“Not always, but you don’t need to pretend to be a dad to make a kid feel special and appreciated, which is what most needy kids want, regardless of their particular issue.”
That was true enough. Zach had done that for her when he was barely older than she. “Once you make contact, then what?”
“We chat them up for a while and wait for them to offer to meet in real life.”
“Why?”
“We don’t want to be accused of entrapment. These days we take everything we get to the police. It’s hard to prosecute these guys if proper procedure isn’t followed. In the beginning, all we were interested in doing was outing the bastards, putting their names and addresses out there so that parents and kids could watch out for them. As you can imagine, the cops weren’t too thrilled with us.”
“They threatened to close you down or kick your ass every other week.”
Those were the first words Roberta had spoken since Eric talked about their sister. The smile on her face was still a bit watery, but she seemed to be getting herself together.
Eric laughed. “Yeah, well, we’ve gotten a lot more vigilant than vigilante lately. In fact we’ve been trying to get special victims interested in doing a sting on this site but haven’t worked it out yet. Thanks to our inauspicious beginnings we always encounter a little resistance at first. Maybe now they’ll be more amenable.” Eric turned toward the computer, his fingers poised over the keys. “What’s your guy’s screen name? If he’s got an account we can check him out.”
Alex shrugged. “I have no idea. As far as we know, he doesn’t own a computer.”
Eric tilted his head to one side considering that. “That might make things more difficult. What’s his real name?”
“Walter Thorpe.”
Eric typed the name into the computer, pressed the ENTER key, and waited. “Nothing. It was a long shot anyway.”
“Why is that?”
“If you were going online to seduce underage girls, would you give your real name?”
“I guess not.” And guessing what screen name he might have used was tantamount to guessing how many grains of sand there were on Orchard Beach. Then she remembered the printout on the Amazons she’d given to Zach. Choosing the Greek rather than the Roman version of the name, she suggested, “Try Hercules.”
As they reached the parking lot on Crosby Avenue adjacent to the Bronx coroner’s office, Zach turned to Smitty. “That was a colossal waste of time.” The autopsy hadn’t shown them anything except what they’d expected. The girl’s tox screen had come back clean, her body showed no signs of drug use or the type of wear you’d expect to see with a prostitute. Her murder had occurred in the same way as the others. The only thing they’d accomplished was to ask the coroner to try to identify more closely what sort of ligature had been used to strangle the victims. That could have been done on the phone.
Smitty shot him a droll look. “Someone’s missing their nap time.”
Zach did feel beat. He’d had only two hours of fitful sleep the night before and his ass, as well as the rest of him, was dragging. “I think I’m going to head home for a couple hours.”
“Same here.” Smitty checked his watch. Zach would guess it was around three thirty. “Want to meet back around seven? We still have those computers to go through.”
Zach nodded. For a change he’d get to see his niece for more than five minutes. While he’d vowed to make time for her this weekend, that didn’t look like it was going to happen. Since he and Smitty had arrived in separate vehicles, Zach went to his car and drove home.
Pulling up in front, Zach noticed not a light was on that he could see. Then again, it was the middle of the afternoon. Brilliant sunshine was the only illumination needed. At least, that’s what he thought. He was glad to see Stevie was behaving herself. That is, if she was home, as she was supposed to be.
Once he got closer to the house, he knew Stevie was home. Rap music blared loud enough for him to hear it through the closed door. He unlocked the door and entered, tossing his keys on the occasional table in the front hall. “Stevie,” he called, but wasn’t surprised when he didn’t get an answer. Who could hear him over that racket?
He unbuttoned his jacket as he walked farther into the house to stand under the archway that opened onto the living room. The first thing he needed to do was turn off that noise emanating from the stereo in the corner. He took a step forward, then noticed movement coming from the couch in front of him. But it wasn’t Stevie he saw.
Zach closed the distance to the couch, grabbed the kid by the back of his clothes, and hauled him off the sofa, off Stevie. Zach pushed him away. The kid flailed, trying to right himself. Zach didn’t care if he fell on his ass. His concern was with his niece. “Stevie,” he shouted, over the sound of the music.
She sat up, clutching her school sweater together with one hand. In the other she held the remote for the stereo that she used to turn it off. Her hair was a wild mess and her eyes were bright. She blinked as if she couldn’t quite fathom what was going on. “Uncle Zach?” What are you doing here?”
Zach inhaled, trying to calm his temper. It wouldn’t do him any good to throttle his own brother’s oldest child or beat the crap out of some mother’s son, but at the moment that’s what he wanted to do. “I would ask what’s going on here if it weren’t so damn obvious.”
Stevie opened her mouth, but it was the boy who spoke. “It was my fault, sir. Stephanie told me not to come in, but I wanted to make sure she was all right.”
Slowly Zach turned his head in the boy’s direction. The kid looked scared but resolute. Zach had to admit the kid earned points for taking responsibility for his actions, but Zach couldn’t deal with that now.
In the most controlled voice he could muster, he said, “Go home, while you still have everything you came in with.”
The boy didn’t exactly bolt, but he didn’t waste any time getting to the front door. As he left, he called to Stevie, “See you tomorrow.”
After the boy left, slamming the front door behind him, Zach sat in the opposite corner of the sofa from his niece, leaned his head against the back of the sofa, and closed his eyes, wishing he knew what to say to her. He’d never try to lecture her on the exercise of her own sexuality. He had no moral high ground to stand on in that regard. But he’d promised her parents to keep her out of trouble and she’d promised him she wouldn’t entertain boys in his house. Neither one of them had really kept their word.
“You didn’t have to throw Rashad out,” Stevie said in a quiet voice. “He’d only been here for ten minutes.”
Zach turned his head to face his niece and popped one eye open. “What would have been going on after twenty minutes?” He turned away from her and sat up. So he wasn’t as lecture-free as he’d thought.
“Nothing. He was about to leave when you came in. Come on, Uncle Zach, he called you ‘sir’ and he calls me ‘Stephanie.’ He says Stevie sounds like a boy’s name.”
The way she said that did make him sound like a bit of a straight arrow. If Zach hadn’t walked in on them, he might have believed that. “What did you say to that?”
“I said, yeah, like a boy that gets beat up after school every day.”
Despite himself, Zach laughed. He draped his arm around his niece’s shoulders and pulled her closer for a hug. “Do you remember telling me you weren’t going to be any trouble?”
“Yeah, and you believed it.”
He supposed he had that coming. “Look, kiddo, what’s really going on between you and your mom?”
Stevie pushed away from him to sit up. “You’d have to ask her. That’s her thing. She was just acting so mopey, you know. Every time I asked her about it she’d say nothing.”
Knowing how relentless Stevie was, that could mean every fifteen minutes. “You didn’t believe her?”
Stevie shook her head. “The next thing I knew I got sent here.”
That wasn’t how Adam laid it out. He’d made it soun
d as if Stevie wanted to get away rather than the other way around. Of the two of them, Zach believed Stevie since she seemed genuinely distressed, while Adam had seemed merely preoccupied. Whichever way the truth lay, he needed to talk with Adam. Thanks to this case, he couldn’t give Stevie the time or attention she needed.
He unwound his arm from around Stevie’s shoulders. “I’m going to lie down for a couple of minutes and then I have to head back out. Can I trust you to behave yourself?”
Stevie nodded. “I’ve got a ton of homework.”
Not completely mollified, Zach went up to his bedroom, stripped off his suit, and lay down on his bed. He didn’t really expect to get any sleep, but a little rest would suit him fine. He closed his eyes, but his mind was too active to even accomplish that. Despite everything else he had going on, his thoughts turned to Alex. He’d called her earlier, figuring she’d want to know about Freddy Morales’s being their copycat. His call had gone directly to her voice mail. He hadn’t bothered to leave a message. He’d tried her office next, but had been told she’d gone home. She hadn’t called him back yet, which didn’t worry him, but he’d prefer she got the word from him rather than from the nightly news. Maybe he should stop by her place on his way back in to tell her.
Zach sighed. Who the hell was he kidding? He wanted to see her. The fact that she didn’t want to see him didn’t change that. She’d told him before that she didn’t hate him. She’d told him last night that she knew he didn’t want to hurt her. Yet she still kept up a wall between them. Didn’t she want anything from him? Not even a better explanation of his behavior than the one he’d given her. Maybe that’s what bothered him most: She seemed content to put the past behind her while it still haunted him.
But what did he really want from her? Despite the attraction, he didn’t expect her to fall in his arms. For one thing, Alex was too sensible for that; for another, he’d killed any tender feelings she might have had for him. Maybe he just wanted closure, a definitive end where there had been none before.
He hated that word: closure. Who had even heard of it ten years ago? But now everyone seemed to need it for every event, large or minor, in their lives. He hated most of all needing it for himself.
Regardless, lying there was a waste of time. He got up, pulled on a T-shirt and a pair of jeans, and went back to work. His own needs would have to wait.
Everything he told her was a lie. From his profession to his age to his name to where he was born. All of it. The biggest lie he’d told her was that he was harmless, since right now half the cops in the city were looking for him. For the moment, at least, she had nothing to worry about from him. But later ...
Lying had never been a problem for him. He’d been spoon-fed them as most children ate cornflakes. Almost from the moment of his birth his whole life had been one lie or another. She had seen to that. Even now, he couldn’t think of her by her given name, not even in his own head. She had given him life, and it had been the only positive thing she’d ever done for him. The rest of it was full of untruths and beatings and other horrors most people couldn’t imagine much less survive. That knowledge fueled his sense of pride and superiority. He’d survived with his intelligence, his drive, his sense of self intact, while The Mirror, well, cracked.
He almost laughed at his own humor. He held back knowing that he might wake her. He wanted to go on watching her sleep—vulnerable, unprotected. She was strong, independent, sure of herself. He liked that, especially since he knew he could, little by little, break her of that strength until all she thought about was him and how to please him. One day, he would, but not now.
Part of him wished that day would never come. She was beginning to love him. He could see it in the way she looked at him, the way she touched him. He was the first one in a long time. He knew because he’d hurt her the first time he’d taken her. Not much, just enough so he noticed. Then he’d found a novel role to play, the gentle lover. He hadn’t thought he had any tenderness left in him, but she brought it out in him. Part of him wished he could forget the rest and enjoy what he had never known, a woman who genuinely cared for him.
But every time his thoughts wandered in that direction, he heard her voice in his head. Men ain’t nothing but trouble. Sooner or later every woman realizes that. Too bad we can’t live like those Amazons—hide off by ourselves and only use men for the only thing they’re good for. This from a woman who’d gotten knocked up turning tricks in strangers’ cars in the middle of nowhere. When he was through with her he’d hidden her all right. As far as he knew no one had ever found her.
She stirred, turning toward him. Her dark, dark eyes settled on him. Then her brow furrowed. “Blake?”
He schooled his features into a benign expression, wondering how much of the previous one she’d noticed. She called his name again, or rather the name he’d chosen since to him it sounded cultured. “What is it, sweetheart?”
“You were looking at me funny.” She brushed her long, black hair over her shoulder. “How long have you been awake and what were you thinking about?”
He stroked the side of her face. “Nothing important. Just some trial I’ve got coming up.”
She smiled. “But since I am awake ... ?”
Her smile broadened as her words trailed off. He forced an answering smile to his face. “What did you have in mind?”
She glanced toward the lamp that stood on the table next to his side of the bed. “Turn off the light and I’ll show you.”
He did as she asked, then returned to her. Her soft hands wandered over him and her pliant body melded to his. Once again, the urge to forget everything else to be with her washed over him.
Unfortunately, he had a schedule to keep.
Fifteen
The next morning, Alex dragged herself into work at eight o’clock. Saturdays were usually early and short, worked for the sole purpose of accommodating patients that couldn’t make it in during the week. She’d slept fitfully the night before, when she’d slept at all, the case and its implications, both professional and personal, weighing on her.
She’d heard on the news about the senseless killing of Nancy Parks and the even more senseless way her young killer had tried to cover his crime. Now Morales was dead. No one would ever know if his overdose was intentional or not.
Alex supposed she should feel grateful that the boy felt any remorse at all. But the only thing he seemed to regret was mutilating the girl when he didn’t know she was alive. That was the part of the night’s events that seemed brutal and out of place for him. It only proved that people could rationalize any behavior as necessary as long as they wanted to badly enough.
She guessed that’s what Zach had called her about yesterday. She’d turned off her cell phone before the meeting with Roberta’s brother and hadn’t turned it back on until she got home. She’d seen he’d called then and listened to the message from Alice telling her that he’d called the office. It had been nearly six o’clock then. She hadn’t bothered to call back, since it was almost time for Zach’s nightly visit. That is, if he kept to his schedule.
Or maybe she hadn’t called back, figuring he’d come if he couldn’t reach her. She’d wanted to see him, and not only because she wanted to share with him the information she’d gotten from Roberta’s brother. She’d been trying to deny to herself and him that there was still anything between them. She’d been punishing him for the fact that there was. His abandonment had hurt her as nothing else in her life had. She’d been walking around with that ever since, allowing it to color every relationship she’d had since, including her marriage.
She knew she’d never get past any of that if she didn’t face it. Isn’t that what she told her patients all the time—they had to own their own pasts, to look the events of their own lives in the face and put them in the proper perspective? So far, she’d done a lousy job of taking her own advice.
Sitting at her desk, she picked up the phone to call Zach. Her first patient wasn’t due for another
fifteen minutes. That should give her enough time to arrange a meeting between them.
Before she could finish dialing the number, there was a knock on her door. “Anybody home?” Roberta peeked her head in the door. “When did you get in?”
“About five minutes ago. What’s up?”
Roberta pushed the door open and stepped in. She carried a long white box, the type florists used for long-stemmed flowers. “Believe it or not, these just came for you. Alice asked me to bring them back.”
Yeah, right. Roberta just wanted to snoop. “Who are they from?”
“Doesn’t say. There’s no card. Could someone have a secret admirer?”
Alex stood to take the box Roberta extended toward her. Aside from the pink ribbon around the box, there was no marking on it of any kind, not even an address tag from the florist. Undoubtedly, Roberta referred to Zach, but flowers weren’t his style. He’d simply show up on your doorstep and melt you with that smile of his. If he wanted something from her, he’d have been there last night. “Don’t start that again.”
Roberta held up her hands as if to surrender. “All I’m saying is that maybe whoever sent them expected you to know who they were from.”
That wouldn’t be a bad idea, except no one she knew would be sending her flowers out of the blue. Maybe they came from some reporter hoping to butter her up for an interview. Although the press was no longer swarming around her office, a few stalwarts were still calling.
The intercom on Alex’s desk buzzed. “Tommy Barnes is here for you.”
Alex pressed the appropriate button to be heard by the receptionist. “Thanks, Alice. Can you send him back?”
“No problem.”
To Roberta, Alex said, “Duty calls.”
“Yeah, well, I’m expecting an update as soon as you open them.”
“We’ll see,” Alex teased, though she admitted to herself that she was curious, too. But whatever lay inside that box, she didn’t want it distracting her while she attended to her patients. She stowed the box behind her desk where it couldn’t be seen, then went to the door to greet Tommy.
Body of Lies Page 14
