Beneath the Ashes

by Dea Poirier

  “Believe me—I know,” I say, a heavy breath escaping with my words. “Take your time, though. Really. Give this all of you that it takes. I’ll be here if you need me.”

  “Thanks. You’re the best. You know that, right?”

  “I try.” I chuckle. “How are things going back there? How is it seeing your family?” Though I don’t know much about Noah’s family other than the fact that they don’t get along, I’m sure he can’t avoid them his entire trip. I’ve always wanted to know more about them, but every time I’ve asked, he’s skirted the subject, not wanting to give me details about them or his past.

  “I talked my brother into giving me the cold case files. He’s technically not supposed to, but they clearly need the help on this. Thankfully, he’s the only family I’ve seen so far. I’ve sworn him to secrecy that I’m even back here,” he says, his voice filtering in and out with static on the line.

  “Did you find anything in the files?”

  “Six women other than Tina, Josh’s mom, were killed. They were all strangled and dumped in the city within a six-block radius of one another. They think that all these women were sex workers, because of the location. But I know there’s no way that Tina was involved in that. She had a good job.”

  “Ligature or manual strangulation?” I ask as my mind sifts through the details.

  “Ligature,” he says. “That’s all I know so far. How’s your case coming?”

  “The strongest lead is the hospital. Both victims were there within two weeks of their deaths,” I say as I pick at a stray thread on the comforter.

  “Any suspects in the hospital?” he asks before I can add more.

  “There’s a doctor there who saw both victims, and he’s being cagey about his alibi,” I say, before filling him in on the rest of the questioning and then the strange text messages I found on Melanie’s phone.

  “Have you checked out the coordinates yet?”

  “I haven’t been able to. Tomorrow, though, that’s what I’m going to do first thing.”

  “Did you at least look them up?” he asks, fabric rustling in the background, and I imagine him shifting on top of the bed in his hotel room.

  I scoff at his question. “Of course I did, Noah.” Annoyance bleeds into my voice. Does he think I’m an amateur?

  “And?” Excitement lifts his words.

  I rattle off each location, explaining to him what I found.

  “Did the second victim have the same texts?”

  “We don’t know yet; I’ll find out tomorrow. Until then, all I can do is guess at it. But if those coordinates are on both phones, that’s a substantial lead. Either way, I’m scoping out the locations.”

  Noah yawns, and I can’t help that it makes me do the same.

  “Go get some sleep,” I say.

  “If you insist. Call me tomorrow if you find out anything.” He pauses for a second. “Actually, call me even if you don’t find out anything.”

  “I will,” I promise.

  “Good night,” he says.

  I parrot his words, though I consider saying more. I bite it back, because it’s too soon for I love yous.

  I hang up the phone. After it’s on the charger, I slip into bed, and within seconds of my head hitting the pillow, I’m asleep.

  A thunderous crack wakes me. My body moves on its own as I bolt awake, diving behind the side of the bed farthest from the door. The remnants of sleep cling to my mind, muddying my thoughts. It takes me several beats to remember where I am. The hotel. My heart pounds, and adrenaline burns in my blood. I try to sort out what’s happening: the deafening crack, heavy footfalls on the floor, muffled voices. I reach automatically for the nightstand, trying to feel for my gun in the darkness.

  Footsteps grow closer, and the bed creaks as a heavy weight climbs on top of it. I have to get out of here, to move. But my limbs are so weighted they may as well be chiseled from granite. Large hands wrap around my biceps, lifting me from the floor. The smell of sweat and cigarette smoke makes my nostrils flare. In the darkness, the wide form of a man takes shape in front of me. Automatically I thrash my legs, flailing toward the person who’s grabbed me. My foot connects with a body, the impact hitting with a hollow thud.

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” a man spits, and though I can’t see him in the darkness, I’d bet he’s doubled over. More hands grab at me in the dark, and though I try to kick out again, I hit nothing but air.

  “Get your fucking hands off me,” I growl.

  “The kitten’s got claws,” a man says behind me before throwing me hard against the wall. As soon as I hit it, the air is forced from my lungs, and his body cages me, pinning me against it. If this guy tries to rape me, I’ll tear his balls off with my teeth.

  “Calm down. I’m just here to deliver a message, and we’ll be on our merry way,” the man in front of me says, his voice low. His stinking breath hits my face as he talks. It smells sour, like he drank beer hours ago.

  “Oh? And what message is that?” My words come out as a gasp, the adrenaline and exertion making it hard to catch my breath.

  “Stop investigating those girls, their deaths. Rule them as suicides, and no one else will get hurt,” he says.

  I want to laugh at him, to scream at him to get out of my face, but I don’t. If I can convince him that I’ll do as he asks, I can get my gun and find out who really sent these assholes.

  “Fine,” I say, my voice far steadier than I expect it to be.

  “Fine?”

  I nod my head, though in the dark I’m sure they can’t see it. “This isn’t my town. I work for Vinalhaven. I was just doing someone a favor. If I’m stepping on someone else’s toes, I’ll take the first ferry back in the morning. I really don’t need this to be my problem.” The lie comes far too easily. I almost convince myself.

  The man moves backward, his weight shifting away from my body. The moment I sense he’s far enough, I dive toward the nightstand, flip on the lamp, and grab my gun. My eyes scream at the sudden light, but I force myself to turn around, facing my attackers. One has already made it to the door. He’s hunched over, arm clutched around his middle, probably the guy I kicked. But the other guy, he’s frozen near the window. Both are dressed in black, balaclavas covering their faces and hair.

  As I swing the gun around to the guy near the window, I click the safety off and aim at him. He freezes, his hands in the air. God, it’d feel good to squeeze off a warning shot next to this motherfucker. But I don’t. Through his mask I can make out his blue eyes and thin cracked lips. Circles of pale white flesh stand out beneath the mask. He’s probably got six inches on me, and his build is slighter than I would have guessed from the force he used to press me against the wall. I glance to the guy near the door, just in time for him to slip out.

  “God dammit,” I mumble to myself. I train my gun back on the shitbag near the window. “Take off the mask,” I say, motioning with the gun. I’m pissed the other guy got away, but it’s still possible that we can track him down before he gets too far.

  His hands tremble, still held toward the sky. And it takes him a long time to follow my instructions. I’m not sure if it’s because of the fear or because he’s afraid I’ll recognize him.

  “I mean it,” I say and take a step closer for emphasis, not that it’d help my shot any. He doesn’t know that, though. “There are a hundred other hotel rooms I can move to if I get blood in this one.”

  The man grabs the mask, yanking it off in one swift movement. He’s got disheveled red hair, a thin, straight nose, and a wide jaw. I’ve never seen him before.

  “Who sent you?”

  He glances toward the door, like he’s seconds from making a run for it.

  “If you run, I’ll fill your back with bullets before you even reach the door. I have good aim,” I say, taking another step closer to him. I grab my cell phone and give it a voice command to call the station. If he tries to run for it, I want backup.

  As soon as the dispatcher answ
ers, I tell her to send other officers to the hotel and about the one on the run. This asshole is going to jail.

  “Now, where were we?” I ask as I end the call with dispatch. “Oh yes, I was asking who sent you.”

  “I didn’t get her name.”

  “Her?” I’d expect it’d be the killer. And of all things, I would not believe that a woman sexually assaulted that girl, killed her, and left her covered in ashes. That would follow no pattern I’ve ever heard of. Women usually kill men.

  “I met her near the hospital.”

  “And what did she look like?” There’s an edge to my voice, probably because I don’t believe a goddamn word he’s saying. I hold my gun steady, still trained on him as I speak.

  “Long brown hair, hot. Probably a C cup.”

  Boobs? Really? I open my mouth to try to coax more out of him, but the echo of feet in the hall warns me our time has come to an end. Bodies flood in through the door, three officers with their weapons drawn. Zane leads the pack, followed by Clint and Sasha. Clint moves forward automatically and cuffs the guy within seconds. He and Sasha haul the perp out of the room, and I deflate a little as they go. I click my safety back on, then slide my gun back onto the nightstand.

  “You all right, Claire?” Zane asks as he holsters his weapon and steps closer to me.

  I nod and give him a rundown of what happened.

  His eyes are narrowed on me as he absorbs my words. “Don’t worry, we’ve got him now. I’ll take him back to the station to see what else I can get out of him.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “Anytime. That’s what we’re here for. Good night.”

  “Night.”

  Once Zane and the others are gone, I let out a breath that’s been pent up for too long. After our chat, I think it’s a possibility Vera sent them. But trying to put me off the case is one thing. Sending men into my hotel room—that’s quite another. I’m not convinced she’d risk that, but I sure as hell plan to watch my back. As the adrenaline burns away in my blood, I grab my things from the room and pack them up. I trade my hotel room with the bashed-up door for a new one. As laced with adrenaline as I am, I doubt I’ll ever get back to sleep. But as I lie in bed, the darkness takes me, and I drift off.

  CHAPTER 9

  The station parking lot only has two cars in it when I pull in on Thursday morning. I’m sure Zane and Sergeant Pelletier will be sleeping late after dealing with my late-night “visitors.” One of the cars I recognize as Austin’s Fiat. The other I don’t know, but I say a prayer to myself that it belongs to Kenneth. I need the data from Asha’s phone. Snow spirals lazily from the sky as I open my car door and slip out into the cold.

  I shake the snow out of my hair as I walk inside. The scent of coffee is thick in the air. I cross the lobby, then the bull pen. Austin sits at her desk, head swiveling to survey me as I stride in. I wave to her, shed my coat and gloves, and leave them at my desk.

  “Morning,” I say.

  “I made coffee,” she says, barely looking away from her monitor.

  “Thanks. Did we get the texts from tech yet?” I ask, then realize I should just say Kenneth, as he’s the extent of the tech team in this office.

  “He didn’t have them when I checked in half an hour ago. But he did say soon,” she offers, glancing at me.

  “Munroe is stopping by around ten to give his DNA. Please get it to the forensics team and tell them that there’s a rush on it.”

  “I will,” she says, picking up her phone.

  I grab a cup of coffee and walk down the small hallway leading to his office. The door is cracked open when I approach, allowing the hum of all the computer equipment to spill out. I nudge the door open and peek inside. The room is filled to the brim with servers and monitors, all stacked atop long wooden tables along the walls. Several boxes are scattered on the floor, overflowing with wires and components.

  “Morning,” I say, hoping my appearance doesn’t startle him. With the noise in here, I’m not sure he could hear my approach.

  He looks over at me, his long hair half in his face. He raises a heavily tattooed arm, waving me in before sweeping the hair from his eyes. Kenneth is probably in his early to midtwenties and looks more biker than computer nerd.

  “Detective,” he says with a grin.

  “Please tell me that you’ve got something for me.”

  “I do,” he says, flourishing a stack of papers.

  I stride forward, taking them. The pages are separated by phone number, then by the time they came in. The first few pages are correspondence from friends and family. Then there are other numbers that contacted Asha the day she died. The 203 number that I’ve seen before, the same burner number that texted Melanie before her death. My heart pounds with the realization.

  “That burner number was saved in her phone as Hottie Doc,” Kenneth says as he swivels his computer chair back and forth.

  That points me back to the hospital, the place the evidence has been pointing to all along.

  “Were there texts from the other burner number?” I ask as I start to flick through the pages. Just as he starts to say yes, I see them. Pages of incoming texts containing the same coordinates as Melanie’s phone.

  “And there’s no chance we can find out who owns either burner number?” I ask. Right now, we don’t have enough evidence to get a warrant on Dr. Munroe to see if he owns the burner phone. No one has mentioned seeing him with either victim after they were released from the hospital, and while his lack of an alibi is suspicious, we need real evidence for a warrant.

  “The first one, no. It’s all prepaid with cash on that carrier. The other, though, I’ve started looking into, because the number sending out the messages has an unusual format. They’re being sent by an anonymous texting service, not from a single person or phone.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “Imagine it like this. Know the spam emails that you get every day?”

  I nod.

  “It’s the same kind of thing, but instead of building email lists and blasting it out into cyberspace with an email marketing platform, they’re using a different format. Their lists are cell phone numbers, and instead of coupons, they’re sending out those coordinates.” When he starts to talk tech, he becomes really animated, his hands moving as he speaks.

  So someone is sending out mass messages with these coordinates? Why? Is it so that people can meet up at specific times? That’s all I can gather, since each text contains a time and place. “There’s no way to track how they’re texting this?”

  He shakes his head. “The service they’re using isn’t based in the US. And they pride themselves on keeping no long-term personal data for their customers. That way they never have to worry about privacy laws.”

  “Thank you for this,” I say.

  He waves his hand, as if it’s nothing. “I’m still going through her social media posts and emails. Along with the call log. If I find anything that seems useful, I’ll tell you ASAP.”

  “I want to see any emails or messages she sent within forty-eight hours of her death,” I say, then give him the date and time to look out for.

  “Got it,” he says before swiveling back to his computer.

  I take the printouts and walk back to the bull pen. Austin turns, looking at me with her eyebrows raised. I hand over the pages with the coordinates and the texts from Hottie Doc. While she looks them over, I test a sip of my coffee.

  “Those are the same coordinates, and the same burner numbers that were texting Melanie as well,” I say.

  “What’s our next step?”

  “Grab your coat. We’re heading to the first coordinates so we can check these out.”

  Austin nods, picking up her gear as I do the same. It’s going to be cold out, but we’ve got to figure out what these locations mean and why they were sent to Asha and Melanie. Once we’ve got our things together, I shoot Sergeant Pelletier an email to let him know where we’ll be.

  We wa
lk out of the station together; the snowfall has picked up in the half an hour I was inside. I turn on my car, blasting the heat for Austin’s sake, and back out of my space carefully. Austin helps me navigate through the city toward the first location, Camden Hills State Park.

  “I’m not sure how much snow they’ll have cleared on the roads up to the top,” Austin says as I turn off Route 1 toward the park. “People come up here to ski this time of year, but sometimes they don’t plow it until late. People aren’t usually up here in the morning.”

  Her words make me consider again if it’s time to give up my Mustang for a car built for Maine winters, but I banish the thought almost as soon as it appears in my mind. I don’t plan on staying here. Why would I need to change vehicles if I don’t stay?

  Though the path up the mountain hasn’t been plowed, the snow hasn’t accumulated enough to make the drive difficult. Once we get to the top, I pull into the small parking lot next to a cabin that’s tucked back into the trees. A sign stands out front, marking it as a ski shelter. I open up my GPS app on my phone and punch in the first set of coordinates.

  “Ready?” I ask, glancing toward Austin.

  She nods. “Let’s find it,” she says before popping her door open.

  The wind hisses against me as I slam the car door. I hold up my phone carefully with my gloved hand and look at the directions on the screen. It shows that our destination is a ten-minute walk from our current location. Far off in the trees, the roar of an engine cuts through the silence. Snowmobiles, I’d guess. Austin and I walk toward the snow-dusted forest.

  Our feet crunch on the snow as we weave through a part in the trees. There’s no path to be seen beneath the snow. It’s not like we can rely on trails to get us to these coordinates anyway. Cold bites our exposed flesh, making my cheeks sting as we walk. I glance down at the phone in my hand, surveying the GPS. As we grow closer, the trees huddled around us begin to spread before finally opening to a large clearing at least two hundred yards across. On each side, paths have been cut through the trees, carving a trail at least fifteen feet wide.