Cold Moon (The Huntress/FBI Thrillers Book 3) (30 page)

Chapter 63

T
he fog drifts sluggishly between the gleaming vehicles. The air reeks of exhaust and the stench of malevolence.

He stands in the shadows, smoking, waiting.

Another bus will be here soon, and he is on the lookout for flesh.

They flock to this town, the young ones with their backpacks and their hope and their desperation. So easy. Easy to spot, with the marks on their bodies and on their souls. With their tentative steps when they stagger on travel-numb legs toward the street.

Easy pickings.

He waits and he watches.

He does not know he is being watched, too.

Tonight, the moon sees him.

He never sees it coming.

Chapter 64

R
oarke stood in Singh’s granite-tiled shower letting water pour over him, as hot as he could get it. A desperate attempt to freshen up—to wake up—before the stakeout. For better or worse, they had not come up with an alternate plan.

By the time he had dressed and walked back into the living room, Singh was on the phone, while Epps paced tensely.

She listened to whoever it was on the phone, and her eyes were darker than night. She spoke into the phone, “Thank you. I will call back.” She disconnected and looked to the men.

“It is the Santa Cruz police department. A man has been discovered dead at the bus station downtown. His throat was slashed.”

The three looked at one another.

“It is two hours out of town. Cara?” Singh asked.

Is it?
Roarke wondered.

“Or—” Epps started, then stopped. None of the three agents wanted to say it.

Or are the Santa Muerte murders spreading?

Roarke had a sudden, awful vision of copycat killings popping up in multiple states.

And yet . . .

“Santa Cruz,” Roarke said aloud. “It’s a magnet for runaways. Homeless kids. Kids like Jade.”

And where there were homeless teens, there was prostitution; there was rarely any other way for runaway kids to make a living.

“Guy was killed at the bus station,” Roarke added. He didn’t have to explain what he meant. Bus stations were classic trolling grounds, a preferred pickup spot for pimps everywhere. They cruised the stations, grabbed runaways right off the bus.

“So this could be Jade.” Singh’s face was tense.

“Or Cara could be trying to draw us away from the stakeout again.” Roarke looked at Epps, knew the other agent was considering the same thing.

“I say we go,” Epps said suddenly.

Roarke turned to Singh. “You’ll have to explain to Mills.”

“Done,” Singh responded.

She jumped back on the phone to the Santa Cruz PD to coordinate while Roarke and Epps headed for the door. But as Roarke reached for his coat in the entry hall, Epps hung back, mumbling, “Be right there.”

It was the first time Roarke had ever seen his agent flustered, and he knew why. He felt it again,
a stab of envy.

“Yeah,” he said, and busied himself with his coat.

DAY NINE

Chapter 65

N
avigating the winding road on CA-17 to Santa Cruz was a dream in itself, like driving through low-lying clouds: the thick, gray-white fog often obscured the road entirely. This time Roarke slept for the first hour and then switched places with Epps to drive so the other agent could catch a nap. At times his sleepless state seemed to merge with the fog outside. But their new, clear focus kept him going.

Find Jade.

He felt a chill: half excitement that they might finally be getting somewhere, and half dread of what “somewhere” might mean.

The bus station was off Pacific Avenue, the main commercial street of the city, a kind of hipster drag. Mist blanketed the whole downtown; the agents peered through the windshield at the hazy glow of security lights of businesses, strings of Christmas lights left lit and twinkling in the shop windows. And the bleak contrast of piles of sleeping homeless lumped together for warmth in the doorways of shops.

The bus station was as fogged over as the rest of the town, with several long, pewter buses lined up, waiting for departure time. Even the low roar of idling engines was stifled by the fog.

The crime scene tape blocked off a narrow alley; the murder had been shockingly close to the boarding areas. Roarke’s heart sank as he took in the scene, feeling the familiar jolt of déjà vu. A short set of steps leading up to the door of a corrugated metal storage facility, a pool of blood at the bottom of the steps, and red arterial spray spattering the side of the building.

Epps took in the scene and silently met Roarke’s gaze.

The steps. The pool of blood.
It’s Jade.

Jim Williams was the detective in charge, a veteran lawman with a counterculture edge: thick-framed, black Buddy Holly glasses and long, graying hair. He looked right at home in this hippie bastion. The agents introduced themselves; then Williams got straight to the point.

“You fellas think this one’s related to yours?”

Roarke and Epps looked at each other. “Were there objects left at the scene?” Roarke asked.

The detective gave them a look. “Like?”

“Candles, cigarettes, flowers, bread . . .”

Epps added, “Candy, liquor, jewelry. Anything that seemed ritualistic.”

Williams nodded slowly. “There was a beer can, cigarettes, and Milk Duds in a little pile. Didn’t seem random. We got the stuff bagged.”

Roarke glanced at Epps. “It’s ours.” He figured even if it wasn’t Jade or Cara at all, it still was theirs. His. The whole thing. “Take us through it,” he said to Williams, hoping it didn’t sound like a demand, but not really caring if it did.

Williams didn’t seem to mind. “Body was discovered by the station security guard during a routine sweep of the depot at twenty-one hundred hours. We know there was no body in this alley at twenty hundred, ’cause security did a sweep of the yard then, too. Bus from Phoenix got in thirty-seven minutes later. We’re running down the passengers from credit cards, questioning everyone we can find to see if anyone saw anything. And to develop a passenger list—descriptions of everyone on that bus.”

Roarke nodded. It was solid work, but probably useless in the long run. “Everyone we can find” was the operative phrase. The convenient thing about buses, in a criminal sense, was that anyone could pay cash and not leave a record of travel.

“You’ve ID’d the guy?”

“Clyde Lester Cranston. Got a sheet for narcotics trafficking, assorted minor drug offenses, weapons, gang-related stuff.”

“He’s local?” Roarke asked.

“Sacramento.”

“So what’s he doing here?” Epps asked.

Williams looked weary. “The usual. Selling, buying.”

Roarke glanced back at the buses. “Or picking up kids to pimp in Sacramento?”

The detective gave him a level look. “Been known to happen. That what you’re saying was happening?”

“It wouldn’t be a total surprise in this case,” Epps said dryly.

“So who’re we looking for?”

Epps removed mug shots of Jade and Cara from a binder. “Have you ever seen either of these women?”

The detective immediately zeroed in on the photo of Cara. “That’s the Lindstrom girl, right? The one that got away from the Reaper.”

Roarke felt the familiar tightening in his gut at any mention of the old case. “Right.”

“So she
is
doing these kills?” Williams whistled softly. “That’s quite a woman.”

Roarke answered too quickly. “We have several suspects at this time.”

Epps gave him a sideways look. “But we are actively looking for her,” he told the detective.

“No reports of any activity involving anyone of her description. But there’re no witnesses to this so far.” Williams looked down at the photo of Jade. “Who’s this one?”

The agents already knew Jade had never been arrested in Santa Cruz. Singh had sent her mug shot to the Santa Cruz office, and no matching record had come up.

“She goes by the name Jade Lauren, but it’s an alias. You’ve never seen her before?” Roarke asked. “On the street, maybe?”

“Working it?” Williams asked shrewdly.

“Or living on it.”

The detective studied the photo, shook his head. “Not me. We can distribute the photo, though. What is she, a witness?”

Roarke and Epps exchanged a glance. Epps answered, “She’s missing. Possibly related.”

Williams took a longer look. Finally he looked up. “Sorry. But we get a huge turnover of kids. Place attracts them. The boardwalk, the beach, the counterculture thing. You know.”

Roarke did.
And it’s just like Jade
,
he thought.
I can see her here
. “Is the city still having a problem with youth prostitution?” he asked. He saw a conflicted look on the detective’s face, quickly neutralized.

“Well, Santa Cruz. The town’s always had a decriminalization policy toward prostitution. Sex workers’ rights and all that. But there’s been a surge in activity because of the gangs. Big spike in Central Valley and Sacramento gangs selling minors.”

Roarke and Epps exchanged another glance, recognizing the common thread.

“Pacific Avenue isn’t the main stroll, though, is it?” Roarke asked.

The detective shook his head. “Lower Ocean. Around Broadway is the hub.”

Roarke was loath to say it; it was hard enough to work up sympathy for the men who were being killed. But prevention had to be the first priority. “These killings we’ve seen so far . . . they’re coming in pairs. You probably want to have extra officers on the street.”

Williams looked startled, then grim. “Gotcha.”

There were any number of cafés to choose from on Pacific Avenue. Roarke and Epps grabbed extra-large coffees at the Verve Café and sat at a tall window with a sweeping view of the street.

They drank coffee and warmed their hands on the mugs, watching the cocoons of homeless stirring in their doorway shelters, waking up in the mist, slowly gathering their belongings to move on before the shopkeepers arrived.

Epps started in, summing it up.

“So the bus pulls in from Phoenix, and Mr. Clyde Scumbag Cranston is waiting for it, looking for kids. And Jade is standing there in that alley, waiting.”

It was too easy to picture.

Epps was moody, frowning. “One thing bothers me. The offerings. Unless Jade did the Inty kills, which we’re thinking she didn’t, she hasn’t left offerings before. So why would she do it here?”

Roarke stared at him, realizing he was right. He looked out at the street. The lights were going on in a few of the shops. In windows up and down the block he could see Tibetan idols, psychedelic clothing, rock and grunge and hip-hop posters.

He’d always found the place eerily similar to the Haight, Jade’s recent stomping ground. The psychedelia, the incense and sitar music drifting from head shops and ethnic boutiques, the clouds of pot smoke emanating from the bedraggled clusters of homeless teens on the street, with their matching dreadlocks and dogs that all looked to be from the same litter. And the tattoo parlors. The tattoo parlors . . .

“I don’t know,” he answered slowly. “Maybe she’s reading the blogs, too. But this place has Jade all over it. I can
see
her here. And the killing taking place on the steps. It’s just like DeShawn.”

“So we’re thinking she knew Cranston, too. Maybe worked here?”

The pimps moved the girls from city to city, and often; it was how they kept them isolated and in line. But then Roarke thought of Jade’s lazy drawl, her sun-bleached hair. Was she a beach girl? It wasn’t hard to imagine. “Or maybe—”

Epps was watching him. “She
lived
here?” he guessed.

Roarke felt a spike of urgency. “Let’s hope we’re that lucky.”

Epps looked out on the street at a wandering pack of teenagers. “The cops don’t know Jade, so . . . we ask the kids, right?”

Roarke finished his coffee and stood. “Let’s do it.”

The main drag of Pacific was only six or seven blocks long. The agents split up so they could work their way down both sides of the street, showing the photos of Jade and Cara to the street kids and the few shopkeepers who were open early for business.

It was heartbreaking work. There was a hauntedness about the kids, especially the girls, but a fair number of the boys, too. They all had a similar reaction to Roarke: a deer-in-the-headlights kind of stillness, a wary pulling back as he approached.

The problem with this plan quickly became obvious. When he asked the teens how long they’d been in Santa Cruz, most of them said it had been only weeks, or just days. Not anywhere near long enough to be acquainted with Jade, who, according to Rachel, had been living in San Francisco for the last several months at least.

The agents met at the bottom of the drag to report: no luck. Then they started again, working from the bottom to the top of the avenue, as many more street people had surfaced since the beginning of their troll.

Roarke had been on the second pass of the street for an hour when he struck gold. A boy of maybe sixteen with a round face and straw-colored hair sat against a tree with a guitar in his lap, a tambourine with scattered change in front of him, and one of the generic dogs beside him. The boy was hazy-eyed, but when Roarke put a ten into the tambourine, he glanced at the proffered photo of Jade and answered, “That lady was asking the same thing last night.”

Roarke tensed. “What lady was that?” he asked softly. He reached for the other mug shot that he kept with him at all times. Cara’s. He extended the laminated image to the boy. “Was it her?”

The boy stared down at the photo, looking as if he was having trouble focusing. “Uh-uh. She had this really curly hair. Kinda red.”

Roarke stared at him.

Rachel? Here?

Looking for Jade, obviously. What else would it be?

There was a sick taste in his mouth.

But why here specifically? Why wouldn’t she have told me?

“Last night when?” he asked the boy.

The kid shrugged. “Eight. Eight thirty.”

Which means that she came here after she talked to me at the house. Which means she knew something then that she wasn’t telling me . . .

“What did she say to you?”

“She was looking for that girl in the picture and she wanted to know if anyone’d seen her.”

“And then what?”

The boy looked down at his dog. “We hadn’t.” The dog lifted its head and thumped its tail.

“And what did she do then?”

“She went on down the street.”

“Which direction?”

The boy looked around tentatively, then pointed. “That way.”

Roarke turned with him and looked . . . toward the bus station. “Thanks,” he muttered.

He stepped away from the boy and the dog, moved down the street, then dialed Rachel’s number. His anxiety spiked as he got voice mail. He spoke through a dry mouth. “Rachel. I need to talk to you right away. Please call as soon as you get this.”

He disconnected and immediately called the Belvedere House. A counselor he’d met only in passing answered. Janet.

“This is Agent Roarke. I need to speak with Rachel.”

“You’ll have to try her cell. She took the day off.”

He stood still on the sidewalk. “Do you know where she is?”

He heard the sound of papers rustling in the background under Janet’s voice. “She just said she needed a personal day.”

“When did you speak with her?” he asked sharply.

“I didn’t. She emailed last night.”

“Saying what?”

“Saying she needed to take a personal day,” Janet said, with a cold edge in her voice now.

The sick feeling intensified. “Would you please give me a call if you hear anything from her? Text, email, anything.”

There was a pause at the other end of the connection. “Is something wrong?”

For a moment he couldn’t answer. “I don’t know. Just . . . have her call me, please.”

He disconnected blankly and started back past the shops in search of Epps, reviewing the time frame in his head.

She must have left immediately after talking to me. It’s the only way she could get down here by the time that street kid said he saw her. And then Cranston was killed within an hour of that.