Bitter Moon (The Huntress/FBI Thrillers Book 4)

by Alexandra Sokoloff

  “What was his voice like?”

  “He was white.” Before Roarke could say anything, she added, “You can tell by the voice.” She sounded defensive. “You can. Plus, he . . . used it.”

  “Used what?”

  “He called me a Mexican cunt.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said again.

  “It wasn’t you.” She drank more water, then added, “His voice was fake.”

  “Fake how?”

  “Like, he was making it lower. Rougher. Yelling and whispering at the same time. All the time he was . . .”

  She had been very detailed in the police report. He had sodomized her, beaten her with his fists and choked her, then raped her orally, holding the bag over her eyes.

  “I either passed out or just checked out for a while when he was . . .” She was overcome with savage, angry sobs for some time before she could continue. “But then I smelled it. The gas.

  “He was holding something in front of my face and he shook it. A metal can with liquid in it. Sloshing. The gas. He said he was going to burn me.

  “I was begging him. I didn’t even know what I was saying.” She shuddered convulsively. “He described the whole thing, you know? That he would pour gas all over me and set me on fire. How my flesh would cook. How it would smell. He said I would feel my flesh melting and my bones charring and that I would be screaming until my throat burned and then I would be screaming inside. He was getting off on it. That was the worst part of it. It made him . . . excited.”

  Roarke sat with his hands on his knees and breathed through his own fury. I am going to get you, you sick fuck.

  She was shivering uncontrollably. “I thought I was going to die,” she repeated. “I was sure he was going to kill me. When he started talking about burning me, I wanted to die—”

  Roarke leaned forward urgently, without touching her. “He didn’t kill you. You are strong. You are here. You’re here in Flagstaff, in your own shop.”

  She took another shuddering breath. He waited some minutes while she got hold of herself again, then asked very gently, “Do you know why he stopped? Did you say something, do something?”

  She shook her head, kept shaking it. “Something happened. I’m still not sure what. I think I heard a car, and maybe that scared him, because he suddenly climbed back in the front seat and drove off fast. He drove . . . maybe a few minutes, then stopped and pulled me out of the back and dumped me on the ground. It was some parking lot.”

  So that the cops couldn’t get tire tracks, Roarke thought. At this point the guy was thinking. He wasn’t taking chances. But he backed off on the burning . . .

  He wanted to touch her hand. He made himself stay still in his chair. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

  Her voice cracked. “He did it with someone, though. That’s why you’re here.”

  “I’m afraid so. One that I’m sure of, anyway.”

  She swallowed. “He burned her?”

  Roarke paused. “Yes.”

  Marlena sat very still. Then her chest heaved and she bolted up from her chair, ran to the back of the store. Roarke could hear her retching.

  He sat in the armchair, and looked out through the lowered blind at the passing people.

  Two teenage girls in colorful coats walked side by side, staring down at their phones as they texted. Much the same age as Marlena would have been . . .

  And Ivy, and Laura . . .

  After some time, Marlena came back, her eyes red. She sat down again, but Roarke could see she was starting to space out, detach from her surroundings.

  She’s had enough. No one should have to go through this again.

  He cleared his throat. “Before I go, can I ask why . . . what was it that made you go back to the police about the rape kit?”

  “My therapist.” She looked away from him. “For fifteen . . . sixteen years all I wanted to do was forget it ever happened. I went through a lot of pills and booze and other shit to make it go away.”

  She looked out the window.

  “January’s not a great time of year for me, for obvious reasons. I think maybe I wanted to live in snow so January would look different, you know? But last year it was just—bad. These . . . nightmares. Flashbacks. I knew I’d better get . . . something. Help.

  “I started working with Lyn, she got me into a support group, and people were talking about the rape kit backlog. So I called up the cops and I found out they never ran the DNA.”

  They never ran the DNA. And six months later this guy set Ivy on fire, Roarke thought, beyond fury. This madness. It has to change.

  “We’re going to run it now,” he said, his voice hard.

  She sat for a long moment, silent, but Roarke had the feeling she was working up to something. He waited, and finally she spoke.

  “I dream about it. It never goes away. I’m never not afraid. Because I know he’s out there. That he could show up again, anywhere. Anyone on the street could be him.” She looked at him, with dull, dark eyes. “This is a monster. He’s out there. And I never know if I’m looking right at him.”

  Roarke walked around downtown Flagstaff for almost an hour to clear his head. Then he went into the lobby of a hotel, where a painstaking historic renovation created a weird time warp back to an 1850s saloon. He sat on a glass-enclosed Victorian balcony and ordered a beer instead of lunch. It came, but he didn’t touch it.

  He looked out over the townspeople and tourists. He had half a mind to get in his rental car, drive to Phoenix, walk into the police department and demand the kit himself.

  Might not go over so well.

  He stared down at the street, watching a bundled-up bachelor party pedaling a PubCrawler down the street: a bizarre combination group bicycle and functional bar.

  The phrase boys will be boys floated through his head.

  And then that thought bumped against another.

  He scanned the street, focusing on the hotels, on the draped banners:

  WELCOME NATIONAL LIONS CONVENTION.

  Roarke suddenly felt a cold that had nothing to do with the icy weather.

  He pushed the beer aside, pulled out his iPad and called up the file with the list of rapes that Singh had compiled: the dates and cities of the attacks.

  Then he jumped onto to the internet and looked up the National Wayfarers Association website.

  There was a tab for Events and Conferences. Clicking on it got him to a list of past conventions, with the cities and dates.

  Roarke could barely hold the iPad, and he realized his hands were shaking. He clicked back and forth between screens, running down the lists, comparing the cities and dates of the rapes to the Wayfarer convention list.

  There had been a Wayfarer national convention in January for the last twenty years, exactly corresponding to the cities and dates of each rape.

  Except for Ivy.

  But the thing that stopped him, chilled his blood, was the current convention page.

  He stared down at the date in paralyzed disbelief.

  This year’s convention was this week. Starting tomorrow. In Dallas.

  Roarke grabbed for his phone, punched in the numbers for the convention hotel.

  “Yes, I’d like to be connected to one of your guests,” he told the first live person who answered, and waited impatiently through the inevitable transfer.

  “I’d like to speak to Mel Franzen, please.”

  “One moment, please . . .”

  Roarke waited in agonized impatience. The receptionist came back on. “I’m sorry, Mr. Franzen hasn’t checked in yet. Would you like me to transfer you to voice mail?”

  “No. Thank you,” Roarke said. “Can you connect me with Robert Lethbridge instead?”

  “One moment, sir . . . I’m sorry, we have no Robert Lethbridge registered.”

  “Thank you,” Roarke said numbly, and disconnected. He stared out at the mountains.

  It’s Franzen, then. This is what he does. He goes to the conventions where he’s going
to have plenty of alibi witnesses, he rents a van, and he cruises the schools in the early morning looking for girls walking alone.

  Both meticulously planned and opportunistic. Crimes spread out so far over different jurisdictions that no one had ever connected them.

  He stood up at the table, looking down at his phone.

  Dallas. It was late afternoon already.

  What could he do? Alert local police?

  And tell them what? To put a twenty-four hour tail on Franzen because he thought he might be planning to hunt down a high school girl?

  He had no evidence. No contact with the Dallas PD.

  Other customers at surrounding tables were staring at him. He threw money down on the table and ran through the bar, heading for the street, for his rental car.

  No time to book. He would get to the airport and take the first flight he could get.

  CARA

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  The Wayfarers Club is an easy walk from the school. She tells Lethbridge she wants to go to a meeting to see what the club is like, and once Lethbridge has talked to Ms. Sharonda, Cara goes the next day.

  It is an old, columned building, with steps up to the portico and symbols that look Greek on the arch above the doors. A big concrete compass stands on the front lawn.

  She goes to the parking lot at the side of the building first and walks through the rows of cars. There are lots of expensive ones with security systems, the kind that are harder to steal, she notes idly. But that is not her mission here. She is looking for the white van.

  There is no van of any color.

  She goes up the steps of the building and into the hall.

  There are more compasses inside, and a hallway full of pictures of men in suits, several polished wooden boards with attached wooden plaques and names carved into them.

  Loud talking and laughter comes from an open set of double doors halfway down the hall.

  She approaches with caution to look in.

  The meeting is all men inside, standing and sitting in rows and row of folding chairs.

  Some of them stop talking as she stands there in the doorway, looking around. Many of them look at her furtively. Some are not so furtive.

  It is a terrible, uncomfortable feeling, the eyes on her, like being on stage, like being on display. The smell of too-strong cologne rolls from the men and surrounds her. Every instinct she has is on alert for danger. She wonders how Laura could stand it. She has to force herself to stand still, not to turn and flee.

  One of the men comes up to her. He is tall, and broad, much bigger than she is. Franzen, the crew-cut man from the Palmers meeting, who was also at Laura’s funeral, standing near the grave. He gives her a smile with too many teeth.

  “Are you Eden?” he asks. “Vice-Principal Lethbridge said you wanted to attend our general meeting today. That’s very industrious of you. I’m Mel Franzen, the Palmers coordinator.”

  He has an oily interest in her, but so many men do. He sticks out a hand for her to shake. The clasp of his fingers is strong and damp, unpleasant, but she keeps her face still. She feels the bite of the large ring he wears on his middle finger, and glances down to see it has that same compass symbol. The vice-principal has one, too.

  “I’m looking for activities,” she says automatically. “To build my resume.”

  “Of course you are.” He does not let go of her hand. “And it’s our mission to help bright young people like you.” She pulls her fingers away from his grasp, and has to force herself not to wipe her palm on her jeans. As she does, she sees a flash of something in his eyes. Anger? But his voice is calm and friendly when he speaks.

  “We’re about to begin. Why don’t you take a seat?”

  She turns and finds a chair in a back row on the aisle, the one nearest the door so she can flee.

  Some other man in a suit takes the stage and calls the meeting to order.

  The meeting is a succession of speakers, men talking loudly and laughing, voting on things she doesn’t understand and doesn’t care about. An accountant reports on finances. Someone gets up to talk about a pancake breakfast. There are many mentions of “the community” and “the youth.”

  She keeps looking over the rows of men in suits. All of them seem old. All of them seem too loud. They are a pack, like Martell and the jocks. There is nothing good about packs.

  There are so many of them, and she doesn’t know what she is looking for.

  She looks at the silent piano in the corner. Laura came here, and sat in the middle of this. Week after week, that silent, frightened girl on display for the pack.

  Why? Why would you? Why would anyone?

  Then her ears prick up at a familiar name, as the man called Franzen takes the podium again.

  “Our deepest sympathies go out to the Huell family for the loss of their daughter. The chapter is collecting donations that will serve to establish a memorial scholarship fund. See Pete to contribute. Also, as the family is in mourning, Dave Huell will be unable to serve as delegate to the national convention this month. We will need to elect a new delegate. Can I ask for volunteers, for brothers who will be able to fly out to Houston next week . . .”

  Some of the men raise their hands, and Cara loses interest again.

  She is the first to leave the meeting.

  In the corridor, before anyone else comes out, she ducks inside one of the other doors. It is some sort of smaller meeting room, with a large conference table in the center and bookcases against the walls. There are more of the compass symbols here, more charts and plaques, a glass case full of trophies.

  She closes the door most of the way, stands against the wall by the doorway, listening to the heavy sound of shoes on the polished floor of the hall, to loud male chatter. After a time, the hall is silent.

  Then she opens the door silently, just a crack, peers out. There is no one in the hall. She eases through the door and makes her feet light and silent as she walks down the hall toward the rectangular glow from the last office. She stops beside the doorway and listens, hears no one moving. She sneaks a look inside.

  There is a large desk, shelves and filing cabinets.

  She looks over the desk, with its desktop computer, pencil jar, a calendar blotter, an in and out box for papers. She takes a glance at the computer, at the filing cabinets . . . takes a step through the door . . .

  What can she look for here? What could she find that would tell her something? Would Ivy’s name be in the files? Would Laura’s? Would that tell her anything, anyway? Surely the things that happened to those girls would never be written down and filed away.

  Someone speaks from the doorway behind her. “We meet again.”

  That oily, jovial voice.

  She turns to face Franzen. He is standing in the doorway, blocking it.

  “I thought you’d gone,” he says pleasantly, but there is an edge in his tone now.

  She swallows, tries to keep her voice steady. “I came back. Vice-Principal Lethbridge said I really should sign up. So that’s what I want to do.”

  She watches him, looking for any signs, not knowing what she’s looking for. She had thought that she would be able to see, that somehow It would reveal itself, show Its teeth, make some move. But everything about Franzen is cloudy. All she sees is a man in a suit with a blustery face.

  He is watching her, too. “Is that all?”

  She doesn’t know what he’s asking, so she is silent.

  “Is that the real reason you’re here?”

  She wants to shake him, to shock him. “I’m a friend of Ivy’s,” she says quickly.

  It is as if he has stopped breathing. For no more than a moment, but she can feel the pause, the stillness. Then his face moves again. He raises his eyebrows.

  “Ivy?”

  “Yes,” she says, and looks straight into his face, waiting for the lie. If he pretends he knows nothing, she will know. It will be proof.

  He shakes his head. “We are all so very distres
sed about that whole—business. That poor girl. The club is helping with her medical bills.”

  And suddenly Cara knows what to say. “She said I should join the club.”

  It works like a charm. Franzen seems to pale under his crew cut. “She said?”

  “She said I would learn a lot.”

  She keeps her face innocent, but she can feel his agitation. He cannot believe this conversation is happening. All the power has shifted to her.

  “When was that, that you spoke to her?” he asks. He is trying to keep a friendly tone but she can hear the urgency in his voice.

  “I visit her. At the Mission.”

  “And she’s speaking?”

  “Oh yes. More every day.” She watches his face, and decides to go further. “If she wants me to come here, there must be a reason, right? And not just Ivy. Laura came, too. Someone has to do it now that they’re gone.”

  His eyes narrow. “Do what?”

  She shrugs. “That’s what I’m here for. To learn.”

  “You want to learn. That’s interesting. You want—to learn.”

  His voice has become soft—and ugly. Her stomach lurches. The change in him is so fast she knows that she has made a mistake. And she is here, alone with him . . .

  She glances at the door. He glances at it too, then back to her, his face weirdly blank. He is solidly in front of the doorway, and he is so much bigger than she is. But she knows that on the desk behind her is a pencil jar . . . and in that jar is a pair of scissors.

  She takes a step backward, feels the edge of the desk against her thighs . . . eases her hand behind her back . . .

  There is a step behind Franzen. He twists around to look. Another man in a suit glances inside the office, sees Cara.

  “I didn’t know you had company.”

  She takes her chance and darts out, lunging straight ahead and pushing between the two men.

  “Eden!” Franzen calls from behind her, but she runs down the hallway, toward the front door, and slams out.

  Outside, she runs down the front steps and veers to the right, ducking out of sight around the side of the building. She pauses there, her back pressed against the wall, listening for any sound of someone following her . . .