Fade To Black

by Leslie Parrish

  “Everybody loved my little Lisa.”

  “She was a sweet child.” Knowing she needed to tread a fine line, she still said, “But we both know Lisa had her troubles when she grew up. Those died with her, but they could still mean something. I need you to be honest now, and think about the way things really were right before she disappeared.”

  The older woman’s mouth tightened into a tiny, dime-size circle. If Stacey pushed her into thinking about the way her daughter had really been, she might not cooperate at all. So she proceeded very carefully. “Had Lisa been feeling all right?”

  “Of course.”

  “No illnesses?” She thought of the teenage pregnancy scare, wondering if Lisa’s mother had ever even known about it. “No signs that anyone had hurt her in any way?”

  “Hurt her?”

  “Yes. She didn’t appear injured-bruised, did she?”

  Winnie’s right hand instinctively moved up, rubbing her left arm below the shoulder before flinching in obvious discomfort. If that housecoat was sleeveless, Stacey would lay money a large bruise would be visible on the woman’s parchment-thin skin.

  Stacey shoved her hands into the pockets of her khaki trousers to keep from fisting them in visible anger.

  “No, no, nothing like that.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes,” Winnie snapped. “She was just fine.” Lowering her voice, she mumbled, “I took her to the doctor all the time when she was growing up. To make sure…”

  “To make sure of what?”

  The woman’s head rose defiantly. “To make sure she was absolutely healthy and nothing was wrong with her.”

  So Winnie Freed had suspected.

  “You can talk to the health clinic downtown; I’ll give permission if you need it. Lisa was troubled; I’ll admit that. But she was not being hurt in any way. By anyone.”

  I wouldn’t bet on that.

  “Okay, then. I’ll try to stop by and see if they can tell me anything Lisa might not have felt comfortable talking to you about.”

  Winnie’s pale face lost what little was left of its color, as if she were more frightened of that mild threat than she’d been of anything else. But the good mother still existing somewhere deep inside of her must have wanted to know the truth, too. No matter how painful. “All right. You do that.”

  Stacey knew she wasn’t going to get much more from the woman, but she couldn’t walk out of this house without making an effort. So she asked a few more questions, steering clear of the triggers that might make Winnie shut down-including anything suggesting that her daughter had been abused, perhaps right here in this house.

  Finally, though, knowing she’d gotten as much information as she could, she had to push one more time. “So that night that Lisa disappeared,” she said, casually flipping pages of her notebook instead of looking at Lisa’s mother, “you and Stan were where?”

  “Right here.” Winnie’s coldness could not disguise her sudden nervousness as she twisted her hands together.

  “All night?”

  The woman thought about it, biting so hard into her bottom lip Stacey thought she would break the skin. “Oh, I remember now,” she said, her face flushing with color. “I had a little accident, fell down the porch steps going outside to watch for Lisa. Stan had to run me up to the emergency room in Front Royal.”

  That bastard. Stacey could almost see how it had played out: Stan furious that Lisa had taken his car, punishing Winnie for it, hurting her enough to put her in the hospital. The scenario didn’t surprise her, but it did make her very anxious to talk to the hospital about the time Winnie had been brought in. And whether her husband had remained with her the entire night, or had possibly taken a trip back down here to Hope Valley in search of his hated stepdaughter.

  “Okay, then,” Stacey mumbled, putting the notebook away. She already knew it would do no good, but her job, and her sense of humanity, demanded that she try to help the defeated woman. “What about you?” she murmured, intentionally looking away, as if fascinated by Li sa’s doll collection. “Have you been seeing the doctor?”

  “For what?”

  Stacey brushed the tips of her fingers across one plump, blond curl on the head of what she remembered was Lisa’s favorite. “You haven’t been looking well, Winnie.” Finally turning her head to meet the woman’s stare, she added, “I’ve been worried. So has Dad. Is there anything we can do to help you?”

  Winnie’s mouth opened and closed twice. Her lips quivered, her jaw, too. She blinked rapidly, the thin lashes doing little to get rid of gathering tears. As if the idea that she might have friends, people who cared about her, who might help her, were almost too much to grasp. Finally, though, she cleared her throat and jerked her head up and down once. “Yes. There is.”

  Stacey waited.

  “Find my daughter so I can bury her. And catch her killer.”

  Stan Freed stood on the sagging front porch of the crummy little house he hated and watched that bitch of a sheriff and the nosy FBI agent get into her squad car. His hands gripping the railing, he forced himself to remain there, nodding his thanks as they backed out of the driveway. That was the normal thing to do.

  Above all, Stan liked things to appear normal.

  It was only once they were well down the block that he let go and saw the impression the wooden railing had made on the insides of his big hands. Splinters protruded from the puffy flesh of his palms and his fingertips. He hadn’t even noticed, hadn’t felt any pain. He’d been too focused on grabbing something, needing to remain in control. Keep cool. Stay normal.

  Everything would be fine if he didn’t lose his head, kept things going the way they had been. The cops couldn’t prove a thing. Winnie knew better than to shoot off her yap, even if she did know something, which she didn’t. And the only other person who knew a damn thing was dead and rotting. So there was no reason to panic. No way could that little bitch reach out from the grave and ruin his life now, after all this time.

  Lisa. How he’d loved her. How he’d hated her. She’d been so beautiful, so perfect, an angel.

  Then she’d grown up to be so hard, so ruthless, a whore.

  He’d wanted to give her the world once, and she would have taken it. She might have pretended otherwise, but she had loved him, too. And she’d wanted him. It was her nature; she’d liked what they did in this house when her mother was at work or asleep.

  Until she got older and began whoring herself out to other men. She’d started resisting, calling him names, acting like she hadn’t been into it all along. And had laughed in his face just a few days before she’d disappeared. Good riddance.

  “ Stanley?”

  He stiffened at the grating sound of his wife’s whiny voice. God, how he hated it. Hated her. Hated everything about this place, where he’d been trapped for eleven years. If only he’d found out exactly how much-or how little-insurance money she’d gotten after her first husband’s death before he’d married her, rather than listening to rumors. His life could have been so different.

  “ Stanley, please…”

  “Quit whining, woman,” he snapped as he spun around and entered the house. He slammed the door shut behind him with enough force to shake the frame. “Just quit your goddamned whimpering and let me think.”

  She’d been standing in the front hall, still wearing that ugly rag, her face red and splotchy from the tears she’d shed over her no-good daughter. And suddenly, he couldn’t even stand to look at her.

  “I’m going to work,” he growled, heading toward his room.

  She reached for his arm. “No, please.”

  He threw off the touch, backhanding her across the cheek for good measure. And she shut up. Like usual. “Have my lunch ready in a half hour.”

  He didn’t bother turning around to see whether she’d hop to it and obey him.

  Because she knew what would happen to her if she didn’t.

  8

  IT specialist Lily Fletcher was si
ckened to her very soul by the things the Reaper had done to his victims. Naturally empathic-one reason she’d been warned she’d never make it in the bureau-she’d had a hard time getting their faces out of her mind since the day Brandon had discovered that first video. She’d said prayers for them in private moments, promised them justice, and grieved for their loved ones dealing with such tragedy and pain.

  She understood tragedy and pain. She understood them much too well.

  Maybe that was why, as she dug deeper into Satan’s Playground trying to find any cyber string that might lead to their unknown subject, she found herself unable to tear her attention away from that menacing, skeletal figure who called himself Lovesprettyboys. The small, cartoonish avatar cast off such malevolence, it was as if he’d been dipped in evil and formed out of hatred and vice.

  He had invaded her thoughts and sabotaged her peace of mind, becoming the focus of all the anger and anguish that had been building in her for so long. The Reaper terrified her. Lovesprettyboys revolted her. And she wanted them both gone, out of the world, far away so they could never hurt another woman or another child. No one would ever convince her that tall, thin monster hadn’t abused children in real life, the way he did in the Playground.

  Which was, perhaps, why he’d become her side project. Stopping him would never change what had happened to her own family. But she had to do it anyway.

  “Sir?” she asked as she knocked on Wyatt Blackstone’s door late Saturday afternoon. “Can I speak with you for a minute?”

  He beckoned her in, not looking up from the papers, saying, “Wyatt, please.”

  She had a hard time with that, calling him by his first name. Not just because she wasn’t used to supervisors who were so much a part of a team, but also because the man intimidated her like crazy. The supervisory special agent was everything an FBI agent should be, from the top of his handsome head to the bottom of his shined shoes. Intelligent enough to keep up with even Brandon, street-smart enough to hold his own with Dean Taggert. Wyatt was out of her league in every way. She was often left tongue-tied around him.

  “Anything new?” he asked when she took the seat on the other side of his desk.

  “I’ve found a few accounts that look promising. I’ve contacted someone at Treasury to get information about some transfers, but I won’t hear back until Monday.”

  “I am afraid our unsub probably works weekends,” he mused.

  She had no doubt he was right.

  “Good work.”

  “Thank you, sir.” She fell silent, looking at her own clenched hands in her lap, wondering how to broach the subject that had driven her to seek him out.

  “Is there something else?”

  Taking a deep breath, she hoped her voice remained steady and didn’t betray how personally involved she was. “I was wondering… I know the Reaper is our primary target here, but some of the other things going on in that site are keeping me up nights.”

  “The pedophiles.”

  “One in particular,” she admitted, not surprised that he had immediately known where she was headed. Blackstone had been very kind during her interview, when he’d asked how she was coping with what had happened to her family a short eighteen months ago. She’d been incapable of lying about the rage she still felt toward the man who’d brutalized her nephew and the anguish over her sister’s resulting suicide. So yes, of course he understood her personal demons.

  “The Cyber Division has a unit devoted to catching those monsters, Lily.”

  “They don’t know about him,” she snapped back. There was such a mine-is-bigger-than-yours attitude pervading this building that she had no doubt Blackstone was keeping this case close to his chest.

  But he immediately proved her wrong. “Yes, they do.” Her jaw falling, she realized she’d completely misjudged him. “You mean you-”

  “Of course. You can’t possibly think I would keep Satan’s Playground a secret from the rest of the division in some kind of we-found-it-first foolishness.”

  That was exactly what she’d thought. Now who was the fool?

  “There are people working on it, I assure you. Another CAT, for one, and top agents who work crimes against children.”

  Relieved by that, she still couldn’t contain the need to do something-which had driven her here to begin with. “I want to help.”

  One fine brow arched over a dark blue eye. “We’re not keeping you busy enough?”

  Flushing, she shook her head. “I would never let my personal history distract me from my job.” Meeting his stare, she added, “I promised you that when I asked you to take me on.”

  He nodded once, conceding the point.

  “But if I were to offer some assistance in my spare time…”

  “You don’t have any spare time,” was the flat reply. “The unsub has to be stopped. If you have time to work on anything, it’s got to be on him.”

  “I meant afterward, once we’ve got him. I certainly would not deviate from the first priority, to stop the murders.”

  She meant it. Despite wanting to go after the sickos playing out their child-rape fantasies in the online Playground, she knew her job. She had no proof Lovesprettyboys had ever actually acted on his proclivities, just suspicions. The Reaper, however, had shown in full, blazing color what evil atrocities he was capable of in real life.

  “I’d like to volunteer to assist in the other investigation after ours has been successfully concluded. My experience working on the Satan’s Playground site in this case might prove beneficial in that one.”

  His frown said he didn’t like the idea, but his words were careful. “I thought the change of jobs was about you moving beyond the past. Trying to get on with your life.” His words were cautionary, his tone sympathetic.

  “Getting on with my life does not mean I can’t try to stop the kinds of criminals who affected me and my family,” she replied, resolute. “The man who killed my nephew is in prison and he’ll remain there for the rest of his life. I’m not confusing the deviants on this Internet site with him.”

  Blackstone was quiet for a moment, rubbing the tips of his fingers on his temple, as if battling a headache. She imagined he had a lot of them in this job. Finally, he murmured, “You know he’s filed an appeal?”

  Lily closed her eyes briefly, not wanting her boss to see the rage and frustration in them. The knowledge that Jesse Tyrone Boyd was trying to overturn his conviction for the rape and murder of the little boy she’d loved with her entire soul infested her brain and tormented her every minute of every day.

  “He was rightfully convicted. He won’t get off.” She bit the words out from between clenched teeth.

  “But while that’s going on, do you really want to immerse yourself in something so similar?”

  “We don’t know that it’s similar,” she insisted. “Or that this Internet guy has ever committed a real crime against a child.” That was a lie. She knew. Something deep inside of her was certain that the monster lurking in the cyber playground had done his share of lurking in real ones. But she had to play this cool, by the book, remain completely detached and professional. “I simply want to do whatever I can to help stop him.”

  Blackstone studied her intently for a long moment. She managed to keep herself calm and collected through sheer force of will.

  “All right,” he finally murmured.

  Lily suppressed a sigh of relief, thanking him as she got up to leave. And as she walked out of his office, she mentally told herself that he was correct.

  Not personal. Not personal. Not personal.

  Maybe if she kept thinking that, she might actually start to believe it.

  Dick’s Tavern had been built in the sixties, and from day one it had attracted a certain kind of crowd. Back then, it was a haven for roughnecks wanting to avoid hippie freaks. In the eighties it had been a haven for roughnecks wanting to avoid yuppie scum.

  Now it was a haven for roughnecks wanting to avoid anything resembling law an
d order. Or politeness, decency, courtesy, or class.

  Stacey hated the place almost as much as her father did. But there wasn’t a whole lot she could do about it, aside from responding to the inevitable brawls that sometimes spilled out into the road. The proprietor, Dick Wood-wasn’t that a porn star name if there had ever been one, and didn’t he just act like he’d earned it?-kept his nose clean in the two areas that could destroy him: He didn’t allow dope deals anywhere on the premises and he had never been caught serving minors.

  If he had been, she’d have had him up on charges so fast the man wouldn’t have had time to lock the door before she’d slapped a CLOSED sign on it.

  “Classy place,” Dean said as they pulled into the parking lot, already crowded with mud-encrusted off roaders, rusty pickups, and crotch rockets that had seen much better days. “I don’t suppose they have a lunch menu? That might explain the crowds at three o’clock in the afternoon.”

  “Only if by lunch you mean peanuts, whose shells are about an inch thick on the floor in some places. This is why I figured we’d be safe coming out here this afternoon rather than waiting until tonight, when they got really busy. The regulars are already parked on their usual stools; I guarantee it.”

  Dick’s was always busy on weekends, from the time the doors opened at ten a.m. until they closed, often with a last drive-by warning patrol by Stacey or one of her deputies at two. At any hour in between, beer was being poured or vomited back out on the sticky floor. Darts were being flung. Fights were breaking out. Sex was being had in the dirty, dingy back hallway or up against the side of the building.

  “How often do you have to come out here?”

  Swinging the patrol car into the lone vacant spot out back, she left the engine running to combat the heat. Stacey pushed her dark sunglasses onto the top of her head and glanced at her passenger. “Once or twice a week. More on weekends and holidays, when we set up sobriety checkpoints.”

  “Like shooting fish in a barrel, huh?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Is Stan Freed a regular?” His simple question didn’t disguise the genuine dislike he obviously held for the man.