Face of Fury (A Zoe Prime Mystery--Book 5)

by Blake Pierce

  He looked up at the building in front of them, angling his neck to get a good view through the car window. “But there’s clearly a party going on inside,” he said. Faint music was pumping out from the frat house, reaching them even inside the car—some kind of insipid pop song. There was a couple walking hand in hand up to the doors even as they watched, carrying red Solo cups, empty by the look of them. Maybe going in to get a top-up. “We should at least wait until the morning.”

  “Why?” Zoe demanded. “What difference does it make?”

  “There will be a lot of people in there,” Flynn said. “Probably doing things they’re not supposed to be doing. What are we going to do, arrest the entire party?”

  “If we have to,” Zoe said stubbornly. “We stay on track. Look at the clues we need to link this together. Starting with the… whatever they call it. Whoever is in charge.”

  “The president?”

  “The president of the fraternity.” Zoe looked up at the house one last time herself and took a deep breath. She tried not to think about what it would be like in there. The noise. The number of people. The confusion. “We are here now. We go in.”

  She reached for the handle of her door and got out of the car, pleased at least to see that Flynn followed suit. It had taken pulling rank on him to at last get him to follow her orders, but now he was in line.

  “I still think this is a bad idea,” Flynn muttered, falling behind Zoe as she strode toward the doors.

  He didn’t have to think it was a good idea. He just had to do as he was told. Zoe took one last breath of the cold night air and reached for the doors, ready to burst in and fight through the numbers to get their man.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The music was like a real assault on Zoe’s senses, battering her from every side. It was turned up so loud that it didn’t just obliterate her hearing: she could feel it pulsing through the floor and the walls when she touched them, throbbing all the way through her body, the heavy bassline the only thing she could make out properly.

  The numbers in her head kept up a running tally of the beats, the musical signature, the throbbing, counting it out over and over again. It was dark inside the first room, the lights turned all the way down and small lanterns and fairy lights instead illuminating the space with a strange purplish light, picking out glowing spots on the people’s skin and clothes. UV, Zoe dimly realized, watching a young man walk by in a white T-shirt that seemed almost bioluminescent.

  And it wasn’t just the music. People were shouting to one another, college kids with chaotic markings painted across their faces and on bare chests and arms, dancing in a way that made the glowing spots of light seem to float against darkness, yelling to be heard.

  Something touched Zoe’s shoulder and she almost shot up into the air; then something brushed her ear, and she recognized Agent Flynn’s voice dimly through the chaos. “Let’s split up to find the pres faster. You stay down here, I’ll go upstairs.”

  She didn’t have time to argue, even to respond in any way. Flynn melted away from her into the dim light, disappearing into a mess of numbers dancing and fluctuating all around her. It was wrong—all wrong. Her normal pin-sharp accuracy was diluted by the light, confusing her senses, making her recalculate and recalibrate constantly. A painted line made her estimate a man’s height at five foot three; he turned around and she saw the darkness of his hair floating far above the line, realized it was painted mid-chest and not across his shoulders, had to adjust her calculations. Someone was shouting, words she couldn’t make out, only a staccato rhythm of syllables.

  Zoe gasped for air, remembering belatedly that she had to breathe. The music pulsed through her, forcing her to count the beats as it changed and sped up. Some of the nearby kids cheered loudly and began to jump up and down in time to the music. Liquid spilled to the floor from a jumping cup, too dimly lit for Zoe to calculate it properly. Numbers flew confusedly around her everywhere, as she tried to figure out the remaining volume in the cup and subtract from the likely amount at full capacity, trying to count sips and gulps, to understand steps and moves.

  This was a bad idea. She shouldn’t have risked coming inside. Zoe had always known she was bad with parties, but this was far too much. The stimuli was not just everywhere, but it was confused and twisted, leaving her gasping and groping ahead for something solid to cling onto. Even the walls glowed that sickly color under the blacklight bulbs, making her feel like the whole world was turning upside down above her head. Her limbs were light, too light, like she could float away.

  Zoe realized she had been moving forward all this time, unconsciously walking to try and find a way out, a quieter area where she could recover her thoughts. She groped inside her pocket for something that would help, her head spinning as a group of two boys—three boys—four boys walked past her, seeming to loom out of the darkness like neon-painted monsters, laughing raucously.

  A door opened in front of her and as she stepped through, Zoe recognized the room as a kitchen. It had to be. There were bottles of something lined up on the counter—onetwothreefourfivesix—twelve—eighteen—all of them containing different volumes of remaining liquor, her eyes sizing them up and seeing the measurements on each one.

  Analyzing them would tell the story of which kind of liquor was most popular at a frat party, but Zoe didn’t care. She needed the numbers to stop. Needed them to be numb. A flash of something came into her head: meeting John in a bar with the music too loud, tossing back a drink, numbing it out until she could concentrate on his conversation. Numb. That was what she needed to be.

  She needed to shut the numbers out right now, otherwise she had no idea how she was going to get back out of here. Zoe reached for one of the bottles, not really caring which, and lifted it directly to her mouth. She began to drinking, throwing it back, swallowing great mouthfuls in gulps to get it into her system quicker. She needed it.

  Zoe slammed the bottle back down onto the counter, almost missing it. Her depth perception was off somehow. How could it be off? She had excellent depth perception. It was easy when you could see the distances between things as if they were written on a piece of paper in front of you.

  Zoe pulled her hand out of her pocket and looked down at it. She was holding something shiny. What was that? Her pills. Dr. Monk’s pills.

  And it slowly dawned on her that she’d been popping those antidepressants all day, trying to get a handle on the numbers. Like a video, she could see it in her mind: a repeated motif, her hand going to the blister pack and then to her mouth, every time she felt stressed out. How many had she taken? And Dr. Monk had cautioned her—three only, with meals, and no alcohol.

  Zoe had screwed up. She tried to put the pack back into her pocket and missed three times before finally getting it in. She grasped hold of the countertop, hoping she wouldn’t fall. Suddenly, getting out of there and shutting down the numbers were no longer priorities.

  Now, Zoe just hoped she could remain upright for a little bit longer.

  ***

  Flynn thrust the door aside, muttering a quick mental prayer that he wasn’t about to witness something as mind-searing as what had been going on in the last room. He shouldn’t have volunteered to take the upstairs. He should have realized that there would be things going on in the bedrooms.

  There was a kid in this one, thankfully fully dressed, sitting with a girl in a very short skirt astride his lap. He was touching her nose and saying something when Flynn opened the door, and they both turned their heads with telltale sluggishness to look at him.

  “Hey, man,” the kid said. “Ocupado.”

  “Are you the president of Sigma Pi?” Flynn demanded. He really hoped this was the right kid. He really, really hoped the last people he’d asked weren’t sending him on a wild goose chase.

  “Yeah, but you can thank me for the party later,” the kid said, waving an uncoordinated hand at the door. “Come on, man. Leave us… levus ’lone.”

  “All right
, kid,” Flynn said, reaching for his badge to flip it open. “I’m with the FBI. I have some questions I’d like to ask you. Your friend had better make herself scarce.”

  The girl, who was at least in her right mind enough to gasp, jump up, and hike down her skirt, hurried past Flynn without a backwards glance. Her face had the telltale flush of drunkenness just like the president’s, but he was clearly much worse off. Instead of getting up, he slowly toppled backwards, until he was lying on his back on the bed with his feet still on the floor.

  “Sit up, kid,” Flynn said, walking over to him and snapping his fingers above the guy’s face. “Are you listening? Sit up.”

  The kid mumbled something unintelligible. In the back of his mind, Flynn knew he was only a couple of years older than this house president—maybe even less, if the kid had done a gap year or stayed on for a longer period of study. But as far as Flynn saw it, he was an adult, and this president was still acting like a kid. Irresponsible. Taking things too far. Not staying in control.

  “Christ.” Flynn watched as the president seemed about to go to sleep, then turned and spewed right over the side of the bed. He had to jump backwards to avoid getting any of it on his brand new dress shoes, or the bottom of his pressed suit. With a grimace and a disgusted noise that came purely from his heart, Flynn walked back out of the room and into the hall.

  “You,” he said, collaring a kid going by who looked less drunk. “Are you a member of this frat?”

  “Uh, yes sir,” the kid shouted over the music. So, he was sober enough to recognize that Flynn wasn’t just another partygoer.

  “Look after your president,” Flynn said, shoving him gently toward the door. “He needs some help.”

  Flynn shook his head, standing in the corridor and listening to the party. Loud shouts and screams, pumping music, everyone drunk and probably high as well—it was a typical college party, and just like he had assumed out there, it meant that they weren’t going to get anything useful out of anyone tonight. Even if there had been anything to discover, showing up here would have blown their advantage of surprise, and now the killer would know they were onto him.

  Not that Flynn believed for a second that the killer was here. Frat boys could be assholes, sure, and they were more interested in partying and meeting girls than anything else in life, but that was exactly the point. They weren’t killers. And even if they were killers, they normally went after their rich parents or accidentally suffocated a drunk girl during group sex—they didn’t go strangling middle-aged women in remote areas.

  This was a dead end, and it always had been. Flynn had known that from the moment they parked outside. Actually, he’d known it since the moment Agent Prime had brought up her hare-brained pi theory, and he was done with trying to follow it up.

  He picked his way back down the stairs, dodging a girl who was swaying toward the wall as she stepped upwards, screeching something about needing to pee. Charming. He stepped outside to get a little more quiet and pulled out his phone, dialing his partner’s number quickly.

  The line rang and rang. Flynn glanced back at the house, his irritation building. Prime couldn’t possibly be with the president—he’d found him upstairs. What was she doing? Why wasn’t she answering her phone?

  Cursing under his breath as the call went through to voicemail, Flynn stalked back through the doors and into the noise of the party, sweeping his eyes quickly over the attendees in the hall. Everywhere he looked, he could see violations that he knew he ought to alert someone to. If not taking care of it himself, at least calling the sheriff. Half of these people had to be underage, and there were at least two instances of public nudity that he was sure had to come with some kind of charge.

  But he pressed on. This wasn’t the time to start putting underage drinkers in cuffs. Not that he would have had enough pairs of cuffs on him if he wanted to. He doubted the entire sheriff’s department had enough. Maybe he would have a word with campus security on the way out, but he wouldn’t be at all surprised if they didn’t take it seriously.

  Striding through the first room, he scanned unsuccessfully for Prime’s short boyish hair and her black clothing. It was dark here, and he had to squint into a few corners before being satisfied enough to move on. This was some kind of game room, although the games being played in it at the moment mostly consisted of things including the word “pong.” No sign of his partner, again.

  From the game room, Flynn emerged into a calmer space—a kitchen, where the music was more muted at least, and where the low-light bulbs were the normal kind instead of blacklight. There was a large kitchen island in the center of the room, loaded with liquor bottles. Yup, Flynn thought to himself, there goes another thing I should be arresting someone over, if I wasn’t looking for an actual murderer.

  He was about to move on when a clunking noise from the other side of the island, loud enough to actually be heard over the music, caught his attention. Flynn began to move around the island, but he didn’t even get all the way before an elbow suddenly appeared, latching onto the counter to pull up the weight of a body.

  A very familiar one, unfortunately. Flynn sighed. It was Agent Prime—clutching an empty bottle of liquor, which was unsurprising considering that the bottom had been smashed away, and struggling to remain upright.

  “Agent?” he barked, shouting loud over the music. “What’s going on?”

  Prime made some kind of muttered comment, inaudible over the music. Flynn stepped toward her, grabbing her by the elbow. She looked like she was going to fall again. This close, he could smell that her breath reeked of liquor.

  He didn’t need her to answer the question. He could see what was going on. She’d pulled him into a frat party under the pretense of looking for a murder suspect, only to grab whatever she could find in the kitchen and get herself drunk as hell.

  It was fairly impressive that she’d managed it so fast, actually. She swayed away from his contact with her elbow, nearly falling back against the counter until he jerked her upright again. Her eyes seemed unfocused, and Flynn saw right away that there was no point in trying to communicate with her any further. He just had to get her out of there before some college kid had a nice recording of a drunk FBI agent to put on Instagram.

  “All right, come on,” he muttered, more to gear himself up than anything else. He shuffled forward and managed to somehow loop Agent Prime’s arm around his shoulders, even though it meant he had to lean awkwardly forward—she was shorter than him, after all. Then he began to lead her out, attempting to avoid getting stuck behind any slow-moving groups of students.

  Prime’s head kept lolling around like she was having trouble staying conscious, and her feet seemed to slip and stagger with every step. A couple of times they almost tripped into various obstacles along the way—a sofa, a footstool, a discarded can lying on the floor.

  “Come on, Prime, help me out,” Flynn grimaced, adjusting his grip on her arm as she staggered once again, almost taking him down with her. “Just put one foot in front of the other.”

  “Floor’s movin’,” Prime murmured, her voice slurred and drowsy, as they made it out into the shock of the cold night air.

  Flynn managed to pull her over to the car and get the door open before pushing her into the passenger seat. He got her seatbelt buckled and slammed the door shut, stopping to rub his forehead for a moment. Great first assignment to have. Either his new partner was a real lightweight, or she was some kind of severe alcoholic who had the ability to get completely trashed within the space of five minutes.

  Or, alternatively, it was a college party, and she’d been given something that wasn’t just liquor.

  The thought had Flynn’s back straightening with alarm, but he shook his head at himself. Either way, she’d still willingly drunk it, which meant he was more likely to believe she really had managed to get that drunk in such a short space of time. He crossed around the front of the car and got behind the wheel, glancing over to see that Agent Prime wa
s already fast asleep with her head pressed against the window.

  “Jesus Christ,” Flynn muttered to himself, starting the engine with a hard flick of his wrist. He paused a moment to take a deep breath before setting off. Prime’s whack-a-mole theories were bad enough, but now he had to deal with a drinking problem, too?

  As soon as they closed the case and got back to Washington, he told himself, he’d request a transfer. Then everything would be fine. He drove a little smoother with this promise rattling around in his head, taking the edge off the anger he felt toward Prime. But they were still going to have to have a conversation in the morning.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The first thing Zoe was aware of was a pounding in her head. That was long before she dared to open her eyes, and it was definitely too loud for her to notice, at first, anything else about her physical situation.

  When she did finally crack her eyes open, Zoe winced at the light coming in around the curtains. Damn motels—they were always inadequate. Zoe had been waking with the light of the dawn for a while now, but she hadn’t also been running all over the place trying to solve a crime—more like napping with her cats in the afternoon. And her head hadn’t hurt quite so bad before.

  With a groan, she began to move, lifting her head to first look down at herself. What had happened last night? She was still wearing her clothes, she realized—everything down to her shoes, still firmly tied on her feet. Come to think of it, she didn’t remember getting into bed. She didn’t even remember driving back to the motel room. They’d been coming back from the engineer’s house, and then…?

  Zoe looked up, far too quickly, the movement rattling her brain inside her skull. She winced, then froze: what was that, on the sofa? Squinting, she realized that she was looking at the prone body of a man, lying across the thin sofa in the room. Absurdly, his feet were dangling off the edge of the cushions, far too long to fit on it properly.