Betrayed

by Shelly Knox

  “Thanks. Like I said, though, Wyndon said I was on this case until the end—so I could be here a week or longer. You might want to head home tomorrow after a good night’s sleep.”

  “I’ll see how I feel in the morning. I need a break. I might just enjoy some spa pampering and stay awhile.”

  “I love you, sis,” Piper said as she climbed out of the Camry. Opening the back door, she grabbed her gear and Tazzie, then shut the car door.

  Keri drove off without a word.

  Piper slipped her backpack over her shoulders and a large camera bag over her right shoulder. She headed toward the crowd. Before she reached her destination, her phone imitated a barking dog, which was the sound clip she had assigned to text messages. She opened the text message app. Keri’s note stated, “U2.” Piper nodded, glad her sister got over her anger, and then slipped the phone back into her hipster clip. She made her way to the knoll where the reporters gathered. Upwards of two dozen men and women stood in front of a makeshift podium. A law enforcement representative prepared to speak, so she quickened her pace. Her shadow followed.

  Twenty minutes later, she had a copy of the press release that the family had handed out to all the media. The flyer didn’t tell her much more than her briefing had already covered. And so far, the cops were not divulging any additional details.

  Angela Daniels went for a walk with her dog at 6:00 a.m. this morning in Arbor Hills Nature Preserve and never returned home. Ms. Daniels is due to deliver her daughter any day. The family stated that Ms. Daniels walks different paths within the preserve daily. With six miles of walking trails and another three miles of biking trails, Ms. Daniels could be anywhere. We need a broad search. We’ve formed several search party groups, but we need more volunteers to cover the vast area of the nature preserve. Angela is blonde, blue-eyed, and five feet three inches tall. She’s nineteen and was last seen wearing a pink maternity jumper with a white T-shirt.

  The stark-white paper didn’t give Piper any further information; however, the photo did. She shivered as she stared down at the familiar face. She used to babysit Angela to earn extra money during high school. No wonder the name had sounded familiar. Her stomach lurched, tightened, then stumbled over itself falling to the cushiony floor of her torso. The backs of her eyes stung. Something told her it was too late: the volunteers would recover a body, not a live victim. She didn’t want to believe it, though.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Piper whirled around. Her heart jumped to her throat, but somehow still managed to pound like a speed-bag. Tazzie moved back into heel position after Piper’s quick movement then nudged her arm as she stood guard.

  Damn her! Keri was right again. He was on the case.

  Chapter 5

  He wore his clothes like a snake wears its skin—tight. The brown pants fit every curve of his muscular legs; the white shirt fit as if he’d had it altered. His six-pack abs molded to the fabric, and the silver and gold Texas Ranger badge glistened in the sunlight.

  All the while, Piper couldn’t breathe. Her heart ached, her head hurt, and her chest throbbed as her heart beat the back of her ribcage as if it needed to escape its enclosure. To this very day, Jaxson letting her end their relationship astonished Piper.

  “Jaxson,” Piper whispered. Did she speak too soft? The noise the crowd made created a hum that drowned out all other sounds. She scolded herself: don’t notice his sapphire-blue eyes; don’t notice his lopsided grin; and don’t notice he has an erection. The loud roar that encircled them from the media and law enforcement dimmed as if she had turned down the volume.

  “What are you doing here, Piper? I thought you were still in Georgia.” He tugged on his jacket, then buttoned it, obviously hoping to cover his erection. His eyes sparkled in the sunlight and she wanted to get lost in the blue pools.

  She cleared her throat before speaking. “Funny, I assumed the same about you. I understood the GBI gave you a job with the Atlanta office.” She wiped her sweaty palms on her slacks. She considered it odd that her hands would be moist and her mouth as dry as the perfect martini.

  “Job changed.” He rubbed his index finger over his Ranger buckle. “Are you with a Dallas paper? I promise you; this isn’t a story you want to cover. It smells funny.” He placed a hand on the small of her back and began to lead her away from the scene.

  Piper turned so fast he didn’t have time to drop his hand and it grazed her abdomen. She slapped his hand away. Tazzie worked her way between them and barked.

  “Sorry. I forgot.” He held his hands up in surrender.

  She clenched her hands into fists and shook out her arms, hoping it would stop the trembling. “As long as I know the touch is coming, I’m okay. I just wasn’t expecting it.” Deep breath in and let it out slowly. The loud voices from the media and law enforcement returned, and it was hard for Piper to hear anything but the roar of communication.

  She petted her Sheltie. “Good girl. It’s okay.” Tazzie relaxed and sat beside her again. She turned her attention back to him and cleared her throat. “Anyway, I’m living in Austin near my sister, Keri. I work for the Austin Statesman. It’s a small paper, but I like it. What’s wrong with this case?” The sun burned her eyes and moistness gathered along the bottom rim, as if she would cry any second. She pulled her sunglasses off the top of her head and slipped them on. “If it smells funny, then maybe I need to stay on the story. That’s generally when reporters write the best pieces.”

  “Look, I can’t talk now. I need to get back to the investigation. Something funny is going on here. But if you still can’t be touched, you can’t handle this story.” Jaxson turned and walked away from her—as he had walked away from her two years ago.

  He was wrong. She could handle this story. She would prove it to everyone—including herself.

  Chapter 6

  Jaxson strolled toward the investigative team. Seeing Piper after all this time—he shook his head, trying to erase the memories like kids did on an Etch A Sketch. One look into her eyes, the color of a high Sierra lake in spring—not a blue or a green but somewhere in between—and he couldn’t resist bringing her right back into his life. Her golden-blonde hair beckoned him to run his hands through her locks—but he hadn’t dared. What he had wanted to do was bury his nose in that mane and inhale her scent until the intoxication knocked him off his feet. He had tried to force his mom’s face in his mind’s eye the whole time they spoke to disengage the erection that had surfaced, but it hadn’t worked. Piper kept replacing her face.

  But he couldn’t forget how she pushed him from their four-year relationship and six-month engagement. She told him to go, and he did. It took too long to get over her. He wouldn’t let her under his skin again.

  Jaxson found his partner in a cluster of Texas Rangers with notebooks open, comparing the information they had collected. Once he stood next to Jon, he asked, “Torres, is her boyfriend talking?” His partner, a short, stocky, Hispanic Texas Ranger, had an eye color that matched a pile of coffee beans and jet-black hair that framed his face in arrow-straight layers. Unlike Jaxson, Torres loved the sun. And today was one hot sunny day—pretty typical for a Texas summer.

  “Talking about everything except what he did with her.” Torres closed his small black notepad.

  “You think he did something with her?”

  “Si. Don’t you? Just don’t have enough to bring him in.”

  “No…I don’t know…maybe. I’d like to speak with him, too. You mind?”

  “Take the definitive answer. Whatever floats your boat.”

  Jaxson chuckled a little as he said, “I don’t think that’s the definitive answer.” He wiped his forehead with a white handkerchief and then stuffed the cloth in his back pocket. “Look, I know you don’t like it when I tell you my gut is talking to me, but this time it’s screaming that something isn’t right. I don’t think this is what it appears to be. Something else is going on here.”

  “Chingados. This g
uy killed his maldita sea girlfriend because he’s too immature to be a father.”

  “I don’t think that’s it. I’ve read multiple articles and listened to the news about several pregnant women who went missing from towns near the Texas border in Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Nevada. No one ever found these women. Texas and the pregnancies are the common denominators in all of them. I think we have a—”

  “Serial killer? Chingados. You’re so far off the mark you need to go back to school. It’s always the husband or boyfriend.” Torres walked off, shaking his head, leaving Jaxson standing alone in front of Angela’s home.

  Chapter 7

  Meatballs in marinara sauce, macaroni and cheese casseroles, and fried chicken permeated the air as Jaxson made notes to the last question he had asked Luke St. Joseph, Angela’s boyfriend and the alleged father of her unborn baby. He studied the young man sitting before him. His eyes were bloodshot, blue, swollen, and had dark circles around them. His swollen pale face displayed red emotional blotches. The starkness of his black hair made him look even paler than his complexion. He wrung his hands and pulled on his fingers, mimicking the removal of tight leather gloves that wouldn’t come off. This was a man racked with worry and anxiety. Twenty minutes of questions and his demeanor had him almost convinced that Luke wasn’t the cause of Angela’s disappearance. Sociopaths could mimic human emotions that they didn’t have, but this good? He hadn’t seen anything so elaborate before this. They’d been at it over an hour.

  “Let me get this straight, Luke: you saw Angela at seven last evening when she left your apartment to drive home?”

  Luke nodded.

  “I need you to speak your answers for the record, Luke.” Jaxson pushed the digital recorder a little closer to the young man. Two piles of magazines, stacked at least a dozen issues high, flanked either side of the recorder.

  “Sorry, sir. Yes, she left around seven.” Luke leaned back in the chair and rubbed his hands over his face several times.

  “Did you see her get into the car and pull away or did you only watch her exit your apartment?” He glanced around the room while he waited for Luke to answer. Bookshelves not only held a massive selection of books but several photos as well. Most of the images were of Angela and Angela with her mother, Natalie. Only one photo included Luke, a photo taken with Angela and Natalie.

  Luke remained quiet a minute longer while he turned the question over in his head. “I saw her get into her car and pull away. I was upset about our fight and followed her to the car, pleading with her to accept my apology.” He let out two deep sobs and his body shook in the aftermath. He swallowed hard and then added, “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. I love Angela and our baby.” Another sob overcame him. He rubbed both hands over his face. “Do you think I will ever get to take it back? I have to tell her I didn’t mean it.”

  Jaxson cringed as fresh tears trailed down his mottled cheeks. Angela lived in a very nice area, one with alarms, cameras, plenty of security. This was not a place someone usually gets kidnapped and leaves no trace. He wanted to tell Luke yes, that Angela was alive and well and would be back by seven tonight. But his gut didn’t agree—his instincts told him she was already dead.

  “Luke, this is very important. Did you pay attention to her actions as she drove away? Did she seem afraid? Did she appear jumpy?”

  “Why are you asking me…you think whoever took her might have been with her in the car?” Tension strained Luke’s voice and it escalated in pitch. He stood from the light-beige love seat and paced in front of him. His Reebok running shoes squeaked on the warm linoleum. “I could have done…something.”

  Jaxson leaned forward, scooting his butt to the edge of the chair. “Does that mean you think her demeanor did change?”

  “Maybe. I’m not sure.”

  “Sometimes a hypnotherapist helps pull memories out of a person’s subconscious. Would you be willing to try?”

  Luke stopped and for the first time met Jaxson’s stare. “Uh…hypnotism? I don’t know. I guess, if you think it will help. I’ll do anything to find her.”

  He stood and shook Luke’s hand. Luke had passed that test. Jaxson would never consult a hypnotist, but Luke had agreed. That was a point in Mr. St. Joseph’s favor. “I’ll contact you when I have someone lined up and to give you the when, where, and all that.” He paused, and then added, “What was the fight about?”

  “The…what?”

  “The fight. You said you and Angela had a fight and there was something you wanted to take back.”

  “Oh, yeah. Well, I…uh…would rather not talk about it, okay?”

  “No, Luke. It’s not okay. Angela is missing and any little thing could be helpful, and you might not realize it. What was the fight about?” He held Luke’s gaze until Luke couldn’t maintain the eye contact and glanced to the floor.

  “I wanted to marry her before the baby was born and she said no. I was angry. I want my daughter to have my name. Then…”

  “Then what? What were you going to say?”

  “Uh…just…that’s when I told her if she didn’t marry me before Claire was born, I would never marry her. I didn’t mean it. I was just mad.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Thanks for answering my questions. Hang in there, Luke. Have faith.”

  “That’s all that’s keeping me together.”

  Chapter 8

  Keri rested on the hotel bed. She may have gotten Piper up north in record time, but Keri didn’t think Piper should be in Plano at all. She didn’t believe Piper was ready to go back to crime reporting. She didn’t want Piper reporting on crime in Texas. Reaching for her purse she spread the opening wide so she could see inside and searched for the journal. Finding it easy enough, she flipped the stained cloth cover and pages of the book until she exposed the details of the worst period in her sister’s life. Details that Keri shouldn’t have. Details that Piper wouldn’t want anyone to know.

  Her cell phone rang, and she answered on the third trill. “Hey.”

  “Where the hell are you?”

  “None of your business. I needed a break.”

  “I’m not kidding, Keri. You tell me right now where you are.”

  “Talk to my lawyer.” Keri clicked off the call and then blocked his number on her iPhone.

  Glancing back at the journal, she remembered that the whole purpose of the notebook writing exercises was to write down the events Piper had experienced and then throw them away. As far as Keri understood, Piper wrote everything she remembered, but she still held on to the journals. In the end, she should have thrown the journal away, burned it, shredded it—however she wanted to dispose of it. Only, Keri had interceded. She had to know what Piper went through.

  I was working my first homicide. The editor gave me one shot to prove myself. When I got to the scene and saw my first slain body, I froze. And then I lost my breakfast. Jaxson came up behind me and took hold of my long hair to keep it out of my face. After I emptied my stomach, he helped me clean up and then promised me an exclusive—if I’d meet him for dinner that night. I met him and he kept his promise. If it wasn’t for Jaxson, my career as a crime reporter never would have happened. I learned a lot from Jaxson at that dinner—more than he should have shared with me. This serial killer had surfaced before. He surfaced, killed six to ten women, and then hibernated for three years. That’s the story that won me my first journalist’s award. An award I didn’t deserve. We didn’t catch him. He had gone underground again.

  Keri set the journal on her lap and took a sip of the iced tea she had made herself. She touched the condensation to her flushed face. The coolness helped dial her anger down a couple of notches. Hmmm, Jaxson made her career as a crime reporter. She always believed it was Jaxson’s fault that the killer got close enough to take her. Now she had proof. She took one more sip of the tea and then picked up the journal. The tips of her fingers were damp, and she left a wet thumbprint in the corner of
one of the pages. She dived back into Piper’s broken life.

  Over the next four years, Jaxson and I fell in love. He was my anonymous source in the police department and we were devoted. I shouldn’t have put him in that spot, to feed me information, but I wanted a career with my marriage. For once in my entire life, I thought it might be possible to have what our mother never did—a marriage based on love, a lifetime of happiness and a career that made me happy, not one only to help make ends meet. Jaxson and I had been engaged for six months. We had just set our wedding date.

  Then the serial killer struck again.

  He sent me an email, wanting to meet me for an exclusive, to share his plans, his goals. I wanted to prove myself. I chose a public place, but the killer wouldn’t agree to it. I told him he wasn’t running this show. The public was outraged because he’d sent an editorial to promise not to kill anyone again. And then he murdered a set of eighteen-year-old twins.

  We compromised on a fast-food restaurant that didn’t do much business after 9:00 pm. We scheduled our meet for 9:30 pm. I never made it to the fast-food place. He hijacked my car along the way.

  After the serial killer’s first attempt to meet me, Jaxson had hid a tracking device in my vehicle. That wasn’t enough for him, though; he also gave me a watch that had a tracking device. Although he didn’t find me before Samuel severely injured me, he found me before Samuel killed me.

  The whole experience with Samuel splintered me. Jaxson thinks I broke off the engagement because he didn’t arrive soon enough—but that’s not it. I’m not sure I will ever be able to let a man touch me again. With my PTSD panic attacks and the chronic pain created by the injuries Samuel inflicted, I didn’t think he needed a mess like me. It was better if he cut bait and ran. But I guess I always thought he would stay and fight for me.