by Jordan Dane
Baker had been shot in the eye—a pitch-black hole drilled through a misshapen skull. No doubt the bullet and its exit wound had done extensive damage to the man’s brain, causing his head to appear lopsided. The other eye—wide and accusing—had turned milky white. Seeing him alive only a few hours ago took its toll. She didn’t have to respect Lucas Baker to have an appreciation for the fragile nature of life.
Thankfully, Walter’s voice pulled her from the brink. He had launched into a forensics spiel as if he were at a cocktail party talking about the weather and munching on pigs in a blanket.
“He took two to the chest, but the shot to the eye killed him.” He pointed to the fatal bullet hole as if she could miss it. “There’s stippling marks around the entry wound. Judging by that tight array of tiny hemorrhages, I’d say the shooter had to be up close and personal, no more than two feet away.”
“But far enough away to leave those marks, right?” Sam’s natural curiosity took over.
“Yeah. If our killer had put the gun barrel up against the vic’s head, hot gases and particulates would have gone directly into the skin and charred it. Plus, the impact would have torn a starlike pattern around the wound. But see? There’s no tearing or charred skin, only this distinctive tattoo effect.”
Walters continued, “And from the trajectory, I’d say the shooter stood over the vic as he lay on the ground. We’re recreating what might have happened, but judging by the blood splatter and cast-off, that’s my theory.”
“So whoever did this stared down at him, then pulled the trigger. That feels personal to me.”
“Yeah, I’d say so. Hell, if I was Lucas Baker, I’d take it real personal.” The man chuckled, but Sam found it hard to fake any amusement. Back at the lab, I bet you slay them over the water cooler, Greg.
“What caliber?”
The man zipped the body bag as he replied, “From the entry and exit wound, I’d say .45-caliber.”
“You find any casings? A bullet for comparison?”
“No shell casings so far, but we retrieved a round embedded in the asphalt. The fatal shot cleared the skull. Not sure we’ll get much, given the condition of the bullet, but a Firearms ID tech may tell us more. In autopsy, the M.E. will recover what’s in his body. And we’re still working the crime scene. We could get lucky.”
“So, you got any theories on what happened?”
“Between what witnesses have told us, we can piece together what happened and compare it to blood evidence, but no one saw the shooter’s face and we’ve got varying reports of height, weight, you name it. A couple of ’em swear they saw two people. One might’ve been a woman who drove from the scene, but that’s up to the investigator to figure out.”
Walters went over the crime scene and pointed out the blood evidence to support his speculative theories. Evidence techs had recorded every drop and splatter of blood with a yellow numbered marker with digital photos taken of each one.
Sam nodded, but as she thought more about the setup at the rink, she wondered something more basic.
“The vic was ID’d as Lucas Baker. How did they determine that?”
“They ID’d him from his driver’s license. He still had his wallet loaded with cash, so the shooting wasn’t a mugging.”
“Anything else on the body?” she asked.
“Actually, now that you mention it, I think they found a note in his pocket.”
Sam flinched at the news. “Can I see it?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Walters stepped over to the Mobile Crime Lab and disappeared inside. When he came out, he carried a plastic evidence bag with a piece of paper clearly visible. As soon as Sam saw it, she recognized the handwriting. Jess had written the note, but her name didn’t appear anywhere on the paper. Her heart throttled into high gear but she kept her voice steady.
“I recognize the address of this place, but what’s the number written beneath it?” she asked.
“A locker number…inside. The manager of the rink said Baker had a key to one of the lockers.”
“Wait a minute. You mean he had the key going in?”
“Yeah, he had it with him heading in, but coming out, he’d left it behind. According to the manager, Baker pulled out a black bag, but the guy never got a good look at it. And so far, no one’s found the bag. The shooter might’ve taken it. It’s the only lead we have for motivation.”
“Interesting.” She nodded, trying to act nonchalant.
But the case had taken a turn for the worse. Would they find Jess’s fingerprints on the locker key? On the note? And what did Jess have to do with Baker and this black bag? Sam knew how the investigation would go, and she had a strong suspicion that the clock was ticking on her friend’s freedom, especially if a couple of witnesses swore they saw a woman. She had no time to lose if she intended to get at the truth enough to help Jess—if that were even possible.
“Thanks for your time, Greg. Here’s my card.” She handed him her business card. “If you learn anything new, I’d appreciate a call.”
“How are you involved in this case again?” he finally asked. “You’re over at Harrison Station, right?”
Her smile had gone a long way to distract Walters until now.
“Yeah, and Lucas Baker was an informant. I’ve got a personal interest in the case.” She didn’t exactly lie. “I’ll be making a few notes before I call it a night, but you’ve been a big help. Thanks again, Greg.” She touched the man’s sleeve and smiled again.
Walters grinned and got back to work, leaving her alone to make her final notes. She made a quick diagram of the crime scene, estimating distances and detailing the locations of the building and parked cars in relation to the body.
From across the parking lot, Detective Ray Garza eyeballed her. She did a double take when she noticed those dark eyes staring back. Any other time she might have appreciated his interest, but she felt more like the mouse to his tail-swishing cat. Garza was savvy. Once he got his teeth into something, the man had an unparalleled taste for blood when it came to criminals. And right now Jess might satisfy his need.
Sam yanked off her latex gloves and stuffed them into a pocket before heading to her car, unable to look Detective Garza in the eye as she left the crime scene. Her friend had no idea that her world was about to shatter, but Sam knew.
With Garza on the case, it was only a matter of time.
The question was: How far would she go to help a friend she loved like a sister? At the moment, she couldn’t answer that question. She only hoped that whatever Jessie had going on, it would be worth it.
The man Ivana had called her father took Nikki by the arm and pulled her into a waiting room, keeping hold of her while he hit a buzzer on the far wall near a door. It didn’t take long for two men to arrive. They took charge of Nikki and her duffel bag. When she turned around, Ivana and her so-called father were gone. The men, who would be her keepers, hauled her down a long corridor without saying a word.
From the outside, the underground facility looked like an old abandoned warehouse, but inside, the lower vault surprised her. It was like a maze, dimly lit corridors fanning out, with intermittent doors leading to many rooms.
“Where are you taking me?” She tried to resist, but they tightened their grip on her arms and yanked her along. “Please…you’re hurting me.”
As they walked, Nikki tried to memorize the layout, hoping she’d find a way out. But when she caught glimpses of other kids escorted under guard, she lost the last of her defiance. They looked as frightened as she was, and it scared her. What was this place? The men took her to the end of a hallway and pushed her into a dark room. Up ahead, a solitary lightbulb hung low. Her handlers navigated through the murky room, but she knew the spotlight was meant for her. When they shoved her under the light, she squinted and raised a hand to block the glare, but one of the men smacked her arm down.
Nikki shook all over, partly from the cold, but mostly from fear. And she felt sick to he
r stomach. While she was held in place under the spotlight, faceless strangers pawed through her things, dumping her clothes to the floor at her feet. In the room, she felt the presence of others and heard their low voices murmuring in the background, but they stayed hidden in the shadows. She had no idea how many. Their voices echoed in the large chamber, sounding as if they came from everywhere at once.
But eventually one voice stood out from the rest.
“Take off your clothes,” the man demanded.
Nikki gasped and struggled against their hold on her. “Please,” she begged.
She heard footsteps approach, but the man remained hidden in the dark. She still couldn’t see his face.
“You will do this thing, or my men will rip them off you. And trust me, you will not want that to happen.” The man had an accent like Ivana’s. Russian, she guessed.
She waited for what seemed an eternity, but eventually gave in. Tears streamed down her face. Piece by piece, she stripped down to her panties and bra. But when that wasn’t enough, her mind blurred with the details of what followed as the men manhandled them off her. In the end, she stood before these men, naked and crying. They inspected her and took pictures, making her turn around for every humiliating angle. And they took pleasure in her misery. The more she cried, the more they took photos, the flashes of light blinding her.
In her mind, she screamed, Make it stop. Please make it stop!
But it didn’t. Not for a very long time. And a part of her was deathly afraid that when it did stop, something far worse would replace it.
After her ordeal, her keepers hauled her naked and screaming down the main corridor and threw her into another room. She’d only seen a quick glimpse of the inside when they shoved her in. Once they shut the door and locked it, she fumbled in the dark, crawling on all fours, reaching for the mattress and blanket she had seen.
The room would have been pitch-black but for the sliver of light that seeped in from under the door. She was left alone there for what felt like hours, but even as exhausted as she was, she couldn’t sleep. She lay naked on a thin mattress shoved to a corner, using a shabby blanket to ward off the chill radiating from the concrete floor and brick walls.
And the tears had not stopped. The memory of her degradation played over and over in her head. A lifetime would not be enough for her to forget.
Shaking and unable to get warm, she clutched the blanket to her chest, her feet ice cold. But she kept her eyes on the light under the door, jumping at every noise, no matter how loud. Eventually she heard distant footsteps approaching echoing down the corridor outside her room. Nikki sat up and cowered in the corner, gripping the blanket tighter. She found herself praying they would walk past her door to prey on someone else.
But that wasn’t meant to be. When a shadow eclipsed the light under the door, she heard a key in the lock and knew.
They had come for her again.
CHAPTER 12
Like a painful out-of-body experience, Jessie watched the frail little girl she used to be feel her way through the musty dank basement. The dark chasm never ended in her nightmares. Even without light, she saw it happening again and could do nothing to stop it. The girl’s heartbeat and faint gasps for air matched her own as if they shared one body.
And as before, a deeply rooted futility made her feel listless and spent, nearly robbing her of hope.
Nearly.
In her dream, she headed for a dim stream of light coming from a small chink in the wall, a gap she had dug out with a piece of broken glass until it shattered and cut her fingers. Bright red blood was the only color of her recurring nightmare. Everything else washed to black and white with deepening shadows that threatened to swallow her. The crack to the outside had become her lifeline to a world that had forgotten her, her only source of fresh air—and something more.
Little Jessie peered through the hole from a safe distance. If she got too close to it, the light hurt her eyes, burned them like acid and made them water until she couldn’t see. She had been in the dark far too long.
She remembered another child had seen her. At least, she thought the kid had seen her finger poke through the hole. Had her brief encounter been real or only imagined? She remembered that she tried to call out but her voice came out raspy, from lack of water and not being used in a very long time.
But mostly she was afraid he would hear her. The man had ears that heard secret thoughts. And he had told her before that other little girls would be punished if he caught her being bad. She remembered the screams—heard them still in her dreams. They would start deep in her head and the ear-splitting noise would grip her heart with terror, but the silence that followed made her even more afraid.
Despite her fear, little Jessie risked poking a small finger through the hole she had made. And for a second she dared to smile. The cool air on her skin felt good. And maybe the little girl outside would see her for real this time.
Thump. Thump.
“Oh, no.” She knew that sound…and the crack of the floor above her. She knew the weighty steps were his.
“Oh God, please,” she ventured a prayer no one would hear. Jessie pulled her finger from the hole and cowered into the darkest corner of the dank cellar, making herself small.
“Oh please…please…please.”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Her body trembled, violently. And she rocked at an erratic pace, chewing on her nails until they bled. The man was coming. He had found out her secret.
The little girl outside would never find her now.
Not now. Not ever.
The cold basement swept away, replaced by an inky black memory she never wanted to remember. She heard a little girl’s scream and realized it came from deep in her own throat. Her arms were sluggish and unable to move, as if she were drowning in quicksand. The more she fought, the harder it became for her to breathe at all. Going under for the last time—when her lungs were burning—she finally saw a glimmer of light and focused on it.
She opened her eyes, tearing at her bed sheets, which were drenched in sweat. Gasping for air, she sat up and stared into the dark, her mind still anchored in the past.
“No. Can’t be happening…make it stop.” She sucked air into her lungs and coughed, her throat parched.
When she finally knew where she was, the old terrifying basement morphed into her apartment bedroom. One just as dark as the other, but with her apartment, the old man wasn’t coming for her. He didn’t have his hands on her again. And the little girl who had seen her poke a finger through the hole—that little girl didn’t exactly save her back then, but had played a part in her recovery. Sam had been her friend from that horrible beginning, and she knew the ugliness Jess hid from others. And Sam carried her own memories of how their paths had crossed.
As a kid, Sam had seen her poke her finger out of the dark basement that day, but she didn’t mention it to her parents or anyone else. Later, Sam admitted it struck her as strange, but as a kid she had no idea the old man in that house could have done such a thing. The cops eventually rescued Jess, but not before weeks of abuse continued and another little girl had been taken. It took her a long while to understand why Sam hadn’t acted and done something. Eventually, she reasoned that innocent kids had a hard time fathoming adult sins. But Sam had held onto the guilt of not telling, and as easy as that, the old pervert claimed another victim.
Now, the resurgence of old childhood memories had stirred that damned recurring nightmare—a nasty dream Jess hadn’t had in quite a while. But as images of Sam as a child flashed through her mind, an ugly aspect of the dream remained.
Thud. Thump.
The sound shocked her, holding her firm—mired in the horrific terrors of long ago.
“What the hell?”
Jess listened in the dark, for a repeat of the noise that made her heart lurch. After a second she heard the pounding again, followed by her doorbell.
Damn it! Someone was at her front door. She glanced
at the clock near her bed. Almost five in the morning and her bedroom was black, without a hint of sunrise. Who the hell would be rapping on her door this time of morning?
She flung back the covers and got out of bed, then reached for the Colt Python stuck in her nightstand drawer. She didn’t bother to throw on a robe. Her plaid PJ bottoms and T-shirt would have to do. This didn’t sound like a social call. Gripping her weapon, she headed down the hallway to her door. With her back to a wall, she peeked out a side window to avoid looking through the peephole. If her caller was armed, she didn’t want to get shot through the door. When she got a good look at her early morning caller, she lowered her weapon.
The irony wasn’t missed on her when she saw Sam at her front door, bridging the gap in time from that horrific day so long ago to now. Jess slowed her heart and opened the door with as much composure as she could muster.
“You forget that you’ve got a new key?”
Before Sam walked in, she stooped down to pick something off the landing. Sam might have interrupted her sleep, but at least she came bearing gifts. Jess smelled coffee and pastries coming from an IHOP bag.
“I respect my friendships, unlike some folks I know.” Sam went straight to her kitchen and pulled out two large coffees, handing one to her as she set down her Colt Python on the breakfast bar.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means we’re at a crossroad, my friend. I don’t like being lied to by someone I love like a sister.” Sam rummaged through what was left of Jess’s dishes, plated a couple of cheese Danish, and grabbed napkins. “In case you haven’t noticed, I carry a badge and a gun. I can handle myself and I don’t need you to protect me.”
She brought the pastries and her coffee to the kitchen table and sat, waiting for Jess to join her. When she did, Sam got a second wind.
“Most days, it’s hard to figure out where you end and I begin, we are that much alike. But on other days, I firmly believe you should come with a warning label.” Sam took a sip of coffee and glared over the rim of the cup.
