by Elin Barnes
Curtis laid the woman down on the love seat. Ethan nodded for Barr to cover the door she had just tried to escape through.
Mac and Bishop came into the room pushing de la Rosa and a blond pro. The tall man whispered something in his ear that he knew he would have to act on after they took care of the main mission.
“If I have to tell you again to keep taping, you’ll end up like her,” Ethan told Blake, pointing at the woman on the love seat. When he was done restraining everybody, Ethan said, “Pick one.”
Blake stared at him, but all he did was tie his robe tighter around his body.
“I said pick one,” Ethan repeated.
“What do you mean?” Blake asked.
Everybody turned from one to the other, looking as lost as Blake felt.
“You’re going to pick the first person who’s going to die tonight.”
The women gasped and recoiled as much as their restraints would let them. Blake took a step away from Ethan. Two of the men started to cry.
“Why are you doing this?” Carlos asked, choking on the words.
Ethan pointed the Beretta at Blake’s head and waited. His men closed in around him, ready to act. Blake looked at Ethan, then at the other guests. Then back at Ethan. He’s enjoying his acta little too much, Ethan thought. Everybody was silent. He wondered how long it would be before they realized they were holding their breath.
Blake scanned the room as if he was considering his options. Ethan saw him study each victim. They all looked away, probably hoping that would save them from being picked. Finally Blake turned toward the woman who had tried to escape. She was still unconscious, lying on the sofa as if asleep.
Blake pointed a shaky finger at her.
Ethan could see the relief in the other guests’ faces. He then motioned for Mac to take the sleeping beauty away from the living room. The house was so quiet he could hear every step moving away and fading down the hallway. He heard a door open, a much softer thud, and then the metallic sound of a Sig P226 firing once.
Chapter 40
Wednesday
Saffron woke up and felt Darcy’s hand resting on her hip. She smiled and rolled over to face him. His eyes were closed, but she knew he was faking being asleep. She inched toward him and kissed the tip of his nose. He opened his eyes and kissed her lips. His mouth was soft, inviting. Only the tip of his tongue teased her first. Then his kisses became hungrier. He held her neck as he pulled her closer to him. Their bodies touched, and she melted into his embrace.
Darcy pulled her camisole over her head. It got stuck on her elbow and they laughed. She caressed his tight chest. He watched her as she took him in: his tanned torso, his scars, his defined muscles. His body made her quiver. He leaned back. She kissed him and pulled herself toward him. He slid his hand underneath her lower back and pulled her even closer. She exhaled. He licked her neck.
The phone rang. He grunted but ignored it. Five rings later it stopped. Darcy flipped Saffron so now she was on top of him. He watched as the sun shone through her auburn hair.
The phone rang again. Three rings. As soon as it stopped, it rang again.
Saffron leaned over, picked it up and, seeing the name on the display, said, “It’s your captain.”
“I need to quit this job. The calls always come at the most inopportune times.”
Saffron winked.
After tapping the green button, Darcy said, “This better be good.”
The room was very quiet, and Saffron heard Virago say, “Detective, every time you get a call from me, it’s a good call. No need for you to ever question that.”
Darcy didn’t reply. Saffron leaned backward on his lap, pushing her hips toward him, waiting to see if he would need to rush off to some crime scene but hoping he wouldn’t.
He did.
Thirty minutes later, Saffron looked over at Darcy and thought about how natural it felt to see him driving her car. She wondered if he felt the same way, or if the Mini was way too small for a man of his height.
He pulled into the hospital’s parking lot and drove all the way up to the front door.
“Are you sure you’ll be okay without your car?” he asked.
“Absolutely. It’s much more important that you can get around.”
He leaned over and kissed her on the lips. He lingered there a little longer than a simple “thank you” kiss required. She opened her eyes as soon as he pulled away. She still got butterflies in her stomach when he kissed her. He looked at her, and his smile filled her heart.
“I’ll try to rent one sometime today,” he promised. “And I’ll make it up to you for this morning.”
“You better.” She caressed the shoulder with the bullet graze and blew him a kiss before she left the car. “Don’t stress about the car—really. I’ll keep you posted on Jon’s progress.”
“I was just going to ask you that.”
“I know,” she said, looking back at him.
She smiled and walked into the hospital. She turned one more time and saw him wave before he disappeared into the street.
She’d told her boss that she wasn’t going to go to the office but would try to work remotely. As she walked down the hospital hall to Jon’s room, she checked email on her phone. Nothing interesting. She really needed a new project soon or she would die of boredom.
Before Saffron put the phone away, she noticed she had a voice mail she hadn’t yet seen.
The call had come at just past eleven the previous night. She had been watching a movie curled up against Darcy. She thought about that morning, his embrace, his kisses. How strong he was, and how crazy she was for him. She focused back on the call. It was a blocked number. That was weird. The only blocked calls she ever got were the ones Darcy made from his office phone.
She entered the passcode. The recording went on for what seemed like minutes, with all kinds of information she didn’t care about, before the message played. As soon as the actual voice mail started, she stopped walking. It was her sister Aislin.
“Saffron, help.” Her voice was muffled, as if she was talking so close to the handset that her own lips were making the words hard to understand. “They’re going to kill—” And the line went dead.
Saffron pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at it, as if the screen would tell her the end of the message. A distant digital voice asked her to press seven to delete the message or nine to save it. Saffron pressed four to listen to it again.
She did—three more times—but the voice mail didn’t get any clearer the more she listened to it. Could this be one of her jokes? she thought. Saffron listened to it again and decided that the urgency in Aislin’s voice was real. She recognized the fear in her voice. It sounded just like her own voice had a few weeks earlier when she was stuck in a basement about to be burned alive.
Saffron called her sister. The phone rang, but Aislin didn’t pick up. Her chirpy voice told the caller to leave a message or not to expect a call back. Saffron almost smiled, but a sense of dread overwhelmed her.
“Aislin, are you okay? What was that message you left me last night about? Call me ASAP. Oh, and it better not be a joke, or I’ll beat the crap out of you.”
She hung up, but before putting the phone away, she left another message, and then called their parents. They hadn’t heard from her either. Saffron checked her purse and saw that she still had the extra set of keys Aislin had given her.
Jon’s room was only a few feet away. She couldn’t leave without seeing him. She reached the door and knocked lightly. Only Miranda, Jon’s mom, was there. She looked up, and her eyes lit up a little. They hugged.
“How is he?” Saffron asked.
“He’s doing much better. Woke up for a bit but fell back asleep.” She looked hopeful. “The doctor thinks the worst has passed.”
“That’s great news,” Saffron said. “How are you holding up?”
Miranda shrugged her shoulders. “Probably better than my husband.”
Saffr
on could tell she was just saying that. She looked down at Jon. A little pool of drool made a round stain on the pillow. She squeezed his arm and told Miranda, “I’ll be back soon.”
She left the hospital, grabbing the first cab that pulled up by the main entrance, and texted Darcy to let him know Jon’s good news.
Chapter 41
Detective Lynch gave his full name to the officer guarding the entrance and ducked under the yellow tape. It was just past nine thirty in the morning. The house was gated. There was a wide lawn split in two by a short, paved path leading to the house. The front door was open. The foyer was bright and warm, with a large, curling staircase that led to the second floor. He’d only seen something this ostentatious in movies. There were several officers inside as well as CSU, already collecting evidence.
He nodded hello, but before talking to anybody Darcy wanted to take in the scene. There were two bodies by the door. The first one looked like a club bouncer. The other was a middle-aged woman dressed in a slightly tight burgundy suit and beige patent leather pumps. They were both shot in the head. The blood had spread out and away from the bodies, mixing at some point on the white marble floor.
Darcy walked around the man’s body, away from the head so he wouldn’t spoil the evidence. When he reached the living room, he stopped, astounded. Five people had been tied to each other with duct tape and shot in the forehead. Some of them had their eyes open. There was blood and brain matter spattered behind them. The entry wounds were of a decent size. All the men were naked except one, who was wearing a black silk robe. It was open, showcasing a torso that had seen better days. The women were wearing the very same negligees and glittery shoes. Only a few pumps were still on.
All of the victims were Caucasian, except for one man, who was African American, and two women, who looked Asian. The white leather sofa behind the bodies was sprayed red, and the Persian rug below them was still damp with blood.
The room was spacious and cool. The sun streamed through the white drawn curtains. There were several glasses of champagne on the tables and a few on the floor, but only one was broken.
“Madison, what’s your take on all this?” Darcy asked the ME, who was concentrating on the body farthest from Darcy.
“They were all killed by the same caliber gun. I found eight .40 shell casings. You’ll have to confirm ballistics, but they probably all came from the same gun.” The tall man stood and pulled his latex gloves off. “They died between ten and one in the morning.”
Darcy looked at the bodies. “There are only seven bodies.”
“That’s my count too, Detective.”
“A warning shot?” Darcy asked, more to himself than to the medical examiner.
The ME shrugged his shoulders but pointed at the opposite wall. “There’s a hole on that wall. They’ve already retrieved the bullet.”
Darcy looked over to where Madison was pointing, but instead of going there he leaned over the closest body and inspected the entry wound, then looked up at the other bodies.
“This is definitely not done by an amateur.”
Madison nodded and turned to leave. Halfway to the door, he asked over his shoulder, “You’ll be at the autopsies?”
“Yes, I’ll come by as soon as I’m done here.”
Darcy saw the ME exchange pleasantries with Rachel as she came in but couldn’t quite hear the conversation.
“I think this was an orgy,” Rachel said matter-of-factly when she reached him.
“What on earth could have given you that idea?” Darcy teased her, looking down at the mostly naked bodies.
She waved her arthritic hand in dismissal. “And I think they were just getting started. Only one room shows signs of play.”
She walked toward Darcy and stopped about a foot away. They both stared down.
“There were more people here,” she said.
“We have witnesses?”
She looked up at him. “I didn’t say that.” She eyed the door she’d come in from. “There’s another body in a room across the hall. But I still think there were more people here last night.”
“Why?” Darcy asked.
“There’s a coat room at the entrance. I think we’ll be able to match the DNA to the victims and see if there were others.”
She motioned for him to follow her there. She was small but had an imposing presence wherever she was.
The two bodies Darcy saw when he came in were already gone. The blood, however, was still there. An officer was sitting on a chair, cataloging something, and had several evidence bags on the floor by his feet.
“We found eight cell phones. We’re assuming they belonged to the guests, but we’ll have to confirm that.” She faced him. “All of the phones are password protected, so it’ll take a while to figure out who they belong to. Hopefully, we’ll be able to determine if we have some witnesses out there.”
“Do they leave the phones behind to ensure privacy?”
“Very good, Detective.” She patted his forearm. “Based on the size of this house and the neighborhood, I’m going to bet your victims are all very rich and possibly influential people.”
After they discussed the rest of the preliminary evidence, which wasn’t much, she urged him to go upstairs to get acquainted with the fringes of the sex world.
Each of the five bedrooms was decorated differently. Diverse styles, not always complementary: one was rococo, another Japanese, a third had many African motifs. The largest room, however, was the most interesting. It was red. All the track lights pointed to the huge round bed that occupied the center of the room. It was surrounded by a canopy with sheer curtains that secluded it from the rest of the world. Darcy wondered if the point was for others to watch. Then he realized that was exactly it when he saw the love seats facing the bed. The sheets were barely rumpled. This was the only room that looked used and might give CSU some fluid samples to match to possible perps.
He went downstairs again, looking for Rachel. He found her across the hall from where they’d been earlier, where the other body was.
“Are all these women pros, or is this more like a swingers’ thing?” Darcy asked, studying the body of a very tall woman with an Afro covered in blood.
“You probably have both. Normally each person invited brings a guest of the opposite sex. Some people have open relationships where they do this. Some don’t or are single, so it’s not uncommon for them to bring a call girl,” Rachel explained.
“Rachel, you know this first hand, or you just read a lot?”
The senior crime scene investigator winked at him but didn’t answer.
Darcy blushed, feeling he’d crossed an invisible line “Have we been able to identify any of the victims yet?” he asked, changing the subject.
“No, but I doubt we’ll have a lot of problems with that. It looks to me that whoever did this didn’t really care about us finding out who these people were. We’ll break into the phones soon enough, and even though we haven’t found any wallets, there are a bunch of cars parked at the end of the driveway.”
“I’m going to check that out.”
Darcy left the house through the front door and walked around the perimeter. There were four high-end cars parked in two rows. Two were silver, the other two black. The garage was detached from the house and was as big as a shopping mall. He opened the side door and stopped.
“Who the hell cleared the garage?” he yelled.
Nobody answered, but he heard a few people run toward him. As soon as he got two deputies behind him, he walked inside. There was another man. He looked to be in his midforties, and was naked, very thin, and toned. He had a salt-and-pepper goatee, and his head was shaved, probably to offset the balding. He had a gun in his inert hand, and a dark splatter of almost-dried blood tainted the wall he was leaning against.
Darcy walked to him, and after kicking the gun away he checked his vitals even though he knew the man was dead.
“I got another one here,” he shouted out the
door while the two other deputies inspected the rest of the garage.
He pulled his phone out and took pictures of all the cars and their license plates. He was about to send them to Jon to get them run through the system when he realized Jon wouldn’t be getting the message. He put the phone back in his pocket and touched his shoulder. It was still sore from the stitches.
Chapter 42
Blake hadn’t been able to sleep all night. He took sleeping pills, chased with enough scotch to knock out a regiment, and still no shut-eye. The party hadn’t gone at all the way he’d expected, the way they’d planned it.
He’d been very tempted to not come to work, but he knew he had to keep an eye on Martin. He needed to act as if everything were normal. Blake took a deep breath; it didn’t help. Then he saw the stress ball by his keyboard and grabbed it. He squeezed it, harder and harder each time, but that didn’t seem to help either. After a final crunch, he threw it across the room. It hit the wall with a thud and fell on the floor.
Staring at the spot where the ball had hit, Blake felt sweat moisten his body. He looked for a tissue but couldn’t find one. He wiped his neck with his hand and dried it on his designer jeans.
“Do you know where Pete is?” Martin asked, peeking through the open door.
“No.” He felt the sweat return as soon as he’d wiped it off.
“Hummm,” Martin said. “Can you try reaching him? I need to talk to him.”
“I’ll try,” Blake responded to an already-closed door.
Pete had taken the day off to go to the Redwoods and do whatever nature thing he liked to do when he was there. Pete asked Blake to not tell anybody, for whatever weird reason, so now Blake had to lie to his best friend. Then he remembered the party, and he wished the worst thing he had to do in life was cover for a coworker.
“Dammit, Ethan,” he whispered through clenched teeth, and punched the table.
He grabbed his burner cell and walked out of the office. When he reached the parking lot, he called Ethan.
“Meet me now. The usual place.”
