Violated

by Arnold, Carolyn

  “We told you why we’re here, but did you ever make a move on her?”

  “On him? No, never.” He shook his head. “I don’t roll that way.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Yes. Listen, I make the boring type of porn. Traditional. Sexy librarian. Nympho secretary. Lusty flight attendant.”

  Traditional and porn… Interesting combo.

  “No guy on guy or he/she’s,” Owen continued.

  “He/she’s?”

  “Yeah, you know? Men who dress like women or think they’re women. He/she’s.”

  Paige gritted her teeth. He filmed people having sex for God’s sake. Yet, here he was, judging the lifestyle of another person.

  “I think I know why you liked Wild Horse,” Paige said, bobbing her head in a know-it-all fashion.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Well, the owner gave you a tab for one…”

  “Yeah, Clive’s a great—”

  “And he was your drug supplier,” she stated with heat.

  Owen paled. “Hey, I know my rights. This is harass—”

  “Clive Simpson was murdered last night.”

  Owen swallowed audibly and flushed. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

  Neither Paige nor Zach responded to his question.

  “Was it him? The one from the picture? He did this?” Owen asked.

  “Her,” Paige stressed again. “And, yes, we think so. Did you drug women at Wild Horse?”

  He held up his hands and vigorously shook his head. “No, no, I don’t do drugs.”

  “That wasn’t her question,” Zach said.

  Owen’s eyes slid to Zach and then back to Paige. “I’m not proud of this.”

  “Proud of what?” she ground out. Natasha’s face flashed in her mind. Ferris had grown up to be a sniveling weasel, just like this shit. She’d never say it out loud but the world was a better place without him. And Paige couldn’t help but think Sandy was doing people a favor by taking out men like Ferris.

  “Yeah,” he said with a sigh. “Sometimes I’d have something slipped into their drinks.”

  “By Clive Simpson?” Zach confirmed.

  “Yeah.”

  “Did she—” Paige shook her phone, inferring Sandy “—ever see that happen?”

  “Maybe? Yes? I don’t know,” Owen said, his voice soft now, a little frightened.

  “Well, if she did,” Paige told him, “you could definitely be her next target.”

  -

  Chapter 42

  JACK PULLED THE RENTAL car to the curb. We had called for backup from the local field office, and the other agents were already on scene. The warrant had already come through.

  Sandy’s apartment building was old and redbrick. We headed up to the third floor, three agents tailing us. We were wearing Kevlar vests, not that the material would be effective against a blade, but it was best to take precautions. Just because her preferred weapon was a knife didn’t mean it was the only weapon she had at her disposal.

  Jack banged on Sandy’s door. “FBI! Open up!”

  It was quiet inside the apartment.

  He smacked the door again. “Sandy Hoss! This is the FBI!”

  His efforts met with silence.

  We stepped to the side, and one of the agents behind us went at the door with a battering ram. We were inside Sandy’s place in seconds.

  The studio apartment was compact but kept neat and tidy. There was a small kitchen, a small living room, and a small bathroom. A twin-size bed was positioned in one corner.

  Jack was moving things around on the counter with gloved hands. We were looking for any clue as to Sandy’s possible whereabouts, as well as anything to implicate her in the murders. I stepped into the living area of the room while our backup stood in the hall, cordoning off Sandy’s apartment.

  Jack read off labels from prescription bottles he’d found on the counter, and I googled the drugs to find their uses. A few were for HIV.

  Jack went rooting in a kitchen drawer.

  “Agent Harper,” one of the local field agents called out to Jack. There was another man standing beside him in blue jeans and a Budweiser T-shirt. “This is Glen Westerly. He’s the building manager.”

  “What’s going on in here?” Westerly asked.

  Jack kept focused on the drawer, not even acknowledging Westerly, so I headed over to talk with the manager.

  Westerly was probably about ten years older than me, but his eyes skimmed over me and the judgment there was plain to see. All he saw was my age, and he wanted to speak to the man in charge.

  I squared my shoulders. “I’m Special Agent Brandon Fisher.”

  “What are you doing here?” Westerly moved to peer around me at Jack.

  “When was the last time you saw Sandy Hoss?” I asked, countering his question with another.

  “Sandy? Hmm. I don’t know. A week or so ago. It doesn’t mean she hasn’t been here. I just have a life, ya know?” He took a step in an effort to get past me, but I stopped him with a flattened hand to his chest.

  “Did you ever speak with Sandy?”

  “Not really. Once in a while we’d say, ‘Hi, how are you?’ but we didn’t stop to chat. I know that he—she—liked men. I wasn’t into that and never wanted to give her any indication that I was.” Westerly’s eyes met mine.

  “How long has Sandy lived here?”

  “Six years, give or take. Why?”

  “Do any of the other tenants complain about her or have any issues with her?” I asked.

  Westerly seemed to give the question some thought and, after a bit, shook his head. “Not that I know of. What is this about?”

  “At this time, I can’t comment on that. It’s an active investigation.”

  Westerly grimaced, and while I couldn’t blame his frustration, I wasn’t going come out with our suspicions about Sandy being a murderer.

  I made eye contact with one of the local field agents, and he nodded.

  “Come with me, Mr. Westerly,” he said. “I’ll take your information just in case we have any more questions for you.”

  Westerly scowled at me again before leaving with the agent.

  Jack and I continued looking over the apartment for about twenty minutes, finding nothing. I returned to the kitchen area and looked over a shelf of books. Most were cookbooks, but one was a high school yearbook.

  “Jack,” I called, “come over here.” I held up the find. “This is a yearbook from a school in Northern California from eleven years ago.”

  “None of that makes sense.” Jack came over and took the book from me. He started flipping through the pages. He stopped and pressed a fingertip to a picture of a young man with delicate features. “Look familiar?”

  I took a closer look, and while the images on the bank security camera were fuzzy, there was enough there to confirm that this was the younger version of the same person. I read the list of names, and one stood out—Leslie Shaw.

  Jack pulled out his cell and dialed on speaker. “Nadia, I need that info on Leslie Shaw’s murder now.”

  Nadia took a few seconds before responding. “Shaw was found in a motel room, wrists slit in the bathtub. Investigators thought it looked like a staged suicide because of the angles of the cuts and nothing indicated Shaw was depressed. No note, either.”

  “Who identified the woman as Leslie Shaw?” I asked.

  “Her parents.” She paused for a moment. “What are you guys thinking?”

  “We’re not sure yet. Keep talking,” Jack directed.

  “Well, the room was rented under her name, and her ID was found on scene. The deceased was wearing a pair of cubic zirconia earrings in the shape of dolphins, and Leslie’s parents said she wore them everyday.”

  “No dental record comparisons?”
Jack asked with some heat.

  “No need for that, according to the reports,” Nadia said. “The parents were certain it was Leslie Shaw.”

  “Sandy and Leslie must have looked a lot alike,” I began. “And they each had an intersex condition?”

  “They did,” Nadia confirmed.

  “Send us the picture from the murder scene,” Jack said.

  “Sure— Oh.”

  “Nadia?”

  “I’m looking at a crime scene photo and comparing it to a snapshot of Leslie Shaw from the bank. Leslie and Sandy look almost identical.”

  “That would have made assuming Sandy’s life pretty easy for Leslie,” I reasoned.

  “Send over the crime scene photo,” Jack said.

  “You got it.”

  “And, Nadia, dig into Leslie’s past. Find anything you can.”

  Jack hung up, and his phone chimed with a message a second later. The face looking back at us had me losing my balance.

  “Leslie Shaw did kill Sandy Hoss, took her identity, and staged her own death,” I said.

  “And collected a million dollars for her troubles,” Jack growled.

  I nodded, stunned. “Leslie hasn’t completely let go of her true identity, though. She opened a bank account under that name. Seeing as she left her ID with Sandy’s body, she must have had fake ones made.” I paused a few seconds. “And they were both born with a fairly rare condition. What are the chances they’d find each other?”

  “There’s got to be something more to this.” Jack tapped his shirt pocket at the same time Zach and Paige entered Sandy’s—or really, Leslie’s—apartment and beelined for us.

  “No sign of Hoss at the director’s house,” Zach said. “We have a couple agents sitting outside his place.”

  “Well, we have something.” I went on to share all the new info with them.

  “It’s quite possible. And the two of them do look surprisingly alike. But was it just for the money? Her other murders go deeper than that,” Paige reasoned.

  “It’s too early to conclude her motivation,” Jack said. “I have Nadia digging into Leslie’s past to see if she can uncover anything.”

  Jack’s phone rang, and he answered on speaker.

  “Leslie’s parents are still alive,” Nadia began, “and they moved from Northern California to Texas after Leslie’s apparent murder, and they’ve been living there ever since. Leslie ran away from home at sixteen. Records indicate the parents had no idea how or when Leslie even made it to Texas for that acting school.”

  I thought back to what Nadia had told us about the school—how Sandy’s grades were so poor and how she’d seemed preoccupied. “Unbelievable,” I muttered. “It seems Leslie was brazen enough to assume Sandy’s life to the extent that she attended Sandy’s classes after murdering her.”

  Paige raised her eyebrows. “That is what you find unbelievable?”

  I disregarded her attitude, my mind going back to Leslie’s parents. “So they moved to where Leslie was allegedly murdered?” I supposed everyone reacted to tragic events differently, but it seemed odd to me. “They were probably in denial that she was gone. And in this case, they’d be right. They didn’t bury their child. They buried someone else’s. One question, though… If Leslie was a runaway, where did she get money to go to Texas?”

  “I can answer that, too,” Nadia chimed in. “The parents reported money was stolen from the family’s bank account.”

  “Nadia you had said that Sandy came out to California for a vacation and wasn’t the same when she got back?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” Nadia seemed hesitant.

  “What if that’s when Leslie and Sandy first crossed paths?” I brainstormed out loud. “Maybe something happened here that made Leslie follow Sandy back to Texas and kill her.”

  “Or maybe Leslie just found out about Sandy’s money,” Paige suggested.

  “We don’t believe money was Leslie’s motive. Didn’t you just say that?” I looked at Paige.

  Paige narrowed her eyes at me and crossed her arms.

  There was a brief lull in the conversation, and Nadia broke the silence.

  “I finally made headway with that vacant property listed on Leslie Shaw’s bank account,” Nadia began, “as well as with Simpson’s employment history. It seems they are connected.”

  “Talk,” Jack said.

  “There used to be a club called Clancy’s on the property. It was—”

  “A gay night club…” Paige’s eyes were wide. “Malone’s building manager said that Malone would go there, but that it had shut down.”

  “It burned down actually,” Nadia said. “Ruling was arson and the owner fell under suspicion of having the fire set. The club was managed very poorly. But this is the point that’s really going to make you love me. I can tie Hall and Simpson to Clancy’s. And Paige just said that Malone went there.”

  The four of us remained silent.

  “Simpson used to deal date-rape drugs out of Clancy’s. We know that from the ledger. And Simpson was also the club’s manager,” Nadia said.

  “And Hall?” I asked, curious as to how he tied into the club.

  “He worked for the accounting firm that did Clancy’s books. In fact, Clancy’s was Hall’s account. And when Sandy Hoss took that vacation to California, the club was still open.”

  “Then it seems that whatever happened to Leslie took place at Clancy’s,” I said. “And somehow Hoss got pulled into the mix.”

  “Does anyone else on the ledger tie back to Clancy’s?” Jack asked Nadia.

  “Yes. Peter Foreman. He worked there as a bouncer. His address is coming to you now.”

  -

  Chapter 43

  SHE’D FIND OUT JUST HOW good the FBI was. She was outside Pete Foreman’s townhouse in Canyon Country, not too far from Wild Horse. It was seven in the evening, and so far, there was no sign of the FBI. Leslie was used to working under the cover of complete darkness, but sometimes exceptions needed to be made. Now was one of those times. She wanted to beat the FBI here, kill Pete, and then track the FBI’s moves. Risky, she knew, but the thought of doing so was thrilling.

  It was a two-story unit with front and back entry on the main level and no basement. A van was in his parking spot, and an upstairs light was on. She hadn’t had the opportunity to do research and gather intel the way she normally did on her marks. But she doubted from what she did know that he had settled down. When she’d been better acquainted with him, he was muscled and obnoxious. More recently, when she’d run into him at the bar, any brawn he’d once had was now replaced with blubber.

  He’d even gotten fresh with her the one night at the bar, and it had taken all her power not to act impulsively. She’d watched him leave with women on several occasions in the past. Most of the time they were stumbling over their own feet, intoxicated and likely drugged.

  But drugging women was probably the only way the man could get laid—especially these days. He was homely—crooked teeth, a nose that was too large for his face, and he was pushing the scales at about three hundred pounds. What he lacked in heredity, he didn’t bother to compensate for with good hygiene, diet, and exercise. Pete just didn’t care. Even the barely conscious women he bedded weren’t what anyone would consider beauties.

  She knocked on Pete’s door. She wasn’t going to go about this all cloak-and-dagger. While Pete was a heterosexual, Leslie had fooled many men into thinking she was the genuine article. It was in her genes—without a word of a lie. All except for what lived in her underwear. But she was stuck in this form thanks to the disease-carrying violator Malone.

  Pete’s steps came toward the door, padding against what sounded like a wood floor. She couldn’t see him wearing shoes in his home—he struck her as more of a plaid-pajamas-and-dirty-underwear kind of guy—but he had on something with a sole. Slippe
rs, perhaps?

  He opened the door. His wardrobe was exactly as she had predicted, except he wore a stained white T-shirt instead of the matching top that went with his pajama bottoms.

  “Hello?” He let his eyes trace her from the toe of her stilettos to her ruby lips. Then his mouth slightly curved upward. He leaned against the doorframe. “Well, hello. What can I do for you?”

  He obviously didn’t remember her. Huh. She wasn’t used to being forgettable. “I’m with building management, and we’re performing random maintenance checks on our units.”

  If he bought that line, he really was an idiot.

  “Certainly. Come on in.” Pete backed up, his smile parting his lips now, showcasing those stained teeth.

  She tried to tamp down her nausea. She wasn’t looking forward to seeing him naked.

  He locked the door behind her. “Can I get you anything to drink? A beer?”

  “Ah, no thanks.”

  “Come on, it’s evening. I was just having one myself.”

  So that’s what the stink was…

  “No, thank you.” She met his eyes and, as she did so, was tempted to draw her knife right then and there and end his pathetic life, but she needed to be farther from the door. “You can come with me as I look around the place.” She tried to smile, to lure him in.

  Pete was grinning like a teenaged boy. “Sure.”

  To the right of the front entrance, a staircase climbed to the second level, and straight ahead was a back rec room and patio door. She wanted Pete as far away from an exit as possible.

  “Let’s start upstairs,” she said.

  “Okay. And you’re sure you don’t want that drink?”

  Pete was making this too easy. He deserved what he had coming.

  He stepped back, as though waiting for her to take the first step. He probably wanted to watch her from behind.

  She tried not to shudder as she led him to the second level and waited for him to get away from the stairs before taking the knife from her purse and pointing it in his direction. “You will do as I say.”

  Pete’s eyes widened, and he swallowed loudly against the backdrop of the silent house. A muted TV cast colored shadows in the next room.