by Stacy Green
She considered her options. “Yeah. All right.”
“Good,” Todd said. “You can ride with me. I’ll drop you off before I go into the station, I promise.”
Looking wary, Riley exited the car. Todd still danced with excitement.
I leaned over Chris to call out his open window. “Riley, thank you. This is the right thing, you know.”
Her dark hair framed her pale face making her look like the innocent child she should have been. “Yeah? Guess you and I both need to believe that about ourselves.”
I dropped back into my seat, hollow and spent. To hell with that little girl.
“Oh, Lucy, I almost forgot.” Todd leaned back down to our level. “Got a text from the DA’s office as I headed in to search. The lab results came back. Fibers found with Sarah didn’t match your dress. He’s officially taking you off the suspect list, and I guess I’m back on as lead investigator.”
“You almost forgot?” I said. “How could you almost forget?”
His smile was almost as cocky as Chris’s. “Maybe I didn’t. Maybe I figured waiting another few minutes would even the score a bit.”
31
Mousecop greeted me with a pained, drawn-out yowl. Contorting himself around my ankles as only cats can do, he followed me through the apartment. I dumped my stuff on the bed and scooped up the warm, fuzzy cat. He purred against my cheek, his paws resting against my neck. Still cradling him, I joined Chris in the kitchen.
“Thanks for feeding him,” I said. Mousecop sauntered out of my arms and across the counter. He sat on the edge near Chris, flicking his bottlebrush tail in his direction.
Chris shoved the cat’s tail out of his way. “You’re welcome. What are you going to do now?”
I sat on the closest bar stool. “Sleep for a few hours. Or days.”
“Me too.”
“That’s right.” I rubbed my tired eyes. “You had a shift, and then you’ve been stuck with me. How do you do it?”
“Practice,” he said. “Like anything else, you can train your body to go on very little sleep.”
My body felt like liquid, and I was pretty sure if I didn’t rest soon, I’d end up a puddle of flesh on the floor. And sleeping meant I could prolong the inevitable emotional slide over what I’d done to Preacher. “If you say so.” A yawn cut through my throat. “Do you think Riley will tell Todd what I said about Preacher?”
“If she thinks she can benefit from it.”
“Yeah. I guess I’ll deal with that if it happens.”
“Todd already thinks you’re a killer.” Chris shrugged. “What does it matter?”
“I don’t want him looking into a new case.” And I didn’t want him to know about Preacher. He was different than the rest. If Todd found out what I’d done to him, he’d change his mind about me. He would see the real devil inside.
“Preacher’s just gone missing,” Chris said. “By the time he’s found, it will take weeks to identify the body. Good luck with no identification.”
“I hope we did a good enough job getting rid of it.”
“It’s all in the dump,” Chris said. “Sprinkled over various mounds of trash. Fitting end for him, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t expect you to be so,” I searched for the right word, “complacent about this. I expected lots of battles of conscience.”
“Didn’t we discuss this?” He yawned, and then stretched his long arms high.
“You didn’t panic because grisly death is nothing new. But this is the aftermath. This is when you’re supposed to break down and think about what you’ve done.”
“What good does that serve?”
“I think it reminds you that you’re human.” Sitting around in self-reflection had to serve some cause, or I’d wasted hours of my life.
“Did you feel that after you killed the truck driver? Or Preacher?”
“I felt it after I killed Brian Harrison. And when I realized what I’d done to Preacher, how far I’d gone…” I shuddered.
“But you don’t feel it now.”
“I’m too tired to feel anything.”
His smile was flat. “No. It’s your shadow side.”
“Jung again.”
“Because it’s true,” Chris said. “We’ve all got one. The inner part of us that wants to slap the jerk who cuts us off in traffic. Or chew out the person slowing up the checkout lane. We might even fantasize about what we’d say and how much we’d freak the person out.”
“That’s nothing but impatience and irritation speaking. People don’t actually consider acting on those impulses.”
“Except when their shadow side wins out,” he countered. “Then you’ve got the douche fighting over a toy at Christmas. For most people, it’s a one-time rage thing. But for some,” he spread his hands, “it becomes who they are.”
“And you’re saying that’s what’s happening to me? That my shadow side now governs my decisions?” I didn’t want to be whittled down to fit into some perfect scientific mold. I was more than that, full of complicated layers and inconsistencies. We are all more than that.
“Do you feel remorse?”
“I feel remorse for the victims,” I clarified. “For friends and family who might mourn those people.”
“But you feel no remorse for killing?”
“Right now? I feel nothing.” Admitting the truth brought a wave of unexpected relief. Exhaustion might be driving my emotions, but there was no seed in the pit of my stomach, no flash of nausea when I thought of the dead trucker or Preacher’s unseeing eyes. I felt nothing at all. Even the momentary panic in the car had gone. Without Todd as a reminder of consequence, I was calm.
“Do you think you’re special?” Chris asked. “Like you’re somehow genetically different?”
“Now what are you talking about?”
“You kill people and don’t feel bad about it. My mother doesn’t either. Neither did Bundy or countless others. Why is that? What makes it possible?”
My overwhelming tiredness was the only thing that kept me from coming off the stool and screaming at him. “First off, they’re sociopaths. Psychopaths, actually–cold blooded killers who get off on what they’re doing. I’m nothing like them. I’m doing this for a reason, and it’s got nothing to do with me.”
“Sure it does. Every time you kill, you slice off a little of the guilt you feel over not being able to help your sister.” His voice held no accusation, his eyes flatly calm.
“Fine,” I said. “Because I’m about to keel over, I’ll give you that one for now. But the people I kill hurt others. They don’t need to be here. I’m solving a problem society can’t. Or won’t.”
“You are,” he agreed. “But you should still feel bad about taking a life. And you don’t. Why?”
“I just told you why. These people shouldn’t be allowed to breathe. Knowing that I’m saving kids is what keeps me going.” My arms felt as if bugs were crawling over the fine hairs. Chris’s ability to invade my subconscious and pluck out my specific demons was maddening. I knew I should feel some level of remorse for the men I killed, and I knew my lack of it meant something very bad. I just didn’t want to acknowledge it. Not yet. Allowing the monster on my back to roam free in my head would be my undoing. So I kept him muzzled.
“That’s all I can tell you,” I said. “Take it or leave it.”
“I’ll take it, for now. But someday you’ll have to stop dodging the truth about yourself.”
“Why?”
“Facing it is the only thing that’s going to keep you alive and out of jail.”
My fingers went numb. I flexed them and waved Chris off. “Whatever. Too tired to think straight right now.” I slid down off the stool. “We both need to sleep. Can you make it back to your place without passing out at the wheel, or do you need to crash on my couch?”
His glassy-eyed stare answered my question. I shuffled to my storage closet and retrieved an extra pillow and blanket. “Here,” I tossed them on the cou
ch. “Sleep for a while. If you wake up before I do and leave, lock the door.”
I left him there before he could ask me any more questions, or before my mind could dwell on the sudden spark in his gaze and the pink flame in his cheeks. I wouldn’t think about his sleeping fifteen feet away from me or how long it had been since I’d had sex or the way he made me feel accepted. Those thoughts would change our relationship, cheapen it.
I clung to that idea as I changed into an old T-shirt and then climbed into bed. Sex is a wonderful thing, and I’d had plenty of it. Given our strange connection and the way he understood me, sex with Chris would probably be incredible. But then what? How would it affect the bond we’d forged? Would he stop thinking rationally when it came to me? Would I become jealous and by extension, careless? Some relationships transcend sex. Physical intimacy wasn’t always the pinnacle. Sometimes just knowing the person understood your darkest core and still wasn’t going to walk away was enough.
I couldn’t risk losing that. Because Chris was wrong. Accepting whatever power my shadow side had over me wouldn’t keep me alive and out of jail.
His presence in my life–the only real anchor I’d ever had–was my saving grace.
32
Chris was gone when I woke up in the early morning hours. My eyes still blurry with sleep, I sat at the kitchen table and tried to reassess. The police now knew I hadn’t killed Sarah and had a viable suspect. Figuring Sarah’s murder out was no longer my problem. Preacher helped clear my name, and Todd had all the information Sarah had been gathering against the organization. Had she really suspected the Senator of being involved?
I sipped on my coffee. The Senator had resources. He’d arranged for Sarah to have a new identity. Hiding a perverted side would be relatively easy for him. His task force might even be a perfect cover-up, not to mention a perfect pool to fish for victims.
The idea still bothered me.
What about U.S. Attorney Dietz? Had he simply been sweating the revelation of an affair and the loss of wealth? Or had Sarah discovered something far more sinister?
I didn’t care for that idea, either.
What bothered me more than anything was how easily Dietz had caved to the Senator. And the Senator’s offer to help me–why? Did he really want to get Sarah’s true killer? Was I so jaded I couldn’t believe someone actually did something good for the right reasons?
Entirely possible.
I wished I knew what Sarah’s notes said.
My fingers edged toward my phone. Todd would tell me if I asked nicely. Maybe.
Common sense suggested I cut myself free of this entire mess. The sex trafficking was exposed, and Todd would make sure the information got into the right hands. But Sarah’s handwritten information would only get them so far. I still had the information on the Candy Market. Todd could get that to the right people, and even if it took time, police could bring down the ring. Even if the leader got away, some of the johns could be found. Maybe the kids could be rescued. I couldn’t do that all on my own.
I should do the right thing and move on, find a specific target.
A specific target. The one Chris had been hounding me about for weeks. We should find his mother and finish her.
How would that change Chris? Would he still be the same person? Or would he carry the same dark monster I did? After watching him dispose of Preacher, I had to wonder how close to the edge he was teetering. A push by me could ruin his chances at leading a fairly normal life.
Then again, being friends with me had already accomplished that.
I decided to call Todd.
He asked me over for dinner, which was the last thing I expected. I’d been in his apartment once before when Justin, Chris and I discovered the truth about their mother. Todd was ready to throttle me that night.
Todd’s small kitchen had an eat-in nook, and he’d gone to great lengths to make sure nothing about our dinner was romantic. All the lights were bright, Barry White wasn’t playing, and he didn’t bother to cook for me. Instead, he ordered pizza and served it on plastic plates.
I settled into the comfortable bench. The three bird feeders in his small yard were busy with hungry visitors. A nervous male cardinal flittered around the largest feeder, his ever watchful eyes on his nearby mate. The female picked through the snow beneath the feeder, gorging on fallen seeds.
“I would never have taken you for a bird watcher.”
He finished his slice of pizza. “It’s calming. Especially when I have a particularly bad case. Sometimes I sit here and watch them, and I figure out what to do next.”
“What are you going to do next?”
“Special Victims has Sarah’s journal,” he said. “That part of the case is in their hands now.”
“Did you read it?”
“I did.”
I picked off a slice of pepperoni. “And?”
“Telling you probably isn’t a good idea.”
“Neither was helping me hide from your colleagues.”
He laughed. He needed to make that sound more often. “Point taken. Her journal–I don’t know why I call it that, it’s more like a case log–is full of potential johns. Unfortunately, this Preacher never gave her full names or identification information. But he did give initials and personal description, along with the designated meeting places. Special Victims is going to start there.”
“But we don’t know the names of the kids? Or the clients?”
“We do know the names of some of the kids. Most of them were boys. Sarah didn’t know where they stayed, and I suspect Preacher moved them around a lot, just like he did Riley. But three of them are missing kids from Ohio and New York. With Riley’s help, we have some hope of finding their locations.”
I took out the crumpled paper from my pocket. Kelly had given me the web address, username, and password with no argument. She was glad to be finished looking at the filth. “Here.”
“What’s this?” He eyed the crumpled paper as if it were about to explode.
Might as well get right to the point. “Preacher and his boss had an online site set up to sell kids. This is the address and your way into it.”
“What? How did you find it?”
“A good friend,” I said. “She knows how to use the software, and she spent hours searching. She’s the one who made the connection.”
He narrowed his eyes. “The same friend who found Kailey.”
“Yes, and no, you’re not getting her name, so don’t ask. The Philadelphia connection is kind of brilliant.” I explained about the historical names. “I’ve no doubt these kids are local, but who they’re being sold to is anyone’s guess. If Special Victims can get into the site–”
“They have a good shot at taking it down,” he finished. “Finding the kids will be first priority. These users scatter like cockroaches. But we might be able to find a few. Thank you, Lucy. And thank your friend.”
“One of the kids has a personal connection to Riley,” I said. “Let her know he’s got a chance at being saved.”
“I will.”
“What’s she giving you?” I went back to my slice of pepperoni. It tasted bland and dry, like everything else.
“Preacher split his time with his mother in Strawberry Mansion and a decent apartment in North Philly,” Todd said. “Riley gave us both addresses. Nothing at the mother’s place–didn’t expect there to be–but we’ve found enough at his apartment to book him on pandering and operating a house of prostitution. Our computer guys have his laptop. It’s encrypted, of course, but we’re hoping to get some information on clients and victims. If not the big boss.”
“Riley said that Preacher didn’t know who the boss was,” I said. “You think he’s lying?”
“I’m not sure.” He pushed his plate aside. His demeanor changed. Nothing extreme but a subtle shift that warned me I wasn’t going to care for his next line of thought. “What’s more interesting to me is that we can’t seem to locate him. Riley’s given us the names o
f every known associate and location, and no one’s seen or heard from him in more than twenty-four hours. His mother says he always checks in.”
“He must have found out Riley smartened up and started talking to you.”
“She hadn’t heard from him, either. Hasn’t seen him since she took that locket two days ago.”
So Riley was sticking to that story. Smart girl. “You’ll find him.”
“Will we?”
The question hung between us. Maintaining eye contact was crucial in a lie. And lying to Todd should be easy. After all, I’d done it before.
I looked away and took a bite of pizza.
“Lucy, I don’t know what you’ve done, which seems to be a running theme between us.” He sighed. “But I don’t think it’s any coincidence that a prostitute known to be under Preacher’s thumb for a long time is suddenly ratting him out. She doesn’t seem to be afraid he’ll retaliate.”
I tried not to choke on the pizza or the rising gorge of my stomach. “She trusts you to keep her safe.”
“Or she believes he’s no longer a threat.”
“Maybe he isn’t. You think she’s capable of hurting him?”
He rubbed his face. “No. I think you are.”
I set down the slice. “There you go again. Why are you so hell-bent on my being this terrible person? And if you really believe I am, why did you help me? Why am I here now?” I asked in my most gentle voice, even cocking my head so that I looked younger, more vulnerable. All a waste of time. Todd was better than that.
“I think you are incredibly damaged,” he said. “Your sister’s death, your years in CPS. My brother’s case. I think you absorbed it all until it became too much, and your way of controlling the guilt and whatever other emotion you’ve manufactured is to lash out and eliminate threats.”
I’d never thought of it that way, and now wasn’t the time to start. “I don’t feel threatened.”
“Not threats to you. Threats to kids. All of whom represent your sister, of course.”
My blood cooled. “You took a semester of psychology?”
