Bitter Moon (The Huntress/FBI Thrillers Book 4)

by Alexandra Sokoloff

  “Sixteen years ago?” Roarke asked, and heard the incredulous edge in his own voice. “Do you know what month?”

  The man in the leather jacket laughed. “Not a chance. Why do you ask?”

  Inside, Roarke was electrified. Fire. Ivy was burned. If a Wayfarer member was to blame, burning down the club would be poetic justice.

  And Cara had dispatched one of her targets by fire not even three weeks ago . . .

  He kept his voice even. “Do you remember if anyone was killed in this fire?”

  This time the man didn’t laugh. He glanced around the shop and looked more guarded. “That I would remember. Not that I ever heard.”

  “Thanks. Appreciate it.”

  Roarke left the shop, went back out to the car and did some Googling on his iPad.

  The club had burned down the night after Cara left Las Piedras for good.

  The night before Ivy died.

  The present Wayfarers Club, on Highland Avenue, was not a new building. There was a run-down feel about it, not the look of a flourishing organization. It had stuccoed arches and security bars on the windows, and could have been anything from a small medical clinic to a Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall, except for the large concrete and metal sculpture of a compass sitting in the middle of the small, sloped front lawn.

  There was only one car in the small parking lot, an oversized new Lexus with a bumper sticker of an ichthus, the Christian fish symbol. Roarke parked beside it, walked up concrete steps to the entry, and tried the door. Locked. He reached for the doorbell anyway. The chime rang through the building.

  He stepped back and waited, while the dry wind rustled the fronds of the palm trees in the front planters.

  He was just turning away when the door opened behind him.

  A man stood in the shadows of the doorway. He was bulky without being fat, tanned like a golfer, dressed in dress slacks and shirtsleeves, his dirty-blond hair in a military-style crew cut. Roarke put his age at a fit sixty.

  His eyes flicked over Roarke, a glance of subtly aggressive assessment. But his tone was genial. “No meeting today, friend.”

  “I wasn’t looking for a meeting.”

  “Then how can I help you?”

  Something made Roarke decide to softball his approach, make his interest seem personal. “I’ve been trying to track down one of your members. Dave Huell.”

  The big man looked pleasant. “Sorry. We don’t have a Huell in the ranks.”

  “I think he may have left town a while ago.”

  “How long ago?”

  Roarke stayed vague. “It may have been as much as ten years.”

  The man chuckled. “Ten years? Some days I don’t remember my own name.”

  “His daughter committed suicide sixteen years ago. In a town this size, I would think people would remember that.”

  The man’s face rearranged itself. “Of course. I know the little girl you mean.”

  Roarke kept his face impassive, but made a mental note. Laura had been fourteen. Not exactly a little girl.

  “So you remember Huell?”

  The man was looking at him more sharply, now, and apparently had sussed out that he was law enforcement. “Are you with the police? Sheriff?”

  That perplexing question.

  “I consult for the FBI. Huell is a potential witness in a case.” That should be neutral enough.

  The man looked blank, and then chuckled. “That must be a very cold case. Haven’t heard anything about Dave for ages.” Then he opened the door wider, stepped aside for Roarke. “Why don’t you come inside, and I’ll try to help you out.”

  Roarke stepped into a cool, dim corridor, with a row of doors that seemed to lead to offices, and a set of double doors that he guessed led to a larger assembly hall. The place felt hollow; the daylight outside was muted, seeming far away.

  The man indicated an open door into an office, and as the men stepped inside, he turned and stuck out his hand.

  “I’m Mel Franzen. Chapter President.” Franzen’s grip was as aggressive as his attitude.

  “Matt Roarke,” Roarke returned. “How long have you been president?”

  Franzen chuckled as he sat down behind his desk. “Hard to believe, but going on ten years.”

  “And you knew Huell?”

  “He was a brother, yes. Must’ve been a good two hundred of us back then.”

  Roarke recalled his very brief interview with the very bitter Mrs. Huell. “He left town some time after his daughter died, is that right?” He knew it couldn’t have been before, because according to the obituary Huell had been at the funeral.

  “Pretty soon after, as I’m recalling.”

  “Any idea why?”

  Franzen gave him a sly look. “I don’t like to say.”

  Roarke waited for the inevitable.

  The Wayfarer’s voice dropped slightly. “There were rumors. He traveled on business. Out of town a fair lot. You know how it can be. A younger woman, out of state . . .”

  There was a gleam of lasciviousness in his eyes. Roarke stifled his distaste, nodded. And noted that for someone with a self-described poor memory, Franzen was suddenly being able to recall quite a few details.

  “When his daughter died, he took off. I think the girl had been the only thing holding the marriage together.” Franzen shrugged. “It’s not a pleasant story. If he’d come to any of the brothers for counseling, advice, we would have set him straight. Head of the family, father, husband . . . those are obligations. But shame is a powerful motivator. When a man knows the advice he’d get and doesn’t want it, well . . .”

  “Can you tell me about Laura?”

  “The daughter? ’Fraid I can’t.”

  Roarke frowned. “But you must have been familiar with her. She played the piano for your club.”

  Franzen lifted his hands. “If you say so. We work with quite a few of the students from Las Piedras schools. The chapter sponsors a scholarship. We contribute to sports and the academic decathlon.” He shrugged. “Every year, we’re working with dozens of students.”

  “Not many who die, I hope,” Roarke said pleasantly.

  “Thank the Lord for that,” Franzen said, ignoring the implication that he should remember Laura.

  Roarke took a different tack. “Did Huell leave a forwarding address?”

  “Hold on here, I’ll check for you.” Franzen made a show of going into the computer, clicking through some files. Roarke had the feeling it was just that, a show. Franzen finally looked up.

  “No, nothing on Huell since 2000.” He pushed back from the desk. “Sorry I can’t tell you more. You know, his wife still lives over on K Street—”

  “Yes, I’ve been by. They haven’t been in contact.” Roarke paused, then changed tacks. “There’s another student I’m inquiring about. Ivy Barnes.”

  Franzen’s eyes narrowed. “You said you were looking for Dave Huell.”

  “Do you know Ivy Barnes?”

  “I don’t believe I do.”

  “She was a member of Palmers, like Laura Huell.”

  “As I said, we have dozens of students every year—”

  “She was abducted and raped that same year. Her attacker tried to burn her alive.”

  Franzen’s face rearranged itself into a study in outrage, pity, and sorrow. “Well. Who wouldn’t remember that? A terrible thing. There are godless people in this world, Mr. Roarke.”

  And bad ones, too, Roarke thought. I’m more worried about the bad ones. But he kept silent, and waited for Franzen to continue.

  The Wayfarer frowned into the silence. “You’ve lost me. What does this have to do with the other girl?”

  “You don’t find it disturbing, two girls from the same school dying violently so close together?

  “As I recall, the police found nothing. Never made an arrest.”

  Odd answer to the question, Roarke thought. And that’s exactly my problem. They never made an arrest. But he didn’t say that. Instead, he gl
anced around him. “This club used to be over on Mill Street, is that right? But it burned down.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What was that, arson?”

  Franzen laughed, but there was an edge to it that Roarke read as controlled anger. “You got that right. Never caught the bastard, either.”

  “Was anyone killed in the fire? Or injured?”

  “No, thank God. But that was a sweet piece of property. Damned shame.”

  “Odd timing though, wasn’t it?”

  There was a flash of something on the man’s face. “I don’t follow. Are you investigating the fire, too?”

  “I’m curious about it. It just seems like a lot of bad luck for this club.”

  “Bad luck?” Franzen repeated. His eyes had gone blank again.

  “A member loses a daughter, his wife loses him, you lose your clubhouse in a fire. I’d say that’s a lot of strange for one month.”

  Franzen laughed shortly. “I’d say that’s the blindness of hindsight. You’re focusing on a few events. Unfortunate events, to be sure, but I don’t see any connection. Tragedies happen. It’s life.”

  He was right about that. Roarke put his hands on his thighs, and stood. “I appreciate your talking to me.”

  Franzen smiled. “Here to serve.”

  Roarke stepped to the door, then turned back. “Is Principal Lethbridge a member of this club?”

  “Yes. Yes, he is. A very valued member.”

  Roarke nodded. “Thank you for your time.”

  “Nice talking to you, Mr. Roarke.”

  Roarke flinched inside at the repetition of mister. But fair enough. As he left the hall and walked out to the parking lot, he muttered, “Get used to it.”

  He sat in the car without moving for some time.

  He had a crawly feeling from the encounter, and had to admit that he disliked Mel Franzen, for no reason he could say.

  He saw Franzen watching him from the window, and raised a hand to him as he started the car.

  A girl kills herself. Her father disappears. A Wayfarers Club burns down. And no one wants to talk about it.

  There’s a whole lot wrong with this picture.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Back in his room at the hotel, Roarke steeled himself, and speed-dialed a familiar number.

  Antara Singh was the researcher on his four-agent team, what had been his team, a brilliant analyst and tech expert. Roarke found himself waiting nervously as the phone rang; he had been avoiding all calls from the team since he’d taken leave. When Singh answered, remorse made him abrupt.

  “Singh. I need some help.”

  There was only the briefest pause on her end. “Of course.”

  His agent’s voice was serene, but the gladness underneath was almost painful. He could tell how hard she was working to contain her relief at the call. And he knew, with a stab of guilt, she would do anything he asked, in the hope of getting him back to San Francisco, back to the office, back to work.

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  He paused. “Las Piedras.”

  There was a loaded silence. Singh would recognize the significance of the town to Cara’s history. But whatever she was thinking, she said nothing, merely asking, “What can I do?”

  “I’m doing some investigation into a cold case. I’m going to need the coroner’s reports on two deaths that occurred sixteen years ago.”

  In California autopsies were automatic in the case of suicide; the same went for the death of a minor. Coroner’s reports were public record, but Roarke would have to make a request in writing to the coroner’s office and there was no telling when the inevitably understaffed and overworked office would get it to him. Singh was a wizard at cutting through red tape. And there was no denying he would need her help—the word asistencia flashed in his mind—for what he wanted to do. It was better just to admit it from the outset.

  “Yes, go ahead,” she replied.

  “These would have been conducted by the Riverside County Coroner, in Indio. The first report is for a fourteen-year-old high school freshman named Laura Huell, an apparent suicide. I need to know if there was any evidence of sexual assault, or any signs at all of scarring or bruising that could indicate previous sexual assault, and if there was ever an earlier report of rape. And if so, if a rape kit was ever collected.”

  He meant the box of swabs, slides, combs, and envelopes that contained the evidence collected during a post-sexual assault medical exam, and the corresponding documentation forms.

  “Yes. And the second?”

  “The second is another fourteen-year-old girl named Ivy Barnes. There should be an entire case file here, on a sexual assault, mutilation, and attempted murder. I need everything you can get. I also need to know if there was a CODIS database search done for matches to Ivy Barnes’ rapist.”

  “Both girls fourteen years old, sixteen years ago,” Singh said cautiously.

  Roarke said nothing. He heard the silence thicken on the phone line. Of course Singh was doing the math. Of course she would see the connection to Cara.

  “Then I need you to search for rapes with similar MOs to the attack on Ivy Barnes.” He paused and then said, “I’m sending some news articles through, and her witness statement to the police. You’ll find the details of that attack in the witness statement.”

  He clicked over to his email to forward her photographs of the police report and the articles he’d downloaded. He told himself she would get a better rundown from the reports, but the truth was he didn’t want to have to speak the details aloud.

  He listened to the quality of her silence and knew that she was skimming the articles and the statement. He could see her in his mind, her face tense with concentration, her glossy black hair curtaining her face as she bent over the screen, gold armbands glinting on her wrists.

  “Singh?”

  “I am here,” she answered. “Am I looking specifically for incidences of burning, then?”

  Roarke reluctantly called on his profiling training. “Any actual burning, any threat of burning, any use of gasoline. But also focus on the age of the victims, and the mode of abduction: snatching the girl from the street, especially as she is walking to or from school. The use of a van. And covering her face with a hood, or blindfold, something that the assailant brought or improvised. Check for any hits you can find in ViCAP.”

  It was fishing, and he’d be lucky if she found anything. Law enforcement officers more often than not didn’t submit forms to the ViCAP database. Still, it had to be tried.

  “What range of years would you like me to include in this search?” Singh asked.

  Roarke paused again and then said it. “All the way to the present.”

  On the other end of the connection, Singh exhaled tightly. “I see.”

  “Proceed on the assumption that the rapist is still alive and operating. In California and/or possibly the Southwest. I’m also going to need full police records and background checks on a Robert Lethbridge and a Mel Franzen, both currently residing in Las Piedras.”

  “I will get back to you, Chief.”

  He felt a pang at the old nickname. He knew that he was taking time away from her official work. He also knew she would walk through fire for him. He could only hope he was taking her someplace worth going.

  “Thank you, Singh.”

  She said only, “Of course.” And then she was gone.

  He hung up the phone, and stood, feeling the room too close around him.

  He looked at the photos of the relics he’d taped up on the wall above the desk, and was drawn again to pick up the Wayfarers ring. There were hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of men who owned them. But both Lethbridge and Franzen were Wayfarers who were directly involved with the school that both dead girls had attended. They were the obvious place to start the investigation—

  But then he stopped, thinking about it.

  Are they?

  There was an even more obvious suspect, was
n’t there? What about the man that he was sure Cara had killed that week?

  He put the ring aside and looked at the photo of the palm frond.

  Palm Desert.

  It was the flimsiest of connections, more a hunch than a clue.

  But let’s not forget, that while all this was happening, Cara went out to Palm Desert and killed the counselor. Not Franzen. Not Lethbridge. The group home counselor, Pierson.

  And Ivy was a group home kid, too.

  So what if Pierson was a Wayfarer? It wasn’t uncommon, in these midsized and smaller towns.

  He needed information that he had to wait for. Singh was on it. But . . .

  His own words to Mother Doctor came back to him:

  I’ll probably go out to Palm Desert and ask a few people in the department there what the hell they’ve been doing for sixteen years that they thought was more important than putting whoever did this away for seven lifetimes.

  Why not take another drive? He had some bones to pick with Ortiz, anyway.

  He stood, and reached for his car keys. And then he went to the closet, opened the built-in safe, to take out something else.

  His Glock.

  CARA

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The corridor of highway between Las Piedras and Temecula is bounded by mountains. There are jagged rock formations, flat housing developments, an uncanny number of palm trees, and several golf courses.

  Cara stares out the car window at boulders and barrel cactus. Ms. Sharonda is driving her. Cara suspects that Ms. Sharonda believes she would make a run for it if she put her on a bus.

  Ms. Sharonda is no fool.

  But Cara’s desperate gambit has worked. Yesterday the vice-principal called her aunt and arranged for Cara to stay for a few days. A few days is a start. She is away from the school, away from the monster in the van, and that is the first step. She does not know how long she will be safe, but she has bought herself some time.

  And her aunt will not be as vigilant as Ms. Sharonda. Once she is at her aunt’s house, Cara can run if she has to. She may very well have to.

  A bit at a time, she allows herself to think of what she is fleeing. She must go slowly, because there is so much that she is afraid she will be sick if she lets it all in at once.