Freak

by Jennifer Hillier

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  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Author’s Note

  For my parents,

  Nida Perez Allan and Roberto Pestaño

  acknowledgments

  IT TAKES A dedicated and supportive team to get a book published, and I’m very blessed to work with such amazing people.

  Huge thanks to my feisty and fabulous agent, Victoria Skurnick of Levine Greenberg, for always fighting for me, and for always knowing exactly what I need to hear. We’re a good fit, and I hope we work together for a long time.

  My team at Gallery Books is incredible. My editor, Kathy Sagan, was instrumental in getting this book as shiny and polished as it is, and I’ve enjoyed every moment of our creative brainstorming. I also need to thank assistant editor Emilia Pisani for her wonderful ideas and line notes, which made the book so much better. I am grateful to have my publicist, Stephanie DeLuca, working so hard on my behalf. Editorial assistant Natasha Simons is always a pleasure to work with. Big thanks to my copy editor, Thomas Pitoniak, for all his hard work. And of course, I’m so very grateful for the continuing support of Louise Burke and Jennifer Bergstrom.

  April Gibson, my publicist at Simon & Schuster Canada, is an all-around awesome person, and I’m lucky to have her in my corner.

  My friends and family think it’s so cool I’m a writer, and you know what? It is. But it would be very challenging to write full-time if they didn’t believe I could do it, and the love and support I receive every day from these wonderful people means everything to me.

  My mom, Nida Perez Allan, thinks everything I do is great, and while I suspect deep down that maybe not everything I do is amazing, I love her for being my biggest fan.

  My dad, Roberto Pestaño, continues to teach me so many important lessons about love, life, and finding the right balance between the things I want to do and the things I need to do.

  My brother, John Perez, isn’t much of a fiction reader, but he’s proud of his little sister and he doesn’t make fun of me, and that’s all I need.

  Special thanks to Tim Allan, Liz Perez, and Evelyn Tiu, for being great partners to the people I love the most.

  Both my Pestaño and Perez families, in North America and in the Philippines, have been generous with their support, and I love you guys more than you know. I’m also blessed to be part of the Hillier and Philpott families; your kind words have lifted me up many times.

  I’m fortunate to have kind, funny friends who’ve been by my side through all the crazy ups and downs of trying to get published (and, hello, life), and if they weren’t keeping me sane and making me laugh, I don’t know that I could have written this book. Big hugs and inappropriate squeezes go out to Annabella Wong, Dawn Robertson, Brian Hanish, Micheleen Beaudreau, Teri Orrell, Lori Cossetto, Jennifer Bailey, Jennifer Baum, Nancy Thompson, Marsha Sigman, and Benoît Lelièvre.

  Big thanks to my Twitter pal Jeremiah for lending his name to a character. Feel free to RT this.

  I’m also grateful to my lovely friend Mónica Bustamante Wagner, who helped me with the Spanish phrases in this book. Gracias.

  To all the amazing writers I’ve met through the blogosphere, Twitter, and Facebook: You’re all rock stars! I am so lucky to be part of an incredible community of artists who support each other the way we do.

  And lastly, to Steve Hillier: none of this would mean anything without you. You know that.

  chapter 1

  THERE WAS SOMETHING fucked up about a job where cocaine was overlooked, but cigarettes would get you fired.

  In a stall in the bathroom of the Sweet Chariot Inn in downtown Seattle, Brenda Stich (professional name: Brianna) shook out another line of the wondrous white power onto the back of her hand and snorted. It took about three and a half seconds for the shit to kick in, and thank God for it. It had been a long three days with the guy from New York, and she was delirious with exhaustion. The bitterness dripped down the back of her throat and she swallowed. The coke coursed through her veins, and just like that, the world was back in high definition.

  Okay. All right. Much better.

  She exited the stall, grateful the bathroom was empty so she could fix her makeup in peace. Brenda had been hoping for a night off to recharge, but Estelle’s text didn’t leave room for argument. You never argued with Estelle. You worked when she wanted you to, and there was really no such thing as a night off. The Bitch even had all the girls on that new birth control pill where you only bled three times a year, so forget using your period as an excuse.

  You were always on call, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. If you were what the client wanted, and you weren’t available, they’d go elsewhere. And Estelle hated to lose money.

  Hated, of course, was an understatement. They didn’t call her the Bitch for no reason.

  Brenda checked her makeup in the bathroom mirror one last time. She’d done a decent job covering her dark circles, but her eyes were still red. No problem. An escort always had five things in her purse at all times—condoms, lube, a cell phone, breath mints, and Visine. And sometimes drugs, though of course Estelle never tested for that. If drugs helped her girls work, so be it. Brenda dug out her bottle of Visine and squeezed a few drops into each eye, blinking to move the fluid around.

  Better.

  Estelle might not test for drugs, but she did have the girls screened regularly for venereal diseases, and no one was able to work during the seventy-two-hour period it took for the tests to come back. Unfortunately Brenda wasn’t due for testing for another week. Dammit, she should have gotten tested today—at least then she’d have had the next three days off. Her last appointment, which had ended only a few hours earlier, had been a fast-talking businessman from Manhattan, in town for four days and determined to make the most of it. He’d had a voracious sexual appetite, made even worse by Viagra. Brenda had once had a conversation with a veteran escort named Charlotte (real name: Carla), who’d spoken of the pre-Viagra days with longing. “Back then, they’d pop after five, six minutes. Ten if they were trying to impress me. Nowadays? The fuckers’ll go all night, thanks to all the fucking drugs. Pun intended.”

  Brenda’s New York client had indeed gone all nigh
t, every night, for the past three nights. She’d showed him a good time and he’d tipped her nicely (a fat wad of twenties was stashed in the bottom of her purse beneath the lining, and no, she didn’t have to share this with the agency), but now she was sore and there was a bruise on her knee from where she’d slammed it into the bedpost during one particularly acrobatic session.

  Man, what she wouldn’t give for a cigarette. But smoking on the job was a big fat no-no. The clients could always smell it. And taste it. Estelle didn’t care if you did blow, but if you smoked a cigarette and the client complained, you were done. Unlike cocaine, cigarettes weren’t considered a performance-enhancing drug.

  She backed away from the mirror to see her full self. She looked good. Tight dark blue jeans were tucked into sleek black boots, and a thin white sweater showed off everything it was supposed to without revealing any skin. A short fitted jacket completed the ensemble. Her makeup was deliberately subtle, and her long, dark hair was left loose and straight, as per the client’s request. He had specifically asked for a Girlfriend Experience, which meant she was to provide a very relaxed, “date night” type of encounter, with lots of easy conversation, foreplay, and non-kinky sex, topped off with cuddling and sweet talk afterward. Tonight, the sexy tight dresses and five-inch stilettos had been left at home, and that was fine by Brenda. GFEs, as they were known in the business, were her specialty.

  She left the bathroom and headed toward the elevators, nodding to the uniformed concierge in the main lobby. He nodded back, looking bored. She’d seen him before, having had business in this hotel several times, but she didn’t have to pay him off—Estelle would have taken care of that. Estelle’s girls never handled money, because the Bitch didn’t trust anybody. In fact, the client would have paid for Brenda’s services yesterday, by cash or PayPal. Once Brenda got the text that payment had been received, it was on like Donkey Kong.

  No background checks were ever done. The clients always preferred anonymity, and that was the risk you took in this business. A little scary, yes, but the job paid better than anything else she could do, like waitressing or retail sales. And it was putting her through school. Besides, it wasn’t like she was working the streets, something Brenda would never do. Even sex workers had standards.

  She was, however, required to check in with the agency five minutes before her scheduled appointment time. The check-ins were primarily to ensure that Brenda had arrived on schedule. She was not required to check in after the appointment was over, because frankly, Estelle didn’t care how long she stayed with a client once she had received her money. It was always about the money. Brenda could probably work for a different agency, some place with more stringent safety measures, but none paid as well as Estelle did, and that was a fact.

  The client was made fully aware in advance of the required phone calls, but Brenda often wondered what Estelle or her assistant, Lynne, would actually say to the police if it turned out they had to call the cops. “Hello, nine-one-one? My escort’s not answering her cell phone and I’m worried she’s being beaten and murdered by her client. Could you send someone over to the hotel?”

  And, oh yes, at this price point, they were always clients, never johns. And Brenda was never a hooker, prostitute, working girl, or whore. Always an escort. At five hundred dollars an hour (50 percent of which went to Estelle), it would have been damned insulting if someone called her a hooker.

  She knocked on the door to room 1521 and waited. A moment later, the door opened. Brenda pasted a smile on her face, feeling a bit more alert now that the coke had fully kicked in. But her smile faded as she took in the client, who was definitely not what she was expecting.

  His face, already flushed with excitement, lit up at the sight of her. “You look great,” he said, breathless. “Just perfect. Exactly what I asked for.” The door opened wider. “Please, come in.”

  Brenda hesitated, wondering if she should call Lynne to make sure they knew just how old this particular client was.

  “I know.” His smile was impish. “A little younger than you were expecting. But I’m eighteen, I swear. It’s actually . . .” He poked his head out the door and checked down the empty hallway. His face reddened even more and he lowered his voice slightly. “It’s actually my first time. Hope that’s okay. I paid and everything.”

  Of course he’d paid. Brenda had already received confirmation of that. Okay, so he was young, probably still in high school. What was it to her? Actually, his inexperience would make for an easy night. At least he wouldn’t have any weird requests.

  She stepped inside. The door shut behind her.

  “Not a problem,” Brenda said. “Let me just check in with my agency, and then I’m all yours.”

  Turning away, she pressed two on her speed dial, murmured a few words to Lynne, and disconnected. She turned back to her young client with a smile. “There, all done. I’m Brianna. So happy to meet you.” She reached forward to give him a hug, as she always did at the start of a Girlfriend Experience.

  She didn’t see the knife on the bed—long, sleek, and shiny—until a minute later when he had a hand over her mouth so tight she couldn’t breathe.

  She struggled against him, legs kicking out in front of her, hands clawing at the arm that was wrapped around her waist like a steel trap, but her efforts were futile. For a kid, he was surprisingly strong. Then a fist slammed into the side of her head, and her knees went out.

  Fuck me, Brenda thought as the room turned hazy. She felt the sharp tip of the knife graze her throat, and if she could have screamed, she would have.

  chapter 2

  FROM THE BITS of conversation swirling in the hallway, the woman hadn’t been dead long, six hours, maybe eight at the most. Female, mid-to-late twenties, long, dark hair, jeans, naked from the waist up. Her brassiere, sweater, boots, and jacket had been found crumpled in the corner of the room and had already been bagged for trace. The DO NOT DISTURB sign had not been placed on the exterior door handle, so housekeeping had entered the room at 9:02 that morning after a short knock. The Filipina maid, upon seeing the dead body, had screamed herself silly. It was the calm business-woman across the hall who’d called 911.

  Jerry Isaac stood just inside the doorway of room 1521 at the Sweet Chariot Inn, not entirely sure why he was here. He wasn’t a cop anymore, had been retired from Seattle PD for two years, and had no business being at a crime scene. But the phone call he’d gotten from Detective Mike Torrance, his old partner, had left no room for argument. So Jerry had come, though he couldn’t begin to understand what a murder victim had to do with him.

  His cell phone rang. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he checked the call display. It was his office. Danny. He answered it.

  “Only have a minute to talk,” he said to her, instead of saying hello.

  “No problem. I just need your okay to order more toner for the copy machine. It’s a hundred bucks.” Danny was a no-nonsense girl, and Jerry liked that about her. She was a graduate student in criminal justice at Puget Sound State, and she’d started her internship at his private investigations company back in September. Hiring her had been a great move, and Jerry would be sorry to see her go when her internship ended next month.

  “Go for it,” he said.

  “Thanks.” She hung up.

  He put the phone back in his pocket and remained a few feet back from the scene, not wanting to intrude on the multiple conversations taking place among the officers in the room. The scar across his throat itched like mad underneath his knit turtleneck, and he refrained from scratching it, knowing it would only make it worse. The wound had been inflicted a year before by a woman who was in prison awaiting trial for a crime much worse than her assault on him, and it still hadn’t fully healed. Probably because he kept pawing at it.

  But he couldn’t help it. Every time Jerry thought of Abby Maddox, his scar itched. Every time his scar itched, he thought of Abby Maddox. There was no getting away from the memories, especially since her face was
constantly on the news these days. Nothing was sexier to the public than a beautiful villain.

  Mike Torrance, looking like his usual scruffy self in a rumpled shirt and old sport coat, was standing near the top end of the king-sized bed, only inches away from the dead body. He caught Jerry’s gaze and nodded. Clearing his throat noisily, he said, “Everybody out of the room for a few minutes, please.”

  The room emptied, curious faces looking at Jerry as they passed him at the doorway. He didn’t have a badge, but they could tell he wasn’t quite civilian. After thirty years in PD, you could never lose your “cop look,” even if you were retired and wanted to.

  Torrance beckoned him forward. Reluctantly, Jerry stepped closer. He had no desire to look at a dead body, but apparently he had no choice now.

  “Thanks for coming,” Torrance said.

  Jerry stared at the half-naked body sprawled on the bed. She was faceup, hair fanned out over the pillow, eyes blank and staring at the ceiling, naked breasts spilled to each side, jean-clad legs askew. Her arms were positioned awkwardly, as if she’d been flailing when she died. Multiple bruises and contusions dotted her torso.

  It was a lot to take in, and Jerry realized he’d stopped breathing. He took a long gulp of air. The scene might not have been so bad, if not for her face.

  From the neck up, the dead woman’s skin was a hideously swollen blend of purples, blues, and yellows. It immediately reminded Jerry of something, and it took him a few seconds to think of what it was—a kid’s toy marble, of all things, minus the hair. Christ. A wave of nausea rolled in his gut.

  Something was off about the woman’s neck. At first glance, it looked split in half. And yet, there was no blood. A closer look might help explain things, but Jerry couldn’t bring himself to do it. He stepped away from the bed.

  “Why am I here, Mike?” His soft, raspy voice filled the quiet room, and it still surprised him to hear it. Gone was the deep, smooth baritone he’d once taken for granted. He had Abby Maddox to thank for that. “You pulled me off a stakeout for this?”