No Going Back (Sawyer Brooks)

by T. R. Ragan

  Laura came up behind Tara and whispered into her ear, “She doesn’t look right. Stop her before she does something we might all regret.”

  Tara didn’t know what to do. Once Pamela finished her speech, she would give her friend the sign that it was over and then shut off the camera.

  “After you got off me,” Pamela told Kyle, “you looked at me as if I were a piece of trash. That’s when I knew you had done this before. I also came to realize it would be up to me to make sure you never raped anyone else.”

  Pamela grabbed hold of his penis with her left hand and brought the sharp blade of the knife snug against the base.

  Kyle’s eyes bulged, and sweat dripped down the sides of his face.

  Laura shouted for Pamela to stop as she lunged for the bed.

  Tara couldn’t tell if Pamela had purposely cut Kyle or if the movement caused by Laura pouncing on the mattress had made things spiral out of control. But either way, she knew they were in trouble when she saw blood spurting everywhere.

  Rachel screamed, then collapsed to the floor like a rag doll.

  Mandy shouted Rachel’s name and ran to her side.

  Tara couldn’t wrap her mind around what she’d just witnessed. This couldn’t be happening. Her ears were buzzing. She felt faint. “No,” she said. “Stop!” But it was much too late for that.

  Blood pooled between Kyle’s legs.

  Pamela climbed off the bed. She looked like a zombie.

  Laura plucked the knife from Pamela and took it to the bathroom, where Tara heard it clang against the sink. And then Tara saw two beams of light from the street below shoot through the window and sweep across the room.

  Tara ran to the window and looked out.

  Her parents had come home early.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  At work in her cubicle the next day, Sawyer read through news headlines, dismayed to see just last night a group of teenaged girls in the nearby town of Rocklin had decided to teach a boy a lesson. The scene was described as bloody and frightening, but the wound had turned out to be a nick that would heal quickly.

  Thank goodness.

  What was the world coming to?

  First, the Black Wigs, then The Slayers, and now young girls taking matters into their own hands right inside the comfort of their home.

  The Black Wigs, purposely or not, had created a monster. Revenge was not the answer.

  Sawyer moved on, sorting through notes and articles she had previously saved and written about the Black Wigs. Inside an eight-by-ten envelope was a copy of the flash drive Sean Palmer had given her with instructions to have the homemade video lightened since it had been taken at night and was grainy and pixelated. Palmer’s source was unknown, but he’d said the video had been taken in West Sacramento on the same night Otto Radley had been released from prison.

  Otto Radley had abducted a twenty-one-year-old woman named Christina Farro and held her captive for three years. Pulled over for a traffic violation, he was arrested when the police found evidence inside his car that led them to Christina Farro. Twenty years later, Otto Radley was released and hadn’t been seen since. Poof! Gone in the blink of an eye.

  The answer to what happened to Otto Radley could be on the tiny flash drive sitting right in front of her. Although the video was dark and blurry, Otto Radley was a giant of a man. Just like the shadowed figure seen on the video. If she squinted her eyes and focused really hard, she could see the figure approach a woman sitting on a bench, a woman with short dark hair. A moment later, another figure with the same short dark hair appears from behind a tree.

  Before Sawyer had a chance to do anything with the video, Palmer had been attacked and was still recuperating. She had, however, upon her return to work, copied the video and then taken the original flash drive to Detective Perez, leaving it with the person at the front desk since the detective had been too busy to see her.

  Sawyer spent the next thirty minutes watching how to enhance videos on YouTube. She finally gave up and did a search for video-enhancement companies in the area. She called the one with the best reviews: Purple House Digital in Midtown.

  Minutes later, her problem was solved. The owner said he would be happy to take a look at the video and see what he could do.

  Sawyer played with a rubber band, rolling it around her index finger while she stared at her notes. As far as investigators could tell, Brad Vicente had been the Black Wigs’ first target. That was three months ago. According to reports, five women wearing black wigs and masks had kept Vicente trapped in his own home while subjecting him to torture. But when an anonymous call led the police to a bound and bloodied Brad Vicente, they also found a collection of rape videos Vicente had made for his own private viewing. Although the police were actively searching for the female vigilantes, Brad Vicente was found guilty of being a serial rapist, and he was locked up.

  The Black Wigs’ second target could be Otto Radley. If Otto Radley did turn out to be the man on the video, then where was he? Were the Black Wigs holding him captive somewhere? Was he dead? Or had the big man simply run off?

  Victim number three was Myles Davenport, a man taken from the parking lot outside the high school where his ten-year reunion had taken place. Security cameras had caught members of the Black Wigs at work. Myles Davenport was found in the woods surrounding Placerville. Autopsy reports revealed that he’d died of a heart attack.

  What tied these men together was that at some point in their lives, Brad Vicente, Otto Radley, and Myles Davenport had all been accused of rape.

  Sawyer tapped the tip of her pen on Nick Calderon’s name. A quick search revealed no record of any sort. No one had ever accused the man of rape. Geezer had told Sawyer that one slender person of average height was seen on the neighbor’s home security camera.

  One person.

  If the Black Wigs were responsible for the death of Nick Calderon, then why would only one of them be seen coming and going?

  Geezer had also mentioned that the person appeared to have been wearing lipstick. Nobody would have made note of that unless it stood out. He also told her that the black wig fell to the intruder’s shoulders.

  Sawyer skimmed through articles about the Black Wigs written by other sources. Lipstick was never mentioned. Not once. The wigs, though, were talked about many times as being short—cut close to the ears.

  There it was again. A tingle. More of a niggling. Could they be dealing with a copycat?

  Anything was possible, especially considering the rippling effect the Black Wigs appeared to be having on young females around the country.

  She grabbed a new manila file and wrote “Nick Calderon” on the tab. Using the notes she’d taken on her phone, she found a fresh pad of paper and wrote down the residence where Linda Calderon said her ex-husband had lived during much of his childhood: Children’s Home of Sacramento.

  The next few hours were spent scouring the internet.

  Nick Calderon had been abandoned at a young age. A troubled child, he’d kicked and bitten his way through the foster system until he’d eventually ended up at the Children’s Home of Sacramento.

  An article she found on the school talked about how a professor of public policy had tried to close down residential homes in Sacramento altogether, since she and others believed strongly in the government-funded foster system in the hope that the children would eventually be reunited with their families. But the other side of the coin was that not all children had families that would take them back. And not all children were emotionally, physically, or mentally equipped to deal with a smaller family unit. That’s where a government-funded residential treatment facility in Sacramento came into the picture. The children were put in an environment where they were provided family meals. Many children, boys and girls, came to consider others at the facility to be like siblings.

  Next, Sawyer checked Facebook. Nick Calderon had an updated profile. From the looks of it, he’d been fairly active on social media right up to his death. He w
as an insurance salesman. He also liked to hunt. There was a picture of him with two other men, taken last year. They all wore what looked to Sawyer like standard camouflage duck-hunting gear.

  The guy standing in the middle was the tallest and thinnest of the three. His face was half-hidden beneath the bill of his hat. The guy on the far right had a large belly and a full beard.

  Sawyer moved on, scrolling through inappropriate memes and silly jokes. She kept skimming until she got to a black-and-white Polaroid picture: three boys standing side by side in front of a nondescript, two-story building that was half-brick, half-stucco. The sign next to the boys read CHILDREN’S HOME OF SACRAMENTO. The names Bruce, Nick, and Felix had been scrawled across the bottom in permanent black marker with the year 1992 written beneath the names.

  She looked through Nick’s list of friends. No Bruce or Felix. No last names mentioned on any posts, leaving her no choice but to concentrate on learning more about the home, which also had been a school. No fewer than seven links popped up on her screen. There had been a fire at the school. The historic building had burned to the ground in less than twenty minutes. Oil, gasoline, and other supplies kept in the basement had fueled the fire. Another link to the school showed various black-and-white photos, groups of kids huddled together like they do every year at most grammar schools. There was a picture of a woman pushing a young girl on a tire swing in front of the building; another picture had been taken in the dining room, which consisted of one long table that seated twenty children at once. At the end of the table was a woman. She was standing. Hands on hips, she wore an apron and a smile.

  Hoping to learn more about the kids and staff who once resided there, Sawyer called the Sacramento County Clerk’s Office. After being directed to the Department of Social Services and then to Foster Care Services, and receiving little help, she skimmed through the articles again until she found a name. Nancy Lay was listed as a staff member at the children’s home. Sawyer put the woman’s name into a database. Bingo. Nancy Lay was eighty-nine and lived in Auburn.

  She called the number listed. Nobody answered, so she left her name and number and asked Nancy Lay to please give her a call back. After she hung up, she called again and left her email, just in case. Next, she printed off the black-and-white photos for her file.

  “Sawyer! There you are.”

  Sawyer spun her chair around, surprised to see Lexi Holmes filling the entrance to her cubicle. Sawyer had been working as a crime reporter for only a few months. Lexi had been reporting crime for nearly two decades, but you wouldn’t know it since she didn’t look forty-one. Lexi was small-boned and stylish, her dark hair pulled back tight into a bun at her nape. Her eyes were the color of nutmeg, and her high cheekbones looked as if they had been chiseled from marble. If Lexi ever showed up to work in jeans and a T-shirt, Sawyer wasn’t sure she would recognize her.

  Admittedly Sawyer hardly knew the woman, but she didn’t trust her. Nor did she like her very much. At every editorial meeting, Lexi and the others made certain Sawyer was left covering stories about minor crimes—petty theft, intent to sell drugs, disturbing the peace. Sawyer knew she wasn’t being fair; the truth of the matter was that sometimes there just wasn’t enough real crime to go around. “What do you need, Lexi?”

  “I need you to help a girl out. I’d like you to give me everything you have on the Black Wigs story.”

  “Um, that would be a big no.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Sawyer smiled despite the nerves swirling around in her stomach. “You had your chance. A few weeks ago, you and David wanted nothing to do with the Black Wigs story. I said no.”

  “Maybe this will change your mind.” Lexi stepped forward and plopped a manila file on Sawyer’s desk.

  Sawyer swiveled around so that she was facing her desk and opened the file. It was a copy of the police report for the Nick Calderon case. She skimmed the basics—victim’s name, date and time, address, ethnicity, birth date, marital status—then quickly moved on to the narrative section. No witnesses or suspects at this time. The police had retrieved a recording from the neighbor’s security camera. The dog, a male, medium size with brown fur, according to the neighbors, was missing.

  Sawyer shut the file. “How could you possibly get a copy of that police report so soon?”

  Lexi’s eyes did a half roll. “Every decent reporter I know in this building has multiple sources at almost every government agency at their disposal. You don’t?”

  “Those aren’t called sources. A copy of a police report from an ongoing case is considered a ‘leaked document.’”

  Lexi snorted. “I would consider this report to be nonattributable. As long as I don’t attribute any of the information in the report to the police, no foul.”

  Sawyer narrowed her eyes. “I’ve been working with you and the others for months, and this is the first time you’ve said more than two words to me. What do you really want?”

  “I’ve been watching you. If you ask me, you’re an investigator, not a reporter. And I want to help you take this group down.”

  “Take them down?”

  “Yes. I want to find them and then watch them squirm as they’re escorted to jail. One after the other,” she said with much relish.

  “The Black Wigs could very well be victims of assault. Why else would they go after these guys?”

  “Are you condoning what they’ve done?”

  “Of course not, but I also refuse to judge the Black Wigs until I know the whole story.”

  “I’ll tell you the whole story. The Black Wigs are creating havoc in our society. We’ve got young girls everywhere thinking that these women with their masks and wigs are superheroes. Secret groups are popping up all over social media. And now my sixteen-year-old niece—my beautiful, innocent niece—has been drawn into the insanity.”

  Sawyer frowned. “Your niece?”

  “Tara Alcozar. She and her friends decided to mimic the Black Wigs and try and teach a boy a lesson. Things got out of hand, and now my sister and her husband are being sued.”

  “I saw it on the news. The girls never intended to hurt the boy. And it was only a nick. Even minor cuts in the genital area bleed a lot. The boy will be fine, and I’m certain the case will be dismissed.”

  Lexi crossed her arms. “I want this story. If you won’t give it to me, I’ll either jump on it and write my own story, or we can work together.”

  “You want to work on the Black Wigs case with me?”

  “Not even a little bit. But those female vigilantes,” Lexi said, uncrossing her arms and wagging a polished nail at her, “are a hot commodity right now. And I want a piece of the action.”

  “Action?” So it wasn’t all about her niece after all, Sawyer thought.

  “These lady vigilantes are a big deal right now. Everyone is talking about them. Halloween is a month away, and black wigs are flying off the shelves.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “I don’t kid about things like this. In fact, I don’t kid around. Period. So what do you say? Either we collaborate or we rush competing stories into publication. What’s it going to be?”

  The woman was threatening her, and Sawyer didn’t like it. “I need to talk to Palmer.”

  “I already did. He’s the one who suggested I talk to you.”

  What the hell? Sawyer knew it wouldn’t look good if she lost her temper. Instead she took a calming breath. If she didn’t include Lexi on the case, things could get ugly, and difficult. She drew in a breath. “If I agree to let you join me, we do things my way.”

  Lexi came forward and took her file back. “Sure, sure. We do things your way. Meet me in Conference Room G on the second floor in thirty minutes.”

  “What for?”

  “We need to share information and strategize. I want the Pulitzer Prize.”

  “The Pulitzer Prize? I thought you didn’t kid around?”

  “I don’t.”

  Sawyer reeled in the urge to
laugh. “I have a full schedule today. We’ll meet tomorrow at ten a.m.”

  Lips pursed, Lexi gave a subtle eye roll, nodded her agreement, then walked away.

  Sawyer organized the notes and files scattered about, then put it all in her desk drawer and locked it. Her phone buzzed. There was a text from Derek, her boyfriend, who also worked at the paper. His office was on the same floor, right around the corner.

  The text read: What time are we supposed to be at your sister’s house for dinner?

  Damn. She’d forgotten all about dinner at Harper’s. She looked at her calendar. Sure enough, there it was: Dinner @ 7 pm Harper’s.

  She texted him back: Can you pick me up at 6:45? ♥

  Derek: Great. Excited to finally meet your sisters. See you tonight.

  Sawyer: Don’t get too excited! See you soon.

  She had an appointment with her new therapist. She also wanted to stop by Palmer’s house and have a chat, but that would have to wait since she didn’t want to be late for dinner.

  As she headed for the exit, her thoughts quickly ping-ponged back to Lexi. There was no way she was going to let Lexi Holmes get the best of her. She would share most of what she had . . . but not all of it. She needed to keep the last puzzle piece in her pocket . . . just in case.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Sawyer took a seat on the small, comfortable sofa, placed her hands on her lap, and waited for her therapist to get things rolling. Jane Thomas was a licensed mental health counselor who worked in a private practice. Standing at full height with shoulders pushed back, Jane didn’t come close to hitting the five-foot mark. Her eyes were as brown as the unused-but-well-oiled mahogany desk by the window at the far corner of the room, her shoes were always flat and sensible, and her polyester tops were always colorful and swingy.

  Sawyer’s favorite thing about Jane was that she didn’t take notes while Sawyer talked. She simply listened.

  Jane sat in her upholstered wing chair, legs crossed. “Last week we talked about your relationship with Derek. Did you have a chance to talk to him about your concerns?”