by T. R. Ragan
Had Kylie gotten home right before someone knocked on the door?
If the person didn’t have a key card, Kylie would have had to buzz them through, which meant Kylie would have been alerted. That told Sawyer that her killer had to have been someone Kylie knew. Maybe the killer had come home with her.
Another picture revealed a book on the floor. It had fallen on its spine, the pages open so that she was able to read the title page.
Hunted: A Jacqueline Carter Novel, signed by the author: “Kylie, the next drink is on me. Waylan Gage.”
Sawyer had heard of Gage. After writing for years, all the while struggling with depression and alcoholism, he’d managed to hit all the bestseller lists with Hunted.
She pulled out her phone and searched the internet for his name, then clicked on his website. The first thing that popped up was a list of dates and the cities he would be visiting during his latest book tour.
He’d already been to the Convention Center in Sacramento. She looked at the date and saw that he’d been at the convention, signing books on the same day that Kylie was murdered.
It was too late to call Palmer, but she would definitely tell him what she knew the next time she talked to him.
Her gaze shifted to the broken frame and the black-and-white photo on the floor next to the book. She zoomed in on the man in the picture, then clicked through the pictures until she found the one she’d taken of the man sitting in his truck in the parking lot. The young man in the black-and-white photo was definitely the same guy she’d seen crying.
Tired, she put her phone, along with the camera, back inside her bag, grabbed her sweatpants and T-shirt, and changed her clothes. She took her toiletries to the bathroom down the hall and brushed her teeth and washed her face.
Back in the bedroom, she shut off the light, climbed under the clean sheets, and rested her head on the pillow. Who had killed Kylie Hartford?
The boyfriend seemed the obvious culprit—too obvious. According to the neighbor, he’d spent more time in Kylie’s apartment than she had. If that were true, wouldn’t he have had time to plan? Judging by the photos, Sawyer would say this was a disorganized killing. From the looks of it, Kylie had been caught completely off guard. Would a distraught boyfriend have chased after her in a thin-walled apartment where people had seen him come and go?
As she lay there, thinking about Kylie’s last moments, unfamiliar noises drifted through the dark: a thump, a creak, footsteps? Her gaze sifted through moonlit shadows and landed on the doorknob. There was no lock on the door.
Was the knob moving, or was that her imagination?
To hell with it.
She pushed the covers off and got up, walked quietly across the room, and yanked open the door. She looked both ways.
Nobody was there. She inhaled.
After she closed the door, she picked up the chair with the Raggedy Ann doll and slid its wooden back under the knob. Satisfied that it would hold if someone tried to enter, she climbed back into bed, closed her eyes, and began counting backward from one hundred.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Fuck!” Malice said loud enough for everyone connected to the call to hear her.
“What happened?” Psycho asked.
“I was sitting in my car, waiting for Cleo to tase the son of a bitch so I could help her get him into the trunk. But she passed out, literally collapsed into his arms.”
“What now?” Psycho wanted to know.
Malice watched Brad Vicente’s BMW pull out of the parking lot. They had to act quickly. “Lily, are you there?”
“I’m here.”
Malice could only pray that the man was heading home. And if anyone knew the answer to her question, it would be Lily. “We need an address. Where does Brad Vicente live?”
“Fifteen hundred Nineteenth Street, Sacramento. Midtown. There are three entrances. One upstairs, two downstairs.”
Malice plugged the address into the navigation app.
“That area is usually crowded around this time,” Lily said. “When you arrive at the house, keep your head down, face covered. Parking might be difficult to—”
“I’m a block from the house,” Bug told the group.
“How did you manage that?” Psycho asked.
“My night off, remember? Lucky for Cleo, I was waiting for a friend at Shady Lady, which happens to be right around the corner, when Malice called. I can see Brad’s house from here. I’m going around back.”
“Be careful.”
“Always.”
Malice found a parking spot on Twentieth. She checked her phone. There was a text from Bug: I’M HIDING IN A CLOSET DOWNSTAIRS. SOUNDS LIKE HE ENTERED THE HOUSE THROUGH THE GARAGE. STAY PUT UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.
Malice wondered how Bug had gotten into the house so fast. Had she broken a window? Had anyone seen her? Their original plan had been to get Brad to Cleo’s car, tase him, and then take him to an abandoned warehouse ten miles away. It had seemed so clear and easy on paper.
But this was the real deal.
Her nerves were shot. Nothing was going right. They had no plan B. The pounding in her ears made it difficult to think. Every worst-case scenario imaginable was fucking with her mind. Her instincts screamed at her to call the police. Her friend could be in danger. But The Crew’s number one rule was “No police.” Because that would mean they would have to file a report. The police would ask for names and IDs.
No police.
She would stay put, as Bug suggested.
It was after 9:00 p.m. Hot as hell. Sweat trickled down her spine. A group of rowdy kids walked by, laughing, streams of smoke trailing behind—teenagers, their hormones working overtime. She didn’t want to think about what she’d been doing at that age. Definitely not hanging out with friends. And definitely not laughing.
A car drove past, music blaring. A couple walking their dog on the other side of the street stopped to stare at the teenagers across the way. Thirsty leaves hung from myriad branches of sycamore trees lining the street. Farther down the block, she spotted Psycho, tall and willowy, hard to miss. She made a sharp left into an alleyway.
Unable to sit still, Malice put a baseball cap over the black wig she’d been wearing for most of the night. The mask would draw attention, so she left it in her purse for now. Her wig felt tight and didn’t help her throbbing headache. She climbed out of the car and walked at a measured pace toward Brad’s house. Twelve and a half minutes had passed since receiving Bug’s last text. Then her phone buzzed: COME ON IN. BACK DOOR IS UNLOCKED.
Malice took another sweep of the area. Psycho was nowhere in sight. The couple and the teenagers were a good distance away as she stepped through a side gate. Trees and a tall wood fence covered in ivy made for lots of privacy. There was a patch of grass, and a stone path that led to a firepit surrounded by inviting outdoor furniture. The back door was ajar. After her mask was on, she pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The curtains on the windows straight ahead had been pulled shut. The lighting was dim. The room was a long rectangle. A pool table and a small built-in bar took up the space on one side of the room, and a couch, coffee table, and flat-screen TV took up the other side. Malice stood next to the couch. Somewhere close to the middle of the room, sprawled out on the floor, was Brad, wearing a button-down shirt and navy-blue boxer briefs, his wrists and ankles bound with duct tape to various pieces of furniture, including the legs of the pool table.
Psycho and Bug sat on two of three stools lining the bar. Behind them were glass shelves filled with neat rows of whiskey, bourbon, vodka, you name it.
Psycho had taken off her wig and eye mask. She greeted Malice with a nod.
Bug, twenty-seven, the youngest in the group, raised a cue stick. “Want to join us for a game of pool? I was about to rack the balls.”
Brad thrashed about. He’d been gagged and blindfolded, forced into a vulnerable situation, and he didn’t like it. He rocked his head maniacally back and forth, his face strawb
erry red from the effort.
Malice shut the door, locked it, then pulled her mask off. “Where’s Cleo?”
“Upstairs, sleeping off the drugs.” Bug used the cue stick to point to the laptop sitting on the bar. “I need a password.” Bug was the computer geek in the group, the hacker. During the day she worked for an antivirus company, stopping hackers like herself.
“How did you get him tied up so quickly?” Malice asked.
“I heard him going up and down the stairs. After he quieted, I made a noise. He came back downstairs. I tased him and he went down. Luckily for me, he had more than one roll of duct tape in the cupboards in the laundry room. That stuff comes in handy.” She smirked. “I think I did a good job under the circumstances.”
Malice checked the bindings holding Brad in place. She knelt low and leaned close to his ear. “No use struggling, Brad. If you want to make things easier on yourself, you’ll need to give us the password to your computer.”
Beneath the tape over his mouth, his roar was followed by a stream of words she couldn’t make sense of.
“We’re here to teach you a lesson,” Malice told him. “The quicker you cooperate, the sooner you’ll be released.”
“Look what I found hanging on the wall outside,” Psycho said.
Malice lifted an eyebrow. They had no plans to dismember Brad or do him any lasting bodily harm, but scaring him was definitely on the table. “Those pruning shears look sharp. What do you plan to cut off first?”
Brad was at it again, wriggling around, screaming beneath all the tape. He clenched and unclenched his fists, attempting to loosen the bindings around his wrists.
Malice stood and headed for the spiraling iron staircase leading upstairs. “I’m going to check on Cleo and take a look around, see what I can find. Could one of you let the others know we’ll be staying on schedule?”
“We’re going to stay here?” Bug asked.
“Yes. We need to stick to the plan.”
“What about neighbors, family, coworkers?”
Malice frowned. “What about them?”
“Somebody could stop by, ring the doorbell, call the police if they think something funny is going on.”
“Stop worrying,” Psycho told Bug. She pulled her phone from her pocket. “I’ll contact the others.”
Malice didn’t see The Crew members in person often. Psycho wore a tank top that revealed dozens of scars. Some were thicker than others, a mass of raised tissue. Others were shiny and red.
Psycho noticed her staring and said, “He did a good job of stitching me up, don’t you think?”
Malice said nothing. Upstairs, she found Cleo passed out on the king-size bed in the master bedroom. She found a strong pulse. “Cleo,” she said. “Wake up.”
Cleo stirred, moaned, but didn’t open her eyes.
Malice left the lights off as she made her way around the bedroom, opening drawers and searching through Brad’s things. He was neat and tidy, his socks in perfect rows. T-shirts and boxers all folded in perfect squares. Impressive.
“Where am I?”
Malice turned toward the bed. Cleo was sitting up and rubbing her eyes. “What happened?” Cleo asked. An expression of terror crossed her face suddenly, and she scrambled from the bed. “Where is he?”
“It’s okay. Bug was able to get to him before he could touch you.”
Every part of Cleo was shaking. “Fuck.”
Malice nodded.
“Is this his house?”
“Yes.”
“If he had taken me somewhere else—anywhere—I would have been literally and royally fucked.”
“But you weren’t. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay.” She clamped her head between her palms. Seconds passed before she looked at Malice. “Months of planning, texting that asshole, exchanging pictures, and flirting.” She shivered. “For what? He was in control the entire time.”
She’s right, Malice thought. Things could have turned out much worse than they had. Cleo had been lucky. Lily had told them exactly what Brad was capable of, and yet he’d still managed to get the upper hand.
Next time, things would be different.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sawyer climbed out of bed after tossing and turning for most of the night. The cold crept under her clothes and caused goose bumps to gather on her arms. She grabbed her sweatshirt from inside her bag and pulled it over her head. On her way to the kitchen, she smelled coffee brewing. Mom was putting away dishes.
“Good morning,” Sawyer said.
Mom gestured toward the cupboard. “Coffee cups are over there.”
Sawyer grabbed a mug on her way to the coffee machine, filled it up, and took a seat at the kitchen table. Since she wouldn’t be staying long, she knew the best way to move on from last night was to simply apologize. “Sorry I didn’t tell you what time I was coming yesterday.”
“Today’s a new day,” Mom said in a chirpy voice. “It’s behind us.”
She’d forgotten about Mom’s favorite saying: “It’s a new day. Let bygones be bygones.”
A part of Sawyer felt bad for not trying harder to stay in touch with Mom and Dad. But it worked both ways, didn’t it? Was it solely her job to make the effort to connect? She thought of Harper and how she made sure to call Sawyer at least once a week. Their conversations were short, but it was nice being checked on. Harper was a good mom to her kids—a great mom. Since the day Sawyer found her sisters, it was Harper who’d gone out of her way to include her and make her feel welcome.
Mom finished with the dishes and was now collecting eggs and milk from the fridge. “How are your sisters?”
The question blindsided Sawyer. Mom rarely asked about Aria or Harper. They only talked about her sisters if Sawyer brought one or the other up in a conversation. “Aria is doing great. She works more than one job, which keeps her busy.” Sawyer sipped her coffee. “Three days a week at the SPCA and part-time at a coffeehouse for the health insurance. Every once in a while, she drives for one of those on-demand transportation companies.”
“That’s too bad,” Mom said without looking up from what she was doing. “I always thought Aria would be a doctor—you know, a veterinarian. She was the smart one out of you three.”
“And Harper,” Sawyer said, ignoring the impulse to tell her mom that she was also smart and had graduated with honors, “is a wonderful mom to your grandchildren.”
“But her children are probably old enough to do things on their own,” Mom pointed out. “What does Harper do in her free time?”
“Taking care of two kids and a husband is a full-time job when you do it right.”
Mom’s gaze tore into hers. “Is there some hidden meaning in that statement?”
“No,” Sawyer said, although there was. Being a good mother was a full-time job. Being a shitty one didn’t take much time at all.
Mom went back to whisking the eggs and milk. “And what about you?” Mom asked.
Sawyer perked up at the thought of her talk with Sean Palmer. With so much going on, she’d nearly forgotten. “I recently got a promotion. I’m working my first homicide.” She sighed. “Well, I will be when I return home.”
Mom’s face fell, her jaw slack. “Homicide?”
Sawyer nodded.
“I thought you wrote for a little local paper over there in that cow town?”
Here we go, Sawyer thought. Did Mom hate her life so much . . . or was there more to it than that? Either way, Sawyer decided to let it go. “It’s the biggest newspaper in the city, and I’ll be working in the investigative field under one of the most respected crime reporters in the country.”
Mom poured the egg mixture into a sizzling frying pan on the stove. “So you write about dead people?”
“Sure,” Sawyer said, already feeling a bit deflated. “I tell a story, let people in the community know what has happened so they can make informed decisions.”
Mom stirred the eggs. “As in?”
&nbs
p; “As in there is a killer running loose, so you might not want to let your young children roam freely without adult supervision.”
Silence strangled the air between them.
Sawyer wondered if Mom remembered doing just that? Letting her three daughters run around town alone, knowing that Peggy Myers and Avery James had been murdered? Did Mom ever feel any remorse whatsoever for not being there for her daughters when they needed her? Two young girls brutally murdered, and Sawyer had no recollection of her parents ever warning her to be careful. And what about Uncle Theo, Dad’s brother? Was Harper right when she said Mom and Dad knew exactly what went on under their own roof? Or would Mom go to her grave denying that anything horrid had ever happened in River Rock? A new day and all that bullshit.
“Hello, Theodore!” Mom said.
Sawyer’s body tensed as she glanced over her shoulder toward the kitchen entrance. Knowing her uncle had been released from prison was one thing, but seeing him inside the house where she’d grown up, where he’d abused her, was quite another. “What the hell is he doing here?”
“I didn’t know you were here,” her uncle said, his eyes on Sawyer.
He’d lost a lot of weight. His tattered clothes and scraggly goatee made him look as if he’d been living under a bridge. Sawyer’s hands shook, her insides jittery, as she met her uncle’s gaze. It wasn’t fear she felt, but rage. “I can’t believe you have the gall to step inside this house after everything you did. You’re a sick fucker.”
“I should go,” he said.
Sawyer stood. “Yes, you should.”
Mom clicked her tongue. “Don’t mind her,” she told Uncle Theo. “Stay and have some eggs and coffee with us.”
Sawyer looked at her Mom. “What is it with you? He was sent to prison for rape. Harper told me you know what this man did to me and to this family, and yet you allow him into your house and offer to feed him?” Heat flushed through her body. “Harper was right. You don’t care about your daughters. Today’s a new fucking day. Is that how the saying goes, Mom? Yesterday is behind us. Let it go?”