by Amarie Avant
“How will you support yourself?”
“I knew you’d ask.” She laughed wickedly, and then she silently mouthed, “Are there cameras or recorders in this car?”
He shrugged then held out a hand.
She grabbed it, got out, and they walked toward the perimeter of the war zone. When a cop gave him the eye—indicating that it wasn’t safe for them to leave yet—he put his hand up, signaling that they just needed a little room. They leaned against the wrought iron gate.
“While I sat in that car, Jake passed me this.” She dug her hand into her bra and handed him an envelope.
“Jake?” He cocked an eyebrow.
“Yup, Jake knows how to look out for a girl. He gets around well too.” She shrugged. “He had on a State Police windbreaker.”
Wulf opened the envelope. Out slid a set of keys and a note. His gaze couldn’t take in the words fast enough.
It’s beyond me why I love you. But I know keeping you around won’t end well. Stay as far away from me as possible.
Take these keys to the train station at the edge of town.
–Jake
At the bottom of the note there was an address for a train station and a number to a locker for her to check. “See.” Mary Jane grinned.
“Yes, the undertones imply obsession bordering on murder if you don’t take heed.”
“Oh, shut up, Wulf. Don’t be jealous because Jake is dangerously hot,” she said. He elbowed her softly and she chuckled.
“What are you going to do with this key, Ma—?” He stopped abruptly, not sure what to call her.
“I prefer Mary Jane. And I’m going to get my money.”
“Of all the conclusions, how did you determine there’s money in the locker?”
“Oh, so technical, Wulf. I don’t know. Only money can pacify how I’m feeling right now. If it’s money, I can roam around doing nothing.” She enjoyed his cringing as she spoke. “If it’s not, I think I’ll steal a few wallets on my way down to Mexico. Don’t get your panties in a bunch.”
“I don’t fucking wear panties. What’s your plan, MJ?” He was serious. Mary Jane could be delusional if she wanted, redirecting the craziness of these past few days, but he needed to know everything.
“If Jake left me money, I’m set. On the chance that he didn’t, then call me Sticky Fingers. I’ll nab just enough money to buy a small villa on the beach. Damn it, Wulf, you’re still looking at me with those cop-eyes—extra judgy.”
“Judgy, really? So your plan ends with a small villa on the beach,” he retorted.
“I’ll grow my own fruit and vegetables and live off the land. It’s a simple plan, a simple life.”
“That’s not a plan.” He gave a soft chuckle to her joke, trying to keep it light for the sake of his abdomen.
“It is. Although I don’t know how I’m going to steal a cow when I decide I’m done being a vegetarian.” He followed as she started walking back toward Beasley’s mansion. Her index finger to her lip, she really considered her options. “Wulf, I don’t have a life to return to. I’m sure just improvising will outshine this current crappy life of mine.”
“MJ, you’ve transitioned a good amount in the past seventy-two hours. You went from arguing and talking too much about shooting me. Now, we’re discussing cows and chickens. How is it that you talk so much, but you never really say anything?”
She laughed. “How is it that I know your anal ass didn’t mean to joke, only offer an assessment, but I’m dying right now?”
His lips never cracked a smile. “Joking under the current circumstances?”
“Yes. Go ahead, keep looking at me like I’m crazy. You can go crazy with me. Come with me.”
“I am,” he ordered, grabbing her arm and pulling her toward him. His eyes held a note of pain from the movement, but Wulf didn’t complain.
She gazed into his eyes. He’d travel the world with her. They’d have hot sex on the beach, and in the jungle, and in the sea. If Jake didn’t leave any money, she’d steal and survive like she did as a kid, but that didn’t matter. Wulf would be with her.
“Stop looking at me like that, Mary Jane. You can’t talk me out of going with you to the train station. I’m going, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.” When she pulled away, eyes narrowed, he added, “Why are you so hardheaded? This might be a trick. Agent Juarez indicated that Jake’s the only henchman unaccounted for that Beasley employed from The Petting Zoo.”
She grumbled, trying to hide her disappointment of her assumption that he was going with her for the long haul. No, Wulf had only promised that their last stop together was the train station.
24
Fbi Phoenix Headquarters
Agent Ariel Juarez tacked the last DMV photo onto the board. She stood back in her loafers and looked at all the evidence. Over thirty photos. Some were living victims, others newly deceased, then there were the bones—almost gift wrapped. The ease of it.
Her mind instantly went back to the dumping ground. Luckily, Beasley’s men hadn’t dug a mass grave. Though the area had teemed with forensic anthropologists who’d spent all night collecting skeletal pieces and decaying matter to fit almost ready-made puzzles, this was the extent of the now deceased Beasley’s offerings. The remainder of her job would be difficult.
Ariel’s eyes stopped on a profile photo of the affluent Whitley Rodgers—post mortem. The picture was taken less than a year ago. Whitley’s pearly-white teeth were set in a captivating smile. The whites in her pale-blue eyes was so vastly different from the deceased woman—Sugarland.
Sugarland was plagued with infections. Her body hadn’t accepted the change in lifestyle. Officer Wulf and Jones’ story of Sugarland didn’t fit with Whitley’s profile. The twang in her tone, the manner in which she’d fought for Beasley—all of it was foreign. If DNA hadn’t determined Whitley Rodgers and Sugarland were indeed the same, Ariel wouldn’t have believed it.
But facts were facts.
Whitley Rodgers was an alumna of Harvard Law, attending with her then husband. Whitley had been the brains of Senator Rodgers taking office. Yet, Whitley had become Sugarland. They said she’d been plagued by rage, delirium, and aggression for Beasley. Whitley had technically died in a house fire just shy of a year ago. Her husband had escaped with second-degree burns. Senator Rodgers’ popularity had increased after his heroic speech about attempting to save his wife during the fire. Hmmm.
Ariel looked at African American Tiana Clement, who was known in these parts as a new stripper named Diamond. Tiana’s abduction was the reason for FBI interference with the state police’s investigation. Ariel had been head-agent-in-charge of Tiana’s ransom a few months ago. She’d disappeared at her extravagant “sweet eighteen”—for the well-to-do, every year was marked by an extravagant party. The autopsy placed Tiana’s death at about thirty-six hours ago. The ballistics report indicated a forty-five gun with a hydro-shock bullet was the cause.
Though she didn’t have as rough a transition as Whitley, Tiana had also been reared in an affluent family. Tiana Clement was “princess” of the bayou. Her Creole family had clout. That didn’t help them get their daughter back when she had been kidnapped for millions. Juarez had turned the investigation toward the father’s direction after receiving the call from the Arizona police.
During the ransom, Juarez had a gut feeling that Tiana’s father was involved. It was revealed that Clement had opened a new life insurance policy just months before his child’s abduction. Ariel reviewed the notes of accusations of child sexual abuse. The newspapers and townspeople were divided in their hatred or pity for Mr. Clement and his family.
“It’s creepy, isn’t it?” Agent Robertson asked as he sipped a mug of coffee. Their initial visit to retrieve Tiana Clement had erupted with more signs of kidnappings. Juarez and Robertson were given ultimate lead, with a force of agents under their wings. It had been a long week. He sat the mug on the tabletop and stuffed his hands in his suit pants pockets. Sh
e knew where his eyes were before he even plucked the five-by-seven DMV photo of Julio Perez from the board.
“I’m still wrapping my head around Perez’s situation.”
“By the way, our local authority liaison, who’s on his way to provide the news of the death to Perez’s wife, remembers Mrs. Perez. She came into the police station years ago. The cop said she was so young—a child herself, pregnant and married—when Julio started working for the Overtime Trucking Company. The officer who filed the missing persons report just knew the big guy had run off with another woman.”
Robertson compared Julio Perez’s photo to Hurricane’s photo. The same height and brown complexion, but Julio had a slightly thinner build. The autopsy report indicated that the scars and wounds on his body spanned from fourteen years to present. His brain was abnormally smaller.
This is where Ariel’s religious views parted with the law. She’d never been one to allow her personal beliefs to control her intuition or how she proceeded with an assignment. Brainwashing? This is just out of my realm of understanding, but these women wouldn’t give up their lives for Beasley. Not without coercion.
She yawned. After Mary Jane, Wulf, and Jones’ perspectives and comparable stories, they’d interviewed countless numbers of Beasley's employees. Half indicated brainwashing, and the other half weren’t all there mentally. Julio Perez didn’t have a rap sheet. His DMV record was spotless, a clean background entirely. Sometime within the fourteen years, he’d disappeared only to return as an animal—Hurricane. Mallory Portman-Grienke, aka Mary Jane, said he had a canine mentality.
She looked away from Robertson and toward the board. The remainder of the strippers at The Petting Zoo, those alive and those whose bodies hadn’t been fully decomposed, had all been linked to important and/or affluent persons, either abducted or missing. There were more skeletal remains to assess. Ariel banked on her intuition. The people closest to these women had sentenced them to life in another mindset and in the hands of a monster. Instead of the usual statistic of the murderer being related to the victim, these women had been brainwashed.
Juarez could only assume this was a case of moral sins. A wife of the only doctor in a small town, who’d long ago remarried. A daughter of another rich man had been kidnapped.
But Ariel knew that this was just the tip of the iceberg. An intelligent, money-hungry man like Grienke had an entire organization that she had yet to unearth.
Through all her relationship-mapping of each dead woman, she’d found one woman who didn’t fit in the neat puzzle piece. The forensic pathologist determined the woman’s death was around five months ago. DNA records indicated a female Ukranian woman. A quick background search showed she had come to America to attend a prestigious university and was on her last year in the engineering program.
With a deep sigh and no leads on how the Ukranian had ended up in Arizona, Juarez turned her sights to Bonnie Timms. With dirty-blond hair and innocent eyes, hers was the only other body who had been identified but had yet to be associated with Beasley. Bonnie’s age further separated her from the rest of the deceased victims—a death of approximately a month ago, give or take a few days based on the climate of her grave.
Ariel’s own mother had given money—hand-over-fist—to the thirteen-year-old Bonnie’s evangelistic father over the years. Her mom had asked repeatedly about the kidnapping on many occasions, even though it hadn’t been assigned to Juarez. Bonnie’s abduction had stayed within the state of Texas. Ariel just thought the young girl’s father was a sham. He put to shame real Christians.
“We have a job to do,” Juarez sighed, looking at a sea of faces.
“Once I let my brain wrap around the fact that serial killer Jakob Woods, aka ‘Jake,’ has a heart, I’ll be sure to help you.” Robertson gave a soft chuckle.
“I’m not sure that I follow.” Juarez’s face tilted slightly. She stared intently as he plucked the eight-by-ten of Jake, seemingly lost in the photo.
“I saw him.” Robertson was unable to break eye contact with the photo.
“You saw Jakob Woods—excuse me, Jake, as our Mrs. Mallory Grienke, aka Mary Jane Doe, likes to call him—and you didn’t try to take him down?” she scoffed, finding it rather ridiculous. “This man killed forty-five men, women, and children, and you laid eyes on him?”
“Fifty-four,” Robertson said, still staring at the photo. “His file indicates that he killed fifty-four people. Jakob Woods grew up in a militia household, half Afghan and Somali. His Muslim father smuggled their family into the country when he was still an infant, but that didn’t stop the psychopath from developing a taste for blood, as did his parents. Though, unlike his family, he didn’t have an interest in religious radicalism. Trust me, I read the ‘Jakob Woods’ manual as a rookie. His file was as large as a college textbook. I was young, ambitious, and disgusted, seeing what he’d done to one family. Well, he hasn’t been active in the last seven or eight years.”
“C’mon, Robertson.” Ariel Juarez perched herself on the tabletop and retied her hair into a severe bun. “You couldn’t have seen him.”
“The moment we arrived on the scene, I noticed him.” Robertson grabbed a tuft of his hair in shock. “Woods hasn’t been active in years and-and the man I saw, well, he looked different. He had on a uniform like the rest of the state police. His eyes weren’t so empty. Not in the way Jakob Woods would be, that’s for sure.”
Ariel’s bottom lip dropped. “You’ve got to be kidding me?”
“I wish I was kidding you. I can’t fathom how much of a rookie mistake I just made, it’s like fucking partying with Bundy, Dahmer, and Wuornos and not being aware.” He gasped. Robertson leaned against the table, finally setting the photo down. “Woods went to a cruiser, the one Mary Jane was in, and gave her a blanket.”
The look in both of their eyes indicated that they needed to speak with Mary Jane STAT.
“Robertson, Juarez,” Officer Samuel stated as his head popped into the room. He was a new black guy to the team, but had a wealth of accolades. “Lemuel Fetters, Lyle’s brother, came in. He just told me something that I think you both are gonna want to hear.”
Robertson and Juarez looked at each other. “Which room is he in?”
“Three. The cameras are a go.”
“All right,” Robertson said. “Get ahold of Mrs. Grienke and Officer Wulf. We need them here for more questioning.”
Samuel nodded.
“And can one of you, for the love of God, get into Grienke’s computer system?” she sighed, glancing at the computer team, all MIT grads and fresh-faced. Ariel gritted her teeth, she needed the bastard to survive. Grienke was in a coma after all his surgeries.
Robertson added, “Juarez, once we crack his firewalls, we’ll have concrete evidence instead of hearsay.”
“Yeah, well the ‘hearsay,’ in this instance, is very cohesive.” Ariel huffed at how statistically impossible it was. As the two partners walked, she joked, “Robertson, you’re the good guy today, or I will tell everybody that you laid eyes on one of the world’s most-wanted men and let him walk.”
Robertson released a deep sigh and opened the door to the room. He stepped in after she did. Ariel took the lead and made introductions.
“Lemuel Fetters, we’ve been told that you have a story for us.”
“Do I? That's the understatement of the century. I’ma tell you a story my brother told me. I thought Lyle was crazy, but seems he can’t be if Hurricane could go and rip Beasley up like I heard he’d done.”
“And what story is that?” Juarez asked.
“Beasley and some guy named Peter–whatever, they brainwashed women. I was gon’ buy my mom some of Peter’s face cream one Christmas on account that Lyle said it had to work, since these broads had gone all loyal to Beasley and all, but the shit was too damn expensive.”
“Tell me more about the brainwashing.” Robertson steered the conversation back.
“Started about fifteen years ago. Lyle would t
ell me every time some chick went missing. Not just any runaway or good-for-nothing women, but these were powerhouses. A woman from one of those cold countries, who’d invented this gadget about a half year ago, she went missing a month before the gadget started showin’ up on commercials. Guess what? Her college roommate patented the idea. I thought Lyle was lying, but after I seen a commercial for the doohickey, I’m like maybe Lyle is on to something.”
“Do you know the woman’s name?” Juarez asked. Could he be referring to the Ukranian grad student that was found at the dumping site? She was still wearing a sweater from a prestigious university.
“She had a hard name to pronounce. Ya—Yoolo . . .”
Yoloslav? Juarez crossed her fingers and kept quiet. She didn’t want to make Lemuel susceptible to interviewing biases by stating the name.
“Yoslo somethin’! I don’t know. Anyway, every time Lyle tells me stories, he comes home with cash for days, while he brags about other important women and daughters of sick fucks who owned this, that, and the other shit. The last girl they got, Mary Jane . . . he didn’t know how, but she was related to Peter. That brainiac who grew up here and hit the ground running after high school often came home, ever so often. Peter and Beasley were never friends growing up, but let Beasley tell you, the man made him richer than all his females. Lyle says Peter rarely dropped in, just to teach Lyle how to use some doohickey and boss Beasley around. But a while ago, Peter came around crying like a bitch.”
Robertson interjected, “Tell us more about this return.”
“Lyle said, Peter wasn’t his usual flashy self. Just cryin’, saying he just couldn’t kill this girl. Peter wanted to save her from some sort of cage, then take her home as his wife.”
“Was it his wife, Mallory Grienke?”
“I don’t know, but he said he loved her. He just wanted them to start fresh. Lyle said, he wanted her to stop cuttin’ up.”
“Can you give us an estimate of when this happened? A week, a couple of months?”
