A dull headache throbbed behind her eyes as she eased open the door to her room. The light in the bathroom remained on and cast a soft glow on the twin beds. The clock on her nightstand ticked. It had been a long time since she’d not felt so alone.
Before her mother had died, she and her sister had been close. When Angie could visit they fought over the usual teen stuff: clothes, books, food or boys. But they’d also stayed up late at night whispering to each other in the dark about hopes and dreams. They’d been a team. Together forever. And then Mom had died, Eva had gone to foster care because her biological father had split and Angie’s biological father wanted no part of Eva, the child conceived during the affair that had destroyed his marriage.
In the first days of foster care, Eva had barely been able to function and had thrown herself into her schoolwork. They didn’t see each other for almost two years and that last meeting had been after her arrest.
Without warning, hot tears burned her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “Grow a backbone, Eva,” she whispered. “Call your sister.”
She closed her eyes and thought back to the last time she’d seen Angie.
“We’ll fight this,” Angie said. Phone to her ear, she sat on one side of the glass and stared directly at Eva. Her straight blond hair fell forward as she spoke, partially cloaking her face. “I should have taken you myself after Mom died.”
“No. Let it go. “Darius had sworn to destroy Eva’s family if she did not atone for his son’s death. It was better to just let Angie go. She could do her time if she knew Angie was happy. “I don’t want to fight this.”
“Why not?”
“Leave it, Angie. Ten years isn’t that long.”
“My God, you’re only seventeen.”
“And I’ll just be twenty-seven when I get out. Plenty of time to live.”
“Don’t give up, Eva. What Josiah did to you was wrong. You should not be punished for defending yourself.”
“Let it go, Angie.”
Eva set down the phone and left the waiting room. She didn’t turn back but could hear Angie pounding on the glass, begging her to look back. Eva didn’t and she’d told the guards she wanted no more visitors.
A week ago, she’d been on the verge of calling Angie. Darius was dead and she’d been on the verge of claiming a new life. But the shelter fire, Lisa’s murder and the article …
Even if she had more to offer than her talent for escorting drunks and collecting strays, she feared the past had risen from the dead to haunt her and endanger Angie.
The scent of cinders and smoke filled the basement room and mingled with the woman’s whining. She’d been crying since she’d awoken, and her weak-willed noises had a way of grating. “Shut up!”
“Please!”
“Please what? ”
“Let me go.”
“Our business won’t take long.” Lou ignored her cries and jabbed the poker into the anemic fire, cursing the fact that the hearth didn’t draw as well at it should. “Damn hearth needs cleaning.”
“Let me go.”
Her voice buzzed around Lou, no more important than a housefly and easy to swat away. “No doubt the flue needs a good cleaning. But a cleaning doesn’t make sense now. I’ll be finished in less than a week.”
“Someone will find me.”
Lou laughed. “That’s what the last one thought. That she’d been saved. Turned out it was a no-account thief that stumbled into my house. He thought he got away from me but finding him, posting bail and tracking him to Leesburg had been child’s play. What thief carries a wallet?”
“Let me go.”
“You sound like a broken record. Playing the same tune over and over again. It’s annoying.”
Lou turned to the woman, looking at her for the first time in hours. She lay on her back, her arms strapped above her head and tied to a support beam that ran floor to ceiling. Her feet were bound and tied to a twin beam.
Lou stoked the flames with the handle of the metal brand created especially for this moment.
“Please. Why are you doing this?”
Sara’s blond hair no longer looked full and lush. Now it lay flat against her head. Her mascara smudged in a dark smear down her cheeks and her red harlot lipstick had faded to a pale, uneven blur. Her white blouse was gone, cut off and discarded, and her lacy white bra cupped full breasts.
“Because you’ve been so bad, Sara. You’ve broken so many rules.”
Sara pulled at her bindings and screamed. “Help! ”
“Scream all you want, sweet Sara. No one can hear.” Extra precautions had been taken this time. Lou had nailed the windows shut, dead-bolted the front door and spread broken glass over the front hallway. “I’ve had my fill of unexpected messes to clean up.”
“Let me go.”
“No. Not just yet.”
Sara dropped her head back against the brick floor, rolling it from side to side. “Why me? What have I done to you?”
Lou glanced into the hearth, letting the erotic dance of the flames draw its spell. “You tore out my heart.”
“I don’t even know you!”
Anger flickered to life and Lou jabbed the brand deeper into the hot coals. “That makes it all the worse. That you could destroy a life and not even be aware.”
Tears filled Sara’s eyes and trickled down her cheeks. “Please. If I hurt you, I am sorry. I’m sorry.”
Lou removed the brand and studied the glowing red tip. A burning red star that was so beautiful. “You are not sorry.”
“I am. I swear that I am.” Desperation made Sara’s voice hoarse.
“You aren’t. But you will be.” Lou turned and moved toward the quivering woman. Nothing had felt more right than this moment. Nothing. This was Lou’s destiny. To rise up out of the ashes and to prevail.
Without guilt or hesitation Lou pressed the tip of the brand against Sara’s belly. She screamed and the sound was filled with desperation and bitter fear.
The smell of burning flesh rose up, filling Lou with power. Sara passed out from the pain.
Lou removed the brand and stared at the red angry star that would be forever embossed in this harlot’s white perfect flesh.
Replacing the brand back in the fire, Lou reached for the bucket of cool water. Time to soothe the red angry burn. Time to revive Sara.
And then it would be time to begin again.
Chapter 11
Thursday, April 6, 9:20 A.M.
“Now tell me why we are at the Taylorsville Municipal Building?” Malcolm’s question projected mild annoyance.
Garrison glanced at his partner. “What’s wrong, princess? Didn’t get enough beauty sleep?”
Malcolm rubbed his eyes. “Long night.”
“Another date?”
“Yeah.”
Garrison shook his head. “Damn, boy. You know how to burn the candle at both ends.”
“You only live once.” He stretched a kink from his neck. “So why are we here?”
“There’s a case file I want to read.”
“What does a ten-year-old rape and manslaughter case have to do with our murder investigations?”
“I don’t know, really. Something my dad remembered.”
“Your dad?”
“He was a cop for thirty years. The man has a memory like a steel trap and he remembered that the rapist burned a four-pointed star shape into his victim.”
Malcolm raised a brow, his interest growing. “Really?”
“Might be nothing.”
“The Devil is in the details, man. And four-pointed stars aren’t the kind of details that crop up often.”
They strode through the main glass doors of the municipal building and showed their badges to the guard on duty.
The guard picked up the phone at his desk. “Sheriff Canada is expecting you.”
Five minutes later they sat in the sheriff’s gray plain office waiting for him to find the file he’d had one of his deputies pull that morning.
>
“Sorry, it took me a few minutes,” the sheriff said. A tall man with a rounded belly, the sheriff had shaved his head and sported a thick, dark mustache. “We store our older files in another building. We talk about computerizing but there’s never enough in the budget to cover it.”
Garrison rose and shook his hand. “No problem.”
Malcolm stood and introduced himself.
The sheriff sat behind his desk, pulled out a set of half glasses and opened the file.
Garrison and Malcolm sat down and waited as he read through the file.