A pickup with gardening tools in the cab hugged the curb out front while a man mowed the lawn. Val waved at the gardener to get his attention. When he saw her, he turned off the mower and removed his ear protection.
“Hi there,” she called to him from the front walkway. “I’m looking for Mr. Stevenson. Is he here?”
“Yup.” The gardener crooked his thumb at the house.
She thanked him, and he started up his mower again. This would be easier than she thought.
Val didn’t knock. She opened the unlocked front door and walked inside like she lived there. Glancing around his foyer, she spotted a table filled with framed family photos. He had a wife and two preteen children. Wife was probably at work; kids at summer camp. A decorative wood carving like something sold at a farmer’s market hung on the wall; it read “Mike + Vanessa.” Footsteps creaked through the ceiling from the second floor. He worked from home; private law practice maybe.
Val walked into an immaculately clean kitchen with heavy mahogany furniture. On the counter sat a tidy pile of unopened mail. She riffled through it, picked out a thick envelope that looked promising. Val grabbed a knife from a butcher block and cut the envelope open; a monthly checking account summary. She noticed lots of checks made out to various charities, but nothing suspicious. Val sliced open another; a credit card statement. Scanning the charges, her eyes alit on one particularly huge purchase—five digits—to a company called Asclepius Inc. The charge was dated one day after her assault. She folded the paper and shoved it into her back pocket.
Val was about to slice open another envelope when footsteps on the stairs caught her attention. With a swipe of her arm, she dumped the pile of torn-up mail into a trash bin abutting the counter, then slipped the knife into her waistband, next to her gun in its concealed holster at the small of her back. A second later, Stevenson entered the kitchen.
He jumped when he saw her. “Jesus! Who the hell are you?”
“I’m from the Coalition of Concerned Parents of the Pacific Northwest. Are you aware there’s an ongoing effort to cut after-school outdoor programs for disadvantaged children?”
“How did you get in here?” he stammered.
“Your door was unlocked. The quality of your children’s education is at stake here, sir.”
“My kids go to private school…”
“Of course they do, but cutting after-school outdoor activities for public school kids will result in a lower quality of life for everyone. What kind of world are we leaving for our children when we allow them to grow up without really understanding the joys of kayaking? Your wife, Vanessa, understood.”
“You talked to Vanessa?”
“Yes, about a week ago. She didn’t mention it?”
“No—”
“Well, we talked. She said she’d donate one hundred dollars to the Coalition. Told me to come by today and pick up the check…”
He shook his head and sighed. “Goddammit, Vanessa. I wish she’d stop doing these things without telling me.” He disappeared for a moment, then came back to the kitchen with a checkbook. Stevenson sat down at the kitchen table and flipped the book open. Val sat across from him and studied his face. He still didn’t seem to recognize her. Maybe he was innocent after all.
“Who do I make this out to?”
“The Coalition of…”
He wrote, then glanced at her.
“Concerned Parents of…”
His pen scratched the check. He glanced at her again. Then his glance turned into a wide-eyed stare and the blood drained from his face.
“The Pacific Northwest.”
Stevenson tore his gaze away from her and back to the check. He cleared his throat and started writing again. His hand shook.
“You recognize me, don’t you?”
“No,” he said without looking at her.
Val slipped the knife out of her waistband. In one smooth, strong motion, she jammed the blade through his hand and into the table’s wooden surface underneath. Stevenson shrieked.
“How about now?”
He pawed frantically at the knife, but she’d embedded it nice and deep into the table. It stayed put, and him with it.
“What do you want?” Stevenson cried as he writhed in his chair, eyes wet and panicked. “I’ll pay you! Anything you want!”
“I want to know why you thought you’d get away with raping a woman.”
“I don’t—I didn’t know— He said you were a whore! That you’d been paid—”
“Who said that?”
“The butler guy— Jesus, I didn’t know! I was fucked up that night, I swear! They gave us drugs. I didn’t know—”
“Where is the Blue Serpent clubhouse?”
Breathing hard, he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to concentrate on something other than the huge knife speared through his hand. “It changes every time.”
“Where was it last Wednesday night?”
“F—four-eighteen East Langdon Drive, I think.”
“Was Lucien Christophe there?”
“I don’t remember!”
Val unholstered her gun and imagined what his head would look like with a much-deserved hole in it. Stevenson started hyperventilating. He pulled uselessly on the knife. Every time he moved his trapped hand, he groaned in agony.
She pointed her gun at him. “Think hard, Michael.”
“No—no, he wasn’t there.”
“Who were your partners in crime?”
“I dunno. I didn’t recognize them. Everybody was high and wearing masks, for fuck’s sake! I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry! I didn’t know!”
Val tapped her gun with her index finger and considered whether to believe him. The element of surprise plus extreme physical duress usually equaled not enough time to think of a plausible lie. And like Eric the Idiot Bartender before him, Stevenson put on a convincing act. Val had a special way of keeping people honest. She believed he was sorry…that he’d been caught. Now, she needed to decide whether or not to kill him.
Val slipped her gun back into its holster. She walked to the counter and picked up a thick wooden cutting board. Gripping it like a paddle, she stalked toward Stevenson. The crush of his skull would be so satisfying…
“No,” he begged when she raised the cutting board above her head. “No!” He threw up his free arm to protect himself.
Val brought the cutting board down on the hilt of the knife. Stevenson screamed as the blade embedded into the table another inch. There was no way he’d work it free now. She tossed the cutting board to the floor, then picked his checking account summary from the trash. Val turned the paper over and wrote on the blank side:
Dear Vanessa: I raped a woman. That is what I think of you.
Val lay the paper down on the far end of the table, three feet out of his reach. She looked down at him as he grasped for the note, tears running down his face. “Sucks to be helpless, doesn’t it? You could always cut your hand free, if you really love your wife.”
Val walked away as Stevenson screamed every curse word known to the English language. At the front door, the lawn mower drowned out his cries. She stepped outside into the hot summer day, clear blue sky in every direction. The gardener gave her a polite wave as he passed. Val waved back, and for a second imagined herself as a rich housewife, pampered and content with her privileged life, her only concern whether the lawn mower lines in the grass were crisp enough. Then she remembered why she was actually there, and felt sick.
* * *
Langdon Drive was actually a long driveway that led to a mansion hidden from the main road by evergreen foliage. The brown monstrosity loomed over the wooded area like an evil troll with glass eyes, waiting for a victim to wander by whom it could snatch and drag away. Rustic luxury. It made her nauseous.
With one swift kick the door popped open. Val figured she had about ten minutes before police responded to the silent alarm she’d surely set off. She did a quick scan of the first floor and found the place impeccab
ly decorated with the bare minimum for furniture. There were no personal touches or mementos. It was a rental, she realized. Val made a quick sweep of the second and third floors; they had the same feel of a fancy hotel that the first floor did. Lastly, she went to the basement.
It was part of a sitting area next to a pool table and a wet bar—the white leather sofa. She’d only seen it for a few seconds in the video, but she would never forget it. This was where it happened. The fact that she couldn’t remember anything was probably a gift. A part of her wished she’d never found out, the part that wished she was a normal person with a normal life. The part that told her she should let someone else deal with all the injustices in the world for once. The part that always argued for caution. The part that always lost.
Val swallowed hard and forced herself to rip the cushions loose and look for anything left behind, like a condom. Her presence there now might contaminate the scene, but it was worth the risk. When she found nothing, she looked underneath the sofa, then combed the rest of the room; nothing. The house had been scrubbed clean. She considered burning it down. While she’d find it immensely satisfying to torch the place, the blaze might destroy any remaining evidence. Even a professional floor-to-ceiling scrub-down wouldn’t remove every trace of hair, DNA, or something else that could be used in a trial if, in a best-case scenario, she ever got that far.
She glanced at her watch. Time to leave if she wanted to avoid a breaking-and-entering charge. Honestly, she was grateful for any excuse to get the hell out of that room.
Val rushed to her car and drove away in haste. A police cruiser passed traveling in the opposite direction, toward the house. The beat cop inside didn’t pay her any notice. When it disappeared from her rearview mirror, she fetched her cell phone from her purse and called Zach.
“Tell me you have something,” she said when he answered the phone.
“Oh, hey. I was gonna call you sooner, but my mom told me if I didn’t plant some flowers for her, like immediately, she’d take my computers away. I swear she bought a hundred stupid pansies—”
“Spit it out, Zach!”
“All right, jeez. Like I was afraid of, the dude who posted the video knew what he was doing. He ping-ponged the trail all over the country, but I was able to trace the origin to a place in Lakewood, Washington.”
Yes. Another lead. “Gimme the address.”
“Six-four-three-zero Motor Avenue. But I’ll tell you now, he’s not there. I already Google Earth-ed it, and it’s a closed-down car garage. Means he spoofed the IP address, like I’d do, if I were him. He could be anywhere in the country. Definitely in the US, though, if that helps.”
“Fuck,” she hissed into the phone.
“Sorry. If I had access to PRISM, I could track him down no problem. You know, the NSA launched that program in 2007 and—”
Val hung up, then slapped the dashboard. Goddammit! Clutching the steering wheel with white knuckles, she took deep breaths and tried to calm her nerves. So tracing the video had led to a dead end. It wasn’t her only lead. She called Stacey.
“I need you to find out who rented the mansion at four-eighteen East Langdon Drive last Wednesday night, and if that person rented any other properties within the last six months,” Val said.
“Okay. Property managers for rich people have tight lips, though. I’ll have to call in some favors. Might take a few days.”
“As soon as possible, Stacey. You know what’s at stake.”
“Yeah, I know,” Stacey snapped.
Val expected Stacey to follow up with a gripe about Val’s rudeness, but she didn’t. Stacey’s pity must’ve tempered her response. Great, even her best friend was treating her like a wounded child.
“When are you coming home?” Stacey asked. “It’s falafel night. We can sit and talk, catch up on the other cases, and maybe call a lawyer and get advice on what legal action we could take against the Pana Sea—”
“I’m not going to be home until late. I have to…go do something.”
“You’re not going to get drunk somewhere, are you?”
Val ground her teeth together. “Don’t wait up for me.” She hung up.
She tossed her phone into the passenger’s seat. For a moment tears clouded her vision. She hated being reminded she was a fucking victim. The only thing that made it bearable was knowing that a victim could be reborn an avenging angel of the purest kind—one driven by a wrath that would not be quenched until the entire world paid restitution.
Chapter Ten
Stacey dropped her phone back into the tie-dyed tote nestled in her car’s passenger seat. She took a long drag off the cigarette she’d been working on when Val had called. As soon as possible, Stacey. You know what’s at stake. Stacey scoffed. No shit, Val, I’m not a fucking idiot. Of course Val meant the missing woman, not Val’s own rape. Val would rather pretend like the latter never happened, with the aid of copious amounts of alcohol. And why shouldn’t she? The drink-to-forget technique had worked well enough for her since the batshit craziness at the Pacific Science Center last year, and her breakup with the perfect man, Max Carressa. It all meant Stacey had to shoulder more of the burden of running Valentine Investigations, like actually following up on cases that weren’t Margaret Monroe’s, while the company’s namesake slept off a hangover or fell off the grid for hours at a time. But what were friends for? Maybe she should fall off the grid for a little while, too, and give Val a taste of her own medicine.
Stacey shook her head at her petty thoughts. She wasn’t being fair. Val was in serious pain and needed help—help she refused to accept from Stacey, for whatever reason. That’s what chafed Stacey the most. Why wouldn’t Val let Stacey help her? Was she holding out for her ex-boyfriend, like maybe he’d dump his hot fiancée and hook back up with her? That’s not how men worked. Even super-gay Stacey knew that.
She jammed her spent cigarette butt into the ashtray. More petty thoughts. This case was getting to her. As soon as they found Margaret and brought Val’s rapists to justice, they’d take a break and clear their heads, help each other heal, mend battered bridges. Val would hem and haw about how their work never ended and evil never slept and all that, but Stacey would insist. Maybe they’d go to Vancouver…No, Hawaii. She could already feel the sand between her toes and taste the Mai Tais—or maybe a virgin daiquiri, for Val’s sake.
Stacey tapped another cigarette out of its pack and readied her lighter to fire it up, then stopped when she spotted what she’d been waiting for. Across the street, two gorgeous women carrying garment bags walked up to an apartment building and knocked on a first-floor door. Seconds later, a petite brunette answered, exchanged hugs with the other two, then ushered them inside.
Yup, this was definitely the place. After Stacey tracked one of Margaret’s escort colleagues down, she admitted that a contingent of working girls had been solicited to work a costume party that night, and the friendlier women were meeting ahead of time to get ready together. The colleague didn’t know Margaret personally or anything about the Blue Serpent, but one of these fine ladies might. In any case, it’d be fun to ask.
Stacey tossed her unlit cigarette back in her tote and walked to the apartment door the ladies had disappeared into a minute ago. The same gorgeous woman as before answered. She raised a penciled-in eyebrow at Stacey.
Stacey eyed the woman’s breasts, barely contained in a bikini made of seashells. “Hi there!”
“Yeah?”
“I’m a friend of Margaret Monroe’s mom—you might know Margaret as Celine? I’m looking for her. Can I come in?”
The brunette’s skepticism softened into concern. “Oh my gosh, yeah.” She opened the door for Stacey and beckoned her inside.
The apartment was a typical bachelorette pad, with pink tiger-print throw pillows and feather boas draped over bookcases. Seven or eight beautiful women in various stages of dress moved between the living room, a bathroom, and down a hallway Stacey assumed led to a bedroom. They regarded Stace
y in passing with polite curiosity. Stacey smiled at them and nibbled on her bottom lip. In moments like these, she remembered why she loved her job, despite the unstable income.
“You said you’re looking for Margaret?” the brunette asked.
“Oh—um, yes.” Stacey worked to focus on only the one beautiful woman talking to her, though her eyes kept wandering.
“So she really is missing? I heard about it, but I wasn’t sure. I haven’t seen her in a while, but, you know, girls in this business come and go…”
“Her mom’s concerned enough to hire us. I’m with a detective agency.”
“Like, the cops?”
“No, we’re private. Very discreet. We’re looking for any clues that might help—people she knows, places she likes to go, any enemies she might have, that sort of thing. Did you know her well?”
“We did a few jobs together.” Her eyes misted up. “She was really sweet.”
“And you are…”
“Cindi.”
“Nice to meet you. When’s the last time you saw Margaret?”
“About a month ago. We worked a job in Bellevue together. Weird old guy, had us fuck each other while he watched from inside a closet and jerked off.”
“Huh. I don’t suppose it brought you closer together as friends?”
“No, but we went to an all-night diner afterward and got milk shakes. That was nice.”
That did sound nice. “Have you ever been to a bar called the Pana Sea?”
“Yeah. I go about once a month, when I’ve got a gap in my schedule and want some extra cash.”
“Anything weird ever happen there?”
Cindi shook her head. “Not to me…but Rachel said she thought somebody from that bar drugged her.” She looked past Stacey. “Hey, Rachel, come out here!”
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