9 Kill for Me

by Karen Rose

  “And she has.” State’s Attorney Chloe Hathaway closed the outer door. She was a tall, curvy blond with an eye for style, but anyone who believed that’s all she was, was mistaken. A shrewd mind ticked behind her pretty face, and Luke was happy she was on this case. “Sorry I’m late. I’ve been drafting your warrants for Granville’s, Mansfield’s, and Davis’s houses and businesses.”

  “Are they signed?” Luke asked.

  “Not yet. I wanted my boss to check them over. I don’t want anything being excluded when you all finally search. The fact that you have a doctor, a deputy, and a lawyer-turned-mayor presents all kinds of confidentiality issues depending on how you search and what you find. I don’t want any evidence slipping through our fingers.”

  “I don’t want five kidnapped girls to slip through our fingers, either, Chloe,” Luke said, trying to control his impatience. “The longer it takes to search Granville’s house, the farther away his partner could be.”

  “I understand,” Chloe said. “I really do. But once you find the partner, you don’t want to lose him on an illegal search, do you?”

  Luke gritted his teeth. She was right, but so was he. “How long?”

  “An hour. Two tops.”

  “Two hours? Chloe.”

  “Luke. Let’s focus on Davis for now. Out of seven original rape club members, he’s the only one left alive. What do we have to tie him to these five murdered girls, besides the photos you found in Daniel’s old house?”

  “Only his social connection to Granville and Mansfield. They were all community leaders. We haven’t had an opportunity to question any of his constituents, neighbors, coworkers, anything.”

  “How about his family?”

  “His wife left town with their two kids yesterday when one of Garth’s cousins was murdered by Mack O’Brien. She was afraid for their safety and said Garth wouldn’t come to the police. We don’t know where she is, exactly. Her sister-in-law, Kate Davis, told us Garth’s wife was going ‘somewhere out west.’ ”

  “Well, once this hits the airwaves, she’ll know it’s safe and she’ll probably come back,” Chloe said. “What about Davis’s parents, siblings?”

  “Parents are both dead, one sister’s living—Kate Davis. We’ll talk to her again.”

  Chloe sighed. “So we don’t have anything.”

  “Not yet,” Luke admitted.

  “Garth Davis might not know anything about Granville’s side business. If he does, I’m expecting that his attorney will want to cut some kind of deal on the thirteen-year-old rapes.”

  Luke had thought the same thing. “And will you?” he asked, mildly.

  She shook her head. “I sure don’t want to. And I won’t even consider a deal without knowing what information he has and if it’s genuine. I’ve got a dozen victims to consider here. They deserve their day in court. But . . .” She let the thought trail.

  Thirteen, Luke thought, but didn’t correct her. Susannah’s name hadn’t been on Daniel’s original list because he hadn’t known at the time. Luke decided to let Susannah contact Chloe on her own. One more victim would not make Garth Davis any less guilty. “But you might have to cut him a deal.” The thought made him sick. “We can search his house, his office. Find out if he had any dealings with Granville.”

  “That’s the kicker, Luke,” she said. “And that’s why I’ve worded these warrants so carefully. I can only include on the warrant evidence you find relevant to the rapes unless I have probable cause to link Davis to the trafficking. If you find anything in your search that implicates him, I can’t use it otherwise.”

  “At least we’d be a step closer to finding the girls.”

  “That’s true, if he has something incriminating in his home or office. You’d have to find it first. And I know I don’t have to tell you this, Luke,” she added gently, “but the clock is ticking. We’re in a damned if we do, damned if we don’t position.”

  “I don’t want this bastard to walk, Chloe. I don’t care what he knows.”

  “You won’t know what he knows until you ask him,” Germanio inserted reasonably.

  Chloe adjusted her briefcase strap on her shoulder. “Also true. So let’s ask, Papa.”

  Garth Davis waited until Luke and Chloe sat at the table before opening his mouth. “This is a ludicrous charge,” he said. “I raped no one. Not now, not thirteen years ago.”

  Luke said nothing, simply sliding a folder across the table. It contained only four of the photos graphically implicating a teenaged Davis. Davis took one look at the pictures, drew a breath, and closed the folder, stone-faced and pale.

  His attorney scowled. “Where did you get these? They’re doctored. Obviously.”

  “They’re genuine,” Luke said. “These were the first I came across while sorting through the several hundred we have in our possession.” He picked up one of the pictures and studied it. “You’ve aged well, Mayor Davis. Some men might have developed a gut in thirteen years. You’re in as fine a shape now as you were then.”

  Davis’s stare was hate-filled. “What do you want?”

  “Garth,” his attorney cautioned.

  Davis ignored him. “I said, what do you want?”

  Luke leaned forward. “To see you rot in jail for the rest of your miserable life.”

  “Agent Papadopoulos,” Chloe murmured and Luke sat back in his chair, still staring Davis down. “We have fifteen victims here. Fifteen counts of your client engaged in nonconsensual sexual relations with minor females, drugged and helpless. At a mandatory ten a pop, that does equate to the remainder of your natural life, Mayor Davis.”

  “I said,” Davis said through his teeth, “what do you want?”

  “Tell him what you want, Agent Papadopoulos,” she said.

  Luke watched Davis’s face. “Tell me about Toby Granville,” he said, and for an instant saw a flicker of fear. Then it was gone, replaced with contempt.

  “He’s dead.” His smile was smug. “Kind of bad for you.”

  Luke’s smile was congenial even though he wanted to knock the smirk off Davis’s face. “One could say that. One could also say that Granville’s death concentrates the venom of your surviving victims. More hate to focus on you. You’re the only one left of the seven. You’ll be taking the fall for the other six bastards, Mayor Davis. And I guarantee, your surviving victims will be pissed, and totally out for their pound of your flesh. Yours and yours only. Because you’re not dead. Kind of bad for you.”

  Davis’s attorney whispered something in his ear. Davis’s jaw went taut, then his expression smoothed, almost as if he’d slipped into his politician skin. “Granville was the town doctor. Coughs, colds, skinned knees. That’s all I know.”

  “Come on, Mayor Davis,” Chloe said. “You know better than that.”

  Davis and his attorney whispered again. “We want a deal.”

  She shook her head. “Not till I hear what you’ve got.”

  Davis’s attorney sat back. “Then he’ll have no leverage.”

  Luke spread the four photos across the table. “I have dozens of these, with Mayor Davis smiling in every one as he rapes another girl.” He met Davis’s eye once more. “You have no leverage. You have only the mercy we opt to give you. And right now, the quality of my mercy is very strained indeed. So stop wasting my time.”

  Davis glanced at his attorney and the attorney nodded. “The club was Toby and Simon’s idea. It started out as a game, but then took on a life of its own.”

  “Did you ever meet or talk to or see anyone other than the club members?”

  “No.”

  “Where did these rapes occur?”

  “Depended on the weather. When it was warm, outside. When it got cold, indoors.”

  “Where?” Luke asked again, more harshly. “I want a location.”

  “Different houses, depended on whose parents weren’t home at the time.”

  “Was there ever a time when you used a house or other structure not belonging to one
of the club members?” Luke pushed.

  “Once. We’d had it all planned to go to Toby’s house, but Jared O’Brien’s mother came down with something and canceled the party she was throwing that night. That meant all our parents would be home, so we needed another spot. Toby found us one.”

  Luke pushed out a breath. “Where and to whom did it belong?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t know. Toby had us all get in the back of a van he’d borrowed from his mother’s gardener. No windows and he hung a sheet up, so we couldn’t see out the front. Simon sat in the back, making sure nobody peeked. And with Simon on guard, nobody peeked. He was a crazy SOB, even then.”

  “How long did you drive?”

  Something cagey moved in Davis’s eyes. “I don’t remember.”

  Chloe’s annoyed huff let Luke know she’d seen it, too. “I think you do, Mr. Davis.”

  “I’m ready to go back to holding.” Garth turned to his attorney. “Keep looking.”

  Keep looking for what? Or who. “Must be rough, having your wife desert you that way,” Luke said mildly. “Not knowing where your kids are, or if they’re okay. Two boys, right? Seven and four. Awfully little to be on the run. So many dangers out there.”

  A muscle in Davis’s unbruised cheek twitched. “You know where she is.”

  Luke lifted a shoulder. “I don’t remember.”

  Davis sat down. “I want to see my wife and my children.”

  “I may be able to arrange that,” Luke said quietly. “How far did you drive that night?”

  Davis’s cheeks hollowed as his eyes grew ice cold. “Less than an hour. It was a cabin. Up in the mountains.”

  “That’s all?” Luke asked. “That’s not nearly enough.”

  “It was a goddamned cabin, all right?” Davis snarled, eyes blazing. “It had a fireplace and a kitchen. Like every other goddamn cabin up there.”

  “Any knickknacks, anything to tell you whose it might have been?”

  Garth’s eyes grew cold once more. “Yeah. And you’ll get it when I see my kids. And not before. I don’t know why that cabin’s so important to you, Agent Papadopoulos, but it is and that’s all the leverage I’ve got right now.” He stood up. “I’m done.”

  Chloe waited until they were back in the viewing anteroom. “You mind telling me what that was all about?”

  Luke sighed. “Granville’s last words were ‘Simon was mine. But I was another’s.’ Someone was mentoring him. Guiding him. Maybe even pulling his strings.”

  “Could be his trafficking partner,” Chloe said. “Or not. Could have been the owner of that cabin. Or not.” Then she smiled. “But that was a good Hail Mary, Luke. You got us some leverage without dicking around with a plea. I may still deal, but I’d rather hold that card as long as I can.”

  Over my dead body that asshole gets a deal, Luke thought. “Thanks. I only hope we can get Mrs. Davis back here before those missing girls are so far gone we never find them.” He turned to Agent Germanio, who’d been watching the entire interview. “What was Garth doing when you picked him up?”

  “He was on the phone with the airport.” Germanio looked at Chloe. “Just don’t ask.”

  Chloe rolled her eyes. “Hank, how many times do I have to tell you the phone is off limits until I get a damn warrant?”

  Hank was unapologetic. “I told you not to ask.”

  “So who was he talking to? When you hit redial,” she added in a mutter.

  “A lady named Kira Laneer. She works check-in at one of the smaller airlines.”

  “Sounds like a stripper’s name,” Chloe groused. “I’ll find out if Mrs. Davis and her boys boarded a flight, either yesterday or today. You keep away from Kira Laneer until I get a warrant for Davis’s phone records.”

  “Did you get enough to beef up the warrant to cover anything we find in Davis’s house linking him to trafficking?” Luke asked, unsurprised when she shook her head.

  “No. But look anyway.”

  “I will. Pete Haywood is waiting with his search team at Granville’s house for your call. As soon as that judge signs his name, call Pete and let him know he can go in. It’s been almost three hours since we discovered the girls were missing.”

  “If they’re headed out of the country, they’ve got a good head start,” Germanio said.

  “I know,” Luke said grimly. “We’ve posted advisories with the Coast Guard and border patrol, but until we get a description, either on the partner or the girls, we got nothin’. I’m going back to the bunker and see what Ed and the crime lab have found.”

  Atlanta, Friday, February 2, 6:45 p.m.

  Susannah stood at the hospital waiting room window, trying to block out the constant stream of activity behind her. It seemed every cop in Atlanta had heard about Daniel and had come to sit with the family. Her lips lifted, but bitterly. She was the family. I’m it. For all the good that does either of us.

  Everyone who came wanted to tell her how wonderful her brother was, how brave. How honorable. Susannah’s face hurt from the smile she’d forced while thanking each cop for their kind words. Alex had arrived a half hour ago, after visiting her stepsister, Bailey, so Susannah was letting her greet the well-wishers and retell the story of how Daniel had yet again vanquished the evil foe.

  And Susannah had escaped to this window. From here she could see city lights, the movement of cars as rush hour subsided. If she pretended hard enough, she could believe she was home in New York and not here in Atlanta caught up in this nightmare.

  Because after the initial adrenaline of the drive from Dutton, of the search for thích, reality had intruded. She’d been poked with needles, fore and aft. They’d taken her blood and shot her in the behind, just as Alex had said they would. Some kind nurse had given her scrubs to wear as her clothes had been ruined.

  Luke’s boss, Chase Wharton, had questioned her about the events of the afternoon. The girl was in surgery, never having regained consciousness in the helicopter.

  Susannah thought that was just as well. Her heart quailed thinking of the horrors the girl had seen, endured. Her heart froze thinking of the girls Granville’s partner had spirited away. What they’d be subjected to if they weren’t found quickly.

  She didn’t need imagination to know what they’d do to those girls. She’d seen the aftermath of prostitution and rape. Up close and very personal. The hum of activity around her faded as her mind brought back one very personal victim. There had been blood that day, too. And a body battered beyond saving.

  Darcy, I’m sorry. I was afraid. I failed you. But Susannah knew her apologies were worthless. Darcy would never hear them. Darcy would never hear anything ever again.

  “Excuse me.”

  The soft voice yanked her back from an old nightmare to this new one. She straightened, ready to greet yet another well-wisher. This one was a petite blonde.

  “I’m Felicity Berg,” she said. “I’m with the medical examiner’s office.”

  Susannah’s mouth dropped open and the woman quickly patted her arm.

  “Nobody’s dead,” Dr. Berg said, then winced. “Well, that’s not true. Lots of people are dead, actually. But not Daniel.” She leaned closer. “And not the girl you saved.”

  “How did you know?” Susannah asked. Chase and Luke were keeping the girl’s existence as closely guarded a secret as possible.

  “Luke called me, told me what happened this afternoon at the bunker. We’ve had a busy week, with Mack O’Brien’s victims, and now these. They’ll start arriving soon and I won’t have a chance to see you after that. I just wanted to tell you that your brother is a kind man. I’m praying for him. And for you.”

  Kind. No matter what Daniel had done, and what he had not, that he was a kind person was a fact Susannah could never deny. Her throat tightened and she had to swallow before the words could escape her throat. “Thank you.”

  Dr. Berg glanced at the noisy cops. “My mother was here for surgery last year, and the waiting room was one b
ig party with her friends from bingo night and her clogging class.” She made a face. “Let’s not even discuss the friends from Chippendale night.”

  Susannah smiled and Dr. Berg smiled back, shyly pleased. “I escaped to the chapel,” Berg confided. “It’s always quiet there.”

  Suddenly, that seemed the natural place to be. “Thank you.”

  Dr. Berg squeezed her arm. “Take care. And all those loud guys? They’d go to the wall for you, just because you’re Daniel’s sister. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask them. I’d say you could ask me, but . . .” She sobered. “I have a job to do.”

  So do I. It was why she’d boarded a plane that morning. She still needed to give her statement regarding the rapes thirteen years before. Everyone had been so focused on the events of the bunker, there hadn’t been time to discuss events of the past. But before she spoke with the state’s attorney, she needed to call her boss in New York. Her involvement would likely make the news. He deserved to hear about it from her and not CNN. “Your job may be the hardest of all, Dr. Berg.”

  “No. Luke’s will be. Once we identify all the victims, he’ll have to tell their families that their daughters are never coming home. The chapel’s on the third floor.”

  Friday, February 2, 7:00 p.m.

  I have to get out of here. Ashley Csorka clutched the towel around her body. She was no longer in the concrete hellhole, but this was no better. It was a house, but it was a prison just the same. There were no windows in this room. There weren’t even any air vents, even if she’d been small enough to fit into one, which she wasn’t. The house had to be a hundred years old. The bathtub was old and cracked, but surprisingly clean.

  She was clean now, dammit. The woman had forced her to bathe. Ashley’s dad had always told her if she was attacked to throw up on herself—it was one way to deter a would-be rapist. When they’d been shoved into the boat she hadn’t needed to force her stomach to spew—she’d never been able to tolerate boats. Her father had always found that strange, seeing as how she was such a strong swimmer.

  Dad. Ashley struggled not to cry. Her dad would be looking for her. But he’d never find her here. I’m sorry, Daddy. I should have listened to you. All his restrictions and rules now seemed so right. But now it was too late.