Fatal Jeopardy

by Marie Force

  “I’ll be in touch.”

  Nick put his arm around Sam. “She’s alive, and that’s all that matters. We’ll figure out the rest.”

  Sam gave herself one second to appreciate the comfort only he could provide. Then the ambulance arrived in a flash of color and noise, followed by a fire truck that lit up Ninth Street.

  “Stay with her,” Sam said to Nick as she went down to the sidewalk to stop the patrolman who’d arrived with the ambulance from going up the ramp. “I’ve got this.”

  “Oh, Lieutenant Holland. I didn’t recognize you in the dark. Are you sure everything is okay?”

  “I’m sure. You can take off and file a not-needed report.”

  “Oh, um, okay.”

  “What’ve you got, Lieutenant?” the lead paramedic asked as he rushed up the ramp with Sam, who shot a glance over her shoulder to make sure the patrolman was heeding her orders.

  Sam recognized the paramedic and gave him all the information she had at the moment. “She’s my niece,” she said quietly. “If you could use all the discretion you have at your disposal, I’d consider myself in your debt.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I understand, but you’re going to have to back up and let us get to her.”

  “Come on, babe.” Nick took Sam’s hand and drew her back from Brooke. “Let them take care of her.”

  “Sam! Nick! What’s going on?” Sam’s stepmother, Celia, came rushing up the ramp Nick had had built to allow Sam’s dad to come visit in his wheelchair.

  Sam left Nick’s embrace to meet her stepmother halfway up the ramp and led her back down to the sidewalk. “It’s Brooke.”

  “What? What’s she doing here? I thought she was in school in Virginia.”

  “I did too. I don’t know anything yet beyond the fact that we found her here, wrapped in only a sheet with blood all over her.”

  “Oh, God. Is she going to be all right? Have you talked to Tracy?”

  “Yes, she’s meeting us at the hospital. Scotty said Abby and Ethan are at your house,” Sam said of Tracy’s younger children. “Will you keep them until we know more?”

  “Yes, of course. I’ll keep all of them. Scotty too.”

  “Thanks, Celia.”

  The paramedics came down the ramp with Brooke on a gurney. Nick followed them and met Sam on the sidewalk. “They said we can ride with her.”

  Thinking of his injury, she said, “You don’t have to—”

  “Don’t finish that thought, Samantha. She’s my niece too. Let’s go.”

  “I’ll be here with the kids,” Celia said. “Let us know as soon as you hear anything.”

  “We will,” Nick said for both of them.

  Sam and Nick got into the back of the ambulance and sat on the cot on the other side from where two paramedics were assessing Brooke’s condition.

  “Can’t figure out where all this blood is coming from,” one of them said.

  “Might not be hers,” the other one said. To Sam, he said, “Does she do drugs?”

  “No!” But as the word burst forth from her lips, Sam realized she honestly didn’t know if Brooke did drugs. Her niece had become someone totally unrecognizable in the last year, and her parents had recently sent her to a special school in Virginia, hoping to separate her from the friends who’d been a bad influence on her. “At least I don’t think so.”

  “She’s definitely on something.”

  Sam felt like she was coming out of her skin. The idea of her sweet baby Brooke willingly taking drugs was something she couldn’t bear to wrap her head around.

  Nick’s hand on her leg provided a much-needed slice of calm as Sam watched the paramedics work to stabilize Brooke.

  “What’re you giving her?” Sam asked as they started an IV.

  “Narcan. It’ll offset the effects of whatever she’s on. If it was an opiate, it’ll work. If it wasn’t, it won’t, which will tell us more about what she might’ve taken.”

  “I thought she was in Virginia,” Nick said quietly as he watched the paramedics insert a needle into Brooke’s hand. She never stirred.

  “So did I. Trace was going tomorrow to pick her up for Thanksgiving, which is why Dad and Celia had the kids. She and Mike were leaving early in the morning.”

  “So what’s Brooke doing in the District tonight, and where do the people at the school you all paid so much money to send her think she is right now?”

  “That’s a very good question,” Sam said. “And one I’ll be tackling the minute we know she’s okay. I’d also love to know how she ended up at our place.”

  “Me too.” His gaze was fixed on Brooke. “This is the stuff that scares the shit out of me as a parent.”

  “Yeah.” As she stared at Brooke’s bruised and bloodied face, Sam tried to imagine her adorable Scotty as a surly seventeen-year-old who took drugs and ran away from school. In her wildest dreams, she couldn’t see Scotty becoming that kid. But then again, she never would’ve expected it of Brooke either.

  Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Brooke had been born with a bit of a chip on her shoulder, and had been a source of constant strain in Tracy’s family. Brooke’s biological father had hit the road the minute he learned Tracy was pregnant, and they’d never heard from him again. Maybe knowing one of her parents hadn’t wanted anything to do with her was responsible for the chip.

  Tracy’s husband, Mike, had come along when Brooke was a toddler and had raised the girl as his own along with Abby and Ethan, the children he and Tracy had together. Mike had recently laid down an ultimatum where Brooke was concerned... He no longer wanted Abby and Ethan living in the same home as their wild and uncontrollable older sister.

  Sam had given them the money to send Brooke to the strict boarding school in Virginia, which had been somewhat of a last-resort measure. They’d pinned their hopes—and a lot of money—on the school’s track record of turning around troubled girls.

  Sam blew out a deep breath as a staggering array of questions cycled through her mind.

  They arrived at the hospital, and the paramedics whisked Brooke inside. Sam and Nick followed behind them. She wasn’t surprised to find her other sister, Angela, waiting with Tracy and Mike. When Tracy tried to follow Brooke into the exam room, the nurses stopped her and asked her to wait outside.

  Sam wrapped an arm around her older sister.

  “I don’t understand,” Tracy said between sobs. “What’s she even doing here?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know too,” Sam said.

  “I’m going to call the school,” Mike said.

  “Do me a favor and hold off on that,” Sam said. “I’d like to attack this entire situation the same way I would an investigation. I’d rather they not be tipped off before I can approach them as a cop.”

  Mike thought about that for a second and then nodded. “Okay.”

  “Let’s focus on Brooke right now and whatever she needs,” Sam said. “I promise I’ll get to the bottom of what went on tonight as soon as we know she’s going to be all right.”

  A nurse appeared then with forms for Tracy to sign that gave consent for treatment and provided insurance information.

  While Tracy and Mike dealt with the forms, Angela approached Sam. “What. The. Hell.”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  “How’d she get to your house?”

  “I don’t know that either.”

  Angela, who’d given birth to her second child, a girl named Ella, a few months ago, shuddered. “What has she gotten herself into?”

  “The paramedics said she was definitely on something.”

  “God... Poor Tracy. This’ll kill her. After all she’s done for that kid...”

  Nick came up behind Sam and rested his hands on her shoulders.


  “You should be off your feet,” she said.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Angela asked her brother-in-law.

  “He took a hard hit in a hockey game earlier,” Sam said. “We’ve already been here once tonight.”

  “I’m fine,” Nick said. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “I am worried about you, and you need to sit.”

  “I’m sitting,” Nick said, easing into a chair. “Happy?”

  Sam nodded. “Now stay there.”

  A doctor came through the double doors looking for Brooke’s parents.

  Tracy gestured Sam and Angela over to her. “This is my sister, Sam Holland, and my other sister, Angela Radcliffe.”

  The doctor nodded to Sam. “I thought I recognized you.”

  “We don’t understand how any of this could’ve happened,” Tracy said, her eyes welling with new tears. “Brooke was supposed to be at school in Virginia.”

  “I can’t answer those questions,” the doctor said, “but the tox screen came back positive for methamphetamines. We’re waiting for more info from the lab. Based on her lack of consciousness, we suspect it’s some form of Molly, but we also think there might’ve been GHB involved too.”

  “The date rape drug,” Sam said, her heart sinking at that news. If she’d been given GHB, Brooke would have very little memory of what’d happened to her.

  “Right. We’ve also inserted an NG tube to administer active charcoal, which will neutralize the effect of the methamphetamines. We’ve inserted a Foley catheter to monitor her urine output, as well. Our biggest concern at the moment is hyperthermia, or potential heat stroke.”

  Mike kept an arm around Tracy as they absorbed each bit of information. “Heat stroke?” he asked.

  “It’s a side effect of the drug, which raised her core body temperature to nearly 105 degrees. We’re working to cool her and lower her temperature, internally via chilled saline as well as externally with ice packs. She was briefly conscious and extremely paranoid about what we were doing to her, where she was and why she was naked. But she couldn’t tell us what she took or what happened.”

  “What about the blood that was all over her?” Sam asked.

  “We suspect most of it isn’t hers. We’ve been unable to find any open wound that would account for that much blood. However... We’re going to do a rape exam as there’s indication of sexual activity.”

  Only Mike’s arm around Tracy kept her from collapsing at that news.

  “What kind of indication?” Sam asked, fighting through her own need for hysteria.

  “When one of the nurses was putting in the catheter she noticed bruising. Upon further examination, we confirmed vaginal bruising, tearing and fluid consistent with intense sexual activity. Only she can say for certain whether it was an assault, but chances are she won’t remember due to the GHB.”

  Tracy broke down into heartbroken sobs while Sam fought a violent battle to keep from doing the same.

  “I’ll be back to talk to you when we know more.”

  “When can we see her?” Angela asked.

  “As soon as we get her stabilized and do the rape kit.”

  “Our family doctor, Harry Flynn, is on his way to consult,” Sam said.

  “Of course,” the doctor said. “No problem. We’ll keep you informed.”

  Sam’s cell phone rang, and she checked the caller ID where Freddie’s name was lit up. “What’ve you got?”

  “Nothing on the canvas, but we just heard Dispatch call Carlucci and Dominguez to a homicide up on MacArthur Boulevard Northwest. From what we heard, someone went sick on a bunch of teenagers with a knife.”

  The news struck Sam in a pang of fear that landed right below her heart.

  “What do you want us to do? Continue the canvas or help them out?”

  Sam’s brain refused to process the staggering array of implications that came with this news.

  “Get up there and see what they’ve got. I can’t leave here, so keep me posted.”

  “Will do.”

  “Freddie.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you think...I mean, this thing with Brooke... Is it related?”

  “We have no way to know that, Sam, so don’t go there. Not yet.”

  “You’re right. Okay, call me as soon as you know anything.”

  “I will.”

  The line went dead and she stashed the phone in her pocket and took a seat next to Nick.

  “What was that about?”

  “Homicide on MacArthur Boulevard. A bunch of teenagers were attacked with what looks to be a knife.”

  Nick’s eyes widened as the implications hit him too. “Oh, Jesus. Do you think it’s related?”

  “I don’t know, but... It would be an awfully big coincidence if it wasn’t.” Saying the words out loud filled Sam with an overwhelming sense of foreboding—and fear.

  * * *

  Freddie and Gonzo arrived at the scene on MacArthur Boulevard and had to park on the next street over due to the emergency vehicles blocking the street. Flashing their badges to the patrol officer guarding the yellow crime scene tape, they ducked under it and made for the front door of a fancy brick townhouse in an exclusive development.

  “Nice place,” Freddie muttered.

  “No kidding. Outta my price range.”

  Inside, Dominguez and Carlucci were working a grisly scene in the basement family room. There were six bodies, all of them naked and most of them murdered while in the midst of a sex act. They were in pairs in three different areas of the big room.

  “What the...” Gonzo’s voice trailed off midsentence. “Is this what kids are doing for fun these days?”

  “That’s what we said too,” Dani Carlucci replied. She was tall, blonde and stacked, not that Freddie noticed such things. No sir, not when he had the incredibly gorgeous Elin at home in his bed. Dani’s partner, Gigi Dominguez, was a shrimp next to her Amazon-like partner, but every bit as gorgeous with dark hair and olive-toned skin.

  “What’ve we got so far?” Gonzo asked. He’d recently been promoted to detective sergeant, which made him the ranking officer on the scene.

  Carlucci consulted her notebook. “The home is owned by William and Marissa Springer. According to the maid, who is upstairs with patrol, the parents are at their home in Aspen this weekend. The maid confirmed their seventeen-year-old son, Hugo, is among the victims.” Carlucci pointed to a young man with dark hair and a trim, muscular build who’d been repeatedly stabbed in the back while having intercourse with a female victim, who was dead under him on one of the sofas.

  “We found drug paraphernalia and all kinds of booze,” Carlucci continued, gesturing to a pool table that was covered with bottles and pipes and pills. Clothes and cups and bottles were also all over the floor and furniture. “We think they were all so out of it and caught up in the sex that they never saw the attack coming.”

  “What I want to know,” Freddie said, “is how you can kill this many people, with a knife, and not have the others hear the first ones being killed.”

  “They were high and drunk and getting laid and not paying attention,” Dominguez said bluntly. “Plus the maid said most of the lights were off and the music was blasting when she got home, so whatever happened occurred mostly in the dark.”

  “Any sign of forced entry?” Gonzo asked.

  “Not that we could see at any of the doors, and all the first-floor windows are locked,” Carlucci replied.

  “So it could’ve been someone who was at the party,” Freddie said, his heart heavy with the task that lay ahead of notifying parents. Dealing with victims’ families was one of the most difficult parts of a difficult job, especially when young people were involved.

  “We called Dr. McNamara in on this one
and requested she bring help,” Carlucci said of the District’s chief medical examiner, who usually relied on deputies to cover for her on weekends. “And crime scene is on the way.”

  “The owners of the home have been notified?” Gonzo asked.

  “Yes, the maid gave us their number, and we called them,” Dominguez said. “It was horrible.”

  “Wonder what they were thinking leaving their seventeen-year-old son home alone,” Freddie said.

  “Apparently, they didn’t. He was supposed to be at the home of one of his friends.” Carlucci consulted her notes. “Michael Chastain. Based on the description of Chastain that we were given by the Springers, we believe that’s him there.” She pointed to a blond boy who’d suffered multiple stab wounds to the chest and neck. It appeared that a dark-haired girl had been performing fellatio on him when they were killed.

  The senselessness of it all weighed on Freddie, as it often did. Adult homicides were hard enough to handle, but when kids were involved, it became that much more excruciating.

  Dr. McNamara arrived a couple of minutes later with her top deputy, Dr. Byron Tomlinson. As Lindsey took in the gruesome scene her green eyes filled with tears. “Oh my God.”

  “Holy shit,” Tomlinson added.

  While Carlucci and Dominguez brought the MEs up to speed, Gonzo pulled Freddie aside. “I’m thinking the sitch with the LT’s niece has to be related.”

  “You read my mind.”

  “You don’t think her niece went crazy with a knife, do you?”

  “I don’t know Brooke all that well,” Freddie said, “but I’d be shocked to think she was capable of such a thing.”

  “If she was hopped up on drugs, anything is possible.” Gonzo glanced at Freddie. “We’d be crossing all kinds of lines if we keep quiet about the possible connection.”

  “I know, but that’s what we’re going to do, right?”

  “For as long as we can. If they turn up evidence that she was here, it’s out of our hands.”

  The implications for Sam and her family weren’t lost on Freddie and weighed heavily on him as he went through the motions of working the crime scene.

  * * *