Silenced Girls

by Roger Stelljes

  “Yes,” Kyle replied. “So, we…”

  “Swept it under the rug.”

  “We settled with the three women very discreetly, very expensively and with ironclad confidentiality agreements. Jeff apologized and said he’d get some help. We had him stop working out of our offices all together and he started working strictly out of his own law firm’s offices.”

  “You kept him?”

  “We finished the public offering, but we made a few changes. Jeff had done a lot of work and he was supposed to receive a significant offer of stock as part of it. I’d been willing to waive that legal conflict of the lawyer getting a piece of the action. But given what I’d had to deal with, what I’d paid out in settlements and to be honest, what I’d compromised of my own beliefs to get it all done…” Kyle paused for a moment. “Well, in the end he didn’t get that.”

  “What did that cost him?”

  “Right now, I’d estimate as much as five million dollars, based on the stock options he’d have received. If the business continues to prosper as it has, the value of those options would only grow over time. But his transgressions were also expensive. I felt they changed our relationship.”

  “How so?”

  “It was my intent over time to reduce his…involvement. He’d get enough work from me to stay comfortable, to save face but I was going to find some other law firms to work with.”

  “And he found out about this when?”

  “Six months ago. But there’s one other thing I need to tell you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The third woman who made a complaint. She wasn’t an employee of mine. She was an employee of one of my contractors, Jerry Lash.”

  “Oh shit.”

  “Will, why did you blurt Jeff’s name when I handed you the folder?”

  “Gunther Brule didn’t commit suicide. He was murdered.”

  “Murdered?” Kyle asked, his jaw dropping.

  “Yes. Tori and I confronted him at the VFW. After that he went up to his cabin and he was murdered.”

  “And you think by Eddie.”

  “Well, Gunther only placed one call that night, and it was to your brother.”

  “I see.”

  “But then your brother called…”

  “Jeff.”

  Will nodded. “Here’s the other thing. Sarah Craig was found to have two small dots on her lower back, two inches apart. One theory is that those dots are the markings from a stun gun. We ran a search for stun gun purchases, checking if Eddie purchased one.”

  “Did he?”

  “Not that I’ve seen,” Will answered. “But there was one purchased and delivered seven years ago to the law firm of Wilson Day, Warner’s law firm.”

  “Look,” Kyle started, “you’re developing your theory on Eddie based upon that map and that he was at those restaurant launches. And I know Jeff Warner has this image as the great lawyer with the national law firm and all, but he was at or around all those openings, too. His behavior toward women, including Jerry Lash’s employee, was…alarming. And he was in these places Eddie was. And in high school, Eddie and Jeff ran in the crowd with Jessie and Tori Hunter and with Katy Anderson. And there is one other thing.”

  “What?”

  “He doesn’t like small planes. He almost never uses our corporate jet. He often drove instead or flew on a larger commercial plane.”

  “Meaning…you don’t have track of him all of the time when he’s on the road for you.”

  “Right. He could have stayed longer or gone back after we thought he left the town, and nobody would know.”

  Braddock was thinking Tori needed to hear all of this and checked his watch, having lost track of time. “Where the heck is she?” he muttered.

  “Where’s who?”

  “Tori,” Braddock answered. “She should be here by now.”

  “She was coming out here? Now?” Kyle asked, surprised, checking his watch. “Are you two…?”

  “Kind of sort of while she’s been here,” Will replied as he held his cell up to his ear. After a moment he frowned. “Huh. She’s not answering. That’s unusual.” He tried calling her again, and then one more time. No answer.

  Given what Kyle just showed him and his own discoveries on Warner, Braddock suddenly felt his chest tightening. He sensed it. Something wasn’t right.

  It was at most a ten-minute drive from Manchester. She’d last texted fifty minutes ago that she was on her way. She should have been there easily by now.

  “I just tried Warner,” Kyle reported worriedly, gesturing to his phone. “He’s not answering, either.”

  Braddock tried Tori at the hotel but there was no answer. His next call was to Steak, who lived in Manchester. He quickly explained his sudden concern and what he’d just seen. “I need you to get over to her hotel. She’s not answering. I’ll explain it later, but from what I’ve just seen, it may not be Eddie Mannion. It might be Warner and we can’t get him on the phone either.”

  “Warner? Jeff?”

  “Yeah, Steak, he might have been playing all of us.”

  “You’re worried, boss?”

  “I have a bad feeling.”

  “Then I do, too,” Steak replied. Braddock could tell his deputy detective was already on the move, hearing a door slam in the background. “I’m leaving now.”

  “You said she was buying wine?” Kyle asked.

  “Yes,” Braddock answered, and realized Kyle was making a point with the question. He quick checked his watch. 9:50 p.m. The liquor stores all closed in ten minutes. He reached for his phone again, calling in to the sheriff’s department dispatcher. “Coordinate with Manchester PD. We need a check of all liquor stores in Manchester to see if Tori Hunter was in tonight. Get a picture out. We need to canvass them all before they close!”

  Ten minutes later, Steak called back. “Her hotel room was locked, lights off. The front desk receptionist recalls her leaving earlier, more than an hour ago.”

  “Get over to Warner’s house.”

  Braddock was thinking he needed to get into his Tahoe and start searching, but where?

  Five minutes later, Steak called back. “I’m at Warner’s. It’s all quiet here. Nobody is home.”

  “Okay, I need you to join in the search at all the liquor stores. Go! Go now!”

  Braddock kept calling Tori’s cell.

  Steak sped away from Warner’s house, located on the southeast shore of Steamboat Lake and back into Manchester on the H-4, taking the Lake Drive exit. He reached for his radio, calling into dispatch. “Where have we checked?”

  Dispatch reported back.

  “Has anyone checked Knorr’s?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I’m going right now,” Steak reported back, turning a hard left onto Interlachen Avenue and driving two blocks south before taking another hard left into the parking lot. The lights inside the liquor store were still on. The store’s back door was locked. He pounded on the door and saw a clerk look down the hallway to the back door.

  Steak held up his badge and identification. “Sheriff’s department.”

  The clerk came to the door and scanned the identification before undoing the lock.

  “Thank you.” Steak pulled up a photo on his iPhone. “Did you see her in here tonight? She probably bought wine. Her name is Tori Hunter.”

  The clerk examined the photo. “I think so, yes. Yes! She was in about an hour ago, maybe a little more. She bought a couple of bottles of wine and then she walked out the back down the hallway.”

  Steak went back out the back door and stepped into the parking lot. There were only two cars parked in the lot, neither of which was Tori’s dark blue Nissan Maxima rental car. Then he heard a ringing sound for what he thought was a cell phone. He started searching around, honing on the rhythmic ringing before seeing an iPhone lying at the edge of the parking lot.

  “Ah shit!”

  The screen had a name on it—Braddock.

  Steak carefully
picked up the phone and answered, “Will?”

  “Steak? What the hell…”

  “Will, her phone was lying on the ground at the edge of the parking lot behind Knorr’s. There’s no sign of her.”

  CHAPTER 33

  “YOU’RE FIGHTING, YOU’RE DEFIANT. I LOVE IT.”

  Warner lifted Tori up out of the trunk, slung her over his shoulder and took her inside a small house that looked to be used more as a shed, with shovels, rakes, hoes and other gardening equipment visible. He dropped her down to the floor and then reached down and pulled back a throw rug to reveal a wood door embedded in the floor that he opened. He picked her up and threw her over his shoulder again and carried her down a narrow and steep set of steps into a cellar underneath. Once he was in the cellar, he sat her down onto an aged, round-top wooden bar stool.

  Tori took immediate inventory of her surroundings. The cellar was all cinderblock. Behind her was an old, sturdy, thick metal office desk. Above her there was a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Warner was on the opposite side of the cellar, standing to the right of the steps, crouched over a small work bench. She could tell he was using a honing rod to sharpen a long knife. To the left of the steps in the other corner was a gun case. Through the glass door front she was able to see several rifles, including one that looked like an AR-15 assault rifle.

  “I’ll be with you shortly, Tori,” Warner commented casually while he held up and examined the long and jagged knife under the light of the swinging lamp. Tori read Warner’s playacting for what it was, a ploy to heighten her anxiety. He needn’t have bothered; she had plenty of it.

  Her wrists and ankles both remained tightly bound with nylon handcuffs. She noticed the small clock mounted over the workbench, the red second hand clicking around the face—the time was 9:40. There was also a small television turned on. It was for a surveillance camera that looked to be focused on an iron driveway gate.

  If the time was right, and it felt right to her, she should’ve been at Braddock’s at least a half-hour ago. That she wasn’t there by now might be raising an alarm with him or it would soon enough. He’d be calling, looking for her and start wondering where she was. But he needed time, lots of it, and she needed to buy it for him in the hope he somehow figured out Warner was the one responsible.

  She turned her gaze back to Warner.

  He was scary smart, but she also knew ever since they were kids that he was imbued with an almost pathological need to have his intellect acknowledged. People like that wanted to show how exceptional they were. She needed to engage him, get him talking and reveling in his brilliance.

  Warner made his way over to her, picking up another barstool and dropping it down five feet in front of her and sitting down on it. He had the knife in his right hand, which rested on his thigh.

  Tori averted her eyes, keeping her breathing regulated, staring straight ahead, preparing for what was to come. Warner stood up, took a step forward, reached for the duct tape with his right hand, picked at a corner to loosen it and then yanked it off. She flinched but did not make a sound other than an exhale.

  Warner stood in front of her, peering down at her, a satisfied smirk on his face. “Well, my friend, here we are.”

  Tori shook her head, looking him in the eye. “Why?”

  “Ahh.” His eyes brightened. “You want answers?”

  “I want all the answers. I think I’ve already figured some of them out, but I want them all.”

  “Where do you want to start?”

  “Where do you think?”

  “You’re sure you can handle it?”

  “Let’s find out.”

  Warner relaxed, crossing his right leg over his left. “You know, honestly, I didn’t intend to kill Jessie that night. I wanted Jessie—hell, I wanted Jessie and you. You both were hot, and you were both ready to give it up. I mean, you were off that night with Jason Rushton for that very reason, right?”

  “I had the good sense to pick someone decent.”

  “Tell me, being off with Mr. Decent, isn’t that why you felt so guilty about that night? That you weren’t with Jessie? You have to have thought for these last twenty years, if only you were there, if only you hadn’t been so selfish off popping that cherry, Jessie would be alive.”

  Tori stared angrily back, seething.

  “Oh, you have felt that, haven’t you?” Jeff hissed with a self-satisfied smirk. “The guilt has eaten at you for years, hasn’t it? I bet that guilt is the fuel that drove you, isn’t it? Isn’t it?”

  Tori didn’t respond. Her expression answered the question.

  “I figured,” Warner continued. “You know, the Internet is such a beautiful thing, especially if you’re an expert researcher which, of course, I am. It let me follow you, your career, your ascension in the FBI. You know Tori, you’ve really had a remarkable career. I applaud you for it.”

  Tori snorted. “Right.”

  “No, now there’s where you’re wrong, Tori. I do, I honestly do,” Warner replied without any hint of condescension. “I respect it. I respect excellence because I exude it in everything I do. And you do, too. Saving and returning all those children to their families. You’re a legend.”

  “Whatever.”

  “It’s admirable, it really is. You’ve made an impact. You’ve made a big difference in people’s lives. You will leave an impressive legacy behind when your name goes up on the FBI Wall of Honor. But that impact also allowed me to keep tabs on and watch you. Not that you knew, of course.”

  “Watch me?”

  “Sure. Business took me to New York every so often. I tracked you down, it wasn’t hard. I watched you exit the FBI field office and followed you to your condo. I’ve watched you take your long runs along the Hudson, all sleek and sexy in your designer running clothes and shoes. Hell, I was sitting on a park bench two different days last summer, in sunglasses reading the Times and you went running right on by, so focused and intense, pushing yourself to the extreme, oblivious that I, your old friend, was sitting right there. I could have literally reached out and touched you, we were that close.”

  Warner stood up from his stool and eyed her up before taking a step forward. She steadied herself as he raised the knife, brushing it lightly along her face, then slowly trailing her neckline and then down her sternum, tracing the tip of the knife underneath her breasts.

  Tori just stared straight ahead, holding her breath, rigid.

  “You’re in such amazing shape,” he remarked as he walked behind her. “That night we were walking to the Steamboat Bay Taproom, you remember that? The whole time we’re walking down the street, I hung a step or two behind just so I could check out your tight little ass and those toned legs. I thought you were absolutely phenomenal for thirty-seven. I’ve been envious of Braddock, getting to repeatedly tap all that. He just doesn’t deserve it.”

  That drew a glare from her.

  Warner just snickered. “I even watched you compete in a triathlon once, out on Long Island. You’re really quite intense and determined in everything you do.”

  “Glad I was able to provide you such entertainment.”

  “Oh, I don’t think it was entertainment per se. It was more just keeping track, anticipating that a day may come where we would confront one another. And now—here it is.”

  “Is this a confrontation?” Tori asked, looking up, her eyes piercing. “Doesn’t a confrontation connotate an equal opportunity?”

  “It’s not my fault that you didn’t see me coming.”

  “Is that what happened to Jessie? She didn’t see it coming, did she?”

  Warner sat back down on the stool. “Well, it started when I drove up and stopped beside her. She had that flat tire and she looked at me like I was her hero.”

  “A tire that you made go flat.”

  Warner blew past the comment. “I knew you weren’t with Jessie. I knew that she’d be alone. I punched that hole in it when we were at the party that you skipped because you were
where again?”

  Tori didn’t respond.

  “It worked perfectly of course,” Warner replied cockily, basking in the glory of his victory. “I left early but made my way back to Peterson’s. I followed Jessie as she drove out to Katy’s and dropped her off. I could see the tire was riding low when she left Katy’s house. The question was would it give out before she got home.”

  It was all Tori could do to not jump off the chair after him.

  “Of course, it gave way and just four or five miles from home? Oh so close, yet oh so far away.”

  Tori simply glared at him, breathing through her nose.

  “I pulled up after she pulled over to the side of the road on 48. I drove up and she got right in the car, thanking me for coming along, glad that it was me. She didn’t even ask me what I was doing there. Jessie wasn’t the least bit suspicious. Heck, she didn’t even ask me to take her home. She just assumed I would. She always just assumed boys would do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted it.” He looked Tori in the eye. “You know it’s true about her. Toying with people, playing with them.”

  “She wasn’t a mean girl, Jeff,” Tori growled in reply.

  “You sure about that? She played head games all the damned time,” Warner railed. “Well, I had her in the car, and I had a fucking game for her.”

  “She didn’t want to play.”

  “She should have wanted to.”

  “Couldn’t handle rejection, could you?” Tori snorted. “Not the great Jeff Warner, not the smartest guy in school, the class president, football quarterback, Mr. Perfect. Nobody could ever say no to you. You were just entitled to whatever you wanted.”

  “I’d be very careful if I were you,” he replied darkly, gripping the knife hard in his right hand. “I can skip the answers and get right to it, you know. I owe you nothing.”

  Tori shook her head, looking away. It was an idle threat. He was too self-satisfied with himself. He was just getting rolling.

  “I drove for a while and then pulled over off the road and I made my move. I kissed her, but…the little whore, she resisted.”

  “Oh, I bet she did.”

  “She was just playing hard to get, like she always did. Jessie the fucking tease, playing her fucking games. Well, I was done with games. I wanted it, I wanted her, and deep down despite what she was fronting, she wanted it, too.”