Cold Moon (The Huntress/FBI Thrillers Book 3)

by Alexandra Sokoloff

  The first night, she and Leon stopped at a motel. There was more drinking, and more drugs. When she woke up she found another man in the room with her, who raped her. For three days Leon brought men back to the motel to have sex with her.

  The next night he took her out to a truck stop. He told her no one would care if she tried to tell tales on him. She was committing a crime herself, so she could be arrested. If she tried to run he would find her and kill her.

  She tried to run. He caught her and “trunked” her: locked her in his car trunk without food, without water, for two days. After that he kept her drugged. By then the drugs were all she wanted.

  She was on the road with Leon approximately three weeks; she wasn’t sure, because they moved on to another stop every few days.

  They had arrived at the Salinas stop in the early evening. She had just gotten into the cab with the trucker when someone else entered the cab. Her first thought was that it was Leon. Instead the curtains separating the driver’s area from the bed were pulled back and a blond woman was standing there with what the girl called a knife.

  And then there was a lot of blood.

  Roarke took a long moment before he spoke, trying to manage his fury and despair. “Did she talk to you?”

  “She said ‘Don’t scream . . .’” And then the girl hesitated. Roarke sat forward, on alert.

  “What else?”

  “She said, ‘Agent Roarke will be here soon. He’ll help you.’”

  Roarke stared at the girl. Epps stared at Roarke.

  Roarke reached for Epps’ folder and showed the girl the MISSING flyer, with the picture of Sarah Jane Jennings. “Have you ever seen this girl?”

  She looked down. Her face was blank as she examined the photocopied plea. “Uh-uh.”

  “What’s your name?” he asked, again, gently.

  The girl didn’t speak for a long time. And then she said, “Becca.”

  The two agents stepped outside the office. Roarke closed the door on Becca before he turned to the two Monterey County detectives. “Where does she go now?”

  Escobar shrugged. “Juvie’s the best we can do. At least she won’t be out on the street tonight.”

  Epps shook his head, his jaw tight. No one said anything.

  The agents walked out into the parking lot. They stopped beside their car and looked out on the acres of farmland beyond the police station, cultivated green fields alternating with brown, dormant ones.

  Epps spoke without looking at him. “She wanted you here. She knew you’d come.”

  Roarke said nothing.

  Epps put a big hand on the back of his own neck, massaging it. “What’s your feeling? Stay or go?”

  At the edge of the parking lot, a tumbleweed rolled in the wind. Roarke watched it, wondering. Is it a setup? How can we know?

  He couldn’t see any way around it. “Probably she’s long gone, but—”

  “Before she wasn’t,” Epps finished. When Cara killed the other trucker at the rest stop, just a hundred miles from where they were now, they had assumed she would move on immediately, when in reality she had taken refuge in a town less than half an hour away.

  “Right,” Roarke said heavily. “So we stay overnight. Just in case. Maybe something will happen—”

  “Oh, something’s going to happen,” Epps said. Roarke looked at him. “This is the third month we’ve been doing this. Chasing this woman. First month, she tries to take out the trafficking gang at the concrete plant.”

  Tried and succeeded, Roarke thought. With a little help from us.

  Epps continued. “Last month it was the Reaper. The Reaper’s killing families, watching his next targets. And Lindstrom’s right on the scene. Again. Takes him out. And both times, it’s on the night of the full moon.”

  Roarke felt a chill of understanding.

  Epps nodded at him. “The real shit always goes down on the full moon. So it looks to me like we got just two nights left to figure out what’s going down this time, what kind of big thing she’s got planned.”

  Roarke was blown away. It was the kind of thinking that he should have been doing himself, and hadn’t been. What was the plan for this moon? Though he had his doubts that even Cara herself could tell them what she intended, Epps was right. There was a path she would be following.

  “You’re right,” he admitted aloud.

  “I know I’m right. I just don’t know what the fuck that means.”

  The fax. The pimp/john pairing. She wants us here. But for what?

  “It means we stay,” Roarke said. He hoped to God he was right.

  Chapter 46

  She is nowhere near Salinas.

  She walks along Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, past the street vendors behind their folding tables and makeshift tents lining the sidewalk, hawking their Christmas wares. The store windows on either side of the street are lit up with nontraditional holiday decorations, and music overlaps from street musicians on every other corner.

  She is still buzzing from the events of the night before, and nervous about being around so many people. The newspapers and blogs have been carrying her photo. Her past has been connected to her present, and entirely against her will, she is famous again. But it cannot be helped. The streets here are crowded with shoppers, and students finished with exams but not yet returned home for the holidays, and she is relatively safe, camouflaged in worn jeans and hoodie and bulky thrift store coat. She has bought herself some time with her lures: the flyer from the convenience store, and last night’s blood. With Roarke and the agent called Epps out of the way in Salinas, she can search for the girl Jade without having to worry about crossing paths with her hunters.

  She meanders past stalls of pottery and crystal jewelry and feathered dream catchers, past tarot readers and palm readers, and she considers the girl. Her instinct is that the girl will be close; she will not move far out of her comfort zone, but she will vary her hunting ground. Surely she is canny enough to avoid places she knows will be heavily patrolled now that the murders are under investigation.

  And Telegraph Avenue is the East Bay version of the Haight.

  These streets, the carnival atmosphere, are the girl’s milieu. She is a night creature and will probably not show her face this early, but her taste for the psychedelic is obvious. So Cara keeps alert, keeps her eyes peeled for a sign of the girl, or just a sign.

  Her mind drifts to her dream and the real-life scenes it reflected. The girl at the fair, on a street not unlike this one . . . the girl in the cave, locking eyes with her over the dead body of the pimp . . .

  And the other presence. The bony shadow on the cave wall. That ancient, implacable force, creaking to life at the scent of blood.

  Unfamiliar, yet inevitable. A wild card if ever there was one.

  The girl . . . and the crone. A collision of destiny.

  As she walks past tables full of jewelry and metalwork, brooding on it, one of the numerous fortune-tellers catches her eye. A small Mexican woman, seated at a folding card table draped with a silk shawl. The little woman looks up without speaking a word, and holding Cara’s eyes, she turns over a card.

  Cara steps to the table and looks down on a skeleton figure astride a horse, wielding a curved sword, as human figures fall prone in its path.

  Death.

  She pulls out the rickety folding chair opposite the fortune-teller and sits.

  “Donde?” she asks.

  Where?

  Chapter 47

  Roarke and Epps found a rig through the police station. There were several in impound. So they picked an SNC Century and drove the massive vehicle out to the truck stop and they parked in the last row, Party Row, and turned off the lights, and they ate pizza and waited in the encroaching twilight.

  Epps settled his long and elegant frame in the back of the cab on the be
d, while Roarke sat in the passenger seat, which swiveled to the rear to create something of a living room setup. First he called in to the office to brief Singh on their stakeout, putting her on speaker. As they talked, he could picture her in the office, the gold bands on her wrists, her dark fall of hair.

  “The Monterey County detectives were talking about a series of BOLOs. You mentioned that there were other missing girls who might have been trafficked to the Central Valley—”

  “I have identified eleven similar cases reported in the last six months,” Singh answered. “Suspected abductions in Arizona, Texas, and Oklahoma. All teenage girls, pulled off the street.”

  Roarke and Epps looked at each other in the dim light of the cab. The number was chilling, particularly given that this kind of crime was like any infestation of vermin: one sighting was inevitably only the tip of the iceberg.

  Singh continued. “Inspector Mills and Agent Jones are in position in the Tenderloin. We are monitoring the Street Action boards. Three SFPD undercovers are out on the street as well.”

  Roarke felt an acid rush in the pit of his stomach. “Keep us posted.”

  “Will do, Chief.”

  After disconnecting with Singh, he turned the swivel chair away from Epps and called Rachel. And got voice mail. He stumbled through a message, leaving the basic details of Becca’s situation and a contact number for the juvenile hall in Salinas, all the while knowing that his last encounter with Rachel did not bode well for her ever speaking to him again, much less doing him another massive favor.

  He turned back in the chair . . . to find Epps shaking his head. “You ain’t treating that woman right.”

  There was nothing Roarke could say to that.

  Epps reached for another slice of pizza. “That shit always comes back on you.” He passed Roarke the pizza box and for a while they ate in silence, looking out the wide windshield of the truck at the bleak sunset over the fields.

  Chapter 48

  It is cold . . . and the moon is angry.

  The ancient light shines down on the girls bunched on the street corners. Long colt legs in platform heels. Glassy-eyed with drugs. Lost children, coerced and sold by men who do not even think of them as human.

  On the street, the cars slow, drivers eyeing the merchandise. Product. Cattle. Slaves.

  But tonight another hunter is cruising.

  Tonight there will be a price to pay.

  Tonight the moon will have her vengeance.

  Chapter 49

  The agents had been sitting in the dark rig for what felt like a lifetime, gazing through the drifting fog and watching the shadows of four women as they worked the truck stop, responding to the flashing of lights. Stick figures in short skirts, backpacks slung over their shoulders, slumped with the weariness of abuse: drug abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, life abuse.

  Roarke felt ill, soul-sick. Whatever the scene said about the essence of humanity, it wasn’t good.

  But so far none of the women appeared to be under the obvious coercion of a pimp. So far none of them looked underage. So the agents watched, and they waited, as the swelling moon rose above the drifting fog and the occasional flash of lights.

  After a while Epps spoke again.

  “Does that girl Becca have something to do with Jade?” he asked, his voice sounding raw. “Is all of this tied in together, somehow? Was Jade abducted, like Sarah Jane?”

  Or like Shauna? So many girls . . .

  Roarke half-shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “But Lindstrom told Becca to wait for you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s the cement plant again, isn’t it? She’s bringing us into it, bringing you into it, just like before.”

  It was what Snyder had said. That Cara had some kind of plan, some form of the bust of the cement plant in the desert, the victims rescued there. Once again, she wanted them, or him, involved. The fact that local law enforcement was obviously not making a dent in the trafficking problem made it even more likely that she would apply her own solution.

  Epps was watching Roarke. “You thinking another trafficking ring? That Cara wants us to bust?”

  Is that it? Is that the whole plan? Is there a ring she saw while on the road and meant to get around to, before she was distracted by the Reaper and held up for a time in jail?

  “Maybe,” he said aloud. “It is our job.”

  “And I’m just so happy that Cara Lindstrom is being so helpful,” Epps said bitterly.

  But Roarke was thinking on it. The light penalties for trafficking were a major reason the sex trade was burgeoning.

  He spoke into the dark. “Every time the Bureau takes on one of these trafficking situations and makes a case for Federal prosecution, it puts the traffickers away for longer.” In the case of the cement plant, instead of six-year sentences in the state system, the men Roarke and Epps had arrested were looking at fifty-year prison terms. And every case that ended in a stiffer sentence made it less appealing for gangs and rogue criminals to get into the business.

  Epps was shaking his head in the dark. “You really think her head is any way straight enough to plan like that?”

  He had a point. Cara didn’t think like a lawyer. But she always had a purpose. They had been brought here, lured, even, and Roarke was increasingly unsettled about it.

  “I don’t know,” he said. He looked out the truck window, out at the rising moon.

  Becca’s story. Shauna’s story. Jade’s story. Sarah Jane’s story. They all ran together in his head, a vast, polluted river.

  He swiveled in the chair to look at the lot outside. He watched through the windshield of the rig as another truck flashed lights and one of the prostitutes teetered through the fog toward the cab.

  “Do you know how many active serial killers there are out there in the US at any given time?” he asked.

  Epps looked at him, frowned. “No idea.”

  “When I was in the BAU, the number we estimated was between thirty-five and a hundred.”

  “In the whole US?” Epps said.

  “Right.” Roarke looked out at the rows of trucks. “How many of these guys do you think there are out there right now? Leon Jonas? DeShawn Butler? Danny Ramirez? Not to mention whole gangs? Selling kids like that?”

  A wary look crossed Epps’ face. “I don’t know. Thousands. Tens of thousands. A shitload.”

  “Right,” Roarke said.

  Epps leaned forward urgently. “But we get them the only way we can get them. With the law.”

  “Tens of thousands,” Roarke said flatly. “Hundreds of thousands.”

  “And every one we get counts,” Epps said.

  Roarke didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Epps studied him, and his expression was worried. “Why don’t you take the bed? Get a few z’s. I’ll watch.”

  Roarke shook his head and stood, felt the numbness in his legs. “What I need is some air.” Before Epps could protest, he added, “Just across the lot to the diner.”

  Epps started to say something, then shook his head. “Watch yourself.”

  “Want anything?”

  “Vodka,” Epps said.

  “Yeah,” Roarke said. “I’ll work on that.”

  He didn’t go toward the diner. He circled the truck, to the back of it where Epps couldn’t watch him, and walked out into the field where Becca had run to hide after Cara cut the trucker’s throat.

  Moonlight spilled over low, leafy rows of some vegetable that looked a lot bigger actually growing out of the ground than it did in a supermarket. Artichoke, maybe. It had a rich, loamy smell. Above him, the moon was icy and very white. He’d Googled the name for the December full moon.

  Cold Moon.

  And it was.

  What are we doing here?

  But he knew, had known all along. If this
was where Cara was, then that was where he had to be.

  Beautiful, deadly Cara.

  He looked up at the cold moon and felt the same dread and longing he always felt, imagining her. Without thinking, he spoke to her in his mind.

  Just come. Make it now. Let’s end this, one way or another.

  “I’m so tired,” he said aloud into the moonlit dark.

  He felt a presence behind him and closed his eyes briefly, then opened them.

  He turned . . . and saw a female shadow. His heart stopped.

  “Lookin’ for a party?” the shadow asked. Her words were slurred, and Roarke took her in quickly. Halter top, a pale roll of belly fat spilling over too-tight jeans, wedge heels. A commercial lady. Not a minor. But he thought she might do anyway.

  “Sure,” he said, through the sudden race of his pulse. “Rig’s right over there.”

  She took his arm and leaned against him coyly, wobbling from the heels and the drugs, as he walked her through the leafy ground crop, over uneven dirt toward the truck.

  They stopped beside the metal wall of the rig, and he opened the passenger door and climbed up on the runner to help her. She swayed as she mounted the step, and he reached out to take her arm.

  He caught the metallic smell of meth as she stumbled past him into the cab—and then she stopped still, seeing Epps sitting on the bed. “Uh-uh. No way,” she muttered, and started to scramble back out of the truck. Roarke didn’t know if she was objecting to two on one, or to Epps’ race, but he blocked the door, trapping her.

  “Take it easy. We’re FBI.” Before she could freak out more, he added quickly, “You’re not under arrest. We just want to talk. You get full price.”

  He showed his credentials, which had no apparent effect on her, then he pulled out his wallet and showed her a hundred-dollar bill, far more than full price. Now she nodded warily.

  “Have a seat.”

  She dropped heavily into the passenger seat, which swiveled under the sudden weight. She had to dig her heels into the floor of the cab to steady herself.