“Go on, Miss Dawson. Why did you enter? You said there was no sign of a struggle,” Grafton prompted.
She didn’t want to get into all her internal motivation, which ending up including finding proof that Ferris was still up to his old tricks. She also didn’t want to expound on her interaction with the neighbor and add credibility to what the woman had stated on record.
“See, I’m finding the discrepancies piling up,” Grafton said. “You told a woman you were with Ferris the night before.”
“That was a lie.”
“So you were lying then, but you’re not lying now? How do you know what the truth is, Miss Dawson? Can you distinguish the difference?”
“Enough.” Jack’s voice boomed through the room. “You will release Agent Dawson to my care.”
Grafton scoffed. “You want me to let her go? I will do no such thing. We are well within our rights to hold her for twenty-four hours without formally charging her, and I intend to do at least that. Seeing as she’s suspected of murder, I may apply to hold her for up to ninety-six hours.”
At least twenty-four hours as a prisoner? It wasn’t like she didn’t know the law, but this was her they were talking about here. She could almost cry thinking about sleeping in a cell tonight. She wasn’t even going to consider this nightmare lasting any longer than that.
She looked at Jack as he squared off with Grafton. She hated putting Jack in the position of defending her. And from Jack, her mind went to Sam. She didn’t want him involved with this mess, either, but it was likely unavoidable. As soon as the detectives found out about him—and they would, if they hadn’t already—he’d be dragged in for questioning. If she was forthright about him, maybe it would help things.
“I came to California with someone,” she told the detectives. “Talk to him.”
“Sam Barber? Yes, we know,” Grafton said.
Jack clenched his jaw, then ground out, “I’m going to need a minute with Paige.”
“Sure, whatever you need.” Grafton’s voice was smug. “Oh, and one more thing, Miss Dawson. Just so you know, the pills in the Aleve bottle were just that. I’m assuming you expected to find Rohypnol.”
-
Chapter 11
THE DOOR HAD NO SOONER shut than Jack turned on her. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“Jack, I can—”
“You’re going to tell me that you can explain? I asked you if there was anything else I should know and you said no.” He jabbed a finger toward the door. “But there is. An eyewitness? But what bothers me the most… Nadia helped you find Ferris?”
Her chest was so heavy, it hurt to breathe. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” He bashed the top of his fist against the table. “You misled me into thinking you told me everything. Tell me why I shouldn’t kick you off the team right now.”
Her stomach knotted mercilessly, and if she had anything in there, she’d throw it up. “Please listen to me.”
Jack splayed his hands but didn’t say a word.
“Ferris killed Natasha.”
Jack glared at her. “Why involve Nadia in your personal vendetta?”
“It’s not that simple. And it’s not a vendetta.”
“Simplify it,” he said coolly. “I had to clear this by the director.”
“So he knows—”
“About you being accused of murder?” Jack nodded. “That and the fact that Hall’s murder seemed methodical and so violent—”
“You told him it might be the work of a serial killer?” She leaned forward on the table, resting her forehead in her hands.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I hope for your sake—for my sake—it is. Now, tell me how we got to this point, Paige. What were you thinking?”
“I just…” She dropped her hands and sat up straighter. She knew verbalizing her reasoning to Jack would make it lose some of its strength, its potency weakened by the repercussions. She fidgeted with her hands. “When it first happened, Natasha lived in denial, talking as if she could handle what had happened to her. She was raped the night before we were to fly home, but she only told me at the airport when we were about to board. See, we’d been sharing a room, and when she didn’t return from the club with me, I didn’t think…” She sniffled and wiped away tears that fell. “I was young. I should have known better. I thought it was all fun and games. Nothing in my world had ever been dark like that. For lack of a better analogy, it was all sunshine and lollipops.” She paused, glancing up at Jack. Her heart ached so much, she thought it must have fractured in her chest. “She was always the life of the party. I should have looked out for her.”
“What happened wasn’t your fault.”
“It was.” She met Jack’s gaze. The reflection in his eyes mirrored hers, and the condemnation was fierce. “If I had been a better friend, I would have watched after her more closely. If I had been thinking, I would have noticed…”
“Noticed what?”
She swallowed roughly. “There were a few guys hanging around her.” She’d never admitted to observing this before now. She was even afraid of confessing it to herself.
“Ferris and his friends?”
“Yeah.” She worried her lip.
“There’s no way you could have known their intentions.”
“I wish I could believe that. All four of them raped her, Jack. It was my fault.” The weight of the confession grounded her to the chair, rendering her paralyzed.
“None of this was your fault.” His voice was soothing. He was trying.
She shook her head. “Nope, it was.” More tears came, and she let them fall freely. She spoke through sobs. “When I found out she was raped, I did everything I could to help her. Natasha refused to get help or go to the police so I went on her behalf. But since she didn’t report the rape in Cancun—”
“There wasn’t a legal stand.”
Paige nodded. Tears were dripping off her chin now. “There was nothing the local police back home could do. Natasha was gang-raped and she’d have no justice.” Her eyes snapped to Jack. “But I didn’t make it, Jack, not this way. I didn’t kill Ferris.”
“I know.”
She expelled a breath, deflating her lungs, but her chest remained heavy as if a weight were pressing down on it. “Back after it happened, I returned to the resort. I even learned Spanish. I tried to deal with it over the phone, but with the language barrier, it was hard to articulate exactly what I needed from them. I was trying to get the guys’ information. I don’t even know what I thought would happen once I found them. I just wanted them to know that I knew—other people knew—what they had done. I found Ferris and wanted him to know that he had an FBI agent watching every move he made. Ferris actually used his real name when we met him, too. He was such a flirt. I should have known.” She was shaking her head but stopped when she felt Jack’s hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him, and when they locked eyes, she started to bawl.
“Come on.” Jack summoned her to her feet for a hug.
“You don’t have to…” He wasn’t the hugging type, but maybe his mother’s death a couple of months ago had triggered something in him. Paige doubted any changes would be permanent. “I’m sorry for all this, for dragging you into it.”
“Hug me. You’ll feel better.” Jack rolled his eyes, but there was the hint of a smirk on his lips.
She complied, and the embrace felt wonderful. She remained there until the natural time had passed, and then she released him. She pulled back and wiped her cheeks.
“Better?” Jack asked.
She nodded.
“Good. Maybe there’s some credit to what people say about hugs. But don’t let my saying that out of this room.”
She managed a smile and half laugh and shook her head.
“Now, tell me about Nadia,” Jack said. “And anything else I need to know.”
“I shouldn’t have gotten her involved.”
He gave her a pointed look, resuming the role of her boss again. “No, you shouldn’t have.”
“When we returned from the case we worked in Grand Forks, I visited Natasha. Not that she knew I was there… I hated seeing her that way. She was basically imprisoned in her own mind. She couldn’t talk, but she was able to communicate yes and no by blinking.” The tears blurred Paige’s vision, and she took some time to breathe through her emotions.
Jack touched her forearm briefly.
Paige composed herself enough to continue. “I’m just happy that I saw her one last time…before the funeral. But that’s where I saw the photograph.”
“The photograph?”
Paige nodded. “It was one of Natasha, me, and some other people in Cancun. But it included Ferris. At first, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me and I was just seeing things I wanted to see. I have no idea why I’d never seen that picture before. I admit I hadn’t been the best of friends to her. I hardly visited her. It’s just…” She choked back more sobs.
“We all do the best we know how.”
Jack’s encouragement had her angling her head.
“Don’t say I never offer advice.”
“Oh, I never would.” She managed a small smile. “It’s just unbelievable. Her mother had no idea that one of her daughter’s rapists had been in front of her the whole time. She still doesn’t. I wasn’t going to tell her. I just made a big deal out of the picture, saying how I wished I had a copy, and she let me take the photo with me after the service.”
“So this photograph is how Nadia factors in? She aged him?”
Paige nodded. “I knew from my visit to the resort in Cancun that Ferris lived in California, but that was as far as I was able to get. A first name and a large state doesn’t exactly narrow things down. But after Nadia aged his photograph, she ran it through criminal databases. That’s when I found out about Ferris’s record. From there, it was easy to get his address…” She made eye contact with Jack. “I had no idea things would turn out like this.”
The room fell silent for a few seconds before Jack’s phone vibrated.
He unclipped it and checked the caller ID. “Speaking of Nadia.”
“Please, don’t—”
“Nadia,” Jack answered his phone.
Paige watched as Jack listened. He seemed to be avoiding eye contact with her, his gaze cool. He was focused on every word Nadia was saying.
Seconds later, he hung up. He hadn’t spoken one word to Nadia about what she had done to help Paige find Ferris.
Paige swallowed. “Thank you, Jack.”
“Don’t be thanking me yet.” Now he aligned eyes with her. “It seems our killer may have struck before, so we might be looking for a serial killer after all.”
Paige sat up straighter. “Good for me, not for the world. So you can get me out of here?” The hope was lit.
“Not quite yet.”
She frowned. “What? Why?”
“Ferris and the other victim weren’t mutilated in exactly the same way. There are some differences.”
“But they’re connected, right? You just said—”
“The evidence in this other case pointed toward a male killer.”
“Okay, then why would you think the same person murdered Ferris?”
“You do trust me, Paige?”
“Yes, but—”
“Let us review everything in the two cases tonight.” Jack tapped Ferris’s evidence folder on the table.
“I have to spend tonight behind bars?”
Jack met her eyes. “Trust me.”
“But when they find out my car was at the Budget—”
“Timeline, but there’s something else we can do. You said you went right back to the Hyatt? What time was that?”
“Ten forty, give or take, but that still falls within the time of death window.”
“The hotel will have cameras in their lobby.”
“What are you thinking?”
“We prove when you returned to the Hyatt and narrow down the timeline.”
“And if that doesn’t work?”
“We need to find the real killer.”
-
Chapter 12
WHEN ZACH AND I TOLD Jack that Sam wasn’t at the hotel, he directed us to get a couple of rooms. We texted him to meet us in the room under Zach’s name. That’s where we were now. I was pacing the room while Zach sat on the bed and channel surfed, not settling on one program for longer than a minute. We had ordered a large pizza from room service but had hardly touched it.
The knock on the door was hard and impatient. It had to be Jack. I snatched the remote from Zach and turned off the TV before going to the door. Jack stormed past me, heading toward the window, obviously deep in thought. He wasn’t silent for long, though, and spun around to face us.
“Nadia found another murder similar to Ferris Hall’s. It took place six years ago in Los Angeles,” Jack began. “The victim’s name was Kyle Malone. I had Nadia send me the file. I’ve already forwarded it to both of you. Zach”—he handed a file folder to Zach—“I need you to read this right now. It’s on Ferris Hall. See if anything’s been added since earlier today.”
“Of course.”
Calling Zach a speed-reader wasn’t a true enough label. Suffice it to say, the man could read—and remember—everything at alarming speed.
Both Zach and I had already looked at what Jack had e-mailed us, and that probably explained why the pizza was hardly touched.
“In Malone’s case, the killer cut off his penis and—” I burped up the little I had eaten “—jammed it up his anus.” Yep, we were looking for one sick bastard.
“You make it through a case where the murderer is grinding up human intestines, and this makes you squeamish?” Jack asked.
Leave it to Jack to bring up Salt Lick, Kentucky, dredging up the memory of the ten bodies ritualistically killed and buried.
Zach closed the folder and tossed it next to the photos on the bed.
It had taken him all of two minutes, if that, to read the case file on Ferris Hall.
When Jack was certain he had our attention, he spoke. “The unsub, like in the case with Hall, urinated on Malone. A dose of Rohypnol was also found on his abdomen.”
“Sticky residue was found on Malone’s face, too,” I said.
“And there’s an indication that hair was pulled from around Hall’s face. It’s possible it was from duct tape, but it’s still to be determined,” Zach added. “The knife used on Malone was a non-serrated blade, same with Hall.”
I didn’t envy the coroner when it came to determining that aspect. That particular area of the body would have been so bloody and mangled…
“Both murders were also motivated by extreme rage,” Zach said. “Both seem driven by retaliation, but especially Malone’s case, as Hall’s body wasn’t violated in the same way. I’d wager this unsub may be making a stand against rapists, though, based on the date-rape drug left at each scene, and mutilated genitalia. We’d have to find out more about Malone and see if he was a rapist.”
“Malone didn’t have any assault charges or accusations against him,” Jack explained. “We’ll speak with Malone’s closest friend from the time, though.”
I nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”
“Uh-huh.” Jack gave me a look that communicated he didn’t need my agreement.
“Something else I find worth noting,” Zach said, “is that Malone was HIV-positive. We’ll need to see if Hall was also carrying the disease. It could be part of the victimology profile. As a side note, the urine on Malone contained D
NA.”
“Which is unusual for a healthy person,” I said.
“Correct. So it makes me wonder about our killer’s health—at least in Malone’s case,” Zach stated. “And we’ll want the urine left at Hall’s scene fully analyzed as well.”
I listened as Zach talked, but I was also stuck on the differences in the cases, the main discrepancy being that one case indicated a man and the other a woman. Then there was the placement of the severed penis. It seemed to somehow be related to homosexuality to me. We’d have to find out Malone’s sexual preference when we spoke to his friend.
“Now, the file indicates that Malone wasn’t drugged,” Zach said, “but that just a pill was left. The unsub wanted him to experience the pain.”
Lovely thought…
“We should know tomorrow if Hall was and hopefully get some of our other questions answered,” Jack added. “As for the autopsy, I’m the only one cleared to attend. We need to connect the two cases before bringing Malone’s up to the detectives. While the two of you get started on that, I have to speak with hotel management about something.”
-
Chapter 13
SAM WAS ASKED TO SIT in a meeting room that felt more like an interrogation room, and his request to see Paige was denied. The space had wood-paneled walls and a laminate table with eight chairs. A credenza on one end had a fake plant in a pot, its leaves dusty as if it hadn’t been washed in months. Framed prints on the walls showcased officers holding awards. After twenty minutes, he was sick of looking at their faces. And now it was going on a couple of hours.
His insides were jumping with rage. They were probably pressuring Paige to confess to a murder she didn’t commit. There was no way he’d give real consideration to her killing a man. Even if the victim was Ferris, she wasn’t a killer. All she had wanted was for Ferris to know that his actions all those years ago had consequences and that she’d be watching his every move. Sam hadn’t for one second questioned her stability. For her to cross over from confronting him to murder… No, he wouldn’t accept that. What he didn’t understand was why she had ransacked the place. That deserved an explanation. But he could only imagine how scared she was facing this on her own. Why hadn’t she called him? Surely, she was given her one phone call.
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