Kera didn’t know what to say. She took a long a drink of soda. It seemed a little bitter on the back of her tongue. She thought the soft drink must be reacting with the garlic chicken she’d had for dinner. After a moment she said, “Most people discover that it’s best not to think too much about their parents’ sex lives.”
Rachel laughed, a short harsh sound. “Good advice.” She leaned forward more intently now. “What did you and Nicole talk about?”
“That’s confidential. But I think you know she shared some of your concerns.”
“You mean about what would happen to her if she got caught?” Rachel’s eyes held the flicker of anger again.
Kera felt her forehead pucker into a frown, then forced her face to relax. “Is that what you’re worried about, Rachel?”
“Of course.” Her expression turned mean. “My parents like to punish sinners.”
Kera got goose bumps on her arms. Was this poor girl abused? She felt a lump rise in her throat, so she gulped another drink of soda to wash it down. The taste was worse this time. She pushed it aside.
“I hope this isn’t out of line,” she said, “but do they abuse you? I can give you the name of a lawyer who can help.”
Rachel closed her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t need a lawyer.”
“They beat her,” Angel said softly.
“Shut up, Angel.”
Fear crept into Kera’s bones. Rachel was an abused and angry young girl, but she was not here for help. Kera rose, anxious to terminate the conversation and get them out of her home. For a moment, she felt a little light headed and had to steady herself. “Let me get you the phone numbers of people and agencies you can call to report your situation.”
Kera started to head for the Rolodex in her office, but Rachel’s screech stopped her cold. “I don’t want you to report my situation. I want you to stay out of my business!”
Kera turned back, feeling frightened and spacey at the same time. “It’s your choice. Will you excuse me, please? I don’t feel well.” Kera took a step toward the front door, hoping the girls would get up and follow.
They didn’t move.
She stood there for a moment, then felt like she had to sit back down. Her brain was mushy, and her legs felt as if she had just run five miles. Had she overdone it on the elliptical machine? Kera staggered back to her chair and flopped into it. What was wrong with her?
Rachel and Angel just sat there watching her, as if waiting for something.
And then the fear she had felt earlier took shape, and its newly formed fingers circled her heart. These girls had drugged her drink. They were here to harm her. Dear God, why?
Kera struggled to make sense of it, but her brain worked slowly. Rachel was clearly angry that Kera had been on the website and knew about the sex club. But what was she afraid of? That Kera would tell her abusive parents?
Now, even her heartbeat felt slow. Kera looked around for her cell phone. She needed to call for help. She needed Jackson.
“What did you put in my soda?” The words came out in a slog of syllables.
“Just something to help you relax.” Rachel smiled, and Kera felt a chill run up her spine.
“Why?”
“It’s easier this way.”
Rachel’s casual confidence sent shocks of panic through Kera’s torso. Rachel and Angel had done this before. The adrenaline surging in her veins cleared her brain enough to make the connection that these girls may have killed both Jessie and Nicole to keep them from talking about the sex club’s activities. And now they planned to kill her too.
She had to get out, to make a run for it before the drug immobilized her completely.
7:35 p.m.
Ruth had just checked her watch when Detective Jackson burst into the small sanctuary in the church basement and interrupted the women’s Bible study. They were reading First Corinthians Chapter 11, about women’s roles in church and why their heads should be covered.
Ruth glanced back at him. With his dark suit, eyebrow scar, and short-cropped hair, Jackson looked like an FBI agent. But his insistence on harassing church people gave Ruth little confidence that he would ever find who killed Jessie and Nicole.
“Excuse me,” he called from the back of the room. “I’d like to speak with Ruth Greiner and Eva Strickland, please.” Some of worshippers turned to look at the detective. Most glanced at Ruth and Eva. Ruth felt a great wave of anger travel from her heart to her head, where it threatened to burst out. She had plans! She had to make that phone call to Kollmorgan in exactly twenty-one minutes. For Kollmorgan to die, she had to be in or near her car at eight o’clock.
But Ruth rose calmly, ignored the glances from her friends, and moved to the top of the sanctuary where Jackson stood, hands on hips, waiting.
“Where are Rachel and Angel?” he asked, not bothering with pleasantries.
“Rachel’s home with a stomachache,” Ruth answered, letting her irritation show. “Let’s step out into the vestibule.”
As they moved through the door, all eyes on their backs, Jackson said, “She’s not home. My partner was just there.” The detective turned to Eva. “No one is home at your place either.”
Ruth’s rage pulsed in her temples, causing little flashes of light under her eyelids. Rachel was in so much trouble. Why wouldn’t that girl learn? Ruth needed an Ativan. Eva looked at her with panicked eyes. Neither said a word.
“Do you have any idea where your daughters are?” Jackson demanded. “I need to talk to them right now.”
“What is this about?” Eva gripped her Bible for support.
“It’s a homicide investigation. Where are they?”
Ruth really didn’t like this man. “I’m not sure. Perhaps they’re with a mutual friend.”
“Who?”
Ruth started to say “Nicole,” but sadly, that couldn’t be true. “I don’t know. They’ve lost two of their close friends recently. They’re still grieving.”
Eva’s face crumpled. “What if they’ve been abducted? Like Nicole and Jessie? Oh my God. I should have never let Angel stay home by herself.”
The detective touched Eva’s arm. “I don’t think they’ve been abducted. In fact, I think the girls may have taken your minivan. It’s not in the driveway.”
Eva gasped. “They wouldn’t. Angel only has a learner’s permit.”
“Help me out here,” Jackson pleaded. “Where would they be?”
“Wherever it is,” Ruth said dryly, “I imagine they plan to get home before we do. So be patient, detective, they’ll show up soon.” And get their butts beaten, Ruth thought. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a Bible study waiting for me.”
Ruth walked down the hall toward the restroom instead. The pale green walls and pink floral trim annoyed her. She preferred subtle, neutral tones. Ruth stepped into a stall and checked her watch: 7:45. She had ten minutes. She pulled a small pill bottle out of the zipped compartment in her purse and shook a tiny Ativan tablet into her hand. She put the pill under her tongue to dissolve directly into her bloodstream. She needed to be calm for this next phase of the operation. And she needed to be calm later, when she confronted Rachel about this nonsense, whatever it was.
Ruth left the bathroom, moving purposefully. She trotted up the stairs to the main lobby. Detective Jackson was nowhere in sight. Excellent. She pushed out the double doors and hurried down the wide front steps. Halfway across the parking lot, she picked up her pace. She could see the bright lights of the 7-Eleven store across the street. The two quarters she needed for the call were in her hand, and the number was in her head: 342-5597. She mentally searched the Bible for strength from God’s words and found them in Matthew Chapter 18:
Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
Blown to smithereens would work just as well.
Chapter 42
7:4
5 p.m.
Jackson sat in his Impala in the church parking lot making phone calls. The first was to Evans. “Stay at the Greiners’ house. Ruth Greiner says Rachel will come home before Bible study is over.”
“They’re out joy riding in the Stricklands’ van while their parents are in church?”
“So it seems. Stay in touch.”
Jackson called the other team members: Schak had picked up Greg Miller and was headed down to the department, and McCray was currently at the Jahn home. “Find Adam Walsh too, if you can,” Jackson said. “Evans and I will be there as soon as we locate the girls.”
Where could they be? Jackson wondered, as he started the car. He hated the idea of just sitting in front of the Stricklands’ waiting for Angel to come home. He wanted to keep moving. The fact that the girls were together somewhere right this moment, and no one knew exactly where, gave him a bad feeling. He was starting to think they may have acted alone to kill Nicole and make it look similar to Jessie’s death. Maybe Greg, Tyler, and Adam were just horny adolescents, not killers. But if that was the case, was anyone else in danger?
He pulled out of the church parking lot and turned left onto a quiet 18th Street. Then it occurred to him that the only other person who knew about the sex club was Kera. Jackson glanced over at the 7-Eleven parking lot out of habit. The convenience stores were famous for drug deals. He noticed a short woman standing at the pay phone. It was Ruth Greiner. How odd, he thought. Jackson almost circled back to see what she was up to, then decided the growing panic in his gut was more important.
Kera not only knew about the sex club, she had access to the girls’ clinic records. She knew about the VD, the birth control, and possible pregnancies. And both Jessie and Nicole had contacted her. That might make Angel and Rachel very nervous.
Jackson decided to stop by Kera’s and check on her again.
7:47 p.m.
Kera thought her best chance of getting outside and away was to throw the girls off guard. If she had not been drugged, she would have simply plowed right through them if they had tried to stop her. She’d grown up playing football with the boys in the commune and had taken self-defense classes in college. But the drug not only made her mind mushy, it made her muscles weak and her reactions slow. She didn’t know if she could run. She thought it must be a tranquilizer similar to what was used in the ER to calm hysterical and violent patients.
“Why did you kill Jessie and Nicole?” Kera struggled with each word.
“We didn’t kill Jessie,” Rachel said, rather defensively. “The mayor did. Don’t you read the paper?”
“But why Nicole?” Kera asked.
Rachel shook her head. “Nicole was mixed up and unhappy. Let’s just say she laid down her life for her friends.” Rachel turned to Angel. “Get a bag from the kitchen. We have to make it look like the others. Hurry.”
A bag? They were going to suffocate her? Kera felt sick. With blurry vision, she watched Angel as she ran into the kitchen. Now, she told herself. Now or never.
With every bit of strength she could muster, Kera propelled herself out of the chair and toward the front door. She staggered across the living room like a blurry-eyed drunk, knowing the way from memory. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Rachel jump up and come after her. Kera tried to keep moving, but her legs buckled. She stumbled, caught herself, and lunged for the front door, landing on her knees.
It was locked. Shit!
Mean hands tangled in her hair and yanked her back. The pain was intense, but she was too drugged to scream. She swung wildly with her elbows but caught nothing but air.
“You don’t need to do this,” she mumbled. “Your secret’s safe.”
She tried to pull away, but the pain in her scalp brought tears to her eyes. Another pair of hands cinched down in her hair. Her head was spinning, and she thought she would vomit. It enraged her that they had attacked her from behind. Kera wanted to see their faces, to force them to look her in the eye.
She twisted and yanked and tried to turn herself around so she could use her arms to swing at them, but she only managed to lose a few clumps of hair. Rachel was standing on the backs of her calves. Kera heard a crinkling plastic sound, then a bag came down over her head. The loss of air sent a new wave of adrenaline rushing through her torso. In one great push, she lunged to her feet.
At that moment, Kera’s cell phone rang. Perched on the half wall in the foyer, about a foot from where she fought for her life, it played a short crappy version of Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd. The sound was so startling, they all froze for a split second. Kera seized the moment to grab the top of the plastic bag and yank it off her head. As she lunged for the doorknob, Rachel leaped on her back. Kera ignored the weight and tried to unlock the door. Rachel had one arm around her eyes and the other arm around her neck, pressing into her throat.
Kera knew the door handle well, and even without her sight, she managed to unlock it and pull it open. Before she could scream for help, Rachel’s hand was over her mouth.
“Dammit Angel, help me,” Rachel yelled at her friend.
Kera tried to bite her hand but couldn’t get at it.
On weak legs, she staggered out the door, down the three steps, and onto the wet lawn. Rachel still clung to her back like an angry child. Kera’s brain kept attempting to shut down, and she thought it was only a matter of moments before she would pass out.
She lurched forward across the grass, each step threatening to bring her down. Her head swam, and her eyes kept closing. She stepped on a sprinkler, lost her footing, and stumbled to her knees. The sudden pitch downward sent Rachel flying off. Through blurry vision, Kera saw the girl land near the driveway, about three feet from her car. Rachel cried out in pain as she hit the cement.
Without the girl’s weight, Kera was able to climb to her feet. Holding her head in her hands—because it felt as if it might fall off—she staggered diagonally across the lawn, moving away from Rachel. As she reached the edge of the sidewalk, she glanced back. Angel stood in the doorway, illuminated by the porch light, her eyes darting from Rachel to Kera. Rachel was in the shadows by Kera’s Saturn. The girl was struggling to stand up.
Just as Kera started to turn away, her Saturn exploded.
In a nanosecond, the passenger door blew off and smashed into Rachel. The windows shattered and scattered into a hundred flying pieces, and a bright orange fireball blew straight up into the air. Before Kera had a chance to cover her face, the blast knocked her to the ground. A chunk of metal landed on her leg, and right before she lost consciousness, she sensed that her ears were bleeding.
Chapter 43
8:04 p.m.
Up ahead, in the curve of the road, Jackson watched a middle-aged couple dash across McLean Street. To his left, an old woman stood on her front lawn in her pajamas, staring up the road toward Kera’s house. What in the hell was going on?
As he cruised to a stop in front of Kera’s home, Jackson scanned the scene and tried to take it all in. A young girl sat in the middle of the yard, rocking and wailing. Parts of Kera’s vehicle were scattered in a fifteen-foot radius while the remains of the frame smoldered in a shattered heap in the driveway. One of the car’s doors was splayed on the lawn, still intact, with a leg sticking out from under it. A woman lay on the sidewalk about twenty feet from the explosion.
The couple who had run across the street went in different directions. The man rushed to the girl on the lawn, and the woman moved to the prone figure on the sidewalk. Instinctively, Jackson reached for his radio. “Dispatch, this is Detective Jackson. There’s been an explosion at 3245 McLean. Several people are injured.”
“Medics and patrol units are already on the way. A neighbor called it in two minutes ago.”
“Great. Call Detective Quince and Agent Fouts and get them out here ASAP.”
He shut off the Impala and jumped out. Without making a conscious decision to do so, he moved toward the woman on the sidewalk. The long braid told him it was Kera.
The neighbor woman pushed a chunk of metal off Kera’s leg, revealing purple warm up pants. Her feet had black socks and no shoes. The questions flashed in his brain in split second intervals. Had she been in the yard when the bomb went off? Why had she gone outside in her socks?
“Is she breathing?” Jackson yelled, moving to kneel down on Kera’s other side.
“I don’t know.” The neighbor looked up at him, her face pinched with concern. “I don’t see any blood, though.”
Fear hit him like a sneaker wave. It knocked him down and sucked him under for a moment. Jackson fought desperately to control the emotions that gripped him. He swallowed hard before he could speak. “Kera! Can you hear me? Kera!”
She opened her eyes. They fluttered, then closed again.
She was alive! He leaned over her face and listened for breath sounds. Ragged but steady.
“She’s breathing.”
Then he saw Kera’s lips moving. No sound came out, but she was trying to talk. Jackson put his ear next to her mouth. At first, it sounded like “uh,” then he realized she was saying “drug.”
Oh shit. “I think she’s saying she’s been drugged,” he told the neighbor. “We have to make sure the paramedics know that. She probably needs her stomach pumped. If she starts to vomit, roll her on her side. Stay with her and talk to her until the ambulance arrives.”
Jackson would never forgive himself for not protecting her better. Where were the patrol units he’d assigned to cruise by? Jackson forced himself to push to his feet and move away from Kera to check on the others. He had to side-step twisted debris to get to the young girl in the middle of the yard. It was Angel Strickland. She looked older than he remembered from two nights ago when he’d questioned her. Her face was streaked with mascara, and she was clearly distraught. But physically, she seemed uninjured. The male half of the neighbor couple was on his knees with his arm around Angel telling her that everything would be okay. Jackson sincerely doubted that.
Detective Wade Jackson Mystery - 01 - The Sex Club Page 30