Scream For Me

by Karen Rose

  “Twelve years ago,” Luke supplied, then shrugged. “Mama read it in the paper.”

  Daniel’s lips thinned. “Mama Papa and millions of her closest friends. It doesn’t matter. My father found these pictures and threw Simon out of the house, told him if he ever came back he’d turn Simon over to the police. Simon had just turned eighteen.”

  “Your father. The judge. He just let Simon go.”

  “Good old Dad. He was afraid if the pictures became public, he’d lose the election.”

  “But he kept the pictures? Why?”

  “Dad didn’t want Simon ever coming back, so he held the pictures as insurance, blackmail. A few days later my father told my mother that he’d received a phone call, that Simon had died in a car crash in Mexico. Dad went down there, brought the body home, had it buried in the family plot.”

  “But it’s an unidentified man almost a foot shorter than Simon.” Luke shrugged again. “It was a good article-had lots of details. So how did your mother get these?”

  “The first time she found them in Dad’s safe. That was eleven years ago, a year after Simon ‘died.’ She found the pictures and some drawings Simon had made from them. My mother rarely cried, but she cried about those pictures. I found her that way.”

  “And you saw the pictures.”

  “Only a glimpse. Enough to suspect at least some of them were real. But my father came home then and was so angry. He had to admit he’d had them for a year. I said we should turn them over to the police, but my father refused. He said it would be bad for the family name and Simon was already dead, so what was the point?”

  Luke was frowning. “The point? Like, the victims? That was the point.”

  “Of course it was. But when I tried to take the pictures to the police, we got into it.” Daniel clenched his hands into fists, remembering. “I almost hit him. I was so mad.”

  “So what did you do?” Luke asked quietly.

  “I left the house to cool down, but when I came back, my father had burned the photos in the fireplace. They were gone.”

  “Obviously not gone.” Luke pointed to the envelope.

  “He must’ve had copies somewhere else. I was… stunned. My mother was telling me it was for the best and my father was standing looking so smug and superior. I lost it. I hit him. Knocked him down. We had a terrible fight. I was on my way out the front door when Susannah came in the back. She’d missed the reason for the fight and I didn’t want her to know. She was only seventeen. Turned out she knew more than I thought. If we’d talked then…” Daniel thought of the seventeen bodies Simon had left behind in Philadelphia. “Who knows what we might have averted?”

  “Did you tell anyone?”

  Daniel shrugged, disgusted with himself. “Tell them what? I had no proof and it was my word against that of a judge. My sister hadn’t seen any of it and my mother would never have crossed my father. So I said nothing and I’ve regretted it ever since.”

  “So you left home and never came back.”

  “Not until I got the call from the Dutton sheriff two weeks ago that they were missing. It was the same day I found out my mother had cancer. I just wanted to see her once more, but she’d already been dead for two months.” Killed by Simon.

  “So how did you get these pictures now?”

  “This past Thanksgiving my parents found out Simon was still alive.”

  “Because the blackmailer up in Philly had contacted your father.”

  Daniel’s eyes widened. “Wow, that really was some article.”

  “Got that off the Internet. Your family’s hot news, boy.”

  Daniel rolled his eyes. “Wonderful. Well, Dad and Mother went up to Philly to find Simon. Mother wanted to bring him home, certain he’d been some amnesia victim or something. Dad wanted to reinforce his blackmail, so he took the pictures with him to Philly. Eventually Mother realized Dad was never going to let her see Simon.”

  “Simon would have told her that your father had known all along that he was alive.”

  “Exactly. Then Dad disappeared. He must have found Simon because Simon killed him and buried him in a deserted field with all his other victims. Simon contacted my mother and she was planning to meet him. She knew she could be walking into a trap but she didn’t care.”

  “Because she was dying of cancer and had nothing more to lose.”

  “Yes. She opened a mailbox for me at one of those mailbox stores. Inside the box were these pictures. She’d left them in the event Simon did kill her.”

  “You said Ciccotelli up in Philly had copies. Does he know you kept the originals?”

  “No. I made the copies I gave him.”

  Luke’s eyes widened. “You copied these at a regular copy machine?”

  “No,” Daniel scoffed. “After I found the pictures at the mailbox store, I bought a copier-scanner. I had a few hours before Susannah arrived from New York, so I went back to my hotel room, set the scanner up to my laptop, and made the copies there.”

  “You set up a scanner all by yourself?”

  “I’m not completely inept,” Daniel said dryly. “The guy in the store showed me how.” He looked back at the picture of Alicia’s assault. “I’ve had nightmares about these girls for years. Since I got the pictures back a week ago, I’ve been memorizing their faces. I promised myself that I’d find out what part Simon had in getting these pictures, then I’d find the girls and tell them Simon was dead. I never dreamed the first ID would be dumped in my lap this way.”

  “So you didn’t know Alicia Tremaine at all?”

  “No. She was five years younger than me, so I never would have known her at school and I was away at college when she was murdered.”

  “And none of these guys in the pictures are Simon?”

  “No. All the men have both their legs. Simon was an amputee. Plus Simon was a good bit taller than any of these guys. I haven’t seen any tattoos or any other identifying features or marks on any of the pictures.”

  “But now you have one of the victims’ names, which is more than you had before.”

  “True. Now I’m wondering if I should tell Chase about the pictures.” Chase Wharton was Daniel’s CO. “If I do, he could take the Arcadia case away from me, along with any investigation of these pictures. I really want to solve both of these cases. I need to.”

  “It’s atonement,” Luke murmured and Daniel nodded.

  “Yes.”

  Luke lifted a brow. “You’re assuming no one was ever arrested for Alicia’s murder.”

  Daniel straightened abruptly. “Can you check?”

  Luke was already typing into the laptop. “Police arrested Gary Fulmore a few hours after they found Alicia’s body.” He typed again, his keystrokes rapid. “Gary Fulmore was found guilty of sexual assault and murder in the second degree the following January.”

  “It’s January now,” Daniel said. “Coincidence?”

  Luke shrugged. “That’s what you need to find out. Look, Danny, it’s pretty cut-and-dried that Simon didn’t kill that woman in Arcadia. He’s been dead himself a week.”

  “And this time I watched him die myself,” Daniel said grimly. In fact, I helped. And he was glad that he had. He’d done the world a service in ensuring Simon was dead.

  Luke’s eyes flickered in sympathy. “And they caught the man who murdered Alicia. Who knows, maybe this is Fulmore.” He pointed to the rapist in the picture. “And most important, you aren’t solving the murder of Alicia Tremaine. You’re solving the murder of the woman in the Arcadia ditch. If it was me, I wouldn’t mention the pictures just yet.”

  Viewed logically, Luke’s argument made perfect sense. Or maybe he just needed it to. Either way, Daniel blew out a sigh that was mostly relief. “Thanks. I owe you one.”

  Luke raised a brow. “For this, you owe me a lot more than one.”

  Daniel looked down at Riley, who hadn’t moved a muscle the entire time. “I took your dog and saved your sex life. That’s good for one hell of a lot,
Papa.”

  “Hey, it wasn’t my fault that Denise wouldn’t live with Brandi’s dog.”

  “Which Brandi only got because of you.”

  “Brandi thought a detective should have a bloodhound.”

  Daniel rolled his eyes. “Clearly Brandi’s assets were not in her brain.”

  Luke grinned. “Nope. But in her defense, my apartment has a weight limit. A bloodhound would have been too big. We settled on Riley there.”

  “I should have given him back to you when Denise split,” Daniel grumbled.

  “Which was two years and six girlfriends ago,” Luke pointed out. “I think you’ve developed an attachment to good old Riley.”

  Which of course Daniel had. “All I know is you’d better not be feeding him any more of your mama’s food or you will get him back. Then you’ll be praying that your next girlfriend likes basset hounds and that your mama likes your girlfriend.”

  Luke’s revolving door of girlfriends was a constant source of angst for poor Mama Papa. Most of them she didn’t care for, but she had never given up hoping Luke would settle down with one of them and give her grandchildren.

  “I’ll just remind her you haven’t had a date in years,” Luke said smugly, getting up from the sofa. “She’ll be so busy finding you a nice Greek girl that she won’t have time to worry over me.” He opened the door, then turned back, his expression serious. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Daniel. Even if you’d reported those pictures ten years ago, no one could have done anything without the evidence.”

  “Thanks, man. That helps.” It really did.

  “So what are you going to do next?”

  “Now, I’m gonna walk Riley. Tomorrow, I’ll follow the evidence on the Arcadia homicide like normal. And I’m going to check out Alicia Tremaine, see if any of her family or friends remember anything. Who knows, it might turn up something. Tell Mama Papa thanks for the food.”

  Dutton, Sunday, January 28, 11:30 p.m.

  “I’m sorry I haven’t come before,” Mack murmured as he sat on the cold ground. The marble at his back was even colder. He wished he could have come here during the daytime when it was warm and sunny, but he couldn’t be seen next to her headstone. He didn’t want anyone to know he was back, because once they knew, they’d know all-and he wasn’t ready for that yet.

  But he’d needed to come to her, just once. He’d owed her so much more than he’d given her. It was his greatest regret. He’d failed her in nearly every way. And she’d died, without him by her side. It was his greatest fury.

  The last time he’d stood here had been under a blazing summer sun, three and a half years ago. He’d worn shackles and a suit that didn’t fit. They hadn’t let him out to sit at her deathbed, but they had allowed him one afternoon for her funeral.

  “One fucking afternoon,” he said quietly. “Too damn late.”

  He’d had everything stolen from him-his home, his family’s business, his freedom, and finally his mother-and all he’d been allowed was one fucking afternoon, too damn late to do anything but simmer in his rage and vow his retribution.

  Across his mother’s grave his sister-in-law had stood crying, holding one of her little boys by the hand and the other on her hip. His jaw clenched just at the thought of Annette. She’d cared for his mother in her final days while he’d been locked up like an animal, and for that he’d always be beholden. But for years his brother Jared’s wife had harbored a secret that should have been the ruin of those who’d ruined their family. For years Annette had known the truth, but she’d never said a word.

  He vividly remembered the explosion of rage when just nine days ago he’d found and read the journals she’d kept so carefully hidden. At first he’d hated her, adding her to his retribution list. But she’d cared for his mother, and one of the lessons he’d learned in his four years behind bars was the value of loyalty and the karma of a good deed done. So he’d spared Annette, allowing her to go on living her miserable little life in that miserable little house.

  Besides, she had to take care of his nephews. Their family name, such as it was, would live on through his brother’s sons.

  His own name would soon become inextricably linked to murder and revenge.

  He would exact his revenge and then disappear. How to disappear was one of the other things he’d learned in prison. Disappearing wasn’t as easy as it once was, but it still could be done, if one had the right loyal contacts, and if one was patient.

  Patience was the most important thing he’d learned while inside. If a man bided his time, a solution would become clear. Mack had bided his time for four long years. In that time he’d followed the Dutton news while he’d plotted, schemed, and studied. He’d strengthened his body and his mind. And his rage had continued to simmer and stew.

  When he’d walked through the prison’s front gates a free man one month ago, he’d known more about Dutton than any of its residents knew, but he still didn’t know how to best punish those who’d ruined his life. A bullet to their heads was too fast, too merciful. He’d wanted something painful and lasting, so he’d bided his time a little longer, lurking about town like a shadow, watching them, charting their movements, their habits, their secrets.

  And then, nine days ago, his patience had paid off. After four years of simmering, his plan had come together in minutes. Now, the curtain had risen. He was on his way.

  “There are so many things you never knew, Mama,” he said softly. “So many people you trusted who’d already betrayed you. The pillars of the town are more evil than you ever contemplated. The things they’ve done are far worse than anything I’d ever dreamed of doing.” Until now. “I wish you could see what I’m about to do. I’m about to stir up the dirt in this town, and everyone will know what they did to you and to me and even to Jared. They’ll be ruined and humiliated. And the people they love will die.”

  Today they’d found the first one, at the bike race, just as he’d planned. And the lead investigator was none other than Daniel Vartanian himself. Which added a whole new layer of meaning to the game.

  He lifted his eyes and peered through the shadows to the Vartanian family plot. The police tape was gone now and they’d filled in the grave that until nine days ago everyone had thought held the remains of Simon Vartanian. Now the Vartanian family plot had two new graves.

  “The judge and his wife are dead. The whole town came out for the double funeral on Friday afternoon, just two days ago.” The whole town, as opposed to the sad little group that had gathered at his mother’s graveside. Annette, her boys, the reverend, and me. And the prison guards, of course. Couldn’t forget about them. “But don’t fret. Not many came out of respect for the judge and Mrs. Vartanian. Most of them really came to gawk at Daniel and Susannah.”

  Mack, on the other hand, had watched the double service from far enough away so he could watch the whole town. They had no clue what was coming. “Daniel was back to work today.” Which had been his fondest hope. “I thought he’d take more time off.”

  He ran his hand over the blanket of grass that covered her. “I guess family means more to some people than others. I couldn’t have gone back to work so fast after your funeral. Of course, I wasn’t given the choice,” he said bitterly.

  He lifted his eyes again to the Vartanian plot. “The judge and his wife were killed by Simon. We thought he was dead, all these years. Remember, you made me and Jared come and stand by his grave. I was only ten, but you said we had to show respect for the dead. But Simon wasn’t dead. Nine days ago they dug him up and Simon wasn’t buried in Simon’s tomb. That was the day we heard Simon had killed his parents.”

  It had also been the day he’d finally figured out how to exact his revenge. The day he’d found the journals Annette had kept hidden for so long. Nine days ago had been a very good day, all in all.

  “Simon really is dead now.” It was too bad that Daniel Vartanian had beaten him to it. “But no worries, the empty grave won’t go to waste. Soon a Vartanian s
on will be buried in the family plot.” He smiled. “Soon, a lot of people’ll be gettin’ buried in Dutton.”

  How fast the cemetery got filled would depend on how smart Daniel Vartanian really was. If Daniel hadn’t yet linked today’s victim to Alicia Tremaine, he soon would. Add an anonymous tip to the Dutton Review and by tomorrow morning everyone in town would know what he’d done. Importantly, the ones he wanted to know, would. They’d wonder. Sweat. Fear.

  “Soon they’ll all pay.” He stood and took a last look at the headstone that bore his mother’s name. If all went well, he’d never be able to come back. “I’ll get justice for us both if it’s the last thing I do.”

  Monday, January 29, 7:15 a.m.

  “Alex. Wake up.”

  Alex opened the bedroom door at Meredith’s hiss. “No need to be quiet. We’re both awake.” She pointed to Hope, who sat at the bedroom desk, her bare feet swinging inches from the ground, her bottom lip between her teeth in concentration. “She’s coloring.” Alex sighed. “With red. I got her to eat a little cereal.”

  Meredith stayed in the doorway, dressed in her running clothes and clutching a newspaper in one hand. “Good morning, Hope. Alex, can I see you out here?”

  “Sure. I’ll be just outside the door, Hope.” But Hope gave no indication she’d heard. Alex followed Meredith into the sitting room. “When I woke up she was sitting at the desk already. I have no idea how long she’d been awake. She didn’t make a sound.”

  “I wish I didn’t have to show you this.” Meredith held out the newspaper.

  Alex took one look at the headline, then sank onto the sofa as her legs gave out. Background noise faded until all she could hear was her own pulse pounding in her ears. MURDERED WOMAN FOUND IN ARCADIA DITCH. “Oh, Mer. Oh, no.”

  Crouching, Meredith met her eyes. “It might not be Bailey.”

  Alex shook her head. “But the timing’s just right. She was found yesterday and had been dead two days.” She made herself breathe, made herself focus on the rest of the article. Please, don’t be Bailey. Be too short or too tall. Be a brunette or a redhead, just don’t be Bailey. But as she read, her pounding heart began to race. “Meredith.” She looked up, panic shooting like a geyser. “This woman was wrapped in a brown blanket.”