He picked up right away. The connection crackled. “Rick!” She raised her voice to be heard above the static. “It’s Carla. I found tapes. Bernhardt was into young girls and he taped them. The night he died, Tara was with him. Another teenager, too, one I didn’t recognize.” She paused to gulp in air. “And so was Heather Ferguson.”
Rick whistled and Carla continued. “From what I could tell, she was a kind of pimp. She wasn’t involved in the action, she just observed it. She also administered some sort of drug.”
“Did she know they were being taped?” he asked.
“I’m positive she didn’t.” Carla glanced toward the mirrors. “If she had, no way would she have allowed this tape to be-”
She bit back the word. “Hold on, I thought I heard something.” She crossed to the bedroom door and stepped out into the empty hallway. Heart pounding, she went to the top of the stairs and peered down. “Hello, anyone down there?”
“Just me.”
The Sunset Key Realty office girl appeared at the bottom of the stairs. She was dripping wet and looked miserable. “Are you almost done? My boss told me to retrieve the key and lock up. They’re getting ready to stop ferry service because of the wind.”
Realizing that she had been holding her breath, Carla let it out and smiled. “All finished. I’ll be down in one minute.”
When Carla was certain the woman was out of earshot, she continued her conversation with Rick. “No way Heather Ferguson would have allowed the tape to be found.”
He was silent a moment; the connection crackled. “A pattern’s emerging here, Carla. Everyone associated with Larry Bernhardt is turning up dead.”
“So how did Pastor Howard fit into this twisted little scenario?”
“My guess? Tara told her what was going on and she was killed because of it.”
A thought occurred to Carla and a chill washed over her. “We’ve got to locate the other girl in this video before it’s too late. Where are you?”
“At the Hideaway. I’m storm-proofing the bar, just in case. When I’m done, I’m checking on Liz. I went by before, but she wasn’t there. I haven’t been able to reach her by phone either.”
Carla heard the worry in his voice and hastened to reassure him. “Maybe she evacuated because of the storm.”
“Maybe, but I just don’t think so.”
“I tell you what-” Carla glanced at her watch “-I’m heading back now. Finish there, collect Liz, then meet me at my place as soon as you can.”
CHAPTER 53
Wednesday, November 21
5:10 p.m.
Liz reached Islamorada in just under three hours. Not bad considering both the traffic and the rain. The phone book listed Martha Ferguson’s address as Citrus Drive. Having no clue where that might be, she turned into the first minimart she came upon, hoping the attendant would know.
“Sure, honey,” the woman at the register said. She squinted at Liz through a haze of cigarette smoke. Her brown, leathery skin spoke of a lifetime spent in the brutal Florida sun. “Who you looking for?”
“Martha Ferguson. You know her?”
“Sure do. I know everybody on the island.” She stamped out her cigarette. “You certain you want to visit her? She’s a bit prickly, that one.”
“Absolutely certain. I need to ask her a few questions about her daughter.”
The woman’s eyebrows shot up. “Must be pretty important questions to bring you out in this weather.”
Liz didn’t take the bait. She tossed out one of her own. “Have you met her daughter Heather?”
The woman frowned. “Didn’t know Martha had a daughter. Never seen one come around. And I’ve seen almost everybody on this chunk of mud.”
Interesting, Liz thought as she climbed into her car moments later, armed not only with directions to the trailer park where Martha Ferguson lived, but with her trailer number as well.
Less than five minutes later, Liz pulled up in front of a neat-looking double-wide. Light glowed from the home’s interior, indicating Martha Ferguson was probably there. Liz shifted her gaze. From the darkened state of most of her neighbors’ homes, it looked as if she was one of the few who hadn’t evacuated.
Not so smart. Liz knew that a trailer wouldn’t be the safest dwelling in forty-five-mile-an-hour winds. But she had also learned, her short time living in the keys, that Floridians were both a hardy and stubborn lot, not easily sent packing by the threat of a little wind and rain.
She opened her car door and stepped out, umbrella up. A gust of wind slammed into her, ripping both her umbrella and the door handle from her hands. Immediately drenched, Liz managed to get the car door shut, then sprinted through the rain to the woman’s front door.
She knocked, and a moment later the door eased open and a woman peered out at her. “Yes?” she asked, openly suspicious.
“My name’s Elizabeth Ames,” Liz said, teeth beginning to chatter. “I’m with The Keys magazine. I’m doing an article on your daughter-”
“I have no daughter.”
She began to close the door. Liz shot her hand out to stop her. “Wait! Aren’t you Heather Ferguson’s mother? She’s recently been named Key West businesswoman of the yea-”
“I told you, I have no daughter!”
She slammed the door in Liz’s face. Startled by the woman’s violent reaction to the mention of her daughter’s name, Liz stood frozen to the spot, the rain pouring down on her, plastering her clothes to her skin.
She had come all this way, she wasn’t about to give up. She lifted her fist and pounded on the door. “I know she’s your daughter!” she cried. “Why won’t you talk to me? What are you trying to hide?”
“Go away!”
She pounded again. “Women are dying, Mrs. Ferguson. Please talk to me!”
For a moment Liz thought coming here had been a waste of her time, then the door cracked open. “What did you say?”
Liz took a deep breath, deciding on the truth. “That young women are dying. I’m trying to help.”
“What does Heather have to do with that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe nothing. That’s why I’m here.”
“Heather is dead to me,” she said, voice heavy with pain. “She has been for a long time.”
“Can I come in? Please, Mrs. Ferguson.”
The woman hesitated a moment more, then nodded and allowed Liz in. She retrieved a bath towel and offered her a cup of hot tea.
Liz thanked her, and while she toweled off, the woman brewed the tea.
That done, they sat across from each other at the woman’s small kitchen table. “I’m afraid I’m getting your seat cushions wet,” Liz murmured.
“A little water’s not going to hurt this place,” the woman replied, not looking up from her tea. “Besides, if the forecasters’ worst-case scenarios come to pass, a tornado will more than likely toss me into the Atlantic.”
“You’re not afraid?”
“I stayed for Andrew and for George. I’m not about to turn tail and run now.”
They fell silent. Liz sipped her tea. The woman studied her.
“You’re not a reporter, are you?”
“How did you-”
“No tablet or recorder. They always have one or the other. Nosey bloodsuckers.”
“You must have had experiences with the press.”
An expression of intense pain crossed her features and she looked away.
“When’s the last time you saw your daughter?”
“Years ago. After her sister’s-” She bit the words off and began again. “She wasn’t always the way she is now. She was a sweet child. Prone to willfulness and pranks…but what child isn’t?”
She didn’t expect a response and continued. “Then…she began running with the wrong crowd. Fast girls. Boys I didn’t like or trust. She began dabbling in the occult. With drugs. It seemed liked overnight she became a girl I didn’t recognize.”
Martha Ferguson lowered her gaze to her hands,
clasped tightly on the table in front of her. After several moments, she returned her gaze to Liz’s. “She became a girl who frightened me.”
Liz struggled to reconcile what this woman was saying with what she knew of Heather from personal experience. The two versions didn’t fit. “How old was she when this happened?”
“Before her fifteenth birthday is when I began to see changes in her.” She paused, the moment pregnant with pain. “At first I thought it was a…a phase. That given a bit of time and strict boundaries, she would return to her normal self…but it didn’t go that way. Her behavior became more bizarre. Her moods blacker, more violent.” The woman’s voice cracked. “The Lord took both my children from me.”
“Both your children?” Liz asked as gently as she could, heart breaking for this woman.
“Yes. My younger daughter, my darling Christina. She was…she was murdered by that madman Gavin Taft.”
Dear God. The connection, she had found it.
Rick had been right about Gavin Taft being the link to the killer. Only that killer was a woman, not a man.
CHAPTER 54
Wednesday, November 21
5:40 p.m.
Carla stood at her front window, peering nervously out at the storm, waiting for Rick. The rain had hit during her ferry ride back from Sunset Key. It had begun as a drizzle; by the time she had reached the safety of her porch, it had become a downpour.
She swung away from the window and started to pace. Where was he? She couldn’t quell her growing sense of dread. Shivering, she rubbed her arms.
The wind howled. Lightning flashed. She hugged herself. Every time she closed her eyes she saw dirty old Bernhardt grunting and sweating as he screwed the two teenagers doggy-style, moving between the two as if feasting at a smorgasbord. It made her sick. It infuriated her.
Bernhardt had been a sick bastard and she was glad he was dead. Heather Ferguson, on the other hand, was evil. But worst by far had been Tara ’s tortured expression during the entire ordeal. A lost soul, Carla thought, squeezing her eyes shut against the haunting image. An innocent lamb to the slaughter.
A prayer popped into Carla’s head, one repeated daily in the early years of her life but long ago relegated to the far recesses of her consciousness.
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name-
From the back of her cottage came a scraping sound, like her rear door opening. She froze. “Rick?” she called. “Is that you?”
Silence answered her. Heart thundering, she drew her service revolver and made her way to the back of the house. Her hands shook as she crept forward, bits and pieces of the Lord’s Prayer playing through her head.
– and deliver us from evil, for thine-
She nudged open her bedroom door. Empty.
– is the kingdom, the power and the-
She swung into the bathroom, gun out. Nothing.
– glory, forever and ever-
She reached the kitchen. The rear door had popped partially open. Rain had blown in, bringing leaves and flower petals, making a mess. She had forgotten to latch the door; this had happened before.
She laughed nervously as she laid her gun on the counter, then crossed to the door and pushed it shut.
She hated this job. She hated this place.
She wanted to go home.
“Hello, Carla.”
She whirled, realizing her mistake. Metal glinted as it arced toward her; her life flashed before her eyes. She threw her hands up, a scream ripping past her lips, a terrible sound drowned out by the howl of Rebekah’s wind.
CHAPTER 55
Wednesday, November 21
6:00 p.m.
Rick tapped on Carla’s front door. It drifted open. Frowning, he nudged the door wider and slipped inside.
“Carla,” he called. “It’s Rick.”
She didn’t reply and his senses sharpened. This felt wrong. Bad wrong. He swept his gaze over the room. Except for the trail of water that led from the doorway where he stood toward the back of the house, nothing appeared out of place. He narrowed his eyes. Someone had come in from the rain and walked dripping wet through the house, not pausing to wipe their feet or towel off.
Someone other than Carla, judging by the way the wooden floors gleamed. She obviously took excellent care of them.
He told himself to get out. He told himself to call the KWPD and wait on the front porch until they arrived.
But Val was the KWPD.
And he was also the enemy.
Dammit. He flexed his fingers. When Sam died, he had promised himself he would never fire a gun again. For the first time since that day, he wished for the muscle his Walther PPK 380 had provided. He wished he was the man he’d been then-arrogant, cocky, invincible.
Problem was, now he understood how tenuous life was. How fragile.
Rick moved his gaze around the room again, this time looking for something he could use to protect himself. His gaze landed on a large brass candlestick on the mantel. He crossed to the fireplace and lifted it, weighing it in his hand. Not as effective as the Walther, he acknowledged. But it would have to do.
He followed the trail of water, inching forward, straining to listen. From the back of the house came a sound, one he couldn’t place. Like an ill-fitting door being dragged across the floor.
He wasn’t alone.
Carla.
Rick forced himself to proceed slowly, to not abandon stealth. He found Carla in the kitchen. She lay on her side on the floor, wedged against the far cabinet, her arm hitched up the wainscoting. Then he saw the blood, an obscene smear across the light-colored tile. A growing pool around her torso.
“Carla!” he cried and raced to her side. Snatching a dish towel from the counter, he pressed it to the gaping wound in her chest. Then he saw the others.
There were so many of them. Her attacker had hacked at her as if in a frenzy.
She couldn’t survive an attack like this. If the paramedics were here now, working to save her, she wouldn’t survive.
Her eyes fluttered open. They looked dull already.
“No,” he muttered fiercely. “Don’t die, baby. You’re not going to die, you hear me? You’re not.”
She held his gaze. Her lips moved, as if she was trying to speak. “What, sweetheart? Tell me.”
He bent his ear close to her mouth. Her breath stirred against his cheek, though no sound emerged. He drew away. Her eyes closed, a small smile curved the edges of her lips.
Tears burned his eyes. “No! Dammit, Carla!” He shook her; her head lolled to the side. “Come back, baby. Come ba-”
“Get up, Rick.”
Rick whipped his head around. Val stood in the doorway behind him, his gaze on Carla. He wore a hooded black rain slicker. Water dripped from the slicker onto the floor, pooling at his feet.
A trail of water from the door to the back of the house.
Fury choked him. Betrayal with it. “Is that all you have to say? Get up, Rick?”
He turned his expressionless eyes on Rick. “Is she dead?”
“What do you think?”
“I think that yes, she is.”
Rick eased to his feet, shaking with rage. “What are you doing here, Val?”
“Carla called me,” he replied woodenly. “She told me to meet her here, that it was urgent.”
Liar! Dirty, fucking liar. “Did she?” Rick managed to say. “I wonder why?”
“Maybe for the same reason she asked you to meet her here.”
“I didn’t say that she did.”
A flush spread up the other man’s cheeks. Val drew his Colt Python revolver and aimed it at Rick. “I think you had better move away from the body.”
Rick did, careful not to step in blood and contaminate the scene. He wondered if Val knew about the tape. And if he did know, whether he had already found it. He prayed he hadn’t.
“Why don’t you call this in, Val? Get a crew out ASAP.” He folded his arms across his chest and met the other ma
n’s gaze. “There’s nowhere I have to be.”
Val stared blankly at him a moment, then slowly shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong. You and I are going down to headquarters. We need to have a little chat.”
“I think not. I prefer to be right here when the evidence crew arrives. Just want to make sure the evidence isn’t contaminated. You know crime-scene procedure, Lieutenant. Leaving a murder scene unattended constitutes a serious breach.”
“If I were you, I’d be a little less concerned with my duty and more concerned with your own ass.”
“Meaning?”
Val narrowed his eyes. “This doesn’t look good for you, does it, Rick? Finding you this way? With her?”
“Where’s the weapon? Where’s the blood?” Rick held out his hands, palms up. “My hands are red, from where I tried to stop her bleeding. But the way she was killed, it should be all over me.
“Her gun’s on the counter,” Rick continued. “Judging by the trail of blood, it looks as if she dragged herself across the floor in an attempt to retrieve it. That’s why her arm’s hitched up like that, she tried to pull herself up, one drawer at a time.” His voice cracked. “She didn’t make it.”
Val didn’t even blink. “Your point?”
“My point, old friend, is that I didn’t kill her. She went for her gun after her attacker left, probably before I arrived.
“Her killer could have exited this door,” Rick continued, motioning the rear door, “then made his way around to the front. If wearing something like a-” he eyed the other man with feigned ingenuousness “-like a rubber rain slicker, he could step out into the rain and by the time he made it around the house, he’d be clean. The rain would have washed away the evidence of his deed. That make sense to you, Val?”
Val crossed to where Carla lay. He stepped over her, retrieved and pocketed her pistol. “Poor deluded Rick. He hasn’t been the same since his kid died. Such a tragedy. It breaks my heart. It really does.”
Rick struggled to keep his fury in check. He couldn’t give Val anything to use against him. He tried another tack. “Remember that time we lifted your dad’s pellet gun and decided every streetlight in town was big game? Remember how indignant we were when the cops showed up?” Rick shook his head. “Twelve years old and we thought we shouldn’t have to answer to anybody.”
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