Malone’s body was discovered?”

  “I didn’t.” A tiny smile tugged at Jack’s lips. “But at his apartment.”

  “So missing victims doesn’t fit.”

  Jack looked over at her. “What are you thinking?”

  “Well, there’s Malone, who was killed in his apartment, and Ferris, who was killed at a motel. The killer clearly wasn’t worried about the discovery of the bodies. And the way the unsub poses them, they are making a statement.”

  “Zach and Brandon just visited a friend of Malone’s, and apparently Malone had assaulted a number of people when he was alive.”

  Her heart was thumping. Maybe that was the positive side of this whole mess: she’d stumbled across a sicko who needed to be stopped. “Maybe we’re looking at someone who was raped by these men or who was defending someone they love from these men. It could also just be a vigilante seeking retaliation on rapists in general.”

  “We need a little more information at this point to make a conclusion,” Jack said, “but both are valid hypotheses.”

  “All right, so if we have a similar MO in two murder cases, why are we still catering to Grafton?” She jacked a thumb behind them toward the detective who was following them in a police sedan.

  “Because he’s not going away. He’s far too persistent for my liking. At least when he’s got his sights on one of my own.”