by T. R. Ragan
That left the bathroom. She stepped inside, stood near the toilet with her back to the wall. She pinched her nose. There wasn’t a spot on the toilet, bathtub, or the walls that wasn’t splattered with urine. Dirty rags and trash covered most of the floor. No signs of toothpaste or toothbrush on the sink. Just dirt and grime. How did anyone live in such filth?
Felix Iverson had been the most vocal of the group of boys in the room where she’d been held down and raped. She could still see his face as if it had all happened last week. His hair hadn’t been as long as it was now, but long enough that she remembered he’d pulled it back with a rubber band. She’d done her research, and she knew he’d attended California State University Chico but didn’t last long.
She’d learned the hard way that frat parties had a way of drawing in some sketchy dudes. If you found yourself at the wrong sort of party, and you didn’t stay close to a friend and refrain from drinking, there was a good chance you might become a target. First-year girls were herded into frat parties, while guys were often turned away. That right there should have set off alarm bells.
But it hadn’t.
And she’d paid the price.
But the boys who had done the most damage would finally be punished. She wasn’t sure what would come next. How many more rapists would she take down after Felix? There were others who had participated and whose names she’d learned since all the courtroom drama.
She was on a roll. Why stop now? The world had nothing left to offer her.
The smell in the bathroom finally proved to be too much. She stepped out and breathed in stale smoke and old socks instead. With some time on her hands, she considered which weapon she should use on him when he returned. Hunting knife or Glock? She pulled out her knife, admired its newly sharpened blade, and decided to go with that. It was quiet, and just as lethal.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Wig and lipstick in place, Cockroach watched from afar as Felix Iverson approached his trailer, gravel crunching beneath his feet. The door creaked open and then slammed, prompting Cockroach to unfold from his crouched position and blindly touch the leather pouch around his waist. Inside was everything he needed.
After burning down the Children’s Home of Sacramento, he’d spent the next five years in a foster home with two adults and two children. Although they hadn’t kept in touch, more his fault then theirs, they had treated him well. And yet every night when he lay in bed, praying sleep would take him far, far away, he instead fantasized about getting revenge on every person at the children’s home who had treated him badly. At the time, he’d been disheartened to learn that Valerie Purcell had not died in the fire, especially after he’d patiently waited for her to go to her office. As it turned out, someone had smelled smoke and gotten her out in time.
When he turned eighteen, he applied for grants and student loans, found an affordable apartment. He focused his attention on getting degrees in graphic design and fine arts, and one by one, he found clients who appreciated his work. Mostly, he stayed inside his apartment or perched on an uncomfortable wooden chair in his tiny office at a studio where he also worked and kept to himself.
And then the Black Wigs hit the media by storm, and those fearless vigilantes had stirred the sleeping embers within. He’d followed the ladies closely, watched the video of them kidnapping the guy in the parking lot over and over. He also watched hours of The Slayers on YouTube as they went after the people who had hurt them. Youngsters everywhere began to follow suit, letting the world know that justice would be served, one way or another.
And it all made so much sense.
He wouldn’t be free until every person who had harmed him was obliterated. They had to go. In a way, the Black Wigs had started a movement. Justice could prevail. And in his case, justice would prevail.
And so it had begun.
Despite his newfound determination, he’d worried at first that he might not be able to follow through. Would he be able to take a life, no matter how miserable and wretched?
The answer had been a resounding yes. There had been no denying that after he’d taken care of Nick Calderon, he’d had his first good night of sleep in decades.
Next came Bruce Ward. When that was done, he’d found he had a crazy new spring in his step. He felt lighter. Happier.
He would not stop.
He could not stop.
And that was a problem because he realized somewhere in the middle of it all that he didn’t want to get caught, which was why he took a bit more time planning Valerie Purcell’s and Aston Newell’s deaths. Valerie’s fall down the stairs had gone exactly as planned. If not for that woman coming to the auto shop after hours, Aston Newell’s death would have also been ruled an accident.
Better luck next time.
As he approached Felix Iverson’s trailer, his insides vibrated with life. He felt different. Like a new man. Confident.
He took quiet, careful steps toward the dilapidated trailer. He held his breath as the palm of his hand settled around the doorknob. When it turned, he knew this was it. Felix Iverson would be dealt with once and for all.
He pushed open the door.
Felix stood in the kitchen area, his mouth stuffed with whatever he’d brought back to eat. Felix had hardly aged. His disregard of others and his lack of empathy and morality appeared to be serving him well. He was still dirty and scraggly, like the rats running around the trailer park, but there were no bags or dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep. No lines in his face from undue stress. Hell, the guy didn’t even look surprised to see him. Not a care in the world. If anything, Felix Iverson looked amused.
Did Felix know he was about to die?
He must have heard about the passing of all his friends. Maybe he didn’t care, which made sense considering Felix’s life, after all, had started out badly and tumbled downhill from there. Cockroach had read about Felix Iverson, back when Lena Harris had taken him and others to court. Of course, all those rowdy bad boys walked free, leaving a trail of tears and broken lives behind them.
“Cockroach, is that you?” Felix asked.
He said nothing.
Felix didn’t bother swallowing, merely chewed while he spoke. “I was told you might be coming for me.”
“Really? Who told you?”
“A journalist,” Felix said with a shrug. “I don’t remember her name, but she went out of her way to find me and warn me about you.”
Cockroach unzipped the tiny bag around his waist and would have readied the syringe had he not seen movement behind Felix. A person, a woman, in fact, stepped out of the shadows and into the kitchen.
He could hardly believe what he was seeing. She was wearing a wig. A short black wig almost identical to his. How had she gotten inside without him seeing?
“Felix is mine,” she said.
The voice coming from behind him must have caught Felix by surprise, because his eyes widened and he pivoted on his feet. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said. Felix chuckled, but it was forced. Clearly, he was nervous. And rightly so. The odds were not in his favor.
“I’m going to ask nicely,” Felix said, “before things get out of hand, for both of you to leave.”
“Nice try,” he said. “I’m not leaving until I’ve seen you take your last breath.”
Felix scratched his chest through his shirt. “Hey, Cockroach. Did you really kill Nick and Bruce?” he asked as if the woman had not appeared out of nowhere.
“I have a name,” he said.
Felix laughed. “Cockroach suits you just fine.”
“Yes,” he said. “I killed them both. And Valerie Purcell and Aston too. Once you’re gone,” he told Felix, “maybe I’ll be able to find a way to be whole.”
“You’ll never be whole,” Felix said. “People like you are too sensitive. Shit happens. Get over it.”
“Enough small talk,” the woman said.
Felix laughed. “So who are you, anyway? I was told Cockroach might be coming fo
r me, but who the fuck are you?” He scratched his chin. “You must be part of that Black Wigs group everyone is talking about.”
She said nothing.
Cockroach and Felix watched her pull a hunting knife from a sheath around her waist. She began spinning the blade by switching her index and middle fingers. Without looking at what she was doing, she flicked the knife inward into a spin, and stopped it with the blade pointing at herself. She did it again, balanced the knife in the palm of her hand, then set the knife into a spin, starting and stopping, twirling and spinning, and then stopped. This time the blade was pointed at Felix.
Again, she did a single revolution, followed by a double spin, and then stopped all motion with the heel of her palm.
Felix clapped.
As the woman raised her arm high in the air, as if readying to do one more final twirl and flip before digging the blade into Felix’s chest, Felix took a quick backward step toward the counter behind him, reached blindly under a pile of trash, and pulled out a machete, which he swung in full glory, his hair swinging with his body as he pivoted around, finding his mark as if he’d been practicing for this very moment his entire life.
Cockroach felt trapped, paralyzed with fear. Just as he’d been so many times at the home.
Blood sprayed on the cabinets and counter space.
The woman stood there for a moment. Shocked. Dazed.
It was then Cockroach noticed that she’d been sliced open.
She sort of folded neatly to the ground. The hunting knife dropped from her hands, clinked and clanked against the dirty floor, and landed somewhere between him and Felix.
Adrenaline rushed through Cockroach’s body, reminding him he was no longer that helpless little boy.
They both lunged for each other at the same time.
He had his syringe. Felix had his machete.
Felix swung first, the rage flowing through his veins seemingly keeping him steady.
Cockroach knew what was coming, and he ducked. His heart raced and his palms were sweating. Holding tight to the syringe, keeping it in front of him, he ignored the tremors shooting through his middle.
“You plan to kill me with that, Cockroach?”
He ignored Felix. If he couldn’t use the syringe to inject him with fentanyl, he’d use his bare hands to kill him.
The next few minutes were like a boxing match, the contenders sizing each other up, unsure who would be making the next move.
When Cockroach looked at Felix, it was as if he were again a small boy. The laughing, sneering, demented face of someone who never should have been born smiled at him, sending a jolt of electricity through him. He sprang, alarmed when Felix too easily kicked the syringe from his grasp.
Stunned, he watched in horror, thinking this might be it as Felix drew back to take another swing. Instead, Felix slipped on the woman’s blood, nearly losing his footing, giving Cockroach one more chance to get it right. He grabbed the hunting knife from the floor, then pounced, the blade landing squarely in the middle of Felix’s chest, cutting through muscle and tendons and hopefully an organ or two before they fell to the ground.
Cockroach’s head had hit a cabinet on the way down. He remained motionless, dazed. It took another second for his head to clear. When it did, he came to his feet.
Felix’s eyes were wide open, the hunting knife sticking straight out of his chest. Looking around for his syringe, Cockroach found it near the kitchen sink and placed it inside his pouch.
Someone moaned. At first he thought it was Felix, but it was the woman. She moved her arm, and he went to her.
Her bloodied hand reached into her pants pocket, where she found her phone. Her breathing was shallow and raspy. “Is he dead?”
Cockroach lifted Felix’s limp hand. There was no pulse and he told her as much.
“Go!” she said in a powerful voice that made it sound as if she hadn’t been split open.
He stood there. She was a Black Wig. An inspiration to him and so many others. He didn’t want to leave her.
“I’m calling for help,” she said. “Go. Please. Now!”
He finally did as she said, removing the bloodied wig and then using his forearm to wipe the lipstick from his mouth on his way out.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
As Sawyer took a right into the trailer park, she noticed a man walking away. A clump of wet weeds or maybe rope—it was hard to tell—hung from one of his hands. His shirt was dirty, and he wore a fanny pack around his waist.
He looked her way.
She continued on, trying not to call attention to herself. As she pulled up close to Felix Iverson’s trailer, she considered turning around and following the man she’d just seen.
The door to the trailer hung open, leaning downward as if one of the hinges had come loose. Sawyer turned off the engine, grabbed her pepper spray from the glove compartment, and got out.
She looked around.
It was quiet. Too quiet, she thought as she headed up the wood steps. “Felix? It’s me, Sawyer Brooks from the Sacramento Independent. Are you home?”
No answer.
She stepped inside, looked toward the kitchen, and saw blood. Everywhere. Smeared across the floor and dripping off cabinets.
It wasn’t until she drew closer that she saw two people.
Her stomach quivered. Felix was on his back, looking straight up at the ceiling, a knife protruding from his chest.
Next to him was a woman wearing a black wig. Lena Harris.
She reached for Lena’s wrist to feel for a pulse.
Lena’s eyes popped open, and she sucked in a breath of air.
Sawyer held back a gasp.
“My phone,” Lena said in such a quiet voice, Sawyer had to lean down close to hear her.
“I dropped my phone,” she said as her fingers made a trail through puddles of blood.
Sawyer pulled her own phone from her back pocket and was about to call for help.
“Not you,” Lena said. “You need to go.”
“I can’t just let you die.”
“I’m going to die. If you want”—she took a breath—“to help your sister and the rest of The Crew, go to my place.”
Sawyer was about to tell her to forget it, but then Lena’s eyes closed. Sawyer thought it might be over, but she was wrong. Lena was determined to have her say.
“You must get my laptop before the police do. The password”—her voice faltered, then returned—“Cheerios.”
“I can’t do that,” Sawyer said. No way could she leave this woman to die alone, never mind leaving the scene of a crime and then hiding potential evidence. But then she thought of Harper, and she knew she had no choice. She had to go to the apartment.
“Key is in the geranium. Password. Cheerios,” she said again, grimacing in pain.
Lena had managed to grasp her phone. “I already called 9-1-1. They’ll be coming soon. Go.” She hit the camera logo and then the video button and began talking. “My name is Lena Harris.” She drew in a breath. “Tell my husband and my children I’m sorry. I never meant for things to get out of hand. Most of you would never understand. I was young and I was raped. I didn’t deserve it. But in the end, nobody cared. I killed Otto Radley, buried him in the woods near an abandoned warehouse off Power Inn Road. Eddie Carter’s body is there too. Don Fulton is dead too. His body is in the trunk of his Porsche. I cut off Brad Vicente’s dick. He said there was more than one woman, but he’s a liar. He couldn’t handle being taken down by one tiny female, so he made up a big, elaborate story.” Her voice softened as if she were about to go to sleep, but then she came to and brought strength to her voice. “Myles Davenport died of a heart attack. But if he hadn’t, I would have killed him too. I killed them all. Every single one of them.”
She gurgled, coughed, waved Sawyer off without looking her way.
Sawyer could hear sirens in the distance.
She thought of Harper. She had no idea if Harper was involved, but she knew she couldn�
�t let her sister spend the rest of her life in jail. As she walked toward the door, she heard the last of Lena’s confession.
“I wouldn’t change a thing,” Lena said. “And to all you fuckers out there who think you can go around sexually assaulting whomever you please, this is a warning. There are more people like me just waiting for you to make a move so they can take you out. You won’t win. One way or another, justice will be served.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Sawyer’s heart was pounding like a jackhammer as she sped away from the trailer park.
What was she doing?
Her insides quivered as she raced to Lena Harris’s apartment building in West Sacramento. It was closing in on four p.m. when she arrived. She got out of the car but didn’t look around because she didn’t want to seem suspicious.
She was in robot mode, knowing that if she thought too hard about what she was about to do, she would never be able to continue on. She needed to keep moving, make it quick, and stay focused.
The geranium was in a terra-cotta pot to the right of Lena’s apartment door. She dug around until her fingers touched metal. She brushed off the key and made her way inside. The place had been cleaned up. No broken glass. The chairs back in place. Nothing that might reveal what had happened here only hours ago.
She shut the door and moved quickly to the kitchen.
Breathe, Sawyer, breathe.
Under the sink, she found a pair of rubber gloves and put them on. She found the laptop in the master bedroom, unplugged the charger, and brought it all to the dining room table.
She opened it, tried to log on using the password “Cheerios” and then “Cheerio.” Maybe Lena hadn’t said “Cheerios” at all.
No. That was definitely the word Lena had said. Twice, in fact. So much had happened, though. Sawyer was having a difficult time thinking straight. She could feel her nerves getting the best of her.