He was physically exhausted, sexually unsatisfied, and emotionally…well, he wasn’t sure where he was emotionally. He didn’t want to dig too deep there.
Summer was driving him insane, running hot one moment, cold the next. Now that he wanted to hold on to her a little while longer, she kept slipping farther away. He realized it was part of her appeal. She was elusive, perhaps deliberately so, and he was infatuated.
If he wasn’t careful, she’d be leading him around by his cock.
Although he was dead on his feet, he stopped by Carly’s room to check on her before he went to bed. She was sound asleep, as sweet and innocent as an angel, warm and safe in the security of James’ arms.
Rage and indignation burned through him. Ben couldn’t believe the little son of a bitch would dare to get horizontal with his daughter in his own house. In her bedroom, no less, right down the hall from Ben’s. Then he saw that while Carly was under the covers, James was on top of them, fully dressed. He was sleeping soundly, his arm across her waist, shoes hanging off the edge of the bed.
It was time for a man-to-man talk, Ben decided with a grimace, kicking James’ foot.
James woke with a start, tightening his arm around Carly’s waist protectively. Noticing Ben’s presence, he narrowed his sleepy eyes. Of course he was expecting a fight.
With movements that showed utter exhaustion and a reluctant acceptance of defeat, he rose to his feet, preparing to do battle.
Or, at the very least, to be tossed out on his ear.
Downstairs, on the way to the front door, Ben detained him. “Wait,” he said, putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder. When the corner of James’ lip curled up in a feral, visceral response, Ben removed his hand. He’d never known a person more aversive to touch.
Except maybe Summer. But they were working the kinks out of that phobia pretty nicely, he had to admit.
He gestured toward the living room couch. “You can sleep here if you want. I can’t have you in Carly’s room.”
James’ expression revealed suspicion. “Why would you let me sleep here?”
Ben took a pillow and blanket out of the closet. “Kid, you look about to fall over. I don’t know what you’ve been doing, or why, but I feel sorry for you.”
James deliberated, looking from the door to the plush space in front of the fire.
“Trouble at home?” Ben asked.
James scowled at the question, shuffling his feet instead of answering.
Ben was fairly certain James had been knocked around at home, and that didn’t sit well with him. It didn’t bode well for his daughter, either. “I’m concerned for Carly. Can you understand why?”
“Sure. You think I’m like my dad. That I’m looking for someone smaller and weaker to pound on.”
“No,” Ben said. With Carly, James was like a dog guarding a bone. “I’m worried about other stuff.”
James didn’t need to hear more. “We’re not having sex,” he said.
Ben couldn’t help but feel relieved. But how long would that last? “She’s only sixteen,” he lamented, for even the most heartfelt intentions of a teenaged boy were tenuous, at best.
“I know,” James said, frowning. “I’m not even interested in that.”
“You’re not?”
“Okay, I am,” James clarified, “but I’m not going to do anything about it. I know she’s too good for me.” His blue eyes darkened with anger. “Isn’t that what you’re trying to tell me? That I’m just some dirty wharf rat with a drunk asshole for a dad and a mom who didn’t care enough to stick around?” He glanced down at his hands. They were riddled with scars and calluses, much more like a man’s than a boy’s. “I know I’m not fit to touch her. These hands are only good for pulling in nets.” He clenched them into fists. “And fending off blows.”
Ben wasn’t about to disagree with James’ estimation of himself, even though his conscience told him he should. “Where’s your mom?”
To his amazement, tears filled James’ eyes. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “She left a long time ago. I haven’t heard from her.”
“Okay,” Ben said, totally uncomfortable handling a boy’s emotions. Carly was often tearful, and never ashamed to use it to her advantage. This was uncharted territory.
He searched for common ground. “Are you hungry?”
“Starving,” James admitted.
Ben smiled. “Want a sandwich?”
Staff Sergeant Paula DeGrassi was at the crime scene well before Sonny arrived. She stood on a concrete walkway near the base of a man-made jetty that skirted Coronado Bay, the security lighting raining down on her silvery blond hair and gunmetal gray suit.
DeGrassi didn’t look happy to see her.
According to Grant, she was a territorial ball-buster who ate FBI agents for breakfast. Although Sonny was here to supervise the retrieval, not make friends, she smoothed one hand down the front of her jacket and pasted a cool smile on her face as she approached.
“Staff Sergeant DeGrassi? I’m Special Agent Vasquez. We spoke on the phone.”
DeGrassi accepted her handshake with a grunt of acknowledgment and got down to business. “We have a young, dark-haired female who appears to have been in the water for several days,” she said, turning toward a small man in a yellow jacket that said COUNTY MEDICAL EXAMINER. “I think we all know she wasn’t dumped here, so let’s not waste any more time trying to preserve the integrity of the scene.”
The ME nodded his agreement.
“Dr. Ramashad,” he said, sticking out his hand to greet Sonny. “If we wait much longer, the tide will take her back out.”
While Sonny and DeGrassi watched from a distance, the ME and two CSIs performed the unwieldy task of removing the body from the jagged rocks lining the side of the jetty. The tide was coming in, making their job more difficult, sloshing against the rocks and sending up spouts of seawater with each approaching wave.
At 2:00 A.M., the air was still and damp, a moderate 60 degrees. Sonny wasn’t cold in her jeans and jacket, and even with the lack of wind and excess moisture, her eyes were bone-dry, unblinking despite her fatigue.
The night had been the most surreal of her life. She’d met her miserable excuse for a father and knocked him unconscious. Found out she had two half-brothers she’d never known about. And almost slept with Ben.
Did oral sex count? Sonny pictured herself in front of the board at Internal Affairs, taking the Bill Clinton defense.
Pushing that thought aside, she tried to focus on the details of the case, considering the ways this crime scene differed from the others. First and foremost, none of the previous victims had been submerged. Except Olivia Fortune.
Sonny had read the police reports and seen the photos. Emergency personnel had found an unintelligible Ben with his wife’s dead body. Both were soaked to the skin. He later admitted to removing her from the tub in an attempt to revive her.
Staring at the jumble of rocks pointing out into the midnight blue Pacific, Sonny wondered if tossing Lisette’s body in the ocean, or dropping Olivia’s into a tub of bathwater, were attempts at washing away evidence.
It was also inconceivable that Lisette had swept into Arlen Matthews’ gill net by circumstance. Either Arlen had killed Lisette and done a poor job of getting rid of her body, or someone wanted to make it appear that way. Sonny hated to cut the disgusting piece of slime a break, but she had to admit a well-known abuser of prostitutes made a convenient fall guy.
Of course, dismissing Arlen as the culprit hardly exonerated Ben.
After the body on the rocks had been loaded into the back of the crime lab van, Sonny asked for a closer look.
The space was tight in the van but the lighting was better. Dr. Ramashad unzipped the cadaver bag, exposing what once had been a face.
It hardly resembled the pictures Sonny had seen of Lisette Bruebaker. She’d been a very pretty girl with overstyled hair, too much eye makeup, and a full-lipped pout. In summer a body that had spent
almost a week in the water wouldn’t have much skin, but at this time of year, the effects of decomposition were less pronounced.
The cold water hadn’t saved her from scavengers, however, and they always started with the soft tissues of the face.
“Let me see her neck,” she requested, her voice grim.
The girl’s long hair was tangled over her throat, strangling her for eternity. Dr. Ramashad lifted it away carefully with a pair of silver-handled forceps.
The deep black crease he exposed was much easier to recognize than her face, and there was nothing tentative about it. If anything, it was overkill. There was no doubt in Sonny’s mind now that the victim was Lisette Bruebaker and the perpetrator was the SoCal Strangler.
Feeling numb, she followed Sergeant DeGrassi downtown and sat in on the autopsy, her mind reeling. When the girl’s hair was matched to the sample Sonny had collected from Ben’s bed, he would be taken in for questioning. Perhaps even booked for murder.
Sonny would be under obligation to arrest the only man she’d ever been in danger of falling in love with. She was powerless to help him, cursed by her inability to trust, a victim of her own investigative fervor.
Deciding not to go down without a fight, Sonny went back to her apartment and took out her laptop, running another, more detailed search on Arlen Matthews. Incredibly, the guy had no official criminal record. In fact, he seemed to have dropped out of thin air sometime in the mid-eighties.
Before then, he’d had no driver’s license, no credit report, no history.
The door was locked, but he didn’t have any trouble getting in. He could be stealthy when he chose to be, slipping in and out of most places undetected.
The cheap hardware on the back door at the Matthews residence was no match for him. Because he wanted to make it look like an inside job, he left the lock intact, and would have to remember to reengage it after he left.
Matthews was a mean, canny son of a bitch, quick to anger and tough as an old boot. He was also a pass-out drunk who wouldn’t be able to defend himself, much less fight back, so the intruder went to the boy’s room first.
It was empty.
An unexpected complication, but no reason to turn around and go home. Unconcerned with getting caught, the man clicked on the bedroom light and studied the contents of the room. The paint was cracked, the ceiling had water damage, and the furniture was atrocious. Despite the dismal poverty reflected here and throughout the house, this room was spotless.
The bed was neatly made, boasting crisp sheets and a scratchy-looking wool blanket. There was a small dresser against one wall with a jagged shard of mirror above it. The hardwood floor was scuffed but clean. In a milk crate next to the dresser, there was a stack of workbooks and a jar filled with stubby pencils.
“What the fuck is this?” he mused aloud. “David Copperfield’s room?”
Shaking his head, he clicked off the light and moved on, finding Arlen Matthews’ personal quarters with no problem. The sour smell hit him two steps before he entered.
Arlen’s sense of hygiene left a lot to be desired. There were scummy clothes and dirty dishes everywhere. Sticky-paged porn mags littered the stained carpet. The man behind the mess was facedown on the bed, snoring. A trickle of blood ran from his hairline into his ear.
Another complication. Wasn’t life full of them?
Killing a man wasn’t going to be any fun, especially a stinking drunk with a head injury. All right, so it wasn’t going to be a challenge, and it wasn’t going to be executed according to his plan, but it was going to be easy.
The boy’s disappearance, however, created a problem. James was a sneaky little bastard, always moving silently across the beach, drifting from one rock formation to another like a fucking sand ghost. Arlen used his son to procure women. And why not? The kid was beautiful. A sweet, sinewy bit of flesh.
He’d seen James from afar many times, and although he’d been careful, the boy may have seen him, too. After too many close encounters, he’d hunted elsewhere, preferring a more upscale neighborhood and a younger, classier target than what Arlen could afford. Since then their paths had rarely crossed.
Still, James Matthews was a loose end, one he couldn’t wait to tie into a neat bow.
Sighing, he turned his attention to the foul-smelling beast on the bed. He could put the gun in Arlen’s hand, raise it to his temple, and pull the trigger, but what if forensics proved he’d never regained consciousness before death?
Modern science could be such a nuisance.
With his signature attention to detail, he brought the slim bracelet out of his pocket and held it in his gloved hands, watching diamonds twinkle in the meager light. The piece was his favorite and he hated to part with it. It didn’t fit his wrist, but he liked to feel the cool metal against his skin and remember his first kill.
Tears sprang into his eyes, because he wanted to bring the shimmering band to his lips one last time and knew he couldn’t. Blinking them away, he laid the bracelet on top of an open magazine, finding it fitting that the spread-eagled sexpot on the page resembled Olivia.
She was a slut, but most women were. Only he saw their true natures. Only he had the power to free their flesh.
Men like Arlen Matthews gave him a bad name. By raping women indiscriminately and then allowing them to live, Matthews created a cycle of abuse. The whores Matthews brutalized sometimes became predators themselves. They became the kind of women who would tie up a young boy and toy with him. The same kind of women who had gravitated to the coked-out sex parties at his porn-queen mother’s house.
The abused became the abusers, having found a preteen plaything.
He shut the past out of his mind and focused on Matthews, hating him for his lack of foresight, his failure to plan, and his general disorganization. But most of all, he hated him for letting his victims live.
Feeling melancholy, he gathered up a dingy pillow and shoved it under Arlen Matthews’ face, gripping the back of his neck when his body began to convulse, holding him down and forever ending his miserable, misogynistic existence.
Anita Vasquez had been dreaming about Mexico. Though originally from Guatemala, her family had moved to Arizona when she was ten, and they often crossed the border to visit relatives in the Sonora Desert. Some of her most cherished memories were of that strange and barren land. Like Ocotillo Wells, the Sonora was endless and arid, isolated in its beauty, with dusty sand dunes the color of her daughter’s hair.
When she looked into her child’s eyes for the first time, she saw that lonely, desolate place, underneath a sky so immense she’d reached up to touch it, again and again, yearning toward something unattainable until her slender arms ached.
That was exactly how she felt about Sonny.
A thousand times, she’d reached out to her. And come up empty, every time. It was her own fault, she knew, drawing the blankets around her. She had never been good with women. Girls.
She’d had four older sisters growing up, all dark and heavy-featured, none pretty and delicate, like her. Their jealousy had made her turn away from other females, even her own mother, who was too worn and old from having seven children before the age of thirty to give her youngest daughter any attention.
Anita got all the attention she needed from men. A sway of her hips, and they were hers. Men were not always gentle, but they were easy. If they had quick fists, and so many of them did, they were also quick to apologize, to soothe, to kiss away the pain.
Men were easy. Daughters, complicated.
Giving up on sleep, Anita got out of bed and put on a pot of coffee. She stood in the kitchen, looking out the window, struck by the memory of her daughter at seven years old, pulling on her mother’s skirts. Sonny had been wearing a blue cotton dress, one of the few she owned, and it showed her scabby knees. A tortoiseshell clip was stuck in her light hair, hair so thick and unruly that Anita fought a battle with it on a daily basis, and lost.
“I don’t believe in God, Mama
,” she said.
Anita whirled around, wiping her wet hands on her apron and stepping away from the sink. “Ave Maria Purísima,” she cried, making the sign of the cross and dragging her daughter to kneel before La Virgen. “Pray, mija. Pray for forgiveness, right now.”
Sonny crossed her arms over her chest defiantly. “No. Why should I pray to something I don’t believe in?”
Her jaw dropped. “You will go to hell if you don’t. You will be condemned to perdición, para siempre.”
Sonny shrugged. “I don’t believe in hell. Can I go play instead?”
Perhaps she should have slapped her daughter’s impertinent face. More often than not, Anita had shaken her head, sighed, and let Sonny do as she wished. For all her strangeness, the girl was intelligent, and she never got into trouble at school like her brother.
For Rigo, Anita had made allowances. But fighting was one thing, sacrilege another. She made Sonny kneel in front of the statue for three hours.
When Anita was convinced she’d taught her daughter a lesson, she went to her and helped her up. Sonny could no longer move her legs, having been still for so long in that cramped position. Tears had poured from her strange, ice-colored eyes, but she hadn’t made a sound as Anita rubbed the feeling back into her knees.
“Why, mija? Why didn’t you tell me you were in pain?”
“I was waiting, Mama.”
“For what?”
“I was praying, like you said. For God to take the pain away.”
Anita hugged her close. “Oh, baby, I’m sorry. God does not always answer our prayers.”
“I know, Mama.”
Anita was surprised. “Do you believe in Him again?” Hope surged within her. She’d never felt this close to a common understanding between them.
“Can you hate something you don’t believe in?” her daughter asked, after a moment of intense contemplation.
“No,” she replied cautiously.
Sonny’s pale eyes met hers. “Then I believe.”
Sonny was surprised to find her mother already awake. Not only awake, but weeping into a cup of coffee, her heavy bathrobe belted neatly at her slim waist.
Crash Into Me Page 17
