by Karen Rose
“Garth Davis,” she spat.
His eyes flashed dangerously, but his voice remained level. “They have pictures of this Davis raping you, raping others. If you come forward, you will be known as the victim who turned prosecutor. Every defense attorney you go up against will question your zeal. ‘Is it the guilt of my client Ms. Vartanian is trying to prove, or is she trying to get revenge for her own assault?’ ”
“That’s not fair,” she said, tears close to the edge.
“Life isn’t fair,” he said, still calmly. But his eyes were tormented and she could keep the tears at bay no longer.
“He was my brother.” She glared at him, blinking away the tears in frustration. “Don’t you get it? He was my brother and I let him do that to me. I let him do it to others. Because I said nothing, fifteen other girls got raped and seventeen other people are dead in Philadelphia. How do I ever make that right?”
Al gripped her upper arms. “You can’t. You. Can’t. And if that’s why you’re testifying, it’s the wrong reason. I won’t let you ruin your career for the wrong reason.”
“I’m testifying because it’s the right thing to do.”
He looked her square in the eye. “Are you sure you’re not doing this because of Darcy Williams?”
Everything inside her froze. Her heart stopped. Dropped to her stomach. Her mouth moved, but no words would come out. In a blink, she saw the scene. All the blood. Darcy’s body. All that blood. And Al knew. He knows. He knows. He knows.
“I’ve always known, Susannah. You didn’t think a smart cop like Detective Reiser would take an anonymous tip on something so important, did you? Not on a homicide.”
Somehow she found her voice. “I didn’t think he ever knew who’d called him.”
“He knew. He set up a second call, saying he wanted to verify your initial information. He’d traced your first tip to a public phone booth and when you called a second time, he was waiting down the block, watching.”
“I’m a creature of habit,” she said dully. “I went back to the same phone booth.”
“Most people do. You know that.”
“So why didn’t he ever say anything?” She closed her eyes, mortification mixing with the shock. “We’ve worked on a dozen cases since then. He never let on he knew.”
“He followed you home that night. You were working for me then and Reiser and I go way back, so he came to me first. You were only an intern, but I already could see the promise in you.” He sighed. “And the rage. You were always polite, always in control, but behind your eyes was rage. When Reiser told me what you’d witnessed, I knew you had to be into something very dark. I asked him if he believed you’d done anything illegal yourself and he didn’t have anything to say you had.”
“So you asked him to keep my name out of it,” she said stiffly.
“Only if he found no evidence of your having done anything wrong. He was able to use your tips to get a warrant and found the murder weapon in the killer’s closet along with shoes with Darcy’s blood in the laces. He made his case without you.”
“But if he hadn’t been able to, you would have let him call me to the stand.”
Al’s smile was grim. “It would have been the right thing to do. Susannah, you visit Darcy’s grave every year on the day of her death. You still grieve for her. But you turned your life around. You’ve prosecuted offenders with a passion we rarely see. There was nothing to be gained from your coming forward on Darcy Williams’s death.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” she said. “I have to look at myself, every day, and know I did a passable copy of the right thing. This time, I want to be able to live with what I’ve done. I have to do this, Al. I’ve lived with the shame of the wrong thing for almost half my life. I want to live the rest of my life able to hold my head up to anyone I meet. If I have to sacrifice my career to do that, then I will. I can’t believe you, of all people, are trying to talk me out of this. You’re an officer of the court, for God’s sake.”
“I took off my DA hat the moment I walked in this door. I’m here as your friend.”
Her throat closed and she resolutely cleared it. “There are lots of other prosecutors out there with pasts like mine. They make it work.”
Again his smile was grim. “Their last name wasn’t Vartanian.”
She winced. “Point made. But my decision is the same. The SA and I have an appointment tomorrow morning at nine. She’ll come here. I’ll give her my statement.”
“Do you want me to be here?”
“No.” Uttering the word was reflex. But it wasn’t true. “Yes,” she said.
He nodded steadily. “All right.”
She hesitated. “Then I’m going to a funeral. In Dutton.”
“Whose funeral?”
“Sheila Cunningham. She was one of Simon’s gang’s fifteen rape victims. This past Tuesday night she was going to give my brother Daniel some information about the assaults thirteen years ago, but she was killed before she could talk to him. One of the gang members was our hometown deputy. He arranged for Sheila to be killed, then killed the hit man to keep him quiet. Today the deputy shot my brother.”
Al’s eyes widened. “You didn’t tell me your brother had been shot when you called.”
“No, I didn’t.” And she was too mixed up in her mind about Daniel to understand why she had not. “Daniel will be all right, thanks to his girlfriend, Alex.”
“Is the deputy in custody?”
“Of a fashion. After he shot Daniel, he turned his gun on Alex. She shot him dead.”
Al blinked. “I need another drink.” Susannah pulled another little bottle of scotch from the minibar, along with a bottle of water for herself.
Al tapped his glass to her bottle. “To the right thing.”
She nodded. “Even when it’s the hard thing.”
“I’d like to meet your brother Daniel. I’ve read a lot about him.”
Even when it’s the hard thing. Like it or not, ready or not, Daniel would be part of her life for the foreseeable future. “He can have visitors starting tomorrow.”
“Do you want me to go to this woman’s funeral with you?”
“You don’t have to,” she said and he gave her a look, as if he were counting to ten.
“You don’t have to do this alone, Susannah. You never did. Let me help you.”
Relief had her shoulders slumping. “It’s at eleven. We need to leave right after I talk with Ms. Hathaway.”
“Then I’ll let you sleep. Try not to worry.”
“I’ll try. You . . .” Her throat tightened. “You made me believe in the law, Al. I know it works. It didn’t work for me before, because I never gave it the chance.”
“Tomorrow at nine. We’ll give it a chance this time.”
She saw him to the door. “I’ll be here. Thank you.”
Atlanta, Friday, February 2, 11:30 p.m.
Luke stepped into the elevator in Susannah’s hotel, the aroma of food smacking him hard. A white-coated waiter stood behind a room service tray set for two. Luke glanced down at the room service tray longingly. It had been a long time since he’d eaten and all he’d get tonight was a burger from whatever drive-thru was still open.
You could be eating that burger right now. You could have just called her to ask about the cabin. Of course he could have, and should have. Yet here he was.
The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. “After you, sir,” the waiter said.
Luke nodded and headed for Susannah’s room. She’s probably asleep. You should just have called. But if he’d called, he definitely would have woken her. Now, he could listen at the door. If he didn’t hear anything, he’d leave. You go right on thinking that, Papa. You just want to see her again, make sure she’s all right.
Just to make sure she was all right. Yeah, that was it. Uh-huh.
A door opened at the end of the hall and an older man emerged, someone in the room closing the door behind him. The man was about fifty-fi
ve, dressed impeccably in a suit and tie. He scrutinized Luke, directly meeting his eyes as they passed.
Frowning, Luke turned to watch the man and almost collided with the waiter pushing the room service cart—who stopped at the door from which the man had emerged.
Luke frowned again when Susannah answered the waiter’s knock. She’d started to sign the bill when she realized Luke was there. “Agent Papadopoulos,” she said.
Luke nudged the waiter out of the way. “I’ll get this for you. Good night.”
Susannah watched as he pushed the cart into the room and closed the door. “What are you doing here?” she asked, though not unkindly.
“I needed to ask you something.” But then he got a look at her clothes and a sudden pulse of heat burned his skin. A tight skirt hit her legs midthigh and a clingy sweater dipped low. She looked utterly young and almost carefree. And I want her. Now.
“Looks like my niece Stacie bought what she wanted for herself,” he said, forcing his voice to be amused. “My sister Demi won’t let her dress like that.”
Her smile was rueful. “I thought as much, but I had to get rid of those scrubs.” She gestured at the cart. “Would you like to join me?”
“I’m starving,” he confessed. “But I don’t want to take your dinner.”
“I’ll never eat all this,” she said and pointed at the small table in the corner. “Sit.”
He maneuvered around the cart, hitting the desk with his hip. Her laptop cleared of its screensaver and he stopped when he saw what filled the screen. “Your statement.”
She put the tray on the table. “I’m meeting ASA Hathaway tomorrow morning.”
“She said you’d called.” He narrowed his eyes at the two sets of silverware on the tray, thinking of the man who’d come from her room. “You ordered dinner for two.”
“I always do. I don’t want anyone to think I’m here alone.” She shrugged, slightly embarrassed. “It’s the irrational fears that get you at three a.m. Eat before it gets cold.”
Three a.m. fears he understood. Three a.m. rarely found him asleep. They ate in silence, until Luke’s need to know overwhelmed. “Who was the man who left here?”
She blinked. “My boss. Al Landers, from New York. I’d called him earlier, told him about the box, and my statement. He came to make sure I was okay.” Her eyes widened. “You thought—? Oh, no. Al’s married.” Her jaw set. “He’s a good man.”
Luke’s gut settled. “That was nice of him to come all this way,” he said quietly.
She seemed to settle as well. “And it was nice of your niece to go shopping for me.” She got up and got her purse. “Here’s a check. Will you give it to her?”
He slid the check into his shirt pocket. “That’s not what you would have bought.”
“No, but that doesn’t make it any less kind. When I go back to New York, she can have this outfit if her mom will let her. I’m sure it would look better on her. I’m too old to dress like this.” She sat down and met his eyes. “What did you want to ask me?”
For a moment he couldn’t remember, then his good sense kicked in. “Did you ever visit a cabin up in the mountains?”
She frowned. “A cabin? No. Why?”
“I talked to Garth Davis tonight and he mentioned that they normally used one another’s houses for the . . . assaults, but that one night they used a cabin in the mountains. Granville made the arrangements and drove them there in secret.”
Her eyes had flickered at his hesitation. “Does Davis know who owned it?”
“I think so, but he’s not saying until we find his kids. His wife took off with them yesterday when she found out Mack O’Brien had targeted their family.”
“Garth’s cousin was murdered. I read about it in the paper.” She sat back, thinking. “My father didn’t have a cabin that I knew of. He bought a ski chalet in Vale, but to my knowledge he never used it.”
“Why did he buy it then?”
“I think to torment us, especially my mother. She wanted to go out West, but he wouldn’t take the time. He bought the chalet so they owned it, but she couldn’t use it.”
“But no cabin in the mountains here?”
“No. But I do remember him going fishing with Randy Mansfield’s father.”
“He and Mansfield’s father were friends?”
She shrugged. “When it suited either of them. Mansfield’s father was the county prosecutor and would come around when he had a case that wasn’t going well. They’d whisper in my father’s office and suddenly the tide would turn the prosecution’s way.”
“So Mansfield’s father bribed your father.”
“Sure. Lots of people bribed my father. My father bribed lots of people. Blackmailed others.” Her eyes flashed. “I wanted to tell, but nobody would have believed me.”
“Who could you have told? You had no idea who wasn’t in your dad’s pocket.”
The rage in her eyes subsided. “I know. They were all in it together.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to dredge all this up.”
“It’s okay. You were asking about the cabin. When my father and Richard Mansfield went fishing, they did go to a cabin.” She looked down, thinking, then abruptly looked up, meeting his eyes. “Judge Borenson. It was his cabin.”
“I know that name. I’ve heard it recently. Can I use your laptop?”
“Of course.”
He sat down at the desk and she stood behind him, watching him type.
“Oh my God,” she murmured, reaching over his shoulder to point at the screen at the same time the words jumped out at him. “Borenson presided over Gary Fulmore’s trial.”
“The man falsely convicted for killing Alex Fallon’s twin sister thirteen years ago,” Luke muttered, focusing on the computer screen and not on her clingy sweater that brushed his shoulder or her scent that filled his head. “Coincidence?”
“No,” she murmured. “It can’t be a coincidence.” She stepped back, lowering herself to the edge of the bed. “Gary Fulmore served thirteen years for a murder he didn’t do.”
“Mack O’Brien’s older brother Jared killed Alex’s sister,” Luke told her, both relieved and disappointed at the distance she’d put between them. “But nobody else knew that back then. All the boys in the gang thought the other had killed Alicia Tremaine, because she was alive when they left her after raping her. Jared O’Brien went back, raped her again, and killed her when she tried to scream for help.”
“Frank Loomis was the sheriff then. He tampered with evidence. Framed Gary Fulmore for the murder. Why?”
“I know Daniel wants to know.”
“Frank treated Daniel like his own son, gave him his first job at the police station. Finding out Frank had done such a terrible thing must have killed him.”
Luke looked over his shoulder abruptly. “Frank treated Daniel like his own son. Could he have treated Granville the same way?”
“Frank Loomis as Granville’s thích?” she asked doubtfully. “I guess it’s possible.”
“Were Sheriff Loomis and Judge Borenson friends?”
“I don’t know. They could have been. Dutton politics forged strange bedfellows.”
Luke searched through the rest of the Borenson search hits. “He’s pushing seventy, but I don’t see a death notice, so he’s probably still alive. We need to talk to him.”
“If Borenson’s cabin was known to Granville, it could be known to whoever is his partner now.” She drew a breath. “And . . .”
“The girls could be there. It’s a long shot, but it is a possibility, and right now, it’s all we have.” He looked over his shoulder. “Do you know where Borenson’s cabin was?”
“Somewhere up in North Georgia. I’m sorry. I wish I knew more.”
“No, you’ve been a big help. I can find the cabin if it was in his name.” He typed in another search and sat back. “The cabin’s up past Ellijay on Trout Stream Drive.”
“That area is remote. It’ll be hard to find, e
specially in the dark. You’ll need a guide.”
“I’ve fished at cabins up in Ellijay. I should be able to find my own way.” Luke paused at the door, then gave in, turning for a last look. “You’re wrong, you know.”
“About what?”
His mouth was suddenly dry. “You’re not too old for that outfit. Stacie chose well.”
One side of her mouth lifted. “Good night, Agent Papadopoulos. Good hunting.”
Ridgefield, Georgia, Saturday, February 3, 12:30 a.m.
Bobby smiled at Haynes. “It’s always a pleasure doing business with you, Darryl.”
Haynes slipped his money clip back in his pants pocket. “Likewise. I have to say I’m disappointed the blonde took sick, though. I kind of had my hopes up, there.”
“Next time. I promise.”
Haynes’s lips curved into a politician’s smile. “I’ll hold you to it,” Haynes said.
Bobby walked the rich man to the door and watched as he drove away, his new purchase stowed safely on a fluffy blanket in the trunk of his Cadillac Seville.
Tanner appeared. “I dislike that man.”
Bobby smiled. “You just dislike politicians and so do I. Haynes is a good customer, and once he’s elected, we’ll have one more powerfully placed . . . personnel.”
Tanner sighed. “I suppose. Mr. Paul is on your business line.”
“Thanks, Tanner. You can go to bed now. I’ll ring if I need you again.”
Tanner nodded. “I’ll check on our guests before I retire.”
“Thank you, Tanner.” Bobby smiled as the old man made his way up the old stairs. Tanner had a mile-wide streak of southern gentility, despite his rather checkered past. Tanner had been Bobby’s first “personnel acquisition,” at the ripe old age of twelve. Tanner had been old even then, but still young enough not to want to spend the rest of his life behind bars. They’d forged a relationship that had lasted more than half of Bobby’s life. There wasn’t anyone Bobby trusted more. Not even Charles.
Especially not Charles. Charles was a cobra, slithering around in the underbrush, hanging from trees, waiting for the optimal moment to strike.
