All her life her mother had gotten her way, cajoled and manipulated others to do her bidding. And when that hadn’t worked, she’d turned to deceit and outright lies.
Lexi and Alan had played right into her hands.
And they were still playing into her hands. Lexi didn’t want to give up her independence, her right to make her own decisions. But in a sense, she already had. Because as long as she kept pushing Alan away, she was letting her mother continue to wield her control.
She shook her head and released a heavy sigh. It was way too complicated. And tonight she was too tired to try to sort it all out.
Once again, she lowered her hands to the keyboard and began to play.
*
The small wooden building stood hemmed in between a tattoo parlor and a nail salon, little more than a hole in the wall. Music pulsed through the closed door and neon in the windows enticed patrons with a promise of the booze they would find inside. Across the mansard, more neon flashed the words Club Dynamo. Or more accurately, Club Dyna, since the last third of the word wasn’t lit.
Alan swung open the wooden door and paused, steeling himself against the onslaught to his senses. Lights strobed, reflecting off the smoke curling through the air, and the music, now unobstructed, reverberated through his rib cage.
Lexi leaned into him. “We should have come armed with earplugs.”
“Not a bad idea.” His voice was several decibels louder than normal. How people conversed in settings such as this, he’d never understand.
He wound his way toward the bar, past a dance floor filled to capacity with writhing bodies, then climbed onto a bar stool. Lexi took one next to him and laid a manila folder on the counter in front of her. Two bartenders moved back and forth, filling drink orders and chatting with patrons. One was blond, petite and pretty. And much too young to be their Lysandra. Likely a USF student, taking on the weekend shift to work her way through school.
The other was older and tougher looking, lacking the youthful innocence of the blonde. Her jet-black hair was cut short in a jagged, chopped style and highlighted with streaks of purple. Some kind of hair gel stiffened the uneven clumps, accentuating the unconventional cut.
Lexi nodded toward the older bartender and put her mouth close to Alan’s ear. “You think that’s our Lysandra?”
“I’m almost positive.”
The blonde looked over at them and held up a finger. After setting two drinks in front of a couple of ladies at the other end of the bar, she hurried in their direction.
“What can I get you folks?”
He smiled up at her. “Not that I don’t like you, but I was hoping to be served by Lysandra.”
“Not a problem.” She turned and shouted to her coworker halfway down the bar. “San, this one’s yours.”
Lysandra’s gaze drifted over the other patrons and came to rest on Alan. The friendly smile she had for her customers widened and she closed the distance between them. Even in the poor lighting, at close range, the heavy makeup did nothing to hide the creases that surrounded her mouth and marked the edges of her eyes. If she was thirty, those were some hard thirty years.
She stopped in front of him and leaned on the bar, mouth curved upward in invitation. “Hey, big boy, what can I get you?”
Lexi tensed next to him, almost imperceptibly. It might even have been his imagination. But he wasn’t imaging the prickly vibes she was sending out now. Maybe she felt something for him after all.
But this wasn’t the time to explore possibilities. They had finally found the elusive Lysandra. Now to get her to talk.
He returned her smile. “A Coke, and the same for the lady.”
One side of her mouth rose a little higher. “The hard stuff. Be back in a sec.”
She returned to set a glass in front of each of them.
Alan smiled up at her again. “You’re a hard lady to get hold of.”
“If I’d have known you were trying, I’d have made it a little easier.” She ran a painted nail along the back of one of his hands. Something told him she wouldn’t be nearly as friendly if he was in uniform.
He resisted the urge to pull his hand away. Shallow flirtiness had never appealed to him. Lexi’s genuine air was so much more refreshing. “My friend here has tried for the past three days to reach you, with no success. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to avoid us.”
She pulled away from the counter, back ramrod-straight and green eyes guarded. Distrust flashed in their depths, pushing aside all hint of the invitation that was there only moments earlier. She crossed her arms in front of her. “Jake’s trying to pin everything on me, isn’t he? Well, it’s not going to work, because I wasn’t there. I figured out he was trouble and was going to pull me down with him, so I dumped him.”
Alan nodded. “That was a wise choice. But Jake isn’t the reason we’re here.”
Her eyes widened slightly, but she didn’t speak.
Lexi went on to explain. “We have a serial killer stalking young women in Polk County. We’re pretty sure what he’s doing is retribution for something that happened ten years earlier. We have some names of the women who were involved. One, of course, is Lysandra. There was also Amber, Tiffany and Jeanie.”
Recognition flitted across her features. She knew the names. But she shook her head.
“I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”
“Look,” Lexi continued, “we just need to ask you a few questions, see what you can remember.”
Lysandra shook her head again. “I’m sorry, I don’t know any women by those names.”
Alan studied her. She was lying, and he knew it. He fished through the folder and pulled out a photo of the first victim. It wasn’t one of the earlier ones, with nothing more than some minor bruising. It was the last one, head cocked unnaturally to the side, bulging, lifeless eyes, discolored face and ugly brownish-red ring around the neck. This time he was going for shock value.
He slammed the photo face up on the counter. “Look, lady, young women are dying, and you might be able to stop it.”
Her gaze fell on the picture but didn’t stay there long. A nanosecond later she jerked away, lips turned out in revulsion. For several moments she stood, indecision set in her features.
Finally she cast a glance at her coworker. “Cover for me.”
After she came out from around the counter, she led them to a table in the corner, farthest from the massive speakers pumping their racket onto the dance floor. Not that it helped. There was probably no peace and quiet to be had within a three-block radius.
Lysandra slid into a chair, her expression somber. “Amber, Tiffany and Jeanie—we were all in the same sorority at Florida State.”
Lexi nodded. “Anyone you can think of who might have had a bone to pick with you ladies?”
Lysandra gave a dry laugh. “Yeah, a whole bunch of guys. Where do you want to start?”
“How about the why? Then we’ll get to the who.”
“It was all part of joining.”
“What was?” Alan asked.
“Using our feminine wiles to lure a guy into a really embarrassing situation.”
He nodded. Hazing was illegal. But that didn’t stop it from happening. Not by a long shot. “Do you remember the names of any of these guys?”
Lysandra thought for a moment. “Frank. I remember him, because he’s the one I set up.”
“What was Frank’s last name?”
“Thompson or Thomas, maybe Tomlin. I’m not good with names.”
Lexi made some notes on a blank sheet of paper in her folder. “Any others you can remember?”
“No, that’s it.”
Lexi continued, “So one of the requirements of getting into the sorority was to lure some unsuspecting guy into a compromising position. Then what?”
“Then we took pictures and plastered them all over campus. So the guys got a lot of ribbing.”
Alan’s pulse picked up and he cast Lexi a meaningful gl
ance. The killer’s photos weren’t trophies. They already knew that. But they weren’t for the purpose of publicity, either. They were for revenge. His tormenters had photographed him at his worst, so he photographed his victims at theirs.
He shifted his gaze back to Lysandra. “Any of those guys seem especially upset over your pranks?”
Lysandra shrugged. “Most of them took it in stride.”
“Most, but not all?”
For several moments Lysandra stared down at her hands clasped on the table. When her gaze again met his, it was intense, as if she had suddenly realized the import of what she had participated in.
She nodded slowly. “There was one. He didn’t laugh it off like the others.”
“How so?” Lexi asked.
“He was really angry, not like an explosive, blow-up-and-get-violent anger. More like a seething, beneath-the-surface anger that would simmer and stew until it would one day come out, cold and lethal. I avoided him as much as I could, because after that, he scared me. Any time we would pass each other on campus, he would stare me down.” An involuntary shudder shook her shoulders. “That was the last time I had any part in the hazing pranks.”
Lexi took a swig of her Coke. “Do you remember his name?”
Lysandra closed her eyes, her brows pulled together in concentration. “Gary, maybe? I don’t remember for sure, but I think it was Gary.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe he’s killing people over this.”
She once again lowered her gaze to her hands. “A few months after this, I was gang raped. I figured it was retribution for all the bad stuff I had done over my life. You know, karma.” Her gaze fluttered back up to meet Lexi’s. “I thought I had paid my dues, but apparently not.”
Lexi reached across the table and put her hand over Lysandra’s. “Don’t blame yourself. These deaths are the responsibility of the killer and no one else. But we’re asking you to help us catch him, before he kills again.”
“Tell me what I can do.”
“Give us the names of all your sisters who had any involvement in Gary’s prank.”
“There were about ten of us. I can give you the names, but I’ve lost touch with all of them. I only went to Florida State for a year.”
Yeah, they knew that. And they knew why. But there was no sense bringing it up now.
Lexi continued, “Do you have any photos?”
“Not of Gary. I think I still have some of my friends.”
“Can we see them?”
Lysandra nodded. “I live only two blocks from here. Let me get Josie to cover a few more minutes. Then I’ve got to get back to work.”
Alan followed Lysandra and Lexi out the door. This had been their most productive day yet. Not only did they have a motive, but they also had a first name.
And maybe somewhere in all that college memorabilia, there would be a photo that Lysandra had forgotten about.
A photo of Gary.
NINE
Lexi followed Lysandra down the sidewalk, thankful for Alan’s presence next to her. The neighborhood seemed a little on the rough side, with trash on the edges of the street and bars on most of the windows.
But Lysandra didn’t seem to mind. She walked along at a good clip, chatting as she went.
“I stuck everything from my college days in a box and have lugged it with me everywhere I’ve gone.”
Lexi smiled. That box had probably gone through a lot of lugging. Hopefully its contents would prove valuable.
“It’s tucked away in the top of the closet. I haven’t been through it in forever. I’m not even sure why I keep all that old stuff.”
She veered off the sidewalk and headed toward a narrow wrought iron stairway that hugged the side of a chipped stucco building. At the top, she put the key into the lock and swung the door wide.
“Well, this is home. It’s not great, but it’s all I could afford when I left Jake. I’ve come to the conclusion that sometimes it’s better to be alone.”
She led them into the apartment and closed the door behind them. Fresh paint covered sections of missing plaster that had never been repaired, but the place was neat and tidy.
“So are you guys together?” Lysandra flung the question over her shoulder as she headed toward the bedroom.
Lexi followed but stopped in the doorway. “Yes and no. We work for separate departments, but we’re working together on this case.”
“No, I meant, are you a couple?” She turned to face them, her gaze shifting from Lexi to Alan and back to Lexi again. “You look like you belong together. There’s good energy between you.”
Lexi opened her mouth to respond, but Lysandra was already wrestling a box down from the shelf in the closet. She plopped it on the bed and pulled back the flaps. A Seminoles pennant lay across the top. Beneath it were a couple of shoe boxes, along with a mug, a blanket and some other FSU memorabilia.
“All the pictures are in these two boxes.” She took the lid off one and pulled out a thick stack of photos. After thumbing through several of them, she handed one to Lexi. “This is Amber.”
Lexi showed the photo to Alan. “Stephanie.”
Lysandra looked up from the pictures she held. “Who?”
“Stephanie Wilson, the third victim. Amber resembles her. Or I should say, Stephanie resembled Amber.”
Lexi held on to the photo, and Lysandra flipped through several more pictures.
“Here’s one of Amber and Tiffany together.”
“Do you have a close-up of Tiffany?”
“Probably.” She sat on the bed and continued going through the photos until she had sorted all of them from the first box. After stuffing several handfuls back into the box, she handed the remaining pictures to Lexi.
“These are the ones you’d be interested in.” Lysandra moved to stand next to her. “That’s Tiffany, more close up.”
Lexi showed the picture to Alan.
“Donna Jackson?”
She nodded. Tiffany’s face was a little more rounded than Donna’s, but the resemblance was definitely there. Similar build, same wavy, shoulder-length hair, deep brunette.
By the time Lysandra finished taking them through the stack of photos, they had linked five of her friends to the five victims. A sixth, Jeanie, could have passed for Denise’s sister.
Lysandra sat back on the bed and removed the lid from the other box. “I’ll check the others.”
Midway through, she suddenly stopped. “Gary. I didn’t know I still had this. All the others went up around campus.”
Lexi’s pulse jumped to double time and she moved to see what Lysandra held. Her eyes widened. “How in the world…?”
“Bridgett did it.”
Bridgett, represented by Meagan Bowers, victim number one. She must have been incredibly persuasive, because she had somehow convinced Gary to dress in nothing but a T-shirt and a pink tutu.
The problem was, he was running away from the camera. So all they had to go on was some longish brown hair, a white T-shirt thinly concealing a bony back, and a tulle-covered rear end.
Lysandra sighed. “It was quite a feat. The hard part was sneaking him past our house mom. The rest was easy. Bridgett promised him a great party, lots of booze and wild, beautiful women. But she told him that to be initiated in as one of our fun party guys, he had to let go of all his inhibitions. And putting on that pink tutu was what he had to do to prove it. When he came out of the bathroom and Bridgett led him into the rec room, we were waiting for him…with cameras and lots of laughter.”
But Lysandra wasn’t laughing now. In fact, she looked as though she was going to be sick. And Lexi couldn’t blame her. Their silly pranks had created a killer. He had started with Bridgett, the orchestrator of his humiliation, and was methodically working his way through each of her friends.
Except the women paying the price were innocent, their only crime being unfortunate enough to resemble his tormenters.
Lysandra shook her head. “I had no idea.”
<
br /> Lexi placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I know you didn’t. None of you had any way of knowing something like this would happen.”
“I wish I could take it back. I’d do anything to go back and relive that year.”
Lexi let her hand fall from Lysandra’s shoulder. “Can we take these? We’ll make copies and send them back, if you give us a mailing address.”
Lysandra nodded and began to repack the unneeded photos.
Alan held up a hand. “Before you put all those back, do you have any pictures of yourself?”
“Yeah, I think I do.” She began fishing through the boxes, talking while she searched. “I actually looked a lot different then. This isn’t my natural hair color.” She gave a short laugh. “Obviously the purple isn’t natural. But the black isn’t, either. My true hair color is a mousy brown, sort of like that dresser over there.” She tilted her head toward the other side of the room. “In college, though, I was a platinum blonde. Ah, here’s one.”
She handed the photo to Alan, and his complexion seemed to grow several shades paler. He lifted his gaze to Lexi’s, and the fear she saw there sent tiny shards of apprehension spiking through her. She really didn’t want to know, but she moved closer anyway, eyes seeking what he held.
Apprehension morphed to dread. As expected, the girl in the photo was blond, hair straight and silky, just past shoulder length. Much like Lexi’s own.
Lysandra’s voice cut across her thoughts.
“I hadn’t noticed before, but you and I could almost be sisters.” She gave a nervous laugh. “You wouldn’t happen to be adopted, would you? I am.”
Lexi shook her head. “No, I’m not. But maybe we’re distant cousins.”
By the time Lysandra walked them to the front door, they had a good handful of photos, with the subjects identified on the backs by first and last names.
“We can walk back together.” Lysandra pulled a key from her pocket and opened the door. “If I don’t get back soon, Josie is going to string me up.”
When they got back to Club Dynamo, Lexi stopped at the door. There was no reason to endure the assault to her eardrums or her lungs.
Love Inspired Suspense June 2014 Bundle 2 of 2: Forced AllianceOut for JusticeNo Place to Run Page 30