by Pamela Clare
Thompson blinked, dropped. “You are a cop.”
“Used to be DEA. Now I’m just a pissed-off brother.” Keeping one eye on Thompson, Marc lifted the porcelain top off the tank and found what he’d known he’d find. “Look at this—a bag of white stuff! Can I borrow your little knife?”
He bent down, grabbed the switchblade from Donny’s sweaty fist, and sliced the plastic, spilling what was probably an ounce of heroin carefully into the toilet.
Donny’s face turned red, a gratifying look of horror in his eyes. “Christ! Oh, man! Do you know how much that’s worth? Oh, God!”
“You want to dive in after it? Be my guest.” Fighting the urge to beat the shit out of Thompson, Marc flushed and watched the drug that had enslaved his sister disappear in a swirl of milky white. “It’s time you and I had a heart-to-heart, Donny.”
He left the apartment after grilling Thompson at gunpoint for an hour—and after dumping a nickel bag of weed and a few grams of crack down the crapper. He knew it wouldn’t put Thompson out of business, but it would slow him down.
Out on the streets, a cold wind blew in from the mountains, sucking the breath from Marc’s lungs, calming some of his rage. Above, stars winked in a black velvet sky, dimmed by the lights of the city. A waxing quarter moon rode high, surrounded by a glowing halo of ice crystals. Farther to the west, Orion strode toward the mountains.
Megan was out there, somewhere.
And something told him her time was running out.
“COME ON, BABE. You know how it goes.”
Panic turning her stomach, Char bent over the smelly janitor’s sink, biting her cheeks to keep herself from screaming. Even if someone heard, no one would believe her. She was nothing but an inmate to most of them, nothing but a drug addict, a thief, a liar.
In the end, she’d only suffer more.
She heard him unzip his pants, heard the plastic condom wrapper tear, every muscle in her body clenching against the violation she knew was coming.
“You should thank me for wearing these, you know. Not every man would. At least I haven’t knocked you up.” He jerked down her pants and panties, kicked her feet apart, and nudged himself into her with a groan.
I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!
She screamed the words in her mind, repeating them each time he rammed himself into her, wishing to God he’d just hurry up and finish. She should have stayed in her cell instead of going to the stupid Narcotics Anonymous meeting. She should have stuck close to the NA leader. She should have found some way of getting back to the unit without walking past him.
Tears burned her eyes, the steel rim of the sink biting into her forearms, wooden mop handles only inches from her face, the reek of ammonia almost choking her.
He gave a deep groan, and it was over.
“You needed it as much as I did.” He patted her bare butt, withdrew, tossed the condom into a nearby trash can. “Cover up.”
She pulled up her underwear and pants, tears streaming down her cheeks.
He grasped her chin, forced her to look at him. “Oh, come on! It wasn’t that bad. I didn’t hurt you. You’ve got nothing better to do. Besides, I’ve got something for you.”
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a little green balloon that was knotted to hold what looked like a white, powdery substance.
She stared at it, her heart pounding.
“Coke. Your favorite.”
She shook her head, her blood tingling at the very mention of cocaine. “You’re trying to get me in trouble.”
“You just got me off. I figure I owe you one.” He held out his open palm, the balloon sitting in the middle. “Besides, what’s the worst that will happen to you if you’re busted? A week in lockdown?”
But her heart was beating so hard she wasn’t listening. There was nothing like the shimmering high of cocaine. It took away all her doubts and worries, made her fearless, turned the world into a place that was perfect and bright and beautiful. And even as she reminded herself she’d been clean for almost a year, she felt herself reaching for it.
“You’ll have to swallow it,” he said. “They’re doing a shakedown this afternoon.”
Her pulse drumming, she took it, popped it into her mouth, gagging as the foul-tasting rubber dragged against her throat and wrestled its way into her stomach.
He smiled. “Now you’re one shit away from the best high of your life.”
It was only after she was back in her cell that she knew something was wrong. Euphoria surged like a tide of molten sugar through her veins.
“No!”
Realizing the balloon had broken, she fought to get up, tried to call for help, knowing she’d die if she didn’t get to the infirmary right away. But this wasn’t the heart-pounding, lightning rush of cocaine. It was too sweet, too pure, too seductive.
Heroin.
She struggled to rise, tried to shout for the guards, but found herself staring at the same patch of ceiling, silence coming from her mouth instead of screams.
Help me, someone please! I don’t want to die!
Then her fear was gone, and there was only bliss—sickly, suffocating bliss.
CHAPTER 9
SOPHIE DRAGGED HERSELF out of bed and into work early Monday morning, hoping to do some digging on Hunt and Megan before the I-Team meeting. She planned to read through the old news articles about Hunt’s arrest and trial, as well as the original police reports. She also wanted to file an open-records request with Denver Juvenile asking for all incident reports pertaining to sexual abuse during the period of Megan’s detention. If she could piece all of that together, she’d have some idea whether the things Hunt had told her at the cabin were true.
Sparing a quick hello for Natalie and Kat, she booted up her computer and immediately checked CNN to see whether Hunt had been found.
You’re being ridiculous, Alton. You checked before you left home twenty minutes ago.
Yes, but that was twenty minutes ago. The entire world could change in twenty minutes.
She clicked on the “Colorado Manhunt” link to find…nothing.
No updates. No new news. Nada.
She took a deep breath, her sense of relief at war with the growing fear that he might have frozen to death in the snow.
From across the room, Matt called out to her, “Hey, Alton, good to have you back.”
She answered without really hearing him. “Hi, Matt.”
She quickly sorted through a week’s worth of e-mail. Most were old messages about Hunt’s escape sent out by the DOC’s Public Information Office to their general media Listserve. It felt strange to read about her ordeal written in the controlled language of the public relations trade, to see the most terrifying moments of her life reduced to the sterile term incident.
“Inmate takes reporter hostage, escapes Colorado State Penitentiary.”
“Department of Corrections investigates recent incident.”
“Inmate still at large.”
But there were also e-mails, cards, and letters from concerned readers, community leaders, and colleagues, some touching, some sweet, some funny.
“I’m a retired U.S. Marine,” wrote one man. “You’ve just broadened my understanding of the word courage.”
“We learned about hypothermia in Cub Scouts,” wrote a boy named Bobby, age nine. “Always wear a hat is what I learned. I have a extra hat if you need one.”
“Just between you and me, they should have given that bastard the death penalty when they had the chance,” wrote Christine, the mayor’s executive assistant.
She sifted through her messages—including a very thoughtful message from Ken Harburg—and had just begun to write her open-records request for Denver Juvenile when Tom called them into the I-Team meeting.
“Welcome back, Alton.” He looked down the length of the conference room table at her, his gaze passing over the yellowed bruise on her cheek before settling on her eyes. “We missed your contributions.”
Fo
r Tom, it was tantamount to a group hug.
“Thanks.” Sophie smiled, remembering the bouquet. “And thanks for the flowers, too. I especially liked the card.”
Matt frowned. “I suppose this means I have to return the AP style guide I borrowed.”
“You stole my style guide?” Sophie glared at him in pretend anger.
Tom pointed at Matt with his pencil. “Since you’re so industrious, Harker, you go first.”
Matt sat up straighter, smoothed his rumpled tie. “City Councilman Richard Pierce was busted last night when a bouncer caught him snorting coke in a downtown club. The arresting officer claims that Pierce tried to bribe him. I’m guessing fifteen inches.”
“Well, his political career is over.” Tom turned to Kat. “James, what’s on your plate?”
“Representative of several Plains nations—Lakota, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Kiowa—are staging a protest at the Department of Wildlife today over the missing eagle parts. They’re demanding that DOW fire the program director. I should be able to do it in ten.”
Tom turned to Joaquin. “Think you can get something for the front page out of that?”
Joaquin grinned. “Absolutely.”
“Alton?”
Sophie glanced down at her notes. “I’ve got a couple of things. There’s another rally at the Capitol to protest prison expansion. That should be no more than four to six. Also, an inmate was found dead in her cell of a heroin overdose. She was apparently acting as a mule for someone, and the balloon broke. I’ve got an autopsy report, so I’m guessing a solid ten inches.”
Tom swiveled his chair, looked at Natalie. “Benoit?”
“I thought I’d do an update on the search for Marc Hunter.” Natalie looked over at Sophie, her aqua eyes filled with concern. “I got a tip this morning that a correctional officer named Gil Cormack has admitted to calling you on Hunter’s behalf to lure you down there. He also admits he placed Hunter in handcuffs instead of full restraints at Hunter’s request, but he claims he had no idea Hunter was planning to take you hostage or to escape. Of course, DOC fired him. I thought I’d put together a reaction story, see what the talking heads have to say about that bit of information.”
Tom nodded. “Let’s get to work.”
MARC WATCHED THE sleek silver Lexus SUV turn into the driveway and disappear into the spacious three-car garage. “It’s about damned time.”
He’d been waiting all morning. Where in the hell could they have been early on a Monday? The tennis club? Couples’ Botox? He waited five more minutes, then stepped out of the shadows where he’d been hiding and walked up the long sidewalk to the front door, catching his reflection in the sparkling clean glass of their windows.
Short hair. Ray-Bans. Black suit. Tie. Tan trench coat. He looked like a damned spook or some kind of missionary—which was perfect.
He rang the bell, waited.
A tall man with a white crew cut and a ruddy complexion opened the door. “Yes?”
“Mr. Rawlings?” Marc held out his hand.
Mr. Rawlings shook it. “Yes, sir. Can I help you?”
“I’m Detective Mike Chambers with the Denver Police Department.” He held out a fake business card he’d ordered off the Internet. “I’m here to speak with you about your daughter, Megan Rawlings.”
Rawlings took the card, glanced down at it, frowned. “Come in.”
Soon Marc was seated on a beige-colored sofa in the sitting room, drinking tea from gold-trimmed china. The place looked like a Christian bookstore—various bibles and interpretations of the Bible on the bookshelves, a cross on one wall, a set of cheesy porcelain praying hands on another. Mr. and Mrs. Rawlings, it seemed, wore Jesus on their sleeves.
But there was no sign that they’d ever raised a daughter.
No family portraits. No school pictures. No snapshots.
“We’ve already shared all we know with investigators, Detective Chambers.” Mrs. Rawlings, a slender, well-dressed woman, sat stiff-backed in an armchair, her manicured hands folded in her lap, her lips pressed into a frown. “I’m afraid we have nothing new to offer.”
Marc’s dislike for her was instant—and strong. He buried his contempt and gave her his most reassuring smile. “When a case gets old or goes cold, sometimes we reassign it. My job is to find what others might have missed. I realize you’ve already answered these questions, but I need to start at the beginning.”
Mr. and Mrs. Rawlings glanced at one another, then Mr. Rawlings nodded.
“Go ahead, detective.”
Marc ran through his questions one by one, taking notes on a pad of paper he’d picked up at the convenience store. Had they heard from Megan? Did they have any idea where she might have gone? Had she maintained contact with any friends from her school years? Did they have any family friends or relatives who might have taken her in? Were they aware of anyplace she’d liked to spend time as a teenager, anyplace she might think of as her own special place?
In each instance the answer was no.
No, they hadn’t had any contact with Megan since they’d kicked her out on her eighteenth birthday. No, they had no idea where she might have gone. No, she’d had no close friends as far as they knew. No, she couldn’t be staying with anyone in the family because everyone knew they’d renounced her. No, they couldn’t think of a single place she might be.
With each answer, it became more apparent to Marc that Mr. and Mrs. Rawlings didn’t give a damn about their adopted daughter. Megan had told Marc this herself during the few months she’d lived with him seven years ago, but he’d thought she was exaggerating. Now he could see she had downplayed the problem.
“You have to understand, Detective Chambers.” Mrs. Rawlings leaned forward, lowered her voice. “Megan isn’t really our daughter. We adopted her when she was four years old after Social Services took her away from her drug-addicted prostitute mother.”
Marc felt blood rush to his brain, a blistering surge of rage. He fought to keep his expression—and his voice—impassive. “According to Megan’s file, her mother was an alcoholic and a drug user, but not a prostitute.”
Mrs. Rawlings gave a delicate and dismissive wave of her wrist. “She had two children by different fathers, and she was never married. We might not call it that today, but that’s what it is when a woman is promiscuous.”
“She wasn’t a fit mother,” Mr. Rawlings said with a decisive nod.
“We did our best to raise Megan. We took her away from poverty, gave her a home, offered her firm guidance, raised her in our faith, and she rejected all of it. I warned her many times that she was in danger of following her mother’s path in sin, and I was right.”
What about love, bitch? At least her real mother loved her.
Marc looked down to hide the anger he knew was in his eyes—and discovered he was gripping his pen so hard that his knuckles were white. He forced himself to relax, looked up again. “That must have been very disappointing.”
Both Mr. and Mrs. Rawlings nodded.
“If we had adopted her earlier, things might have turned out differently,” Mr. Rawlings said. “As it was, she never seemed to appreciate what we’d done for her. She ran away when she was fourteen and was arrested for shoplifting. She even managed to get into trouble in juvenile detention.”
Marc pinned Mr. Rawlings with his gaze. “I heard she was raped.”
From the uncomfortable looks on both their faces, they’d heard this, too.
Mrs. Rawlings cleared her throat, obviously embarrassed. “I’m not sure where you got your information, detective, but Megan was never raped. She and a few of the other delinquent girls used their bodies to win favors from a couple of the guards, then blamed the guards. That’s what the investigators concluded.”
Marc’s pulse picked up another notch, a mix of outrage and interest. He hadn’t known there’d been other victims—or an official investigation. “Do you have the report from that investigation?”
Mr. and Mrs. Rawlings exchange
d a puzzled glance.
Marc realized his request must seem strange. He worked for the police department, after all. He was supposed to have all of this information at his fingertips. “I’m sure I could find it if I wanted to spend a day digging through the archives, but if you have a copy somewhere handy, it would save me both time and red tape. This isn’t just about Megan, after all. It’s about Emily, too—an innocent seven-month-old baby. Your granddaughter.”
Mrs. Rawlings wrinkled her nose. “She’s not our granddaughter! We didn’t know a thing about her until that reporter contacted us and tried to interview us for her awful articles.”
Mr. Rawlings seemed to consider the request. “I’m not sure what I did with that report. I might have kept it somewhere, or I might have tossed it out with the rest of her things.”
Not only did they not care about Megan, they had purged her from their lives.
Marc stood, knowing it was time to leave. He no longer trusted himself to be anywhere near these two. “I appreciate your time, Mr. and Mrs. Rawlings. I’m sorry if my visit reopened old wounds today. I can show myself out.”
But whatever Mrs. Rawlings lacked in warmth and motherly love she made up for in perfunctory manners. “Nonsense! We’ll see you to the door.”
Marc followed them, taking the time to suss out their security system—a simple open-circuit system with the control box mounted a few feet down the main hallway. Cheap and easy to neutralize should he feel the need to return. “Thanks again,” he said when he reached the front door. “I’m sorry to have disturbed your morning.”
“Another day and you’d have missed us,” Mr. Rawlings opened the door for him. “I don’t tolerate this cold weather very well. We’re leaving for our house in Florida tomorrow morning and won’t be back until mid-April.”
This was interesting news—and it gave Marc a few ideas.
“Is there any chance that Megan might have gone there?”
