The Darkest Thread

by Jen Blood

  The scene was as I remembered it: Melanie Redfield lying prone and naked on the ground, flesh flayed from her buttocks and breasts; the tree branch between her legs; the ligature marks around her neck. Gordon paused at one of the photos. Melanie had been rolled onto her back for the shot, the focus on the tree branch that had been shoved inside her. I looked away, sick, thinking of Gordon’s words. What if Barrett truly was the killer? Bear and Ren were locked up there, in a place where I couldn’t get to them. But Barrett could.

  Gordon studied the photos dispassionately, his gaze keen. “Have you got the autopsy results yet?” he asked.

  “Here,” Rita said. She handed a manila folder to him. He opened it and read in silence for a few seconds before he shook his head.

  “What about the others?” he asked. “Do you have the autopsies for the other girls? Katie and June? The prostitutes?”

  Rita dug into a satchel propped against the wall and came out with a stack of files. She hesitated only a second before she handed them over.

  Gordon took them and sat back down stiffly. The marshals remained at attention at the door, both of them young and blank-faced as we continued. Phantom finally settled back down beside me.

  “It’s the same guy,” Gordon said after less than five minutes of silence.

  “It’s in your best interest to say that,” Jack pointed out. “There are some differences here. A different kind of rope, for one thing.”

  “That’s purely cosmetic,” Gordon said. “You give this to any M.E. who knows anything at all and they’ll tell you the same thing. Petechial hemorrhage points to strangulation; bruised—not broken—hyoid means the victim was choked multiple times before finally being killed; penetration with a foreign object. Flaying of the buttocks and breasts, strokes consistent with a right-handed perp. Left ear pierced for one victim; presumably, the right ear pierced for the other. They may have been tied with a different kind of rope, but the knots are the same.”

  “What about the force?” Jack asked. “The penetration is wrong.”

  I focused on Phantom rather than the words being said after that, but I caught the gist of it: there hadn’t been enough force this time. Whoever had tortured the prostitutes prior to the Redfield murders had done considerably more damage than had been done to Melanie Redfield. I pet Phantom’s head and tried not to think of Melanie Redfield’s final hours, or the fact that somehow whatever had been done to her was perceived as less severe than what the victims before her had suffered.

  “What about June and Katie?” I asked.

  Gordon looked up from the files, as though he’d forgotten I was there. “What about them?”

  “Was the force used with them the same as with the prostitutes, or was it more like what’s been done here?”

  “The same,” Jack said. “With them, it was to the letter. The judge may not have tried him for the murders of the prostitutes, but we were all certain: whoever did June and Katie was responsible for the other murders, as well.”

  “This is seven years later,” Gordon noted. “Maybe the killer is trying to mix it up now, plant doubt—make it seem like it’s not the same killer so I don’t go free. Or maybe something happened to him, he’s not as strong as he was back then.”

  “Barrett’s been dealing with health issues,” Rita said. “He was hospitalized twice last year, though I couldn’t find out what the diagnosis was.”

  “He looks fine now,” I said. “And McDonough certainly doesn’t look like he’s had any problems, if you’re still thinking he could be a suspect.”

  “Where was McDonough when Melanie and Ariel went missing?” Gordon asked Jack.

  “He’s been here since I got here,” Jack said. “He was the reason I got pulled in in the first place.”

  “Would he have had opportunity for something like this, though?” I asked. I was hardly a big fan of McDonough’s, but pinning any of this on him seemed like too much of a stretch to me. “The media’s been watching this place like hawks, not to mention all the other cops, wardens, and agents roaming around. It isn’t like he has a low-visibility job.”

  “He could have snuck away,” Gordon said. Rita looked away, eyes hard now. “There must have been diversions over the past few days. Maybe he has somewhere nearby where he hid the girls.”

  “We’ve still got a ticking clock here,” Jack said, “so we don’t really have time to debate any of this. I’ll go up and talk to Barrett, see if I can find out where he thinks the girls were going the other morning. And feel out from there what his involvement might be.”

  “What about McDonough?” Rita prompted.

  Jack hesitated. “We’ll look into it—just do it quietly. God knows I’m not McDonough’s biggest fan, but my gut says it’s not him.”

  Gordon frowned, clearly not impressed with Jack’s gut.

  “I’ll keep it quiet, don’t worry,” Rita said. “In the meantime, you two are running on fumes. There’s nothing the searchers can do in the dark. Gordon and I will stay up and go over the files. At first light, I’ll get the marshals to take us to the crime scene while everyone else continues the search for Ariel.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Gordon agreed. He didn’t look enthusiastic, though. Based on the look in Rita’s eyes, I was guessing the conversation they were about to have wouldn’t be a pleasant one. By the time this was over and done, he might just be begging to go back to prison.

  “I still have another couple of hours in me,” Jack argued. “I could at least help go through the photos.”

  Rita shook her head. “Forget it. You nearly got crushed to death in a tunnel today, and you were in a mudslide the day before. That means you’ve earned a few hours’ down time. You two go on,” she said, including me in the nod. “Get cleaned up, and get some rest.”

  I didn’t bother to argue. It would have been pointless, and the fact of the matter was that she was right. If I planned to be any good to anyone come morning, I needed at least a few hours to recuperate and get my head screwed back on straight.

  I stood with some effort. “Come on,” I said to Jack. “You look like hell, and I can’t even see straight. We’ll be back on by five.”

  Reluctantly, Jack agreed. As I limped to the door with Phantom at my hip and Jack at my other side, I looked back at the pew where Gordon was still seated. Rita had sat down opposite him in the folding chair again, both of them hunched over the files and photos. I’m not naïve: I know people do horrible things to one another on a regular basis. All I have to do is look to my own past to know that’s fact. What happened to these women who’d been tortured, defiled, their lives snuffed out by this killer, though, seemed beyond evil. This wasn’t something a human being did.

  “Come on,” Jack said quietly when he saw that I was fixating on the scene. “I’ll drive you back to the hotel.”

  We walked back out into the cold night together, my mind locked on one thing only: the time. It was one-thirty a.m.

  I had ten hours and thirty minutes left, and no idea how to find Ariel Redfield once morning came.

  * * *

  Chapter 20

  JACK DROVE US BOTH back to the motel in one of the oversized, government-issued SUVs. I sat in the passenger seat and stared out the window, thinking about everything that had happened over the course of the day. Ultimately, it all led me back to the conversation we’d just had in the conference room.

  “Do you agree with Gordon?” I asked.

  Jack turned to look at me, his face cast in a strange glow courtesy of the dashboard lights. “About what?”

  “The suspects—that it was either Barrett or McDonough. That’s a pretty narrow playing field.”

  “He’s certainly had a lot of time to think about it.”

  That was true. Something still bothered me about the whole thing, though. “Why do you think he didn’t say anything sooner? If he had this theory, these suspects, he could have put someone on the trail and maybe gotten the whole thing overturned.”

&nb
sp; “Family loyalty—”

  “Only applies if it was Barrett,” I pointed out. “If it was McDonough…”

  “I think the McDonough thing is just wishful thinking on Gordon’s part,” Jack said. “The man’s a power-hungry ass, but just looking at opportunity alone, he didn’t have time to do something to Melanie and Ariel over the last few days. There’s no way it could be him.”

  “Was he with the Bureau when the whole sex thing broke?” I asked.

  “He was.” He fell silent. I read the pause, and waited for him to say whatever was on his mind. When he didn’t, I filled in the blanks.

  “Do you think he was involved?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “Like I said, McDonough is an ass. This doesn’t really sound like him, though.”

  “So why would Gordon say something that could so easily be discredited?” I asked. “To make an accusation against McDonough while the man’s right there, if he’s wrong—”

  “He didn’t make the accusation, though,” he pointed out. “Rita did.”

  “So maybe Gordon was spouting off theories with no basis in fact for some other reason,” I ventured. I thought about the night before, considering what I’d seen. “Do you know if there’s anything going on between Rita and McDonough?”

  “They’re friends,” Jack said, shrugging. “I always got the sense he was fond of her.”

  Fond seemed like an understatement considering the way I’d seen McDonough watching her as she left his hotel room last night, though. I kept that thought to myself, unwilling to start yet another rumor that, at the end of the day, wasn’t anyone’s business.

  “Why didn’t you say something when the whole thing was happening?” I asked instead. “The sex thing, I mean.”

  “I would have lost my job,” he said. “Who would have benefited if it went public, anyway? We were taking care of it.”

  “How? By promoting degenerates and potentially railroading one man for murder?” I couldn’t keep the scorn from my voice. To my surprise, I caught a glimpse of a smile when Jack glanced at me again. “You think that’s funny?”

  “Not at all. You just surprise me sometimes, that’s all. I met you and thought you were so Zen, so together. But it turns out you’ve got more of an edge than I expected.”

  “Not usually. It’s been an edge-inducing week.”

  He grunted at that, which I took as affirmation. “As for what you were saying: I don’t think they promoted degenerates. As far as I know, they either fired or demoted those involved, sent everyone to counseling, and did their best to handle things in-house.”

  “So you really don’t think McDonough was involved.”

  “No. I guess I don’t.” He sounded surprised by the realization.

  “So, that brings us back to the original question,” I said. “If you don’t think it was McDonough, do you really think it could have been Barrett? I mean… First off, how did he even know the hookers his brother knew?”

  A brief, uncomfortable silence followed. “Jack?” I prompted, when he didn’t say anything.

  He glanced at me, then back to the road. “Barrett used to travel with Gordon sometimes when he was younger. Or they’d get together if they were doing business in the same town.”

  “Get together?” I asked. I had an uneasy feeling I knew where this was going, but it was too late to stop now. “As in…”

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “As in… Barrett was apparently around sixteen the first time it happened, according to Gordon.”

  “So, they would…” I stopped. I’m no blushing virgin, but I was having a hard time getting my head around this. “Would he just buy the hookers for his little brother, or would they actually…um, together?”

  “Both, depending on mood and circumstance,” Jack said.

  Silence fell. “Wow,” I finally managed. “Okay, so Barrett…knew the prostitutes who were killed. Do you think he could have done it?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. He turned into the parking lot of Serenity Motel and found a space beside the cargo van we’d been using for our crew. The motel’s motion-sensitive security light came on outside, but otherwise the place remained dark. He put the SUV in park, and left it idling as he turned to face me.

  “We worked up a psychological profile before,” he said. “We came up with a white male, late twenties to thirties, obsessive-compulsive, with above-average intelligence and a deep-seated hatred of women most likely rooted in mother or a maternal figure. He would have a job with a certain amount of autonomy and in which some travel was required, and some knowledge of crime scenes as well as anatomy.”

  “So, you’re right,” I said. “I don’t know how well it fits Barrett, but based on the profile, I can see why Gordon looked good for the murders of the prostitutes—though not really of his sisters. He got too many things wrong that time, it makes no sense.”

  “Unless someone was setting him up,” Jack said with a nod. “I know.”

  Phantom whimpered in the seat behind me, and I realized we’d been sitting there too long. It was late, and the day had been exhausting for everyone involved.

  “We should go in,” I said.

  Jack agreed, but for a split second made no move. A sudden tension filled the air when he turned to look at me. His eyes held mine fleetingly before I retreated, wordlessly opening the passenger side door.

  It was cool but dry for the moment, though more rain was predicted by morning. We walked in silence for a few seconds while I continued thinking about the case, Phantom at my left side, Jack at my right. The darkness was so complete that the trees were nothing but a walled shadow against a blackened night. Was Ariel out there right now? Still alive, desperately waiting for someone to find her? Or had the killer already silenced her, too?

  I thought of Clara, the sister I had lost. Wondered how long she had been alone in the woods—or had she never been there at all, instead taken by some stranger and never heard from again?

  After Phantom had peed and sniffed and stretched her legs, Jack walked me to my room. Silence had fallen, and neither of us seemed sure how to break it. Against my will, my mind drifted back to the tunnel. The feel of his hand on my face; his fingertips skating along my side.

  What the hell was wrong with me?

  “It’s okay to need comfort sometimes, you know,” he said, as though he’d read my mind.

  “What?”

  “I’m not saying it should be me. But you should be able to admit weakness to someone. Talk to someone.”

  “I run a business,” I said. “I’ve got mouths to feed—human and otherwise. Bills to pay. There’s no time for admitting weakness in my world.”

  He stopped walking and turned to face me. We were just outside the hotel, the darkness overwhelming. I heard no voices for the moment, the world blessedly quiet. Except for Jack, of course —whose silence was nearly as loud as the screams I’d heard in the well that afternoon.

  “What?” I said.

  He took a step closer and looked down at me. He was frowning, something tumultuous in his eyes. A question he didn’t know how to ask. I didn’t jump in to help him. If he wanted information, I wouldn’t volunteer it.

  “We should get to bed,” I said after a second, when he still hadn’t said anything.

  “Yeah,” he agreed with a nod. His eyes were still dark with indecision. “You sure you’ll be all right?”

  I wondered what he would say if I said no. Would he come in with me? Offer to hold me until I slept? Make love to me until all thoughts slipped away? I thought again of his fingers sliding along the scars at my side; the weighted silence that had fallen between us once he’d seen.

  There were so many answers I couldn’t give him, if he ever got the courage to ask the questions.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said.

  I turned my back on him, snapped my fingers for Phantom, and went to bed alone.

  #

  There were too many thoughts in Jack’s head for sleep. Melanie Redfie
ld was dead, but he wasn’t convinced that Gordon was right. It could have been someone else who had done this—someone other than the guy who’d done the killings in ’08 and ’09. Why would the killer come out of hiding and risk reopening the case if he’d already gotten away with everything and had someone else doing his time?

  If it were the same man, this had to be a compulsion. He could have mixed things up a bit to at least throw them off the trail—at the very least, he could have left out the earrings this time. The fact that he hadn’t been able to spoke to a deeply obsessive-compulsive personality. Everything had to be exactly right. To the letter. How disturbed must the killer have been when Ariel got away, then? Had it haunted him when she took the chains and purity rings from the scene?

  Jack rolled over in bed and stared at the flower-print wallpaper on the hotel wall. His thoughts drifted from the victims to being trapped in the tunnel earlier that day. Jamie beside him. The electrified blue of her eyes in that dim light. The way her hand had closed over his arm when she’d asked that he turn around. The fear, the shame, on her face when he’d seen…

  Those scars.

  What the hell were they from? Clearly burn scars. He had so many questions about her. She’d gone to Brock Campbell’s dog-training summer camp when she was only fourteen, and had returned to the camp the following summer. Jack knew that much because he’d looked it up. He told himself it was simply being a responsible agent; he should know the people he worked with. There was something more to it, though. He didn’t have it in him to deny that.

  Jamie had moved out of her home in Georgia shortly after that second year of summer camp—presumably because her parents had learned she was pregnant, and hadn’t approved. Just as she’d told him in the tunnel, she’d moved out West then. She had Bear while she was there. She’d remained in Washington State for the next eight years. That information had been hard to come by, and Jack still wasn’t convinced it was completely accurate. For all intents and purposes, she’d gone off the grid for the first several years of Bear’s life.