Chapter Thirty-Five
Gena paced Jesse’s living room, stopping to glare at her phone, before she picked up her pace again. She ignored the two men sitting on the couch, impatiently waiting for news on Jase and Delucci’s interview with Leigh Walker.
“Pacing isn’t going to solve anything,” Jake said from where he sat on the couch, watching her bemusedly.
She shot him a withering glare, turning to shoot daggers at Ben when he snorted. “Don’t you two have anything better to do than annoy me?” she snapped, glaring at her phone again.
“No. Stephanie is safely ensconced in this house, so we’ve got nothing but time on our hands,” Jake said, his lips curving into a smile.
“Where’s your marine buddy, what’s his name?” she asked, trying to ignore her rapidly beating heart at Jake’s heated smile.
“Rafe?” Jake asked, fully aware of the woman in front of him. Even in her usual gear of a pair of jeans, singlet top, black bomber jacket and boots, Gena still looked beautiful to him.
Shrugging, he drawled, “He’s doing a radius check. You know, making sure your pesky serial killer isn’t lurking.”
He grinned at Gena’s scowl. He enjoyed baiting her. She got sucked in every time. His grin widened as he met her gaze head on, only tearing his eyes away from her when Stephanie strode into the room. Chuckling to himself, he wondered if anyone had ever told Stephanie she walked like she was on a mission.
She never failed to leave him breathless with her energy. She was a dynamo who never stopped. In the whole time he’d known her, he had never seen her sit still for longer than five minutes. It wasn’t who she was. Dominic used to call her his pocket rocket. He’d always wondered how Dominic had survived being married to her. His smile fading, his thoughts turned to Dominic Delaney. His friend had been the best thing to happen to Stephanie. He had kept her centered.
He wondered who would keep her centered from now on. Looking to where Jesse lay on the couch reading Great Expectations, he knew it wouldn’t be his brother. As much as Jesse loved Stephanie, he had never been able to hold onto her.
He laughed out loud when Stephanie burst out breathlessly, “I hit the jackpot.” He could see the excitement coursing through her body.
“You hit the jackpot?” Jesse asked cautiously, lying his open book, face down, on his chest and looking at Stephanie.
Stephanie nodded excitedly, missing the way Jesse tensed up. She smiled at him in amusement. “No offense to the intelligence in this room, but some men were born morons. And, it turns out my soon to be ex-husband is their king.”
“Which part of let the L.A.P.D handle this didn’t you understand this time? You need to stay away from Leigh Walker. This means no poking into our investigation. It means doing absolutely nothing. The man is trouble, and God knows you attract more trouble than anyone I’ve ever known. Stay away from him, Stephanie. You’ve pressed assault charges against him. He’s clearly been stalking you. It gives us the right to dig into his past. So do us all a favor and let us do our job,” Gena groaned.
Smirking, Stephanie walked over to where Gena stood, dangling a piece of paper underneath her nose. “Since you’re clearly not part of this investigation, Gena, why don’t you let me tell you what I found,” she pressed.
Gena blew out a frustrated sigh. “If I say no, will you forget about Walker and let me concentrate on him?” She scowled at Stephanie, who stood tapping her foot impatiently. “I didn’t think so. I just know I’m going to regret asking this, but what have you found?” she asked resignedly, not surprised to see Stephanie practically humming with excitement.
She rolled her eyes when Stephanie darted gracefully towards the couch and sat comfortably beside Ben and Jake, tucking one slim leg underneath her. “Leigh mentioned he followed me to England, which made me believe he used to live in L.A. I don’t know why he chose to pick me or what triggered his obsession with me,” Stephanie said quietly, pausing to glance from Ben to Jake and then to Gena from beneath swept eyelashes. “It is an obsession, not love. You don’t pretend to be someone you’re not if you really love someone. You’re completely honest with them from the start. You don’t follow them to another country under the pretense you don’t know who they are.”
Lifting her hand up to her cheekbone, she fingered the bruise carefully. “You certainly don’t hit the very person you profess to love so passionately.”
Ben gently removed Stephanie’s hand away from her face, interlinking his fingers with hers and brushing his lips across her palm. “No babe, you certainly don’t,” he said huskily, ignoring Gena’s snort of disgust and Jake’s smile of understanding. Clearing his throat, he said softly, “What did you find out about Leigh?”
Stephanie smiled radiantly at Ben, before turning and giving Gena the same smile. “Leigh used to live here in L.A. My source told me he actually still owns an apartment off Wilshire Boulevard.”
Gena’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You have an address already? Just who the hell are your sources, Stephanie?”
Stephanie laughed softly. “Now Gena, you know I never reveal my sources to anyone. It’s why they are still my sources. I’m waiting to find out what else he can dig up for me about Leigh. I want to know everything I possibly can about this bastard. I still don’t think he’s a killer, but he’s not exactly a saint, either.”
“I’m not going to agree with you about his not being a killer. I don’t know him enough to make that judgment. I’ll let the investigation tell us what he is. Personally, I’m not sure you know him well enough to say so either,” Gena said. She held her hand out in front of her. “I’m going to want that address from you, though.”
She could almost smell the adrenaline pumping through the air, and felt the edges of her lips twitching into a smile. Stephanie might not be ready to admit it to herself, but this was where she belonged. In the time she’d been back, her killer instincts had kicked in and she was throwing herself back into her old life.
Gena would never understand why Stephanie chose to walk away from so much of her life, not just Dominic but also her work as a crime reporter. She’d obviously loved her job. She thrived on it. The thrill of the chase excited her, almost as much as the plowing through the evidence and the facts. At one time, Gena had even been tempted to suggest to Stephanie she should be a profiler. Knowing how deeply Stephanie immersed herself in her work, she was glad she hadn’t.
Shaking her head again, her lips quirked into a smile, some things were never going to change and Stephanie’s way of pushing herself, and everyone else to their limits, was one of them. Stephanie leaned over, holding out a folded piece of paper to her. Unfolding it, her smile widened at the almost unreadable scrawl. No, something’s didn’t change at all.
“This would read...?” she asked, grinning widely at Stephanie’s mock scowl. “1866 Wilshire Boulevard, Venice,” Stephanie replied, her own lips twitching into a smile. “My writing’s not that bad, smartass.”
“Stephanie, a two-year-old could print better than you could,” she retorted, laughter in her voice. The laughter died when her phone rang. Holding up her hand for silence, she quickly answered it, “Evans.”
***
Cynthia Mallory watched her captor enter the room, squeezing her eyes shut at the sight of the knife in his hand. He was going to kill her. She knew it. How long had she been here? How long had she been in this hell? It felt like weeks but she knew it was possibly only days.
Torture after torture he had inflicted on her bruised and battered body. Hour after hour, he raped her. He had cut her. He had taken photos of her. He had done unspeakable things to her, things she couldn’t bear to remember. Squeezing her eyes tighter, she tried to block out the dark memories flooding her mind.
He was mad; certifiably mad and extremely unpredictable. One minute he was torturing her, hurting her and the next he was touching her, stroking her like a lover. She opened her eyes, almost afraid of what she would see when she did. He hadn’t brought
anyone else here. If there were other victims, she had not heard them. The only screams she’d heard recently were her own.
Adjusting her eyes to the darkness, she bit back a sob when she saw him standing in front of her, watching. He was always watching. Watching and waiting. She never knew when he would strike or how. She just knew it would happen.
His face was covered again in the death mask he always wore. Only once had she seen him without his mask. Once while he had been raping her, she’d managed to tear the mask off him. She gulped convulsively, not wanting to think about it. He’d been so furious, and she’d been terrified of what he’d do. He had brutally punished her and warned her to never do it again. She’d been too scared to try.
He had raped her repeatedly with a foreign object, beaten her until she was black and blue and then tended to her wounds. Sometimes she wasn’t sure he even knew what was happening. Sometimes he was so completely unhinged and dangerously unpredictable and at other times he had such a strong grip on reality.
She gulped. He was still watching her. God, she hated it when he did. When he watched her at night, she would pretend to be asleep, hoping he would leave her alone. Petrified of what would happen to her next. The torture would start at either extremes of the scale. He would be extremely violent to begin with or tender. It always ended the same. Broken and battered, she would be lying in his arms, with him whispering the same name over. Stephanie.
She flinched when he flicked the knife over the rope binding her wrists and legs together. “Please,” she whispered between cracked lips. Her hands remained together, clasped in the form of a prayer, as she fell to her knees. Leaning over her, he tucked two fingers underneath her chin, roughly lifting her bowed head so she could meet his stare. She inwardly shuddered. She’d learned to control her reactions in front of him. He enjoyed her pain too much. It turned him on.
Meeting his gaze, she stared into the flat eyes and wondered if the man had a conscience or a soul. After everything he had done to her, she didn’t believe he did. He was evil in its purest form.
“Please what?” he asked gravelly, his grip on her chin tightening painfully.
“Kill me now,” she said, her voice shaking with terror.
“Kill you? What on earth makes you think I’m going to kill you?” he said, laughing cruelly. “Today is your lucky day, Dr. Mallory. You get to live.”
“Thank God,” she whispered brokenly, lifting her head to the sky. She gasped when he yanked her by the hair, pulling her tightly to him.
“Your God has nothing to do with it,” he spat, stroking her cheek roughly. “You get to live but first I’m going to make sure you never forget me,” he whispered, flicking the knife open and using it to trail a bloodied path down her arm.
***
The woman sat at the kitchen table, her fingers convulsing into fists. She studied the newspaper in front of her. Unable to speak, she bit back a sob. She shoved one of her first into her mouth in horror.
“My God. The poor woman,” she whispered brokenly, staring at the photograph accompanying the newspaper article she’d been reading. Tears blurred her vision, and she quickly wiped them away.
Placing her palms facedown onto the table, almost as if to steady herself, she took uneven gasps. “What did I do? Oh my God, what did I do?” she choked out, her bottom lip trembling.
Tearing her eyes away from the newspaper article, she stood and moved with shaking legs towards the telephone. Taking the telephone off its cradle, she paused before putting it back down again. She broke into another sob, shaking her head. No, she couldn’t do it. She had disappeared so she would be safe. If she told the police what she knew, he would kill her. She was terrified of him.
Sighing deeply, she shook her head again. She couldn’t be a coward. She couldn’t let him harm all these women. She needed to be strong and suffer the consequences. She was at least guilty for one of the deaths, even if it was only by association. She hadn’t known what he was really like; she hadn’t known he was using her. All he’d wanted was information so he could destroy that beautiful actress.
She had been so stupid. She’d thought he was interested in her work, in her. She hadn’t thought anything of it when she told him Carolyn Mathers was coming back to Los Angeles. She had wanted to impress him so badly with her inside information.
Looking down at the newspaper article titled Actress Slain, she exhaled. She touched the photo with trembling hands. “God, I am so sorry.”
Moving back towards the telephone, she picked it up with trembling hands and walked back to the kitchen table. Sitting down, she dialed the number attached to the newspaper article. Waiting for an answer, she said softly, “Detective Barton? This is Barbara Madden.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Gena walked into Homicide, resisting the urge to run. Jase had called her, telling her to come down immediately to the Precinct. The urgency in his voice, mixed with excitement told her they’d caught a break in the murders. Her whole body buzzed with excitement at the prospect of any new information, no matter how small. It was better than the dead end they were constantly coming up against.
Rapping her knuckles on Delucci’s office door, she entered, not waiting for a response from Delucci. “What do we have?” she asked breathlessly, excitement dancing in her eyes.
“Leigh Walker. That’s what we have,” Delucci said smugly, leaning back in his chair.
Gena nodded slowly, waiting for more information. When Delucci said nothing more, she pressed forward. “What do we have on him?”
“What don’t we have on him is more like it,” he grunted.
Gena scowled in annoyance, wishing Delucci wasn’t being so cryptic. “Are you going to tell me Frank, or just make me guess?” she snapped, glaring from him to where Jase sat on the edge of Delucci’s desk watching her.
“He’s in the system, Gena,” Jase said, smiling at her. “He was charged with battery and assault about eight years ago. Walker’s girlfriend pressed charges against him for trying to strangle her during a domestic argument, but then suddenly dropped the charges.”
Gena leaned against the door, running a hand through her hair. “Why the hell doesn’t this surprise me? I guess you know about his apartment on Wilshire Boulevard?”
Jase and Delucci looked at her, surprise on their faces. “He has an apartment here?” Delucci asked, his eyes narrowing with interest.
Gena nodded, handling Delucci the slip of paper Stephanie had given her. “The bastard is from L.A. He was born and raised here. I think Stephanie was right. I think he followed her to England with the intention of making her fall in love with him.” Shuddering, she said, “I’d hate to think what would have happened to her if she hadn’t fallen for him, or just how far he would have gone to integrate himself into her life.”
“You’ve done your research already Evans. Nice work,” Delucci complimented her.
“I wish it was my research, but I can’t take the credit for it,” she admitted, grinning at Jase’s look of disgust.
“Stephanie,” Jase groaned, running a hand through his dirty blonde hair.
Gena nodded with a grin. “She did a little digging and called a few friends. They helped her find the apartment.”
“You don’t think she’ll do anything stupid do you? I don’t want her anywhere near Walker’s damn apartment until we’ve searched every inch of it,” Delucci growled, frown lines furrowing his forehead.
Gena laughed softly. “I left explicit instructions with Jake to shoot her kneecaps if she even tries to leave the house. I don’t think she’s ready to face what she could find there. She can’t believe Walker could be behind all of these murders.” Looking at Delucci she asked, “Are we looking to pin him for this?”
“Gena, there’s a possibility he may behind the murders,” Jase said quietly.
“You found something else?” Gena said, her voice sharpening with excitement.
“Stephanie gave me permission to photocopy every piece of
information she’d kept on Katrina Andrews’ murder and the other crimes she’d followed and linked to Katrina’s murder. I brought it down to show Frank,” Jase paused, shaking his head. “Frank dug up the original file of the Katrina Andrews’ murder. It was pretty damn useless- about four pages of information. None of which, could tell us anything more than what Stephanie already had.”
Pausing, Jase turned towards Devlin. “You want to tell her what we did find though?”
Delucci nodded. He smiled at Gena, the smile not quite reaching his eyes. “While we didn’t find any other clues as to why Katrina Andrews was murdered, we did find a suspect list and you’ll never guess who was on the top of the list.”
“Walker?” Gena breathed, shaking her head in disbelief. “He was a suspect?”
“Not just a suspect, Gena, he was their prime suspect. And, here’s the kicker, he was her god damn ex-boyfriend,” Jase said.
“Was there proof he was her killer?” Gena asked, fear clawing her stomach.
“He had motive. Katrina Andrews had just ended their relationship. According to friends of Andrews, Walker was quite the possessive boyfriend, always wanting to know who she was with and where she was,” Delucci answered.
Jase nodded in agreement. “There’s more, Gena. After Katrina Andrews murder, one of her friends came forward to make a statement. She believed Walker was obsessed with Stephanie. He made Katrina dress like her. She believed Stephanie was his intended victim. She was convinced Walker was Katrina’s killer. She also stated Katrina was terrified of him. It wasn’t just one friend convinced Walker was her killer. The same statement was made by everyone who was questioned.”
Gena took an uneven breath. “What about Stephanie? What did she say?”
“No. She said she didn’t even know Katrina had a boyfriend and if so, she’d never met him,” Jase admitted.
Nowhere to Run (Stephanie Carovella) Page 27