Roarke’s heart plummeted. “I can’t let you do that,” he said softly.
Her eyes were on his. “You need to get out. That’s what these places do. Cook the cooks.”
Roarke kept his voice steady. “I’m not going anywhere without you, Jade.”
The girl gave him a tolerant and crazy smile. “But I’m not going anywhere. Not to prison. Nowhere. It all ends here.” And then she cocked her head. “You never answered me. Do you believe in destiny?”
Roarke was paralyzed, silent, knowing his answer could mean all of their lives.
The girl was watching him. “How about karma, then? You know, karma? What goes around, comes around?” She waved the open, unlit lighter in front of Darrell’s face. “What d’you think, Darrell? I remember coming ’round here with you and Mommy Dearest. Three, four years ago . . . I couldn’t remember exactly where, but Alison helped out with that.” Her voice got harder. “And I remember exactly what happened here. All of it. Don’t you?”
She jerked his hair, yanking his head back as he yelped. Her eyes were gleaming, almost feral in the slanting rays of moonlight.
“Tell Agent Roarke what you did,” the girl said, thumbing the lighter tauntingly.
Sawyer was stiff and still in the chair, his eyes hooded, his mouth open as he took shallow, uneven gasps. Roarke could almost smell his rage and terror.
“I understand, Jade,” Roarke said. His mouth was as dry as dust. “Vermin like this. I know what he did.”
“You don’t know.” She tightened her fingers in Sawyer’s hair. “He sold me. To his poker buddies. Didn’t you, Darrell? Right here.”
Roarke felt a wave of nausea. It was too clear a picture. The filthy farmhouse. The men around the poker table. The drinking. The drugs. And the twelve-year-old girl on the sagging bed.
He struggled to speak evenly. “You don’t have to do this, Jade. Let me take him. I can put him in prison for a long, long time.”
Jade’s eyes widened. “You can promise that? For real?” Her voice was like a child’s, naive . . . and completely mocking.
No one had to tell him she was right. He knew.
“No. I can’t promise. But I’ll do everything I can. I’ll . . . I’ll do everything I can.”
Jade shook her head. “That’s not good enough. Whatever it is, it’s never gonna be long enough. So this time, we’re gonna do it my way.”
“Jade . . .”
She held the lighter up, and the moonlight made the silver gleam.
And then, in the hall behind him, Roarke heard something. Someone. A presence. Barely moving, barely breathing . . .
Epps? Jesus, let it be.
He spoke slowly. “Okay, Jade. I know I can’t stop you. I don’t even think I want to.”
Sawyer stiffened in the chair. “Wait. You can’t fucking leave me,” he said in a panic.
Roarke stared at him through the cold dark of the room. “I just wish I could see you burn.”
“Fuck you,” the man raged. “You can’t do this.”
Roarke ignored him and looked at Jade, her round, child’s face in the dim light. Heartbreaking.
“I’m sorry,” he told her. “You deserved much better.”
She looked at him with those extraordinary eyes, inscrutable. He nodded and stepped back out into the hall. And in the dark corridor, he froze, as he felt the cold metal barrel of a gun against his face.
Chapter 73
He knew from the touch.
“Cara,” he said.
He could smell her, the spicy heat of her skin and the faint salt tang of the ocean. He felt her hand on him, skimming his chest as she reached from behind him into his jacket, taking his Glock from the holster and pocketing it, then stepping around him and reaching into his clothes, deftly searching him.
Her face was pale in the dank cold, and he was very aware of the gun at his cheek. He had a quick, sick rush of fear. Epps—did she take him down?
She pulled something from a pocket and he heard the muffled jingle of handcuff keys. Then his pulse rate shot up as someone stepped up right behind her in the dark hallway.
He stared into the blackness . . . and saw Rachel. Her hands still cuffed behind her. Her eyes wide and terrified.
Roarke stared at her.
They’re together? What the hell is going on? Through his shock, his dread was nearly overpowering. Where the hell is Epps?
“Rachel,” he whispered, and felt cold steel jab against his face. He turned his eyes to meet Cara’s gaze. “Unlock her,” she ordered, barely audible. Never taking the gun muzzle from his cheekbone, she pressed the handcuff keys into his hand.
Outside, the wind pushed at the house. He could hear the wild scrabbling of snow blowing against the windows.
Cara moved with him as he reached out to Rachel, and she turned in the dark so he could unlock the cuffs. And when they popped open, he caught them in his hands so they would not hit the ground and betray their presence. He turned his head slowly toward Cara, and felt the muscles of his jaw against the gun. “You can’t fire that,” he said, barely audible. “The whole house could blow.”
She said nothing. Her eyes were cold and shining in the dark.
“Is Jade in there?” Rachel asked in the barest of whispers, but Roarke could still hear her voice shake.
He nodded slowly, feeling gun metal against his skin. “She’s got Darrell Sawyer. She says she’s going to burn it all. Him, her. The house . . .”
“No,” Cara said. And she lowered the gun she held at Roarke’s head and walked down the hall, as deliberately and silently as a cat.
Roarke turned on Rachel. “Get out of here. For God’s sake . . .”
She shook her head hard. “We just want Jade out of here. That’s all we want.”
He was just able to register the “We.” Then he grabbed her arm and pulled her down the hall, toward the archway of the living room. As they reached it, everyone inside twisted to face them: Jade, Sawyer . . . and Cara.
“Oh, hell,” Sawyer moaned from the chair. “Who are these bitches?”
Jade looked from one woman to the other. “Now it’s a party,” she said, but Roarke heard the sudden uncertainty under the brashness of her voice. She tightened her fingers in Darrell’s hair again and turned his head hard toward Cara and Rachel. “Look at all these nice people come to watch you die.”
“I’ll handle him,” Cara told Jade quietly.
Jade looked at her, and Roarke didn’t know what to make of what he saw in the girl’s face. Fear? Fascination?
Whatever it was, she shook her head. “He’s mine.” She held the lighter up and ran her thumb over it. All their lives in her hands . . .
“I know,” Cara said. “And you got him. It’s over.” She looked toward Rachel. “Tell her.”
“Jade.” Rachel’s voice trembled, but she looked the teenager in the eyes. “He’s not worth throwing your life away. Don’t do that for this piece of shit.”
“He has to die!” the girl wailed.
“He’s dead,” Cara said. She aimed Roarke’s Glock squarely at Sawyer’s chest. “I promise you.” She and the girl looked at each other from across the freezing room. “I want you to go with Rachel now.”
Roarke stiffened. Cara shot a look at the social worker, and Rachel looked back . . . and he could not have voiced what passed between the two of them in that moment. Not if his life depended on it.
Jade seemed mesmerized. She took a faltering step back, and Cara moved swiftly to take her place behind Sawyer, pressing the muzzle of Roarke’s weapon into his cheek.
Then she looked at Rachel. “I killed those men. I did. Do you understand?”
Roarke saw tears on Rachel’s face. “I understand.”
“Then take her.”
When Rachel didn’t move, Cara raised her vo
ice. “Take her.”
Rachel grabbed Jade’s arm and pulled her toward the front door. The girl went with her without resistance, without protest.
And Cara and Roarke were left alone. Cara holding Darrell, the Glock against his head.
“Please, oh sweet Jesus . . .” Darrell babbled.
“Shut up,” Roarke shouted at him. Darrell dropped the noise to a whimper. “Cara,” Roarke said, looking at her, remembering the feel of her skin against his. “Don’t.”
She shook her head.
“Cara.”
She looked into his eyes . . . and unbelievably, miraculously, he saw her lower the gun.
He gasped from the full body rush of relief . . .
. . . and suddenly there was a flash of silver, in her other hand, and a spurt of crimson as she sliced a razor across Sawyer’s throat. She held his head as his body jerked and blood sprayed, then pumped from his severed carotid, and her eyes never left Roarke’s.
Then she pushed the body forward, and Sawyer’s corpse slid off the chair to thud onto the floorboards.
Roarke looked into her face, and she held his own gun on him.
Blood dripped from her hands and their breath clouded white in the air . . .
And then she slipped backward, through the doorway behind her, and was gone.
JANUARY
Chapter 74
Epps was unharmed. He had rounded up the three members of Darrell Sawyer’s posse they’d seen leaving the house. They would be indicted for meth trafficking and arms dealing and were expected to face long prison terms.
Sawyer was dead, and that was some justice. Some. No one would ever be prosecuted for what was done to Jade. But of course, it was much easier to prosecute a man for selling drugs than for destroying a child.
Rachel was gone. Cara was gone. Jade was gone.
And Roarke was gone.
A voluntary, indefinite leave of absence.
He took a place at Pismo Beach. In January the town was nearly deserted and the cost of renting a beach house not out of reach.
Epps and Singh called his new cell phone every day. Separately and together. He had not told them where he was going, and he never answered their calls, though sometimes he kept their messages for days before deleting them.
He took long walks on the sand, beside the surf. Sometimes he lingered in the forest of posts under the pier and listened to the crashing of the surf, and tried to breathe through the memories.
He didn’t miss her. He craved her. It was a constant ache.
He replayed their night on the sand, searching for nuance. He didn’t know if she’d only used him that night to get his phone. He didn’t think so. But he imagined Mark Sebastian probably thought she hadn’t used him, either. Roarke’s regret was not that he had been used. He only regretted that he’d pulled back.
He had no idea where she might be, only knew that it would be far. He was almost certain she had left California. It was too dangerous for her there, not just because of her fugitive status. There was too much attention in the news: her photo, her background, all the old stories resurfacing about the Reaper and the Miracle Girl, the madman’s only surviving victim.
She would be far. But in what direction, Roarke couldn’t guess. It was a big country.
So he walked on the beach, and he waited for a sign.
Once he was out on Main Street and he saw the boy, Jason Sebastian, shopping with his father. Jason saw him, too, but the five-year-old didn’t wave and didn’t turn to speak to his father to point Roarke out. He just looked, and nodded. And somehow Roarke was comforted.
Sometimes he dreamed of fire, the derelict farmhouse going up in a ball of flames in the dark, snowy night. Often he needed only to close his eyes to see the fireball, feel it scorching his face; to hear the yawning booms of the explosions . . . a roaring like the world cracking open in slow motion.
Because the last thing he had done, on his way out of the house, was to fire backward into it, with the backup piece from his ankle holster.
Darrell Sawyer’s body had been consumed in the resulting inferno. As far as Roarke could tell, no one would ever be able to say exactly how he died. And the idea of trace evidence, anything that could shed light on who had been at the scene, was absurd. It was a meth lab. It had combusted like an accident in a small nuclear power plant.
Destruction of evidence. Tampering with a crime scene.
The list of his offenses went on and on.
It was ten days into his self-imposed isolation that she called.
Not Cara.
Rachel.
“Where are you?” he managed, through a suddenly constricted throat. Outside the windows of the beach house, the surf rumbled and rolled.
She half-laughed, and he thought she sounded . . . different. “Somewhere else.”
There was a silence between them before he could finally speak. “You don’t have to do this—”
“I know what you want,” she said, before he could finish. “I’m not bringing her back.”
So she still had Jade. He spoke his next words carefully.
“We’ll get her the best attorney. Molina will take the case—”
“No. No one helped her. No one has the right to judge her.”
“You can’t throw your own life away—”
She interrupted savagely. “It’s my fault. I left her that night and went with you because I wanted you.” There was a catch in her voice, and he knew she was crying. “I failed her.”
Roarke felt his heart was about to burst. All those tangled emotions. She was a rescuer; she couldn’t help her nature. He took a breath and prayed she would listen.
“Rachel. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine.”
Silence.
He spoke so softly. “Don’t do this. Talk to me.”
There was nothing but dead air.
Erin had not resurfaced. She had not returned to medical school, she had not notified the school of her absence, she had not posted to her Facebook page. The blogger Bitch had not been found; or rather she had morphed into a legion. Eleven anonymous bloggers calling themselves Bitch had claimed credit for the Bay Area killings, starting with Danny Ramirez, plus the Salinas murders, plus the bus station murder in Santa Cruz.
Roarke knew most of that was smoke. The shooting of the pimp in his car on International Boulevard remained unsolved, but Roarke was sure in his own mind that Jade had killed DeShawn Butler, the “guerilla pimp”; and Andrew Goldman, the “sick trick”; and the pimp Clyde Lester Cranston at the bus station. There would be no reason for Cara and Rachel to go to such lengths to hide Jade away if she had not killed the men. He was also convinced that Jade had planted the murder weapon that bought Cara bail and freedom, and that Cara had started copycatting the paired kills to cover for Jade.
In his secret heart, he was glad.
Sometimes he imagined them together. Erin, Cara, Rachel, Jade, the blogger, the mystery woman who was not Andrea Janovy. Doing what? Planning what?
Even Molina—who claimed to know nothing of Cara’s whereabouts. Roarke didn’t believe her, of course. He didn’t believe anything anymore.
He scoured the Internet for every post and tweet by Bitch. They reported on another two kills in Tucson, a pimp and a john. Another two in Dallas. All of which they attributed to Santa Muerte:
She is out there. But she’s not the only one.
This is a call to arms. This is a war on rape culture.
He read the blogs. And he thought of saints, and goddesses, and myths, as he walked on the beach and listened to the surf.
Under the growing Wolf Moon.
Acknowledgments
I have so many people to thank for this series, I could write a book. I am eternally grateful to:
My most awesome editors, Anh Schluep and Cha
rlotte Hersher. Anh, you’ve been a lifesaver!
My superstar agents, Scott Miller and Frank Wuliger.
The Thomas & Mercer team: Alan Turkus, Jacque Ben-Zekry, Grace Doyle, and Tiffany Pokorny. There are not enough superlatives!
The Amazon KDP, ACX, and CreateSpace talents of Lael Telles, Nicole Op Den Bosch, and Lauren McCullough, through various versions of these books.
My priceless early readers: Diane Coates Peoples, Joan Tregarthen Huston, Joseph Wrin, Jim Williams, Sharon Berge, and Rebecca Wink.
Timoney Korbar, Amanda Wilson, and Adam Cruz for brilliant publicity support.
Visionary original cover designers Robert Gregory Browne and Brandi Doane.
The initial inspiration for the Huntress from Val McDermid, Denise Mina, and Lee Child, at the San Francisco Bouchercon.
My mega-talented critique partners, Zoë Sharp and JD Rhoades.
My incomparable writing group, the Weymouth Seven: Margaret Maron, Mary Kay Andrews, Diane Chamberlain, Sarah Shaber, Brenda Witchger, and Katy Munger.
Lee Lofland and his amazing Writers Police Academy trainers/instructors: Dave Pauly, Katherine Ramsland, Corporal Dee Jackson, Andy Russell, Marco Conelli, Lieutenant Randy Shepard, and Robert Skiff.
The learned Dr. Doug Lyle, for forensics help.
RC Bray for his terrific narrative interpretations of the books.
Joe Konrath, Blake Crouch, Scott Nicholson, Elle Lothlorien, CJ Lyons, LJ Sellers, Ann Voss Peterson, Robert Gregory Browne, Brett Battles, and JD Rhoades, who showed me the indie publishing ropes.
Siegrid Rickenbach, Captain John Rickenbach, and Alison Davis, experts in all things California.
Leslie Goldenberg, Jennifer Nickerson, Patti Frick, and Elaine Sokoloff, who inspire me to hold up my half of the sky.
Madeira James, for her visual inspiration.
And Craig Robertson, for a million things, but especially for always being willing to boldly go just about anywhere for the sake of research.
About the Author
Cold Moon (The Huntress/FBI Thrillers Book 3) Page 32
