Bitter Moon (The Huntress/FBI Thrillers Book 4)

by Alexandra Sokoloff

  There is only the dry whisper of palm fronds in the trees above.

  She pushes off from the wall and circles the entire building, making her way around to the parking lot again. She stops and hides in another cluster of trees right up against the building, where she is concealed by the thick dry trunks, but can watch the lot and also the front door.

  There are very few cars left in the lot, and still no van. But she remains hidden in the trees, and waits, and watches.

  Franzen steps out through the front door, turns around and locks it. He walks past the columns, down the steps, past the concrete compass, into the parking lot. Then he stops beside a car in a front parking space: a big, gleaming black Lexus. He opens the door, squeezes himself inside.

  The Lexus starts up with a roar, and Franzen drives out of the parking lot.

  She watches it go.

  It could still be him, she thinks. He wouldn’t be driving the van. He’s hiding it. Of course he is. He won’t drive it where people will see him. He has it in a special place, and he only uses it to go out hunting. He might change license plates, too. It is what you do when you steal a car. Eric had taught her that, as well.

  She has an unfinished feeling, but there is nothing more she can do here. She steps out of the palm trees, and walks for the sidewalk.

  There is a bus stop halfway down the street, and she heads for it. She is just fishing for money in the pocket of her jeans when she sees it: the white van, waiting at the corner, at the stop sign at the end of the street, its turn signal blinking right.

  For one heart-stopped moment she is unable to move. Then she bolts, runs as fast as she can toward the corner, to see who is driving. But when she rounds the corner to the next street, the van is far down the block. Too far to see a driver. Too far to see a license plate number. It accelerates, disappears into the distance.

  Cara halts on the sidewalk, bent over, hands on her knees, panting. Her thoughts are reeling.

  But Franzen just got into the Lexus.

  So there was someone else in the van.

  The man who interrupted them in the office?

  She’d been so focused on just getting out, she hadn’t looked closely at his face.

  She straightens, moves back to the bus stop bench and sits down. As her breathing returns to normal, she thinks quickly back over the rows and rows of men at the meeting. There are just so many of them, and they look so much alike.

  But the van was here. Outside that meeting.

  It is close.

  She looks back down the block at the club house.

  So many, and only one of me. She feels a wave of anguished helplessness.

  I can’t do it.

  As soon as she thinks it, another voice speaks in her head that for once, she recognizes. The nun’s. A strong voice, firm and kind.

  You are not alone.

  And she realizes the nun is right.

  ROARKE

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  It was early evening by the time Roarke landed in Dallas. The taxi took him to the downtown hotel, cruising past the urban green space of Klyde Warren Park and the futuristic orb of Reunion Tower. But there would be no time for sightseeing.

  The Wayfarers convention had taken over the whole hotel. There was a registration room and staff rooms down one corridor; the hotel’s TV monitor projected a schedule of events.

  Roarke stopped in front of the screen to study it. There had been an opening banquet, which he’d already missed.

  But the real action of any convention started in the bar.

  And that’s where Roarke found Franzen, in a crowd of well-lubricated conventioneers.

  Roarke stared across the low-lit bar at the big man, laughing with the other men. He shouldered his way through the crowd.

  Franzen saw Roarke coming and for an instant there was that moment of trying to place him. And then it hit him, and all geniality vanished.

  Franzen closed his hand around Roarke’s forearm and used the grip to steer Roarke to the side of the room. “What’s the meaning of this?” he demanded, not loudly enough to attract attention.

  Roarke removed Franzen’s hand from his sleeve. “I think you’ll want to talk somewhere more private,” he said, letting his voice carry the implicit threat.

  Franzen’s eyes burned at him, but he turned and they moved further away from the bar, into a hallway with Art Deco lamps casting triangles of light all the way down the corridor.

  Franzen turned on Roarke. “Explain yourself.”

  Roarke opted for open, casual menace. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m here. I’m watching you. Wherever you go this weekend, I’ll be there. In case you had any extracurricular plans.”

  Franzen’s jaw and fists were clenched, a barely contained fury. “I don’t know what the hell your problem is, Mr. Roarke. But this is harassment and you’ll be hearing from my lawyer—”

  “Oh, I’m happy to stay the requisite fifty feet away. But you’ve heard of the buddy system, haven’t you? Where you go, I go. Buddy.”

  For a few seething seconds, Roarke thought Franzen would haul off and punch him. Just try it, he lasered at the man, silently. Give me an excuse.

  But Franzen dropped his hands and turned without a word, heading back to the bar.

  And Roarke followed. Staying the requisite fifty feet away. He found a high stool against the wall in the bar and ordered himself a tonic and lime. When the glass came, he waited until the next time Franzen glanced across the room at him and raised the glass in a mocking salute. Franzen glared at him and turned away.

  At this point, Roarke was sure that he’d already done what he’d set out to do. If Franzen was the rapist, he would have to be insane to try anything this weekend, in Dallas, knowing that he was under this kind of scrutiny. And the rapist’s MO was the complete opposite of insane: he operated under the most meticulously crafted safety procedures.

  But Roarke had been dead serious. He wasn’t going anywhere. If he had to camp outside Franzen’s hotel room door, he would.

  There would be no fourteen-year-old girl snatched by a monster on her way to school tomorrow. Not here. Not by Franzen.

  I swear it.

  He downed his tonic and lime and signaled for another.

  CARA

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  The low light on the curved walls of the Mission hall looks like torchlight, and Cara feels as if she’s in another age entirely.

  She taps so softly on the door that no one could hear her knocking . . . except a girl who can hear the dark.

  The door opens, and there she stands, in the oval of light. The skeleton girl. Faceless. Eyeless. But somehow, she knows. She opens the door further to let Cara in.

  Cara closes the door behind her.

  The skeleton girl turns and lies back down on the bed.

  There is nothing in the darkness but the sound of their breathing.

  Cara walks slowly to the bed and lies down beside her. Then Cara puts her arms around Ivy and lies, holding her.

  The night folds around them and they huddle in bed and speak together without words. They speak of a man who has long ago become something other than a man. They speak of cruelty, of soul-crushing violation. They speak of the darkest fears of children, who know that monsters are real.

  And when Cara finally dreams, she dreams Ivy’s nightmare, just as she has told it.

  The walk to school in chilly predawn. The sense of someone, something . . . following, hovering, and then the quick grab. The chains welded into the wall of the van. The duct tape and gasoline. The brutal invasion of her body and the unspeakable pain of burning, her skin, her hair, her eyes on fire . . .

  The stinking malevolence of the man.

  He. It. The monster. The man with the monster inside.

  When the monster has used her in every way she could be used, he drags her from her metal prison and hurls her to the ground.

  He rips the canvas hood off her head, and that is when she kno
ws that she is going to die. She has one last glimpse of the world . . . the golden glittering sand, the sky, the feathery shadows of palm trees against the brilliance of the sun . . .

  And then burning, blinding pain.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  She leaves the Mission in the dark. Out through the gardens, blanketed in shrouds of mist. Out through the heavy wood door in the wall.

  She is silent, drawn into herself, exhausted and sickened by the things she has seen.

  But she knows where to find him now.

  ROARKE

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Roarke was dead on his feet when he returned to the Mission. Two days in Dallas following Franzen around the convention and around downtown.

  Franzen had been a good little conventioneer, following the schedule, attending nothing but meetings and meals. But Roarke knew he’d made an enemy for life, and though he didn’t regret the surveillance as a preventative measure, there was also no concrete evidence proving that Franzen was responsible for any rapes at all. That would have to wait for the DNA tests. Singh had gotten custody of two of the kits so far, and they were on the way to the San Francisco Bureau’s lab. But the soonest they’d have results from the expedited tests was three days.

  When he unlocked the guardhouse door, and turned on the light, there was a parcel on the table inside the cottage, a padded mailer with a return address that was as familiar as his own name.

  The Bureau.

  He pulled his coat off and tore the mailer open . . . to find the palm frond and the lump of pyrite, a thick folded-up map, a stapled document, and a note from Lam:

  Geologic and botanical reports. I can talk you through it if that’s easier. Call anytime.

  Roarke quickly flipped through the materials: a topographical map of Southern California and several text reports, along with scanned photos of palm trees.

  He looked at the time, decided to take Lam at his word. He reached for his phone.

  The tech greeted him with his usual effusive cheerfulness. “Long time no hear. Hope things are okay down your way.”

  Roarke didn’t know how to answer that. “I’m keeping on. I got the package, appreciate it.”

  “Well, we’ve got a mixed bag of results, here. Hopefully something will come up cherries. The geological is pretty useless. Pyrite is a very common mineral, found in a wide variety of geological formations, from sedimentary, magmatic, hydrothermal, and metamorphic deposits. There’s no way to identify a specific region that this particular specimen came from.”

  Roarke closed his eyes. No surprise there, but his heart sank.

  “The botanicals are a little more promising. The palm is Washingtonia filifera, also known as the desert fan palm, the California fan palm, or California palm. Here’s what’s interesting. Most of the palm trees we see in cities are not native to California. In fact, your Washingtonia filifera is the only native palm of Southern California.”

  Roarke felt a sudden flare of hope. “Go on . . .”

  “You can see a typical tree in the photos I sent.” Roarke reached for the photos as Lam added, “Although apparently it’s not actually a tree, it’s an evergreen monocot, with a tree-like growth pattern. It has a sturdy columnar trunk and waxy green fan-shaped leaves, and it’s a big mother: grows fifty to sixty-six feet tall, sometimes up to eighty, and twenty to thirty feet broad, with fronds up to thirteen feet long. When the fronds die they remain attached and drop down to cloak the trunk in that skirt-like formation you see in the photos there.”

  Roarke flipped through the photo scans, but the palms looked like any other wild-growing palm tree. He’d seen hundreds, thousands of them in the last week.

  “They’re found in the Palm Springs area, the Colorado River area, and various other canyons. Unfortunately, not only are they not rare, they’re quite common to the Santa Rosa/San Jacinto Mountain area, Indio, Coachella, Anza-Borrego, Joshua Tree, et cetera, et cetera.”

  Nothing but bad news, Roarke thought bleakly.

  “But here’s something that may help you. These palms need deep ground water and are typically found in spring- and stream-fed oases, and in riparian areas, meaning the interface between land and a river or stream.”

  Oases. Well, that’s a start, I guess.

  “So . . . I thought I’d mash up two different geological maps for the Las Piedras region in Riverside County: a Landsat GeoCover 2000 satellite image, and a river map, so you can take a look at water sources. You never know, right?”

  “Right,” Roarke agreed, trying to sound more positive than he felt. “I really appreciate it, Lam.”

  “No problemo,” the tech assured him. “Anything else we can do, just shout.”

  Roarke disconnected, and felt a wave of what he realized was homesickness. For the Bureau, for his team, for the techs. For a long time, they’d been as close to family as he got. He was better with them. Not alone.

  He turned to the table and unfolded the map Lam had sent. It was full color, with blue dots and veins representing lakes, creeks, streams, and other water sources. And it was as big as the table. Roarke stared down at it glumly.

  What do you think you’re going to do, search the whole of Riverside County for evidence of a sixteen-year-old crime?

  The police and sheriff’s department had searched a five-mile radius from where they found Ivy and found nothing.

  “But were they searching for evergreen monocots in riparian areas?” he asked aloud.

  Right. Just a little crime lab humor there.

  It was absurd, not a clue at all. What was he going to do, just drive around looking for palm trees on river beds? Talk about a needle in a haystack . . .

  And then he stopped, thinking.

  But that’s not really true, is it?

  He took the map over to the one remaining bare wall and taped it up. Then he grabbed a marker and made an X at the spot on the highway where Ivy had been found.

  She couldn’t have walked more than a mile. It would be a miracle if she’d walked that far.

  He took the marker and a ruler and drew a line representing a mile on the map, a straight line out from the X. Then he did three more lines out, and connected the quadrants to make a circle.

  But even before he completed the circle, he’d seen it.

  The tiny blue squiggle with the name beside it: Pyrite Creek.

  CARA

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  The moon is full, as bright as day. The world below it is glowing blue shadows.

  She has no trouble finding a car. The world is full of cars. There will always be a ride to wherever she needs to go.

  And she knows where she is going. Ivy has told her, and the map is in her head.

  It is not far, by minutes, but for anyone who didn’t know, it would be nearly impossible to find. A state road that turns into a half-paved road. Past the city, past the ramshackle houses spaced far apart in the unincorporated areas on the fringe, out into the desert. Up toward the mountains, almost to the Cahuilla Reservation, so close that no one would be inclined to go near it.

  Side roads turn into dirt gulleys and then there is the arroyo she has been looking for. She can see the grove of old palm trees in the former riverbed. The lair will be close now.

  But it is so deserted, so quiet, she knows she cannot approach by car. She turns the stolen Accord around and drives back a bit, then leaves the vehicle on an unpaved side road so she can walk in the rest of the way.

  It is easy . . . she just follows the dry riverbed, looking for the sign.

  Moonlight on the sand. A billion stars above. The wind breathing through the sand dunes, stirring sand in whorls.

  She walks for ten minutes, fifteen, with only the dry touch of the wind and the moonlight to lead her. The smell of sage and juniper, and then the metallic smell of ground water.

  Then around a bend, she sees them. The two entwined palm trees Ivy had shown her rise above the dry riverbed, marking the spot.

  She scrambles
up the sloping, sandy wall of the arroyo, boosts herself over the top. She stands up, to face a fence of barbed wire hung with posted warning signs. One of them is just the crude image of a gun muzzle, aimed point blank. She ignores it.

  There are worse things here than a gun.

  She steps to the fence, carefully pulls two strands of barbed wire open so she can climb through.

  Up the rise, the two small, dark buildings are there, a cabin and a shed, just as in her dreaming.

  She keeps her flashlight off. The moonlight is bright enough for her to see, strong enough that she moves quickly to the shadows beside the shed to avoid being seen herself.

  The shed door is locked with a hasp and padlock that she knows she can break with her screwdriver. Instead she backs up, and circles the rickety building, scanning the wooden walls until she finds a gap between planks. She drops her flashlight, reaches into her jacket for the screwdriver, and forces the blade into the gap to break off a piece of plank so she can look inside with the flashlight.

  The shed is black and empty. She maneuvers the beam of light around the walls, sees rusted shelves cluttered with cans and tools. Chains hang from a hook on the wall.

  The chains welded into the wall of the van. The duct tape and gasoline. Her skin, her hair, her eyes on fire . . .

  She pulls away from the hole and sits with her back against the outside wall of the shed, forcing herself to breathe through a wave of nausea.

  Then she hardens herself and stands.

  She approaches the cabin from the side, staring ahead, looking for any signs of inhabitation.

  The cabin is dark, although when she gets up closer she realizes there is black material over the one small window. If there is light inside, if the monster is inside, she will not be able to see It.