Violated

by Arnold, Carolyn

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  Chapter 29

  BY THE TIME ZACH PULLED the rental car into the parking lot of the Hyatt, it was already evening. He and Paige had spoken to the other two tenants who had been living there at the time of Malone’s murder but didn’t get anything useful from them.

  Paige had shuffled Sam to voice mail five times before he’d stopped calling. The last time he’d tried to reach her was at least an hour ago. But the conversation they needed to have would take longer than a couple of minutes so she wasn’t about to answer his calls on the road. Right now, she and Zach were supposed to meet up with Brandon and Jack to discuss the investigation so far, but she couldn’t avoid Sam forever.

  “Tell Jack I’ll be up in a bit,” she said. “I’m going to check on Sam.”

  Zach nodded. “Probably a good idea.”

  She bit her bottom lip and hurried toward the elevator bank. One was showing on the fifth floor and the other on the fourth. She should probably take the stairs, as it would give her more time to decide how to approach things. But she opted to take the elevator, hoping she’d come up with some miraculous compilation of words that would manage to smooth everything over. She didn’t really want to come clean about calling Brandon first. What if Sam didn’t know? Then she’d be opening that discussion up for no reason. Whether she felt she had a good reason or not, Sam wouldn’t like it.

  Zach loaded onto the car with her and remained silent until it stopped at the third floor. He was headed to Jack’s room on the fifth.

  “See you up there,” he said.

  “Yep.” She tossed a halfhearted wave to him as she got off the elevator.

  She approached a framed mirror mounted above a table across from the elevators, tugged down on her blouse, and studied her appearance. She touched fingertips to her sagging brows. She looked as tired as she felt.

  She stopped outside their door. Their door…to their room. She really had jumped into this relationship quickly. And what had she even expected? A happily-ever-after?

  Should she knock or just let herself in? She was stuck in a moment of awkwardness. He was going to be mad at her. He’d surely know she’d ignored his calls. Maybe she could just tell him she was busy with the case. That much was true.

  She knocked and waited. There was no sound coming from inside. She was surprised by the ache in her chest, the pinpricks spiking her heart, at him not responding.

  She knocked again and still nothing from inside. She fished out her key, and the second she opened the door, her eyes went right to the bed and Sam’s bags on top of it. She walked toward them, letting the door close on its own behind her.

  A sob heaved in her chest and bubbled up her throat. Why was she upset when logic told her what their relationship was and wasn’t?

  Then she heard a keycard being inserted outside the room. Someone was at the door.

  She wiped away the stray tear that had fallen, and then swiped her palm on her pants.

  Keep it together, Paige. You’ll move on. You’ll be fine.

  She suddenly felt faint. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes briefly to gather the strength to get through this. Every romance ended. It was only a matter of when. At least that’s how she used to think. With Sam, she had hoped to break the streak of failed relationships.

  She turned around when the door opened, and Sam sauntered into the room, barely giving her a glance.

  “I hadn’t expected to see you,” he said.

  “This is our room.”

  “It’s yours now.” His voice was cold, unfeeling.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t take your calls. I was in the middle of things, and—”

  His chilly gaze stalled her words. “No need to apologize.”

  “I should have answered when you—”

  “It’s fine.” He stuffed something into the outside pocket of one of his bags.

  “It’s obviously not fine.” She briefly covered her mouth, willing herself to stay strong. “You’re leaving?”

  He flung the strap of the bag over his shoulder. “I am.”

  “Were you even going to tell me, or were you just going to leave?” Hurt was quickly being replaced by anger.

  “I was going to write you a note, actually, but seeing as you’re here…”

  “You were going to write me a note?” She raised her voice. “After what we had, you were—”

  He set his bag back on the bed. “What did we have, Paige? I mean, exactly.”

  Her chest became heavy. She didn’t know how to answer. She just knew they had enjoyed each other’s company, and they seemed to think the same way about a lot of things. She didn’t know what to tell him.

  “See?” He gestured toward her. “You don’t even know what the hell we had.”

  She picked up the smell of whiskey. “You’re drunk.”

  “Yep, but it’s not your problem.”

  “So you’re leaving me? We’re over?”

  He stared into her eyes. “I’m not sure what’s so hard to understand, Paige.”

  They stayed there, gazes locked. His eyes grew darker by the second.

  “I’ve gotta go. My flight leaves at nine.”

  She couldn’t believe this. “You’re leaving because I couldn’t answer your calls?”

  “Couldn’t or didn’t?” he growled.

  “If this is about that woman and what I said to—”

  “It’s not. I get that you lied to her now.”

  “What’s this really about, then?” He had to know she’d used her call on Brandon, but she wasn’t going to be the first to say it.

  “I don’t think this is a good idea.” He took a step toward the door.

  She stood in front of him to stop him. “You don’t think it’s a good idea to talk, but you’re leaving me because I wouldn’t talk?”

  His jaw clenched, and his eyes seemed to look right through her. “Do you really want to know?”

  “Ah, yeah.” She ground her fists into her hips.

  “I saw you hugging Brandon.”

  Her brow furrowed. “Even you said that he’s a coworker.”

  “Let’s just say it bothered me more than I originally let on. Do you normally close your eyes when you hug a coworker?”

  She couldn’t breathe, let alone talk.

  “Nothing to say to that? I figured as much,” he said. “I’m leaving because you still love Brandon.”

  She felt her lungs expand in the deepest breath she’d taken since she came into the room. “I love Brandon? I’m with you.”

  “Just because you’re with me doesn’t mean you don’t love him. And I see the way he looks at you.” His eyes flickered, glazing over, but then, just as quickly, they took on a hard edge. “And you’re with me? I could have helped you out of this mess. Do you trust me so little that you had to call him? He was all the way across the country! I was right here.”

  Her heart was breaking. So he did know… “Did Brandon tell you?”

  He scoffed. “I can figure some things out on my own.” He shuffled past her, resuming his path to the door. She didn’t say a word.

  “Just as I thought.” Sam said, and he left, the door closing behind him.

  She wanted to cry out, to beg him to stay, to deny all that he’d said…but she couldn’t.

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  Chapter 30

  PAIGE WAS TAKING HER SWEET time meeting us in Jack’s room. Jack didn’t want to get started on things until she joined us, and it had been at least forty-five minutes. A long forty-five minutes, if anyone asked me.

  “Maybe one of us should call and—”

  A knock on the door interrupted me.

  I opened it to find Paige.

  “Sorry I was so long,” she said, entering the room.

  “Uh-huh,” Jack replied.

  I had assume
d that the lovers were going to kiss and make up, but with the energy coming from Paige, I had a feeling that things went the opposite direction. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” She came farther into the room and clapped her hands. “Let’s get started, then.”

  Jack gestured toward her. “Seeing as we were waiting on you, you go ahead.”

  My attention was on her but not so much to glean what she was going to share about the investigation. I was trying to read between the lines. Something had her really upset. Her eyes were red and her cheeks were flushed. And it was from more than exhaustion. She had been crying.

  I noticed how none of us asked where Sam was and Paige wasn’t volunteering the information. All these factors were enough for me to conclude Sam was heading back to North Dakota. And if that was the case, she deserved someone better, a man who would actually stick around during the hard times.

  “Assuming that the same person killed both men, and that Malone was the first, his mutilation was very violent,” Paige said. “The killer was definitely motivated and driven. They could be getting revenge for being raped by Malone, but it’s unlikely it was the same thing that triggered them to kill Ferris.”

  “Now, Clive Simpson—that’s the owner of Wild Horse,” Brandon began. “He told us a woman was with Malone the night he was murdered. He described her as having long, dark, curly hair.”

  “A woman matching that description has come up at least three times now between the motel, the bar, and Malone’s neighbor,” Zach pointed out.

  Jack nodded. “There are too many coincidences piling up here to be ignored.”

  “Here’s something that’s been sitting off with me,” I said. “Malone was clearly into men, but Hall was into women. What about them attracted the same killer? Does it have something to do with the fact they were both rapists?”

  “It’s clear that sexual orientation isn’t the basis for the unsub’s targeting.” Zach grabbed a soda from the mini bar and sat on the edge of the bed.

  “We need to focus on the similarities in these two cases until we hear back from Nadia on the forensics. Besides this woman, what do we have?” Jack prompted his team.

  “The Rohypnol,” Paige said.

  Next, Zach. “The mutilation of the genitalia.”

  Everyone turned to me.

  “Both men were urinated on.”

  “All right. So this is a good start. We can also add that the men lived within a twenty-minute drive of each other and both went to Wild Horse,” Jack summarized.

  “We know that Malone had HIV, too. Maybe our unsub contracted it from him and retaliated,” I suggested, revisiting a point that had been brought up before.

  “It’s still rather extreme to cut off a man’s penis…” Paige let her words trail off.

  “Really? I don’t agree. HIV is basically a death sentence,” I responded. “And if the unsub contracted it from Malone, it would make them very angry.”

  “I suppose,” Paige conceded.

  Zach cracked the tab on his soda can and took a drink. “We know the murders were planned and orchestrated. They must have been. The unsub brought the drugs, the duct tape, the cuffs.”

  And a full bladder…

  “Let’s revisit the fact that Malone was a homosexual and Ferris wasn’t. It’s unlikely that both men raped their killer, as I said earlier, so they aren’t targeting those who have raped them, but rather those who rape period.” Paige lifted her chin, obviously pleased with her conclusion.

  Jack’s phone rang. He glanced at the screen and swiped a finger to answer. “You’re on speaker. Talk to us, Nadia.”

  “The forensics are back now. The DNA in the urine matched in the two cases, but it showed male in the urine left at Malone’s scene and female at Hall’s.”

  My reaction was instantaneous. “What? How is that even poss—”

  “Our unsub is a hermaphrodite,” Zach said simply. “Or the more politically correct term these days is to say they have an intersex condition.” He went silent, staring at the can in his hands, brooding for a few seconds. “Basically, he was born with parts belonging to both sexes. Usually, when the child is young, parents make the decision—”

  “They choose their child’s gender,” Paige interrupted, crossing her arms. “I know about it, not that I agree with it.”

  “I never said it was right, Paige.” Zach met her gaze. “I’m just explaining what the situation is.”

  I took a few steps and stopped when the revelation struck. “This wasn’t about personal revenge with Hall at all. The killer severed Hall’s penis because they were speaking out about their own sexual frustration. What if the parents chose to make them male, but they resonated more with the female side?”

  “That could have created a serious issue for them. They would have felt like an outcast. To top it off, the parents would also have had to put the child on testosterone injections,” Paige said. “Of course, they could have hidden this from him as a youth, added it to drinks, for example. Then as they get older, they find out the reason they never fit in was because of the sex their parents had chosen for them. That’s the recipe for a bad start in life.”

  “And we all know how formative our younger years are,” Zach added.

  I considered what was being said. Our unsub likely had a rough and confusing childhood. They probably spent a lot of time alone. Many killers were born from isolation. I paced a few steps. “So let me make sure I understand. Our unsub, who obviously identifies with the female side, assuming the long-haired woman is the killer—”

  “They likely have a penis,” Paige finished my sentence and continued on with the topic she’d started. “I can only imagine how lost they would feel, especially if the parents withheld the fact they were born intersex. They’d have gone through life wondering why they were different. If they found out—and I believe we can assume our unsub did—it would be devastating. They’d feel betrayed.”

  “It might have been enough to prompt him or her to kill.” I wasn’t even sure what gender to use when referring to our unsub. “That’s without being raped or contracting HIV.”

  “We’ll consider our killer female from now on,” Jack said, seemingly reading my mind. “Nadia, what else do you have?”

  “In Malone’s case, HIV wasn’t present in the urine, but in Hall’s it was,” Nadia answered.

  “It can take up to three months for HIV to show in blood tests,” Zach began, “but it can show in as little as two weeks. Seeing as there were six years between the murders… Well, that’s plenty of time.”

  “Obviously she was already ill when she exacted revenge on Malone,” I concluded based on the fact that epithelial cells were in the urine at his crime scene. “Was Hall drugged?”

  “He wasn’t,” Nadia responded.

  Hall might have been a rapist, but for some reason I felt a little empathy for him right then.

  “Hall wasn’t HIV-positive,” Nadia continued, “and nothing useful came back from his car.”

  “Have you found any similar cases?” Jack asked.

  “Nothing. And that’s taking the DNA and running it through all the databases. However, the chemical makeup of the Rohypnol at Malone’s crime scene is a match to the pill left at Hall’s.”

  “She held onto those for a long time,” Paige muttered.

  Thoughts were swirling in my mind, coming close but swooping out of my grasp. When we’d spoken to Bart Kelman from Synergies, he had said that Malone had moved to California from Minnesota when he was twenty-one. Why did he come all the way out here? It couldn’t have been to work at a call center.

  “Nadia, how are you making out on those calls to Synergies?” I asked.

  “The warrant was issued and I have the list, but I haven’t had a chance to get to them yet.”

  “All right, I’m just wondering why Malo
ne came to California in the first place. If there is a caller who had been trying to track him down, why was that the case? Was Malone in California just because his parents didn’t approve of his lifestyle, or did he just need a change, or was he running away or hiding from someone?”

  “Are you thinking that maybe he raped someone and fled to California?” Paige asked.

  I nodded. That was exactly what I was thinking, but I still wasn’t sure how Hall fit in.

  “Once I get to look at what I received from Synergies, I’ll pull callers’ backgrounds and see if any of them tie back to Duluth, Minnesota,” Nadia said.

  “It could be a shot in the dark,” Jack opined.

  I figured it best not to point out that his suspicion that Hall was the victim of someone who had killed before was initially more of a gut feeling. But if Jack’s intuition turned out to be right, it might prove that shots in the dark do sometimes pay off.

  “Jack, do you want me to conduct the search?” Nadia asked.

  Jack spoke with his eyes on me. “Before you do that, how are you making out with tracking down the recipient of the money transfer from Hall’s account?”

  “That’s still in progress. I’ll let you know once I have anything to share.”

  “The second you have anything, Nadia.”

  “Of course, Jack. So do you want me to dig into the backgrounds of the callers to Synergies?”

  He nodded, even though she couldn’t see it. “Go ahead.”

  With that, Jack ended the call, his gaze landing on me. In fact, Zach’s and Paige’s eyes were on me, as well.

  Maybe I was getting ahead of myself asking Nadia to look into the callers. There was more there, though, if I could just— My jaw dropped slightly. “That’s it!” I took my eyes from Jack, looked to Paige, then turned to Zach. “None of you picked up on it?”

  Paige angled her head. “Brandon, it’s one thing to have an idea, it’s another to rub it—”