by T. R. Ragan
“I don’t know any Isabella. Please. Leave me alone. I said I was sorry.” His head fell, chin to chest.
“You’re good at this, aren’t you, Uncle Theo? You’ve been at this game for a long time. Sexual predators know how to groom and manipulate people. It’s what they do.”
He didn’t look at her. Uncle Theo had spent his entire life coercing victims. He was an actor. Oscar material. She left him standing in the middle of the room. The kitchen was easy enough to find. She began opening drawers and digging into his things. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but she felt good about going through his belongings and causing him grief.
She found an old black-and-white photo of Uncle Theo with Sawyer, Aria, and Harper at a barbecue at her parents’ house. Uncle Theo was all smiles. Sawyer took a close look at Harper. She was probably thirteen at the time, lean and long with freckles across her nose. Her jawline looked rigid, her eyes cold. Her disdain for the picture-taker was clear.
Aria’s arm was draped around Sawyer. They looked neither happy nor sad.
Three young girls, and yet only one seemed to know what the future held. Sawyer ripped the photo to shreds and continued on.
“Please don’t do this,” he said. “I told you I was sorry, and I meant it.”
She stopped and turned his way. “What about your friends? The men you sold me to that first night? Who were they?”
He shook his head. “I don’t remember.”
“I want names,” Sawyer said. “Give me a name and I’ll leave.”
Uncle Theo’s weakness emboldened her. When she was small, he’d made her cower, and now she would do the same to him, show him what it felt like to have no choice, no power. She entered the only bedroom in the house, opening drawers, rummaging through his things.
“How much money did you make that night?” she asked him as she tossed a pile of shirts out of her way. “Or any night, for that matter,” she went on. “Aria told me they were called rape fantasy parties.” She looked at him. “It has a nice ring to it. How did you advertise?”
He fidgeted, looked around, anywhere but at Sawyer.
“Look at me! How do you expect to ever garner forgiveness if you can’t even look me in the eyes?”
His head came up. His watery eyes fixated on hers.
“How much money did you make?” She stepped closer to him, heat warming her face, making her head throb. “Tell me the name of one of your fucking friends!”
“They weren’t my friends,” he shouted back at her. “None of it was my idea.”
He wasn’t making sense. “What?”
He shook his head and said nothing.
“You said it wasn’t your idea. I want to know whose idea it was to sell me and my sister to your friends?”
He was crying now, sobbing uncontrollably.
As far as Sawyer was concerned, he wasn’t human. “It must suck to lose everything. You were living the high life, and you were so damn cocky, but then you got caught and look where you ended up? In a dump.” She cocked her head. “Did you ever stop to think that someday one of your victims, like, say, me—your own niece—might come to visit you when you were old and useless, beaten down by your own depravity? Did you ever think about that?”
He said nothing.
She opened the closet door.
“Please don’t,” he begged.
“Oh, why not?” She tucked her phone into her waistband. “I’m getting warm, aren’t I?” There were piles of worn shoes on the closet floor, a paper bag filled with aged Playboy magazines, and two plastic bins. She reached for the bins and slid them out. The top one was filled with odds and ends: cooking utensils, a dented tin pan, paintbrushes, a hammer and nails, a measuring tape, wood glue. She moved the bin aside.
Uncle Theo rushed forward when she pulled the lid off the bottom bin.
Stunned by what she saw, Sawyer began sifting through the pile of photos, dozens of them. Little girls in compromising positions, aged two to twelve was her guess, all of them naked and scared. Her heart thudded dully in her chest. “You’re disgusting. I was right about you. Your depraved soul has no limits.”
She focused on one particular photo, picked it up, and stared at the little girl, who was looking into the lens of the camera. Long-buried emotions flooded through Sawyer and exploded in fury. Uncontrollable tremors racked her body. Her head pounded.
Facing her uncle again, she put the photo up close to his face. “Are you going to search for this little girl, Uncle Theo, and ask for her forgiveness? Maybe when you find her, you can tell her all about your therapy and how you found peace in the solitude of your cell. I’m sure she’ll understand.”
He grabbed the photo, put it in the bin, and placed the lid on tight. When he was done, he stood silently, rubbing his hands over his face as if trying to scrub off all the layers of immorality.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” she asked. “You were the one prowling around the cottage last night?”
He looked at her then, his eyes suddenly round and bright, as if he was scared for both of them. “It wasn’t me. I swear it. If you were smart, you would pack up and leave River Rock for good and never return.” He shook his head violently, as if possessed. “It wasn’t me,” he said again. “The devil is close. You better run.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
It was noon on Sunday by the time Malice was able to get back to the warehouse off Power Inn Road. Getting Otto Radley set up inside hadn’t been easy, even with four of them helping. They had cleaned up the warehouse weeks ago, thinking they would use the building for Brad. They had brought two cots, camping chairs, Coleman lanterns, and a mini camp stove to make coffee or tea.
Home away from home.
She parked next to the cargo van, grabbed the soft-pack cooler from the passenger seat, climbed out, and took a look around. The closest building was miles away. But still, they were taking a big risk. It had taken months for The Crew to decide where they would keep the men they brought to justice. They had considered the Sacramento rail yard, where lots of trains were rusting away, but then the city finally decided to do something about the eyesore. And besides, much of the rail yard was guarded.
This abandoned warehouse was by far their best bet. But after the long search, she couldn’t drive by a shipyard container or a dumpster without thinking someone might be trapped inside.
Malice walked around the side of the building to the back, where they had found a door that wasn’t locked. The front of the building was secure with metal bars.
How would her sisters feel if they knew what she was up to? Shocked? Amused? Angry? She couldn’t think about that now. “One predator at a time,” she said under her breath before knocking on the metal door.
She heard the chain they had fastened around the handles being lifted before Lily opened the door. Five foot six, blue eyes and golden hair, she was wearing a mask and a black wig. The outdoor adventure shop where she worked sold gear for every occasion. She grew up hunting with her dad and had provided them with the coffee maker, camping chairs, and a rifle.
Malice had never shot a gun before, and she wasn’t about to start now. Although hunting was definitely a thing where she grew up, guns had never been in her life. They scared her. Last night, every member of The Crew except Cleo had been shown how to load and unload the weapon. Once loaded, Lily easily swung the barrel back into place, cocked the hammer, and pretended to fire. Every time the sequence was repeated, Malice had gritted her teeth and held her breath.
Guns had never been part of their plan.
But neither had cutting off a man’s penis.
“What have you got there?” Psycho asked excitedly as Malice stepped inside.
Malice handed her the soft cooler. “There are sandwiches, dried fruit, pretzels, nuts.”
Psycho smiled. “Great.”
Malice looked around. Their prisoner was in the far corner, which was good because she didn’t want to have to look at him too closely when she was her
e. They had fastened Otto’s arms and legs to old metal piping that might have once been used for bringing in water. “Can he hear us?”
“Just keep your voice down.” Psycho shrugged. “We’re using aliases, and there’s not much we can do about it since I want him right where I can see him at all times.”
“Hey,” Malice said to Bug. “Has anyone heard from Cleo?”
“I did,” Lily said. “Her arm is sprained, not broken. She’s wearing a sling and taking the rest of the day off.”
Bug was sitting in one of the camping chairs. She had her computer on her lap. “I’m going to take off in a few minutes,” she said. “But it looks like our man Brad is denying that he’s the guy in the videos we left for authorities to find.”
“That’s no surprise,” Psycho said.
“No,” Bug said, “but what’s weird is that people on social media seem to be siding with him.”
“That’s bullshit,” Lily said. “I thought you posted the videos. Can’t people see what he’s doing to these women—torturing and raping them for days and getting away with it? Why would anyone side with a monster like that?”
“Because like most predators,” Malice said, “he knows how to charm people. I saw him this morning on TV. His story has already gone nationwide. He’s doing interviews right out of his hospital room.”
Bug nodded in agreement. “He’s convinced a large group of followers that his profile in sections of the video has been photoshopped, and he’s been set up by an angry mob of females who weren’t happy after he dumped them.”
“He’s been at this for a while,” Malice went on. “Brad knows what he’s doing. He used to focus on one woman, pouring on the charm, grooming, and manipulating until he had her right where he wanted her. He’s still doing the same thing, but with the public.”
Lily turned to Bug. “I want all those videos, even mine. Two can play at this game.”
“It gets worse,” Bug said.
“What do you mean?” Lily asked.
“All the favorable press toward Brad has given our waiter friend the confidence to come forward and tell his story. They have some blurry footage of Cleo in her blonde wig inside the restaurant, but that’s it. Even so, the waiter told investigators and reporters that she seemed to be having the time of her life with Brad.”
“I’m going to kill him,” Psycho said, pacing the room. “I warned the little asshole, and now he’s going to pay.”
Malice held up a hand. “One predator at a time. Take a breath. Calm yourself. We need you here.”
“I should have known it was you,” Otto said from the corner of the room. “The wig can’t hide those scars you wear so well. I remember every slice I made with the blade.”
Bug looked that way. They all did. One eye was uncovered. “I thought we covered his eyes,” Bug said.
“You did,” Otto said. He made a slurping noise. “A little saliva goes a long way. I’ll get out of these chains too.” His laugh came out as a bark. “Did you get my letters, Christina?”
They all looked at Psycho, who’d visibly stiffened at his words. Nobody had known Psycho’s birth name until that moment. Psycho had never mentioned getting any letters from Otto, but judging by her body language, she had received correspondence from the sicko while he was in prison.
“I knew you would come for me,” he said. “I just didn’t know you would come so soon. I taught you well.”
“I should have killed you the second you walked past me in the park.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Psycho walked up to him and kicked him hard in the gut, making him grunt. Kneeling down, she reached out and used a box cutter to slice through the side of his face, starting at the hairline and ending an inch past his ear.
Malice was about to tell her to stop, but Lily raised a hand and shook her head at Malice.
Otto hardly flinched when Psycho cut him. Maybe because he’d been ready for it. Blood ran down his face and dripped onto his pants.
“That felt good,” Otto said. “Aren’t you going lick it up like I used to do?”
Psycho spit in his face, found a roll of duct tape, and wrapped it around his head and face, covering everything except his nose and mouth.
Malice didn’t want to watch. She pulled off her wig and mask and busied herself with helping Bug gather her things so she could walk her to her car.
“He knows Psycho’s identity,” Malice told Bug as they walked outside. “We’re fucked. Completely and royally fucked.”
“We’ll figure something out.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, but you need to calm down. Whatever happens in the end, nobody is going to believe that monster over the woman he kept chained and locked underground.”
“What was the point of all that planning, then?” She threw her arms wide. “Slicing and dicing him was never discussed.”
Bug found her key and opened the trunk of her car, where she carefully placed her things. “I guess you could think of all that planning as an outline, a first draft. The end product rarely resembles the original idea.”
The thing about revenge, Malice thought, was that it all sounded so glorious—making someone pay for what they did. They were going to teach these guys a lesson, scare them, make them sweat. But cutting him open? “So you’re good with what you saw happening in there?”
Bug slammed the trunk closed. “I guess I don’t see it like you do. For three years—” She stopped midsentence as if to collect herself and started over. “For three years Psycho was kept underground, in the middle of a wooded area where nobody could find her. Psycho is obviously more fucked up than any of us imagined. But if that had been me alone in the dark for one thousand and ninety-five days, being sliced and diced and fucked eight ways to Sunday, I would be leaning toward crazy too.”
Malice watched Bug open her car door, then pause and turn back toward her. “My advice to you,” Bug said, “is to stop looking at everything as black or white. There is no right and wrong with what we’re doing. I went into this whole thing knowing that it was dangerous and illegal.”
Malice said nothing.
Bug wasn’t finished. “For me, revenge is about retaliation and not about restoring justice. For years, I trivialized what happened to me. It was the only way I could try to forget about it and move on. But that’s bullshit. Those football players knew exactly what they were doing when they spiked my drink and carried me behind the school. I had no say. And I had no control.” She swallowed. “I want them to feel what I felt. I want them to pay for what they did to me.”
Malice watched Bug climb into the car and drive away, gravel popping beneath the tires.
Bug was right. She needed to calm down and get her head on straight, remember why she’d gotten involved with The Crew in the first place.
Every sexual predator out there needed to pay for what they had done, including her father.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
After leaving her uncle’s house, Sawyer drove to the area of the woods where Isabella Estrada had been found. She turned off the engine and stared straight ahead. Yellow crime scene tape still encircled the area around the tree.
She stayed seated in the car and thought about Uncle Theo, wondered if he could have been responsible for Isabella’s murder. She despised the man, and yet she didn’t think he was capable of murder. It was an instinctive feeling based on her past knowledge and experience of her uncle. Although she’d gone to his house with fire and conviction, she hadn’t expected to find anything. The pictures had been a surprise. And yet they shouldn’t have been. Maybe she was in the wrong line of work, after all. Or maybe she was blind to his faults because he was a family member. Her therapist had once told her that abuse and betrayal by someone you once trusted was often too much for the soul to bear, and so you tended to ignore it or pretend it didn’t happen. Just because she didn’t think he murdered Isabella, didn’t mean she didn’t think he should be locked up.
; Sawyer pulled out her notebook and pen and wrote at the top of the first page: Who killed Isabella? She jotted down names: Uncle Theo, Jonathan Lane, a member of the Estrada family, a stranger. She put a star next to Jonathan Lane. He seemed like the obvious suspect. And he was definitely violent.
If the same person who had killed Peggy Myers and Avery James killed Isabella Estrada, it had to be someone who had lived in River Rock all these years. Or maybe they had moved away and come back.
She snorted. Everyone in River Rock could be a potential killer. For now, she would concentrate on people who lived here in town.
Many murderers, especially serial killers, had mental challenges. They had been wrongly treated by their parents or bullied in school. For that reason alone, she added Aspen Burke and Melanie Quinn to the list. As she stared at the names, her chest tightened.
Tapping her pen to her mouth, she continued to stare at the names, repeating them in her head as she thought about each person. She drew a line across Uncle Theo’s name. He was a shell of the man he used to be. He didn’t have the physical or the mental strength to commit murder. She crossed off Aspen’s name, and Melanie’s too. If she was going to keep them on the list, she might as well add Old Lady McGrady, Erika, and her husband, Bob, to the list too.
Frustrated, she ripped the list of suspects out of her notepad, crumpled it, and tossed it to the floor.
She needed to be smart. And patient. She needed to interview more people, talk to everyone in the whole damn town if she had to. Bob came to mind. She definitely wanted to have a chat with him. Maybe she would see if Melanie wanted to come along for the ride.
Tomorrow she hoped to have a chat with Chief Schneider, see if he could give her any details about the case. She also planned to fill out a report against Jonathan Lane. She was about to climb out of her car to have a look around when her cell phone buzzed. It was Aria. “Hey there,” Sawyer said.
“Oh, my God! You’re okay!”
It took Sawyer a second to remember leaving Aria a text message before she knocked on Uncle Theo’s door.
