Into the Light (The Light #1)

by Aleatha Romig

  Clenching my teeth, sure that this was Lilith’s doing, I moved cautiously to the side of her bed and continued my assignment.

  “Sara?”

  At the sound of my voice, her shoulders sagged. Slowly she turned in my direction. Her cheeks were damp and blotchy. The bandages, with their solid domed patch over each eye, allowed her tears to escape. When she didn’t speak, I moved closer. Raising the head of her bed and lowering the side rail, I sat beside her. Fear and sadness not only showed on her wet cheeks but settled around her like a cloud.

  Screw the timetable and the rules. She won’t make it through this in this shape.

  With my leg against her wounded body, I grabbed a tissue and began to dry her cheeks.

  Where the hell is Raquel, and most importantly, what did Lilith do?

  My chest ached at Sara’s labored breathing. Surely she had things to say, but she was obeying my last command and remaining silent. When her breathing finally settled, I said, “No one else is here, you may speak. What is it? Why are you crying?”

  CHAPTER 10

  Stella

  Detroit in July might as well be Miami. The humidity and heat were as intense without the benefit of the Atlantic Ocean. The Detroit River was definitely not as spectacular. Stepping into the cool air conditioning of Jumbo’s, I eyed a table near the back, next to a pool table. Thankfully, it was still too early for the players to be out. Come ten o’clock, this place would be rocking.

  Though I’d been thinking about that cold beer Dylan had mentioned before I left him in the parking lot, I ordered lemonade and sat down to wait for Dr. Howell.

  I kept remembering the pierced ear of the woman on the table—well, more accurately, the injured ear. Maybe it wasn’t a piercing injury. Maybe I’d read too much into the expression I thought I saw when Tracy Howell looked at me.

  When I looked up, I smiled, seeing the doctor walking toward me. She’d looked young at the morgue, but now, with a maxi-skirt, T-shirt, and flip-flops, and her long, dark hair flowing loosely down her back, she looked more like a high school student than a forensic pathologist.

  Dr. Howell didn’t return my smile as she settled in the seat across from me. Glancing from side to side, she did little to hide her nerves. “Stella,” she began. “Once again, I apologize for calling you in today. The blonde hair and the body type, both similar to Mindy’s . . . I just had to be sure.”

  “Doctor, how many unidentified bodies—female bodies—do you see?”

  She shrugged. “Too many.”

  I tilted my head. “I’ve been called down twice in two weeks, for blonde females. Is that par for the course?”

  Dr. Howell’s let her eyes fall to the table, suddenly interested in a sticky substance left by patrons before us. “I’d be happy to talk about Mindy Rosemont.”

  “That’s the thing, I think we are. I think you’re trying to tell me something.” With my hair secured in a low ponytail, my exposed brow rose questioningly. “Is there any chance that I’m on to something?”

  She sighed and leaned forward. “I can’t be quoted.”

  “You won’t be. I’m not sure if this will become a story. I don’t even know if this will help me find Mindy or at least find out what happened to her, but please, tell me what you know. If I’m totally off base then we can get a beer, rack some balls, and call it a night.”

  Dr. Howell looked at me contemplatively. For a moment I expected her to stand and walk to the cue box, but then she sat back and sighed. “Let’s start by you calling me Tracy. I’m not sure what I know. I’ve only been with the Wayne County ME for about five months, but from what I’ve seen, something is going on. We see a lot of gang and gun violence, and historically, the profile of our unclaimed bodies tends to be young males. Ethnicity varies. It used to be more African-Americans and Latinos, but not anymore. White males are dying as fast as everyone else. Those deaths are sad, but they make sense. There are multiple causes: fights, shootings, knives, and of course drugs. With drug deaths we see women too, many of those are prostitutes. The thing that’s different about the more recent female bodies is that many don’t have illegal drugs in their systems. Some, like the one today, are beaten up, but not all. As you’ve heard, we have a backlog on rape kits. But the ones that have been completed often don’t show sexual activity. Many of them have varying degrees of that burned-off fingerprint thing.”

  “Are they all blondes?”

  “No, their hair color doesn’t seem to matter. They range in age from about eighteen to about thirty.” She slapped the table and firmed her shoulders. “Do you see the problem?”

  My eyes widened. “Besides the obvious issue of women dying all around us?”

  “I’m talking about the lack of consistency. I’ve taken my concerns to my bosses and been told that it is what it is. We report our findings to the National Center for Health Statistics and they compile statistical data. If there’s an unusual occurrence in their findings, they’ll notify the police and Wayne County. But I don’t think there will be a statistically significant occurrence. The victims vary just enough. While men go missing, it’s the women that I’m the most concerned about. The ones I’ve seen, or learned about while going back in the records, also vary in ethnicity.”

  I sipped my lemonade and thought about all she’d just said. “You knew that the woman today wasn’t Mindy, didn’t you?”

  “I want you to find your friend. I just thought . . .”

  I reached out and covered her hand. “I can’t promise anything. I won’t even take any of this to Bernard until I have more, but I’ll look around, ask some questions, do some research. If there’s any chance that this information will help me find Mindy, I’ll do it.”

  Tracy nodded. “I can’t go on the record, but if there’s any way I can help, if you need information, I can . . .” She reached into her purse and took out a flash drive. Handing it to me, she said, “Here. Just know that I’ll deny that what’s on there came from me.”

  I rolled the drive between my fingers. “What’s on this?”

  “Something that you don’t want to view on a full stomach. I started going back through the records and looking into deaths of women in this specific age group who didn’t fit the typical profile. It’s really the only two matching criteria, age and sex. I only went back ten years. That drive contains names and pictures as well as victims who will forever be nameless. The examination results are there too, if an autopsy was done.”

  “Isn’t there always an autopsy with suspicious deaths?”

  She shrugged. “Not all the deaths were suspicious. In some cases the cause was obvious. I’ve been putting the data together and looking for a connection. I feel like it’s there, but I just don’t know what it is. I was hoping that maybe you could take a look. Maybe you’ll see a pattern that I don’t.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “I recognized the man with you today. I know he’s a detective with the homicide and narcotics unit of DPD.”

  I nodded.

  “I’ve seen him in the lab before. What I haven’t seen before is Detective Richards holding someone’s hand, supporting them. He’s usually a hard-ass.”

  I sat up straight. “Detective Richards and I are dating.”

  “It’s none of my business, but don’t you see that as a conflict of interest?”

  “You’re right, it’s not any of your business.”

  Tracy persisted. “Well, what I mean is that you’re an investigative journalist and he works for the people who try to keep all of this shit covered up.”

  I sucked my lower lip between my teeth and contemplated my response. “Tracy, you work for Wayne County. Do you believe they handle cases differently than the Detroit Police Department?”

  “Unfortunately, no. I don’t blame you for thinking what I said was a dis on your boyfriend. It really wasn’t. It’s this whole city. No city wants to be known for its crime. The mayor, the chamber of commerce, they’re constantly harping about revitalizat
ion. They’re bidding on businesses, improved infrastructure, human capital, and social programs. They don’t want to acknowledge that we have a real problem, a new real problem.”

  “New? You said you have data going back ten years.”

  “I do,” Tracy admitted. “But ten years is new, new for all the revitalization that’s been happening.”

  She was right. It was. If we had some pattern of random women being kidnapped and killed, no company would want to invest in Detroit. “So you’re saying that it’s the system, or systems. No one in authority wants to admit this is happening.”

  “Yes. And I’d rather you don’t say anything to Detective Richards. If you do, please don’t say it was me that started you on this quest for answers.”

  “Don’t worry. Dylan and I keep work out of our private lives. Professional courtesy,” I added.

  “Thank you, Stella. If I’m wasting your time, I’m sorry. I just feel like we have something significant occurring, and everyone is turning a blind eye.”

  Hours later I turned away from the computer screen, wishing I could unsee what I’d seen. The information that Tracy had compiled was compelling and sickening. The women in Dr. Howell’s files didn’t seem to have one common denominator other than being dead. Even the injuries they’d sustained varied: some showed signs of only recent trauma, others patterns of ongoing abuse.

  I rubbed my throbbing temples and forced myself to walk away from my computer. It was nearly midnight, and all I’d managed to do was scan the collection of pictures, autopsy results, and police reports. Just enough to turn my stomach. My goal had been to get an overview of what Tracy was trying to tell me. As a woman, I’d hoped that the crazy things on television or in books were fiction, only fiction. As an investigative journalist, I knew they weren’t. Yet before tonight I’d never seen information compiled so succinctly about crimes against women taking place in my own city.

  In an effort to clear my head, I wandered through my apartment and checked my phone. Dylan never texted me back after I let him know that I wouldn’t be coming over. It didn’t bother me. This relationship was relatively new. While I appreciated his having met me at the morgue, I needed space. I’d been on my own for too long to suddenly jump into anything serious. Staying at his house was nice—more than nice. But I wasn’t ready to leave a change of clothes or a toothbrush.

  It would take more than hot, steamy sex and salmon on the grill to prompt me to move Fred’s fishbowl. Joint custody of a fish was more domesticated than I wanted to do right now. Besides, I had my own washing machine.

  I needed to go to bed. It’d been a long day. Yet at the same time, I couldn’t stop thinking about the last profile I’d read on Dr. Howell’s memory drive. The picture the victim’s parents had given to the police showed two daughters: two beautiful twenty-year-old coeds with their entire lives before them, smiling for the camera. Unfortunately, no one had realized how short a time their entire lives would be.

  The victim named in the profile was twenty-year-old Elisa Ortiz. Even postmortem, her attractiveness was obvious. She was tall, five feet nine inches, and fit, 135 pounds, with vibrant red hair and striking green eyes. The image was permanently etched behind my lids.

  I poured myself a glass of wine and contemplated her unusual case.

  In some ways Elisa Ortiz could be considered a lucky one. She’d been identified. As I thought about the Rosemonts and Mindy, I knew in my heart that closure was important.

  Collapsing on the couch, I sipped my wine. The thing nagging at me about the Elisa case was that she wasn’t the only Ortiz daughter to have gone missing seven years ago. Elisa had an identical twin sister, Emma. Making the investigative leap, I pulled up the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System and learned that, even now, Emma Ortiz was considered missing.

  According to the information in Dr. Howell’s report, the two sisters had been close and lived together in a small apartment near the campus of Wayne State University. There was no evidence of risky or suspicious behavior in either of their background checks. According to testimonials, the two sisters were inseparable college students with good GPAs. Interviews with Wayne State professors and students unanimously produced stories of friendly, yet quiet, young women. No one recalled seeing either woman with a young man, much less partying. By all accounts the two spent most of their time at school, at the library, in the gym, or in their apartment. Their parents confirmed these descriptions and added that their daughters were never in trouble, never had serious boyfriends, and were actively involved in their church in their hometown.

  Apparently the only thing Elisa and Emma Ortiz did, besides study, was work out. They did it often. That was their activity the night they went missing. The gym willingly surrendered a surveillance video showing both women arriving, working out, and leaving. The video also confirmed that neither woman made it to their car, even though it was parked right outside the gym. The case had stumped the DPD and was still considered open.

  Taking another sip of wine, I thought about how the circumstances of this case defied Dylan’s belief that there was safety in numbers. These two sisters had gone to the gym together. One theory was that they were taken at the same time. There was also speculation they’d left willingly.

  Neither theory could be verified. Food in their refrigerator and a load of laundry in their dryer seemed to refute the theory of a planned exodus. Even their toothbrushes and bank cards were still in their apartment.

  The gym, which had long since closed its doors for good, had time-lapse video of the parking lot. The older surveillance system consisted of a rotation of cameras: thirty seconds per camera with four cameras. The feed featuring the sisters and their car stopped recording as the women exited the gym’s door. In the minute and a half it took to get back to that angle, they were gone. Nothing suspicious was found on any of the other feeds. There were no witnesses to their disappearance. It was as if the two women had literally vanished into thin air.

  I shook my head and took another drink of wine.

  Elisa Ortiz’s body was found four days later, abandoned naked near the state fair grounds. According to the ME’s report, her time of death was over thirty-six hours before her discovery. The examination revealed facial cranial injuries believed to have been caused by blunt force trauma: bruising around her left eye and cheek, as well as zygomatic and nasal fractures. Bruising was also evident around her neck, and on her arms, legs, and torso.

  While working at the crime lab, I learned that the location of facial injuries was a surprisingly accurate indication of the mode of trauma. Muggings and domestic abuse—intimate partner violence—were most often associated with injuries like Elisa Ortiz’s. Injuries to the upper third of the face usually indicated damage inflicted by another person. Those injuries, though typically not life-threatening, were often accompanied by tissue trauma and nerve damage, which could vary from paralysis of the facial muscles to damage to the optic nerve. In some cases the nerve damage led to temporary or permanent loss of feeling and/or sight.

  In most cases, the more severe the trauma, the closer the victim and assailant were thought to have been. Crimes of passion could yield horrendous trauma. However, since there wasn’t evidence that either Elisa or Emma were involved in an intimate relationship, and Elisa’s examination showed no evidence of sexual assault, police theorized that her injuries were from a mugging or a random act of violence.

  The second most common cause of facial injuries in both men and women was automobile accidents. Those injuries differed from perpetrator-inflicted injuries in their location—car accidents most often inflicted damage to the lower half of the face. When the victim’s face collided with the steering wheel or dashboard, the typical injuries were fractured mandibles—broken jaws.

  Elisa Ortiz’s most severe injuries were to her torso. The postmortem photographs showed a large hematoma with midsection distention. The autopsy had discovered severe internal hemorrhaging caused by a ruptured spleen a
nd lacerated liver. The cause of death had been ruled cardiac arrest due to internal bleeding.

  I topped off my glass of wine and ran a new Internet search. My stomach twisted. Perhaps it was due to the alcohol on an empty stomach, but I chose to blame the information on my screen. From what I gleaned, the human body was constructed to protect its fragile organs, so for the kind of trauma that Elisa had experienced, extreme blunt force trauma was needed. When these organs were injured and left untreated, a slow and painful death occurred. Some injuries, like a ruptured aorta, result in death rather quickly, but Elisa hadn’t been that fortunate. Her time of death had been estimated at ten to fifteen hours post-trauma.

  Draining my glass, I backed up Tracy’s memory drive on my laptop and turned off my computer.

  Why had someone done this to this woman, and what the hell happened to Emma?

  CHAPTER 11

  Sara

  I didn’t need to hear Jacob’s voice to know he was the one who entered my room. I knew his footsteps against the tile and the unique way he opened the door. If those clues weren’t enough, after he entered, the faint scent of leather and musk, the manly aroma I’d learned to associate with him, broke through the antiseptic odor.

  If I weren’t so hysterical, I’d have found my ability to perceive without sight fascinating, but I was, for a lack of a better word, hysterical. I couldn’t think or reason. I didn’t know what he’d do or say or what I could possibly do in return. Somehow I’d done something terrible. I just couldn’t remember.

  Sister Lilith had spoken only a little about marriage. In that short time, she’d reinforced everything Jacob had said. Apparently it was the way we all lived in The Light. However, instead of going into detail regarding my role as a wife in The Light, she emphasized that I was the wife of an Assemblyman, and that because of that my behavior, meaning the incident, reflected poorly not only on Jacob but also on all the Assembly wives. She said that the other eleven women were appalled by my behavior, and the entire community was waiting for Father Gabriel’s decree. Banishment was still an option. If that was chosen, it would include Jacob. She said that though Jacob had the right to and responsibility for my correction, when my behavior represented so many, for the cohesiveness of the community, the members of The Light needed to witness Father Gabriel’s decree. Consequences were coming, not only from Jacob, but also from Father Gabriel. If God hadn’t chosen to punish me with my injuries, the other correction would’ve already been delivered.