14

by J. T. Ellison

  The story the girl told, bundled in the blankets of strangers, broke Taylor’s heart to the core. This girl was a victim—not of the Snow White Killer, but of base, despicable men. She was a victim of lust, and greed, and the bad things that make good men go astray. A slave.

  Perched warily on a stretcher in the back of the ambulance, her face lowered, her voice soft, the poor thing told a horror story so quietly Taylor strained to hear her speak. Her English was broken but passable. The words left her mouth like vapor heat rising in the cold—soft and timorous.

  “I come from Guatemala. My name is Saraya Gonzalez. I work in kitchen at hotel with my sister. One day, man comes to kitchen, says you look very good, take my sister away. I run after her, but he knock me to the ground. I cry for very long time.

  “A year pass. I no hear from my sister. No one hear from her. Then the man came back. He see me in kitchen, says you grow up, you perfect now. I was twelve. He take me from kitchen. At first, he kind, nice to me. He feed me, give me drink and nice soft bed to sleep. I don’t need to do work, no more working in kitchen.

  “I guess is only natural he want me. Many men want me, but my sister keep them away from me. Once she gone, I have men like bees, swarming me for my honey. I have no choice. When man decide to have sex with me, he takes me to the back bedroom. There is a camera. He does what he likes, doesn’t care if it hurts. After, he give money.

  “I feel great shame. But what am I to do? I cannot go police, they deport me. I have no man to watch out for me, no sister anymore. I at their mercy.

  “He starts by bringing other men, older men who like little girl. They ask for ‘massage.’ They do all the things that he do to me, force me to spread my legs, my ass, my mouth for their pleasure. I do it, not because I want to, but because I know the sooner they finish, the sooner they go.

  “There are cameras in the room. I find the video camera in the closet. They make video, too, sell video of me having sex with strange men.”

  Taylor had snapped to attention at that.

  “Are you sure? There are videotapes and still pictures?”

  The girl nodded. “Yes, I sure. I see them making video, then mailing envelopes. There is computer in spare bedroom, that is the man’s office.”

  “What is his name?”

  “Oh, no. I no tell. I no want to get dead.”

  “Saraya, how’d you end up in the park?”

  At that, panic had replaced fear in the girl’s eyes. “I run away. I figure it better to be dead.”

  Funny, Taylor thought to herself as she drove back toward headquarters. She hadn’t doubted the girl’s story for a second. Was she so immune to death and destruction, to the very evil living in people’s souls, that she was programmed to believe a victim? She knew that wasn’t the case, she had a bullshit detector a mile wide. People claim to be victims for myriad reasons. Taylor was pretty good at determining who was lying and who was telling the truth. She’d been duped before, but not often.

  Saraya Gonzalez was not a Snow White victim. The reality gave her pause. She’d been so caught up in the Snow White case that many of her other cases had been temporarily shelved. They needed to solve these fucking murders so she could go back to her job. There were people in the city who needed her help. Give me your poor, your weak, your downtrodden. I’ll fight for them. That’s what she was, what she longed to be. That was the very thing her father would never understand.

  There it was, that damn scent in her nose. Why couldn’t Win Jackson just leave her alone? She tried to shake off the memories, but her primordial olfactory senses defied her and made her doubts rise to the surface as if she was a little girl, vulnerable and weak, unable to win her father’s love. She hadn’t talked to him for three years, since right before she made lieutenant. They always fought—Taylor had little respect for Win’s desire to take shortcuts to the top, and the knowledge that his daughter was a cop rankled him to no end. But the last conversation had been particularly virulent, and Taylor was through. She’d told him to take her trust fund and screw himself.

  She knew he wasn’t dead. That much she could feel. As divorced as she’d become from her family, from her father, she still had the presence of mind to know that he was out there. She’d be able to feel if he weren’t. Wouldn’t she?

  At least she didn’t have to worry about asking him to walk her down the aisle.

  She dragged her thoughts away from her past and anchored them firmly in the present. She had another mystery on her hands. At least this one was definitely alive.

  Taylor shuddered. Hearing Saraya’s story, her tiny, accented voice uttering atrocities so frail, so tortured, Taylor didn’t doubt her veracity for an instant. She wondered whether it would have been better to die than be so horribly abused, understood the girl’s desperate attempt at flight. She was too weak to make it very far, the massage parlor must be within a day’s walk. But Saraya had clammed up, refusing to answer any more questions. Taylor had signaled to Bunch to transport her to the hospital. A warm, safe bed and some nourishment might loosen her tongue. She hoped.

  As she neared the CJC, the traffic got heavier. Taylor felt it, palpable in the air. Something was happening. She crawled along, finally turning the corner onto third. News vans lined the street. Satellites were set up, there were people milling about, walking through the street blocking the entrance to the CJC parking lot.

  Taylor resisted the urge to take out her weapon and shoot it into the air to clear a path. Instead, she took a flasher from beneath her seat, put down the window of the unmarked and held it out in her hand. She flipped the switch and hit her horn. The noise and the glowing red globe got their attention. The sea parted and she pulled into the parking lot of the CJC, double-parking alongside the Channel 4 news van. She should have them ticketed for blocking the entrance.

  Her phone rang and she saw Sam’s number. Flipping it open, she walked briskly across the parking lot, shouts ringing in her ears, her hand up in the universal “no comment” posture. Sam was talking loudly enough that Taylor heard her clearly over the din.

  “Remy fucking St. Claire is in my lobby, about to hold a press conference,” Sam growled.

  Taylor threw a glance back over her shoulder. “But all the news trucks are here.”

  “Oh, trust me, no they aren’t. I’ve got patrol officers trying to keep the entrance to Gass Street clear. I assume she’s heading your way after she finishes here. If you hurry, you can get your TV on, see her in all her bony glory. She looks like hell.”

  “Well, her daughter just died.”

  “Aren’t you the gracious one. Call me later, okay? I need to get this under control. And stay off camera. Man, this hacks me off. Why that anemic bitch decided to have her press conference at my office is beyond me.”

  Sam was gone, and Taylor shut her phone. To say Sam and Remy had never gotten along would be an understatement.

  As she neared the door, the shouts of the media began to fade away. Each step up the back stairs dumped a load on her heart. This ruckus wasn’t for the poor, innocent girl they’d just pulled out of the bushes in Edwin Warner, nor for Giselle St. Claire or Jane Macias. It wasn’t about any of the victims.

  No, this was for something much worse. A false prophet.

  Inside the door, Taylor could hear the commotion before she saw it. The homicide team was crowded around the television set, watching. Taylor took up a position with them.

  Remy St. Claire had been pretty when she left Nashville to strike it big in Hollywood. An elfin face, pale blond hair, long legs, a breathy, little-girl voice reminiscent of a packaged young Norma Jean. Hollywood made her gorgeous. They took her under their wing, brought her into the fold, and made Remy St. Claire a star. A shooting star.

  The lip injections, cheekbone implants, breast implants, ear tuck, liposuction, rib removal, all of that was de rigueur. Standard operating procedure. Her voice coach had annihilated all traces of Tennessee from her vocal cords, eliciting a low, smoky Mae Wes
t tone from deep within Remy’s artificial chest. Her long, blond locks were color-treated now, four individual shades of honey blond, highlights so subtle, so perfectly uniform that it took four hours once a week to keep them maintained.

  Her figure was emaciated to the point of starvation under a veneer of muscle obtained through stringent daily meetings with trainers—strength, Pilates and yoga. Only her breasts stood out tall; the rest of her body seemed to shrink in on itself, as if the internal organs were so starved that they took the skin for nutrition.

  She was linked to a new, younger partner on the cover of the gossip rags at least once a month. For an actress who’d been the toast of Hollywood fourteen years ago, that was pretty damn good. The scandalmongers and cable shows would feast on this news item for days. Remy’s precious daughter, dead at the hands of a serial killer. Oh, the horror, the horror.

  Somewhere along the way, Remy’s poor, murdered daughter would become an icon, a mythical creature, forgotten in life yet revered in death. For Giselle, being the violently murdered daughter of a celebrity didn’t mean she would be missed, it meant her mother would get into the news cycle. Movies would be made. Stories told. As it was, the news media had already pounced.

  All of this ran through Taylor’s head as she watched Remy call on the FBI and the Nashville police to solve the murder. She offered a reward, guaranteeing that they would be inundated with tons of false leads and bogus phone calls. Great.

  Taylor looked away from the TV and went into her office. The three-ring circus had officially begun.

  When her phone rang, she snatched it up and identified herself without looking at the ID.

  “Why, Taylor Jackson, who’d’ve known?” Fuck. Now Remy was calling her.

  The accent was so overdone it was nearly unbearable. Someone somewhere had told Remy that if she were back in her home state, it would bode well for her to adopt her Southern while she was around the Nashvillians. A less-forgiving group of people would have called her for the phony she was. But in Nashville, they smile and nod and graciously pretend not to notice. If there was one thing a true Nashvillian couldn’t stand, it was a fake. The bitchiness could wait for the back rooms and dark salons, after the guilty miscreant was gone. Tongues would wag tonight after Remy St. Claire left town, that was for sure.

  “Remy. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  “I just can’t believe it. I’ve just identified the body of my daughter. What in the world is happening, Taylor? Why was my baby killed?”

  Remy’s voice wavered. Taylor imagined the china-blue saucer eyes filling with tears, a white handkerchief conveniently clutched at Remy’s throat.

  “We’re doing everything we can to find that answer, Remy.”

  “Is there anything I can do?” The accent was gone, leaving Remy with a hollowed-out voice devoid of any character or real emotion. She sounded for a brief instant like Kitty, but Taylor pushed the thought away.

  “To start with, when’s the last time you talked to Giselle?”

  “Well, I think it was sometime last week. She lives with her grandparents. You remember my parents, don’t you?”

  “Of course.” The St. Claires were warm, loving people, and Taylor had always been stymied by how they’d produced such a selfish, wanting child.

  “They’re supposed to be watching her. The last I heard, they were planning a ski trip to that godforsaken Gatlinburg. I’m guessing Giselle was bored to tears after being away from home, wanted to do something a little fun. She probably snuck out of the house, went downtown with a friend. You know how teenagers are, Taylor. They like to get into trouble.”

  That caught Taylor’s attention. She made a mental note to talk to Baldwin. They hadn’t ascertained where the killer was getting his victims. The elevated blood-alcohol levels coupled with the Rohypnol pointed to a bar setting. But in a town the size of Nashville, with bars every third building, narrowing which establishment had been close to impossible. They’d been unable to determine an exact kidnapping spot up until now. But if Giselle had been picked up by a friend and taken someplace specific, they may have something to go on. Almost too much to hope for.

  “Hey there, Remy. Don’t go assuming anything. We’ve talked to your parents extensively, and they’ve given us nothing to lead us to believe that she was sneaking out at night.”

  The vision of the tiny gold ring in Giselle’s clitoris told the story instead. And with Remy as a mama, the odds of Giselle being a good little girl were slim to none.

  “I know my girl, Taylor, despite what you may think. She was a wild child, always in trouble. She’s been drinking and smoking, doing drugs and God knows what else since she was twelve. Completely and utterly out of control. That’s why she’s here in Nashville, away from the Hollywood scene. There’s nothing anyone can tell her, either. She needs to experience things for herself. She’s always been like that, attracted to the very things that will hurt her. If you stood her in front of a stove and told her the top was hot and would burn her, she’d stick her tongue out at you and touch it, just to make sure you weren’t lying to her.”

  Taylor was struck by the present tense. Giselle’s death hadn’t truly sunk into her mother’s mind yet. She heard the sound of a lighter being struck, then Remy breathed out heavily. She’d just lit a cigarette.

  “That’s the other thing. She may have been young but she wasn’t at all gullible. She had a radar for people, not that it mattered. She could find the best in a grunged-out junkie and the worst in Miss America. That’s just the way she was.”

  “If you’re still at the M.E.’s office, you’d best put that cigarette out. Sam will have your head.”

  Taylor heard a shuffling noise. Remy coughed once, deep. “Taylor, remember that time when we were kids, we snuck Mrs. Mize’s cigarettes out of the pack, went up into the woods behind your parents’ house and smoked? What were we, ten, eleven, then?”

  Taylor laughed despite herself. Mrs. Mize was her parents’ housekeeper, a mother, nanny, cleaner, polisher and all-around straight arrow. She’d spent more time raising Taylor than her own parents.

  “Eleven. She beat me blue when she found out. You lifted the Crest from her bath so we could wash our mouths out, but you forgot to put it back. She knew she’d just bought a new tube, got suspicious, started counting her smokes. Jeez, she was pissed off.”

  “She told my parents. They were furious.”

  Taylor thought about that for a moment. Her own parents had been informed of the incident. Taylor had been grounded, of course, told not to play with the St. Claire girl anymore, but it was Mrs. Mize who’d beat her silly, then loved and hugged her because she hated that she was the one doing the disciplining instead of Kitty and Win. She clucked, and brought hot chocolate and nuzzled Taylor, telling her an old Norwegian folktale that evening.

  “Where is Mrs. Mize these days?”

  “She passed on last year. Sweet old thing, she went in her sleep. A true martyr, putting up with my family all those years, I’ll tell you that.” Taylor laughed softly, mind fuzzed with the memory of something good and happy. Then she shook her head and brought her focus back to the woman on the other end of the phone.

  “Remy, I’d love to keep on reminiscing, but I have work to do. Is there anything else you can tell me about Giselle, about who she’s friends with, people outside the family that might have known her well?”

  There was silence, and Taylor realized that no, Remy wouldn’t know these intimate details about her daughter. That would be about as likely as Kitty having any clue why Taylor was sneaking smokes with the St. Claire girl. Taylor’s heart broke, just a little bit, in a place she wasn’t aware had any more room for jagged tears.

  “Okay, Remy. Thanks for calling. I’m so sorry about this, I really am. Sam will have everything else you might need. We’ll let you know what we find out.”

  “I trust you to find out who killed my baby, Taylor. I’m glad you’re the one who’s going to catch her killer. I know that so
n of a bitch doesn’t stand a chance against you.”

  She hung up, leaving Taylor with a strange, crazy sense of pride coupled with sorrow and longing for what they all used to be. For who they all used to be.

  Taylor sat with her head in her hands for a long moment after the phone call. She felt like the wind was gone from her lungs. What had her life become? Investigating the rapes and murders of her childhood friends’ kids? Something was dreadfully wrong with that, she knew it deep in her soul.

  Soft knocks on the door made her raise her head.

  “Hi, babe. Everything okay?”

  Taylor stared at her handsome fiancé. The clear, sea-green eyes, the laconic smile, the black hair peppered with gray. The broad shoulders, the way he towered above her. Safety. That’s what she felt every time she gazed upon him. And that was terribly dangerous. She knew it. Vulnerability wasn’t her strong suit; hell, she slept with a gun by her pillow. And a night-light. And dreamed of strong arms that pushed away the monsters and the nightmares. She’d found him, this savior of hers.

  “Yeah. Just a little tired. What are you up to?”

  “I came for a glimpse of the great Remy St. Claire.” He grinned and she smiled back.

  “You want her autograph? I’m sure I could wrangle that one up for you. She’s over at Sam’s. We can catch her if you want.”

  He laughed. “No, thanks.”

  “What, you don’t have the hots for a shallow, plastic bimbo?”

  “With you sitting here, wearing my ring, ready to marry me? Hardly. I’m just passing along a message.”