9 Kill for Me

by Karen Rose

  Shrugging back a shiver, Bobby picked up the phone. “Paul. You’re late.”

  “But I got your information, plus a few extras. Take down these names. Luke Papadopoulos is lead agent on the Granville case. He’s reporting to Chase Wharton.”

  “That I knew. Who’s the support staff?” Bobby frowned as Paul recited all the names. “I don’t know any of them.”

  “Oh, I do,” Paul said smugly. “One of them will fit your needs nicely because one of them has a secret worth hiding. It should have been a major arrest for me, but I figured I’d just bide my time.”

  “Smart. This one is more useful to us on the job than in prison.” Bobby recorded the name and the secret. “Now I’ll have a well-placed mole on the GBI team. Fantastic.”

  “And if you play your cards right, not just for this case, but for years to come.”

  “You did well, Paul. What about the other matter?”

  “That you’re going to be less happy about. Rocky met the nurse in the hospital parking lot and they chatted in her car.”

  “And you were where?”

  “Two rows over. I had to get that close for my mike to pick them up. Turns out your nurse hasn’t done the deed. She had your assistant pretty rattled.”

  Bobby’s jaw tightened. “I thought as much. Where is Rocky now?”

  “Driving north on I-85. I’m trailing about a half mile behind.”

  “Why?”

  “That I don’t know because she didn’t say.”

  “Did Rocky at least get a description of the girl?”

  “All the nurse knew was that her name started with M.”

  Fuck. Monica. “I see. So the girl is awake and talking?”

  “No. The nurse made it so the girl is paralyzed, gave her something in her IV. She can’t open her eyes, move, or speak.”

  Bobby breathed an easier breath. “So at least the nurse isn’t a total failure.”

  “Rocky told the nurse to give the girl one more dose, which would keep her paralyzed until about two this afternoon. She said she’d be back with more instructions, then let the nurse out. Rocky waited, then followed a car to one of the local hotels. A woman went into the hotel, the car kept going. Rocky started driving north.”

  “What did the woman look like?”

  “A doctor. She got out of the car wearing scrubs and carrying a computer bag in one hand and a shopping bag in the other. I can keep following Rocky. Your call.”

  “I’ve got her car wired. Just use the GPS. I have other things for you to do tonight.”

  “Can’t. Rocky must’ve ditched the transmitter because I’m not picking her up.”

  Bobby sighed. “I’ve always known she was bright. I’ll just have to have Tanner hide the transmitter better next time. Follow her. I want to know every move she makes.”

  “It’s your dime. Oh, one more thing. Rocky was very interested when the nurse said the woman who found the girl was Susannah Vartanian. She saved the girl’s life.”

  Bobby tensed. “What did the doctor look like, the one that went into the hotel?”

  “Thirty. Dark hair in a ponytail. Maybe five-three. Real pretty,” he added slyly.

  Susannah. “How nice. Call me when Rocky gets to where she’s going.”

  Bobby hung up and stared at the photo of Susannah that Charles had left, wondering if he’d known about Susannah finding the girl, then rejected the notion. Charles would have been here, playing chess when the girl escaped. Charles knew a lot, but even he didn’t know everything. Damn the old man, playing with my mind. Susannah Vartanian. The woman had been a festering thorn for years, simply by breathing. Today she’d done a hell of a lot more than breathe. Because of Susannah, the girl had survived. The girl could bring them all down.

  For now the girl was neutralized. The nurse would need to be brought into line, that was a given. But Susannah had crossed the line. It was way past time to pull out the thorn. Way past time for Susannah to stop breathing.

  But first, Bobby would deal with Rocky. It would not be pretty. Father always told me it was a mistake to go into business with family. I really should have listened.

  Chapter Eight

  Ellijay, North Georgia, Saturday, February 3, 2:15 a.m.

  Luke, wake up. We’re here.”

  Luke blinked his eyes open. Special Agent Talia Scott was slowing the car to a stop at the edge of a tree-lined dirt road, which according to their map should lead to Judge Walter Borenson’s cabin. “I wasn’t asleep,” he said. “I was just resting my eyes.”

  “Then you are the loudest eye-rester I’ve ever heard. Your snores could wake the damn dead, Papa. No wonder you can’t keep a girlfriend. So wake up.”

  “Maybe I did sleep a little.” That he had was testament to just how much he trusted Talia. They’d been friends for a long time. He glanced in his rearview. Chase was behind them, and two vans brought up the rear.

  One van was filled with the SWAT team Chase had assembled, the other held a crime lab team from the local GBI field office. “We got a signed warrant?” Luke asked.

  “Yeah,” Talia said. “Chloe grumbled about some early morning meeting and needing her beauty sleep, but she came through.”

  Chloe’s morning meeting was with Susannah, Luke knew. He’d almost told Talia about Susannah’s statement before he’d fallen asleep. Talia had been interviewing the surviving victims of Simon and Granville’s rape club for the past two days. At some point she’d know that Susannah had been a victim, too. But he’d held his tongue. Susannah deserved her privacy until she formally signed that statement.

  “Chloe usually does come through,” he said and got out of the car. “If Granville’s partner is here, he’s boxed himself in. There isn’t any way out, except this road.”

  Talia shined her flashlight across the dirt. “The ground’s too hard to show any tire tracks if a vehicle did come through.” She sniffed the air. “No fire in any woodstove.”

  Chase came close, tightening the straps on his Kevlar vest, two pairs of night goggles and two earpieces in his hand. “For you two. Let’s approach through the trees. I’ll go left. Talia, you go right, and Luke, you come around and cover the back. If they are in there, I do not want them to see us coming.”

  Luke thought of the bunker, the vacant eyes, the bullet holes centered on their foreheads. No, he didn’t want to give the bastards any advance notice. “Let’s go.”

  They organized, splitting the SWAT team into three groups, and set out, creeping through the trees. As they grew closer to the cabin, Luke could tell no one was there. The place was dark and had the feel of abandonment. No one had been here in days.

  Luke came out of the trees on one side of the road as Chase emerged on the other. Silently, Chase pointed around to the back of the house and Luke followed the order. All was quiet until he got about five feet from the house, then he heard a low growl.

  A bulldog struggled to stand, a low growl coming from its throat. The dog limped to the edge of the back porch, its teeth bared.

  “We’re in position,” Chase’s voice murmured in his ear.

  Luke carefully approached. “Easy, boy,” he said softly. The dog began to back up step by step, teeth still bared, but made no move to strike. “We’re ready, Chase.”

  “Then move.”

  Luke knocked the back door in, then gagged at the stench. “Oh my God.”

  “GBI, freeze,” Chase ordered from the front door, but the cabin was empty.

  Luke hit a light switch and immediately saw the source of the odor. Three fish lay on the kitchen counter, rotting. One looked like it had been in the process of being deboned. A long, thin filleting knife lay on the floor, covered in dried blood.

  “Bedroom’s clear,” Talia called.

  Chase looked at the fish, his mouth twisted in a grimace. “At least it’s not Borenson.”

  “Looks like he got interrupted,” Luke said. “Somebody was looking for something.”

  Drawers in the living room
had been yanked, contents strewn. The sofa had been slashed, stuffing everywhere. Books had been pulled from the shelves. Pictures had been pulled from the walls, the glass shattered in the frames.

  “Hey, Papa,” Talia called from the bedroom. “Come here.”

  Luke winced. Blood covered the bed, soaking the linens. “That had to have hurt.”

  Again, drawers were pulled, contents strewn. A framed photo lay in a pile of broken glass on the floor next to the bed. It was an old man holding a fly-fishing rod, standing next to a dog. “It’s the bulldog from outside,” Luke said, “and the old guy is Borenson.”

  “Talia, stay with the crime lab,” Chase said. “We’ll fan out and see if Borenson’s been dumped anywhere around the cabin, then we’ll talk to the folks in town, see if anyone saw anything. The girls are not here, nor do they appear to have been here. We’re not back to square one, though. Somebody didn’t want Borenson to talk.”

  A whimper had them looking down. The bulldog had lain down at Luke’s feet.

  “What about the dog?” Talia asked wryly.

  “Find him something to eat,” Luke said. “Then have the lab crate him and transport him back to Atlanta. Maybe he bit a suspect with those teeth.” Luke hesitated, then crouched to scratch behind the dog’s ears. “You’re a good boy,” he murmured. “Waiting for your master like that. She’s a good dog,” he corrected, then jumped when his cell phone buzzed in his pocket.

  His heart quickened when he saw the caller ID. “Alex, what’s happened?”

  “Daniel’s fine,” Alex said. “But three minutes ago they rushed Beardsley to ICU.”

  “Beardsley’s in ICU,” he said to the others. “What happened? He was stable.”

  “None of the medical staff are talking, but I’m standing here with Ryan’s father, who said they’d just changed his IV. A minute later he was convulsing.”

  “Oh, hell,” Luke muttered. “You think he was poisoned?”

  “I don’t know,” Alex said, “but his father said he’d remembered some things you’d want to know. His father said he called your cell, but got your voicemail.”

  Luke’s jaw tightened. He’d fallen asleep in the car and missed the call. Dammit. “I’m ninety minutes away. I’m going to call Pete Haywood to come. He’s one of Chase’s.”

  “I’ll wait with Daniel and keep an eye on Ryan Beardsley. Tell Agent Haywood he’ll want to take that IV bag in for testing. You should hurry back, Luke. Beardsley’s dad said he flatlined. They had to bring him back with the paddles.”

  “I’ll be there.” He hung up. “Looks like someone tried to kill Ryan Beardsley.”

  “In the hospital?” Chase asked incredulously.

  “In the hospital,” Luke confirmed grimly. “I have to head back.”

  “You two both go back,” Talia said. “I’ve got this covered and I’ll start looking for neighbors at daybreak. Don’t worry. We’re good here.”

  “Thanks.” Luke started for the door and the dog followed at his heels. “Stay, girl,” he said firmly. The dog obeyed, although she quivered, ready to follow at a word.

  “Yes,” Talia said, her tone longsuffering. “I’ll take care of the dog, too.”

  Luke slumped in Chase’s car. “It just doesn’t stop.” He grimaced. “And I reek.”

  “A little sweat, a little smoke, a little rotting fish. Chicks love it.”

  Luke snorted a tired laugh. “No woman would come within a mile of me.” But Susannah had. She’d come within inches. If he concentrated, he could still remember how she’d smelled. Fresh. Sweet. Just leave it alone. “I’ll call Pete. We still have a guard on ICU. I’ll post a guard outside Bailey’s room, too. Dammit, I was hoping this was it. But it’s been ten hours and we still have no idea where those girls are.”

  “Granville’s partner is still pulling the strings,” Chase said quietly.

  Luke glared at the passing trees. “Well, I’m damn tired of being his puppet.”

  Dutton, Saturday, February 3, 3:00 a.m.

  “Tell me,” Charles said, his mild voice covering up a fury that was almost ready to explode. Still his hands were steady as he held a new scalpel Toby Granville had given him just last Christmas. It was important to have the best tools. “Tell me where it fits.”

  Judge Borenson shook his head. “No.”

  “You’re a stubborn old man. I’ll just have to start cutting deeper and perhaps cutting off things you might otherwise like to keep. I know the key fits a safe deposit box. And I know Toby hurt you pretty badly up at your cabin and you still wouldn’t talk. I’m prepared to do much worse.” Charles sliced a ribbon deep into Borenson’s abdomen as the judge cried out in pain. “Just the name of the bank and the name of the city. Box number would be nice, too.”

  Borenson closed his eyes. “Bank of Hell. You’ll never find it.”

  “That’s a sad attitude, Judge. I need that statement you prepared. You know, the one that could ruin us both if it falls into the wrong hands?”

  “Like I give a shit.”

  Charles’s lips thinned. “You like pain, Judge?”

  Borenson moaned as the knife dug deeper, but he said no more.

  Charles sighed. “At least I love my job. I wonder how long you’ll hold out.”

  “Check your crystal ball,” Borenson said from between his teeth. “I’m not telling you.”

  Charles laughed. “It says you’ll die by Sunday noon. And I’ll make sure my prediction comes true, just like I always do. Some might say I’m cheating, but I just call it strengthening the house advantage. You can die quickly and painlessly or very slowly. It’s your choice. Give me what I want and I’ll go away. So will you, but you knew that was going to happen as soon as either I or Arthur Vartanian died, didn’t you? You made a deal with the devil, Judge. Free lesson—the devil always wins.”

  Atlanta, Saturday, February 3, 3:00 a.m.

  Susannah got out of bed and turned on the light. Sleep would not come and she’d learned long ago not to fight it. She sat down at the desk and turned on her laptop.

  She had briefs to write. Work to catch up on. But none of that seemed real tonight.

  She thought of Luke Papadopoulos and wondered what he’d found in Borenson’s cabin. If he’d found the missing girls, he would have called her, of that she was sure.

  She thought about the way he’d looked at her when he’d walked out the door tonight and a shiver ran down her back. He was a potent man. She was sure of that, too.

  What she wasn’t so sure of was the way she felt about it.

  But that wasn’t something she had to settle tonight. Tonight Luke was out there, doing something, while she sat, doing nothing. From her briefcase she pulled her cell phone and studied the photo she’d snapped of M. Jane Doe.

  What’s your name, girl? she wondered. Mary, Maxine, Mona? If only I’d gotten a second or third letter. Had M. Jane Doe been a runaway? Kidnapped? She knew the girl’s fingerprints had been taken when she’d arrived at the hospital. The nurses had confirmed that much. But so far M. Doe’s identity was still a mystery.

  Is someone waiting for you, M? She’d asked for her mom, just before she’d been placed in the helicopter, so she had at least one parent who, one hoped, loved her.

  Susannah brought up the Web site for missing children and searched the database for girls. There were hundreds and hundreds. She narrowed the search to those whose names began with M. Now there were fewer than fifty. She studied every face with a heavy heart. Every girl on the screen was gone.

  No matter how bad it had been at home, she’d never been taken away. At least not for longer than the one night Simon and his friends had . . . raped me. It was still no easier to say, even in her own mind. She wondered if it ever would be.

  She got to the end of the pictures and sighed. M. Jane Doe was not listed. Most of the girls listed in the database were classified as “endangered runaways,” and runaways weren’t investigated in the same way abducted teens might be. It was sad, but in
a world of strained budgets and overworked resources, it was reality.

  She wondered if M. Jane Doe had been a runaway, endangered or otherwise. There were online clearinghouses for teen runaways. Some of them had photos. She brought up a Web site for runaways and sighed again. Lots of photos. All individually listed. There would be no searching based on age or gender or names that began with the letter M. She settled back and began opening each photo file, one at a time.

  It was going to be a long night.

  Charlotte, North Carolina, Saturday, February 3, 3:15 a.m.

  Rocky slowed as she pulled into the parking lot, grateful for her nearly photographic memory. She hadn’t wanted to go back to Ridgefield House to check her notes. She hadn’t wanted to face Bobby. Not until I’ve fixed this. Luckily she was able to remember the facts on all the girls she’d lured from their beds during the past eighteen months.

  Tonight’s prey would serve a dual purpose—she’d give Bobby a new blonde and she’d ensure Monica Cassidy’s silence, until the girl could be moved out of the heavily guarded ICU, at which point Rocky would make the nurse kill her.

  She wasn’t sure how she’d do that, but she’d cross that bridge when she got there.

  She’d made good time, but the four-hour drive had left her no more prepared to do this thing alone. She released her grip on the steering wheel to check her pocket. Her gun was still there, of course. But it was reassuring to know for sure.

  Don’t be stupid. You’ve done this before. But not alone. Twice she’d accompanied Mansfield on pickups, but he’d done all the work. Rocky had simply navigated the drive.

  Tonight she went solo. Oh, God, there she is. A teenaged girl had inched her way out of the shadows and stood waiting. This is it. Don’t fuck it up now.

  Ridgefield House, Saturday, February 3, 3:15 a.m.

  The ringing of the phone pulled Bobby from sleep. A few blinks had the caller ID coming into focus. Paul. “Yeah? Where the hell are you?”