Killer Summer

by Kay Bigelow

  Leah filled her in on the tiny bit of evidence they found.

  “I need a ladder,” Alex announced. “Has anyone seen one?”

  Where’s Peony? She looked around but didn’t spot her anywhere amongst the people watching Alex work.

  “There’s no ladder.”

  Stanhope nodded to one of her people and said, “Will she do?” as they moved to Alex’s side.

  “You’ll do nicely, thank you. I want to take photos of this area from a higher perspective.”

  Stanhope’s team member stepped up. The woman had to be nearly six and a half feet tall. “Stand on my shoulders.”

  They got Alex situated on the woman’s broad shoulders, and she began clicking away. When Alex asked the woman to move to their right, she nearly knocked herself out on an exposed beam. When she glared at the beam for being in her way, she did a double take.

  “We got her, Boss,” Alex said and took a dozen photos from various points of view of the beam and its immediate companion.

  Coming down from her great height was harder than getting up there. She handed down her camera first and then when the giant of a woman told her to lock her knees, she was lowered to the ground.

  “What’s your name?” Alex asked the woman.

  “Maria.”

  “Maria, thank you for your help. I think we may have found what the boss needs to put this puppy to bed.”

  “Well, done, Alex. What did you find up there?” Leah asked.

  “The cage was anchored to the beams. And there are four bolts still in the beams that had to be used for something.”

  “Send those photos to Cots and let’s see what he makes of them,” Leah said.

  “Already done, Boss.”

  “Where’s Peony?”

  “She got a text from Cots. She and Bailey went outside to check something out.”

  “Bailey’s one of mine,” Sojourner explained.

  They were all moving out of doors when Bailey came rushing in from the woods. “We found something. Peony wants you to go to her.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Dani said.

  “Me, too,” Sojourner said, and Stanhope echoed her.

  “All right. Alex, you’re in charge while I’m gone. Do not let anyone, and I mean anyone, into the house, especially Cooper.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Leah and the others hurried after Bailey as she rushed back into the woods.

  I hope Peony found something incriminating, but I hope it’s not three graves.

  Leah was immediately lost when they entered the woods. Thankfully, though, Bailey knew exactly where they were going, and they were quickly at Peony’s side. She’d chosen to wait at the foot of a small hill that appeared to be about twelve feet high.

  “Boss, take my binoculars and climb the hill and see what you can see.”

  Leah did as she was told, and climbed the gently sloping hill. At the top, she lay flat on her stomach. She raised her head just enough to be able to scan the surrounding area with the binoculars, and swiftly realized they were not ordinary binoculars. What she saw in front of her was a small house very similar to Dani’s secret getaway. When she lowered the binoculars, she saw nothing but trees. The binoculars were able to penetrate the cloaking mechanism Cooper had installed to protect the house from prying eyes.

  Leah wiggled back down the hill, and whispered, “We’ve got her.” She told Stanhope, Sojourner, Dani, and the doctor what she’d seen.

  “When did you arrive?” Leah asked the doctor.

  “A few minutes ago. I thought if you found any other victims, you might need me.”

  “Who told you where we were?”

  “Everyone in the compound knows where you are,” Reagan said with a smile.

  “Let’s hope they don’t all decide to join us, too.”

  “I doubt it. It’s our weekly dance night.”

  “We’re going to sit tight. I’m hoping Cooper will come out as the sun begins to set. I’ll bet she doesn’t miss many meals.”

  There were several heads nodding in agreement.

  “Stanhope, go out and get the rest of our people out of sight. I don’t want them this close, but I want them close enough that they can help us if need be.”

  “Yes, Boss,” Stanhope said, and trotted off toward Cooper’s house.

  She told Sojourner where she wanted her and Stanhope’s people to wait.

  “Sojourner, I want you to make the arrest. If you do it, that will be one less thing the district attorney will have to worry about. I want Peony to film the interior of this house. I’ve got Dr. Dominier standing by in case we find anyone else there.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  When Stanhope returned, Leah said, “I want you to be Sojourner’s backup. There’s no doubt in my mind Cooper will resist arrest, so I want you and Maria to be there to subdue her. Be sure to use ‘reasonable’ force to take her. We don’t want to muddy the waters of this case with charges of excessive force.”

  “We’ll be the souls of politeness,” Stanhope said with a grin.

  “Okay. We’ve all got our assignments. Now we wait. Settle in, it may only be a couple of hours or it may be several, but in the end, Cooper has to come out of that house.”

  Leah returned to the top of the hill and lay on her back. She stared up at the canopy of trees and felt the dappled sunlight add a bit of warmth. She closed her eyes and cleared her mind of extraneous thoughts. She felt Dani sit down beside her. It’s amazing how I can sense Dani’s presence even though I can’t see her.

  Chapter Twenty

  Time passed slowly, and too slowly for Dani, apparently. She was up and down the hill, pacing after only a half hour of lying next to Leah. Leah continued to be in the moment. She couldn’t make time speed up—not that she really wanted to—and had learned not to obsess about the things over which she had no control. It had been a hard lesson to learn for her, but it was one of the survival techniques her therapist had taught her two years earlier. While she was not always successful at not obsessing, it worked for her when she was able to remain calm and focused.

  Finally, she got a text from Peony, who had been watching the house with Cots’s binoculars. “There’s movement inside the house, the front door is opening.”

  “Here we go,” Leah texted to the team leaders. She hurried down the hill and stood in its shadow, watching where she knew Cooper would appear. Cooper was either very stupid or very arrogant. She turned off the cloaking around the little house. Out of the corner of her eye, Leah saw Stanhope moving toward the front of the house on one side and Maria doing the same on the other side.

  Cooper stepped out the front door, followed by Camryn. Cooper stopped and gave Camryn a kiss. “Thanks for an interesting afternoon, babe,” Cooper said to Camryn. Cooper turned and stepped away from the stricken Camryn.

  Leah watched as Stanhope stepped in front of Cooper while Maria stepped behind her.

  Sojourner came out of the shadows of the woods and said loud enough for everyone to hear, “Anabel Cooper, I am placing you under arrest for the murder of Jane Doe, kidnapping and transporting four children, and for trafficking children for the slave trade.” Sojourner quickly read Cooper her rights. Then she repeated her words to Camryn.

  Cooper must have been in shock because she didn’t say a word. Finally, she found her voice and said, “Who the phuc are you?”

  “I am Lieutenant Sojourner Lyre of the Victoria Police Department.”

  Cooper turned, apparently intent on getting back into the house, and found herself face-to-face with Maria. Stupidly, Cooper took a swing at her. Maria had her on the ground in the blink of an eye. She pulled Cooper to her feet and held her with one beefy hand on her shoulder.

  Leah stepped out of the shadows. Dani was close behind her. Peony, Alex, and the doctor went around the arrest scene and into the house.

  “You bitch,” Cooper screamed at Leah. “I’ll kill you.”

  “You can try,” Leah said as she
approached her. She wanted to be inside the house when they found the three remaining girls.

  Cooper jerked away from Maria and took a swing at Leah. Leah leaned away, but purposely stayed within reach of Cooper, who hit her with a glancing blow to her shoulder.

  “Add resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer to Cooper’s charges. And put this…woman in restraints,” Leah said to Sojourner as she continued to the house.

  Leah stepped inside. “Oh, my God,” she whispered. Hogtied and lying in their own excrement and urine, were three naked girls. They were bloodied with open sores from having struggled against the ropes that bound them. One of them had a broken nose, another had an ugly bruise on her ribs, and all three of them had small, open wounds that looked like cuts from a knife. None of them looked older than ten, and one looked like she was only six or seven. Peony finished filming them and moved to try to undo the knots holding them prisoner. Stanhope went past Leah and pulled a knife from her pocket and flipped it open. The girls began trying to move away from her, but their struggle was futile and only made the ropes tighten. Leah stepped forward.

  “We’re here to rescue you. My name is Leah and her name is Stanhope. She wants to cut the ropes. Please stop pulling at them.”

  The three girls stopped struggling but didn’t take their eyes off Leah. Leah didn’t move.

  “Whoever’s behind me, find blankets or robes, something to cover them,” Leah said. “Reagan, are you here?”

  “To your left.”

  “Dani?”

  “Right behind you.”

  Leah glanced at Peony, who had resumed filming the scene as Stanhope cut the ropes from each girl. Tears were rolling down her face.

  Sojourner and her team moved in with sheets and a bedspread to cover the girls’ nakedness. They couldn’t stand on their own. Maria stepped in and scooped the youngest of the trio into her arms while two other women helped the other girls gain their feet.

  Dear God, please don’t let them be mutilated. She was afraid Cooper had done something to shut them up because they had been terrified of Stanhope and her knife.

  “Doctor, do what you need to do to collect evidence from them, but make it fast.”

  “Will do. Take them to the kitchen and away from this hell hole. Has anyone seen a bathroom?”

  “There should be one before you get to the kitchen,” Dani said.

  Sojourner and her team scoured the house for additional evidence.

  “Hey, bitch,” Cooper yelled from outside the front door.

  “Which one do you think she’s talking to?” Dani asked.

  “Phuc, let’s go talk to her,” Leah said.

  When Leah and Dani went outside, they found Cooper and Camryn on their knees with their hands cuffed behind them.

  “Listen, bitch, you can’t hold me. You’ve got no evidence connecting me to the murder of that girl.”

  “You’ve been arrested, Cooper. We will hold you until you’re arraigned. I will do everything to see you’re denied bail. You’d best get used to being incarcerated because you’re going to die in a cage like the one you built to hold those girls.”

  “I’m not going to prison. They won’t testify against me if they know what’s good for them.”

  “Cooper, if the world gets lucky, one or more of the women you sold girls to will turn on you rather than go to prison themselves. Better yet, maybe they’ll hire someone to kill you.”

  From the look on her face, Cooper obviously hadn’t thought about her clients turning on her. She looked genuinely scared for the first time.

  “Listen, you have to protect me. You can’t let those bitches at me.”

  “I don’t have to do anything of the kind.”

  “Look, the girls wanted to come with me. They were happy to improve their circumstances. They were all from poor families and had no future. They were lucky I found them.”

  Leah moved away from Cooper before she gave into the temptation to slug her.

  “Jardain, I didn’t have anything to do with this. She forced me to help her. You’ve got to believe me,” Camryn said, the desperation she was feeling clear from the tone of her voice. In another thirty seconds, she’d be begging Jardain to help her, Leah was sure.

  Dani didn’t say anything to Camryn. She turned and followed Leah away from the two women on their knees.

  “Dani, how are we going to move the girls to somewhere safe?”

  “There’s a cabin near the big house we can use for them. Stanhope’s team can carry them to our cart and we’ll drive to the cabin. They can watch over them and protect them. They’ll be close to Reagan’s clinic.”

  “I need to talk to a judge about how to proceed from here. We need to see if one of those girls can identify our Jane Doe and tell us how she died.”

  Alex came into the clearing carrying an armload of clothes. “I took the liberty of liberating some of Cooper’s clothes that might fit them.”

  “Good idea, Alex. Thanks for your good work,” Dani said.

  Alex blushed at Dani’s compliment. Leah couldn’t hide her smile. Good Lord, has she completely charmed everyone I know?

  It took Reagan two hours to collect evidence from the girls and assess their overall health. Peony continued to film them and made sure she had frames of every bruise, cut, and cigarette burn on the girls. Reagan then helped each girl to shower and dressed their wounds. They refused to wear any clothing belonging to Cooper. Peony handed her camera to Alex and took her outer shirt off and handed it to the first girl out of the shower. Others followed her lead. When each one emerged from the bathroom, Leah thought they were looking more human than the feral animals they resembled when they’d found them in the main room of the cabin.

  By the time they were ready to be taken to the cabin in the center of the compound, the members of Stanhope’s team each picked up one of the girls and carried her to one of the three small cars waiting for them thanks to Dani’s quick phone call requesting the vehicles.

  Before Maria could pick up the youngest girl again, the little one broke loose and ran to Leah. She wrapped her arms around Leah and squeezed her tight. Leah hugged her back. The girl looked up at Leah and said, “I love you. You are a knight in shining armor who came to rescue us, I just know it.”

  Maria appeared at the girl’s side. The girl put her hand in Maria’s huge one and said with the dignity of a queen, “I can walk by myself, thank you.”

  Leah met Maria’s eyes over the head of the girl and smiled.

  Leah made Cooper and McDonald walk back to Stanhope’s little jail where they’d be held until Leah spoke with a judge and a district attorney. The road was lined with dozens of Wild’s guests. The women standing beside the road were deadly silent, their expressions a mix of horror and disdain. Leah thought the crowd could easily turn into a mob as the women seemed ready to surge toward Cooper, who was clearly disconcerted by the animosity emanating from the crowds and seemed to shrink into herself. When the crowd saw Leah and Dani, the women made no move to attack Cooper.

  As Leah drove their cart behind the procession, Dani contacted her shuttle captain to tell her to stand by and that she’d either be going to Xing to pick up passengers, or to Wild to do the same thing. The captain said she could be halfway between the two planets in a few hours.

  Leah spent time on the phone, first with the Chief of Police of Victoria, Daniel DeSantis, then with Judge Patricia Gardiner, and finally with District Attorney Linda Fujiyama. At the end of the conversation, District Attorney Fujiyama said she and an assistant district attorney would catch the shuttle to Wild to interview the victims and prisoners. She said she’d make a determination of where specifically they’d send them after the interviews.

  When Leah broke the connection with the district attorney, she said, “Will you contact the shuttle captain and tell her to go to Xing to pick up District Attorney Linda Fujiyama and an assistant district attorney? We’ll have to tell the DA when the shuttle will be docking. Hopefully,
they’ll be ready to board the shuttle.”

  “Just tell me when to call the shuttle.”

  “Do it now.”

  As Dani picked up her phone, Leah nodded and headed for the jail. She wanted to ensure that Cooper and McDonald couldn’t communicate with one another.

  “I’m hungry,” Cooper whined. “You have to feed me. It’s the law.”

  Leah didn’t bother to look at her. When she was satisfied that the women couldn’t get out of the jail and couldn’t communicate with one another, she told Stanhope, “I want those two in one piece to be able to speak with the district attorney who’ll be here tomorrow. Hopefully, Cooper will give up her clients and we’ll be able to close down this horror show.”

  “You got it, Boss. We won’t touch them. We’ll put a bucket in each cell so they won’t need to exit until the DA gets here. What about feeding them?”

  “As much as I’d like to deny them food like Cooper did the girls, I don’t want to give their attorneys anything to distract the jury from what they’ve done here. I’ll stop by the big house and see what the chef can give us,” Leah said.

  Leah went on to the house where the girls would be staying for the next little while. She had a tight rein on her feelings. She couldn’t afford to do anything that wasn’t strictly by the book on this matter. She wondered where Dani was.

  As Leah neared the little cabin where the girls would spend their time until the district attorney took custody of them, she saw a crowd standing on the road before the cabin. A woman’s clear soprano voice came from the middle of the crowd. She was singing the ancient hymn Amazing Grace. Leah became familiar with the hymn, written in 1779, when her therapist introduced it to her shortly after she began seeing her two years earlier.

  Tears came unbidden to Leah’s eyes when the unknown woman sang, “Amazing grace. How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I’m found.” Leah brushed the tears from her eyes as the rest of the women in the crowd joined the first in singing to the young girls inside the cabin.

  “It is so beautiful, isn’t it?” Dani asked from somewhere behind her.