Forgotten Girls, The (21 page)

“They had no idea who they were
messing with,” she snarled, her voice low and gravelly again. “Joslyn was a
spoiled princess who got whatever she wanted, all the time, all because she was
rich. Her life was one big thornless rose. It was time she got pricked.”

She tried to readjust her position,
but lost her balance. It looked like she was trying to stand on her knees, but she
fell backwards and laughed again like a little girl.

“I’m not going back with you,” she
said easily, lying on her back. “I’m not leaving here. Ever.”

Mack frowned, confused, and looked
at Bella, who seemed calm but cautious.

“Jenna, it’s getting dark and
pretty soon we gotta go. We don’t want to leave you here alone. Have you been
sleeping here, outside?”

“Yes, and it’s been lovely. I will
go inside when I get cold.”

“You can’t go inside anymore. This
place is boarded up. It’s closed. Why don’t you make this easy and come with
us. It’s over.”

She shook her head back and forth
as though trying to block out a loud noise then, in an instant, ripped into the
twig with a vicious bite, breaking it in two. Shards of bark slid down her
chest as she laughed heartily, like she had just heard a hysterical joke.

She lay on her back sucking sap
from the twig she had just torn open.

“Yes, it is over,” she screeched. “You
are right about something. Finally!”

Her eyes went wide and she looked
like she was choking. Before Bella and Mack understood what was happening, she lay
writhing on the ground, convulsing, her blanket crumpling beneath her, her body
shaking uncontrollably, the broken twig tightly gripped in her hand as she
choked on her own vomit.

Bella ran over and desperately tried
to steady her and pry the twig from her hand, as Mack frantically called for an
ambulance. What the hell was this? What had she done?

Forty minutes later Bella and Mack
were still on the ground in utter darkness as paramedics worked in vain to
revive Jenna. She had a pulse when they arrived, but not for long. They were
too late.

The hemlock sap had fully coursed
through her veins, spreading its toxin without sympathy.

Jenna Jordan was dead.

The
precinct was dark and quiet as Bella and Mack sat with Billy in his office. It
was 3:30 in the morning and Billy quietly read from the report that had been
faxed over.

“A North
American plant that’s sometimes used in floral arrangements but is, without a
doubt, the most violently toxic plant on the continental USA. Also called the
poison parsnip, the woody roots of the plant contain huge amounts of deadly
sap, rich in the convulsant toxin cicutoxin. The tiniest quantity of this
stuff, if ingested, will result in violent grand mal fitting, followed very
soon after by a horrible death. This is not a plant you want anywhere near your
garden.”

He sat back and surveyed his two detectives.

“You couldn’t have known,” he said
somberly. “Not that it makes it any better. She was nuts. Knew way too much
about this shit. You did what you could do.”

He was right. It didn’t make it
any better. Bella blamed herself for not seeing what Jenna was doing sooner,
for not knowing a twig could be so deadly. Mack didn’t beat himself up as much.
He kind of felt she had it coming.

It had been harrowing to sit in
the dark with her, waiting for the ambulance to arrive. It had only been five
days since she and Mack had met and driven up to Greenvale but, for some
reason, this case had turned her insides out. It had affected her.

“What can I say?” Billy sighed. “You
two did great work—wrapped this up in less than a week. Dennis hasn’t stopped
getting calls congratulating him from every corner, near and far. Hey, you
solved this thing and threw in a drug bust to boot! Some guy named Nick in
Dennis’s office is getting all the credit for breaking it up. Dennis asked if
it’s OK to let him bask in the glory a bit. Mack?”

Mack shrugged. “You kidding? I
ain’t looking for no glory.”

“You did me a solid. I owe you
both.” He shook his head sadly. “I’m just sorry for what you guys endured
tonight.”

He scratched his head and sighed.

“People coming out of the woodwork
now, of course. Her neighbor has decided it’s time to talk,” Billy added.

“What did he say?” Mack asked.

Billy’s eyes widened. “We sent a
unit in to ransack Jenna’s closet when you called. We found a shoebox filled
with those crests. We also found the neighbor’s drivers license. Looks like she
stole it. He’s an employee at Abbott Pharmaceuticals and, according to this guy,
Jenna had shown interest in his work lately. During one of their talks he
mentioned the in-house lab at Abbott requires only an employee’s driver’s license
number for orders. She got a hold of his license and placed an order for
cyanide, in his name, then had it FedEx’d to his home where it arrived via a ten
thirty a.m. delivery. She was waiting on the front lawn when the FedEx guy arrived.
Delivery guy remembers the wife who signed for it and ID’d Jenna in a photo.
The guy never even knew it had been ordered in his name.”

“Where’s Weber?” Mack asked Billy.

“Back home. Inconsolable, according
to Arthur. He believes she truly knew nothing about the murders.”

“Does she even realize Jenna set
her up to take the fall?” Mack asked.

“I don’t know what she realizes or
believes. If you listen to Arthur, she’s lost the love of her life.”

“He’s probably right,” Mack
responded.

“How the hell did she get into the
boat cabin anyway? Do we know?” Mack asked.

“The owner doesn’t remember Jenna
specifically, but he’s a party animal when he’s not in Capri. His ‘Sailing
Excursions’ are less about sailing than they are about mingling—plenty of
lovely ladies in town join in on the fun. Doug admitted Jenna had been to a few
parties on
Paradise Found.
She must have gotten hold of a key to the
cabin and made a copy. Lock wasn’t jimmied and she sure as hell wasn’t given
her own set of keys to the kingdom. This broad planned meticulously, I’ll tell
you that. She thought of almost everything.”

“What about Doug and Jessie? How
have they taken the news?” Mack pressed on. Bella remained quiet.

“Sounds like the daughters are petty
torn up. Husband is in shock. Maybe when the dust settles he’ll realize the
bullet he dodged,” Billy answered.

“I still can’t believe Ridley
waltzed into the station house, just like that. Fucking guy had the whole force
out looking for him and he just walks right in?” Mack was dumbfounded.

“They’re keeping him in a halfway
house. He refuses to go home. The stories he’s telling about his mother, well,
they’re hard to believe. Crazy guy’s blaming his conviction on her, saying
she’s the one who killed the woman in his house, said he’s been protecting her
all these years. I am telling ya, man, Greenvale sure as hell ain’t what it’s
cracked up to be.”

 He and Mack shared a laugh and
shook their heads.

 “Hey, you know what they say.
Life is stranger than fiction,” Mack grinned.

“Sure as hell is,” agreed Billy.

“And her fucking husband was
having an affair after all,” Mack said in dismay.

Lillie had called Bella that
morning and left a message that she walked in on Jamie and Stephanie in the
library.

“From what I’ve heard, it’s a bad
scene,” Bella added queitly. “His girls found out about it. I’m glad I’m not in
his house tonight.”

“Like I said, let’s steer clear of
those burbs for a while.” Mack laughed again.

“Has anyone contacted Sam’s and
Sophie’s parents?” asked Bella.

“Dennis was going to handle that,”
Billy replied. “He seems to have developed quite a close rapport with them.”

Bella imagined how they would take
the news their daughters had been killed by a psycho mother in town who had
staged their deaths as suicides, simply because their girls knocked her
daughter out of the running at her coveted school.

“Man, that crew gave us a run for
our money, huh?” Mack remarked, looking at Bella.

Bella didn’t crack a smile. She
was ruminating on the ways things had gone down. She had known right away something
was off about Jenna, but she hadn’t considered the possibility she would ever
be a murderer. Why not? Ryan had been right: her cultural preconceptions had
gotten in the way. She attributed Stephanie’s and Jenna’s behavior to
shallowness and assumed they were harmless.

Harmless. Ha. One of them went
after Joslyn’s husband and the other murdered her. Joslyn’s own beloved
daughter had even lied. She painted her mom out to be overprotective and crazy,
when she knew the truth all along. Even she herself had judged Joslyn harshly in
the beginning. She had assumed she was a rich snob, not a decent woman.

Bella felt a twinge of guilt. It
was as though she was covered in dirt and just couldn’t scrub it off. When she
worked the streets in the Bronx, whether it was prostitutes, drug dealers, gang
members, thieves—at least she knew whom she was dealing with. Good guy, bad
guy—the lines were pretty clear. In this case, they had stepped into a mirage
where money, status, looks, and charm hid the soil underneath. Where people like
Jenna and Jamie lived on a pedestal, but someone like Erika was cast off to the
side.

“Well, I’m keeping my promise to
you both,” Billy said. “Mack, I’m cutting you loose. You’re a free bird once
again, if you feel like flying.” Billy stood as he said this, and came around to
his favorite spot in front of his desk. He looked at Mack with an endearing
expression. “Although I gotta tell ya, I kind of liked having you around here
again. Big guy like you made all of us feel safer.”

Billy and Mack laughed and gave
each other a quick hug.

“I don’t know, man. It wasn’t so
bad to be back,” Mack said, as he sat back down and smiled. He snuck a peek at
Bella, but looked mostly at Billy. “Somehow my bed just doesn’t seem as
enticing after this week.”

He rubbed both his hands through
his hair and then ran them up and down the side of his cheeks.

“Arthur called me personally to
ask if you were officially back. I think he’s worried,” Billy laughed.

“What did you tell him?” Mack
asked.

“I told him the truth. That I got
a case call this morning that would blow your socks off, and twenty more behind
it. That if you want back in, we got more than enough business. Murder and sex
crime is recession-proof—that’s for sure.”

Mack winced. “Always nice to be
wanted.”

“Yeah, well, you never have to
worry about that around here, my friend,” Billy replied warmly. “This new case
that’s coming in—hell, it’s more than a case. It’s a
raison d’être
.”

Billy glanced at Bella, who was
uncharacteristically quiet. He could see her struggling, taking this one real hard.
Very unlike her.

“A doozie, huh?” Mack asked.

“Big time,” Billy answered.  “A
kiddie porn ring we’ve been watching all year here in the city just expanded
its reach. It has been bumped up a level with the number of subscribers tripling
these past six months. Just last week three high school girls disappeared from
the same high school up in Harrington, not too far from Greenvale now that I
think of it. Feds think they’ve been sold into the ring we’ve been watching. They
want our sex crimes unit in on this, to take a lead role with them. We’ve agreed
to help nail these fuckers to the wall. You want in?”

He could hit them over the head
with the details soon enough, but for now he wanted to give Mack a reason to
come back and jog Bella out of her fog. She wasn’t reacting, but he knew sure
as hell she heard what he just said. He needed Jenna and her crew to work its
way out of her system and knew the best way to do that was to replace this case
with a new one.

“I’m in, baby,” Mack smiled. “Full
throttle in.”

Bella was quiet. Both Billy and
Mack, as if on cue, looked at her at the same time. Her silence was deafening.

“Bella, Bella,” Billy sighed, as
he leaned down and took her hands in his, inadvertently making her feel worse.
He had no idea that was Ryan’s nickname for her.

She thought of Ryan now and it
dawned on her she would not be celebrating the closing of this case with him.
It would be her first time having to simply go home, alone, and dial it down on
her own. She felt a pang of sadness. She wished she could share this with him.

“You need a break, my dear,” Billy
said, seeing the way she looked. “I am ordering you to take a week off and not
to come anywhere near us for at least seven days. Do you hear me?”

He’d give her a week to unwind,
but knew she’d be back in a few days.

She nodded.

“You’re my girl, you know that,”
Billy said gently.

Bella looked at him with tenderness.

“I know Billy,” was all she said.

She felt like she might cry. What
was wrong with her?

“Hey, where’s Hausner?” Mack
interjected. “Is someone gonna get his butt down here so he can give Bella the
apology she deserves?”

“He will if I have something to
say about it,” Billy answered.

“Good,” said Mack. “I want him to
eat crow. To her face.”

Billy smiled. He liked that Mack was
looking out for her. That was a good sign.

“Speaking of eating, you guys
gotta be starving. I would buy you a drink but, as it’s morning, breakfast’s
more in order. My treat? I’ll splurge and take you to Johnny’s.”

Billy winked at Bella and Mack
slowly smiled.

She was starving, actually.

Mack stood and opened the door for
her, and they both stood there, waiting, watching her. She knew they were not
just inviting her out to breakfast: they were both looking at her, with that
look in their eye, wanting to know if she was OK, if she would make it, if she
could rebound from all this darkness. Bella stared back, and she wanted to jump
up and join them, but for the first time in her life, she felt unsure. The
events of the past few days had hurt her—more than she understood.

She sat there in the silence as
they looked down, waiting—and to their credit, they didn’t rush her, and they
didn’t leave without her. They understood. More than anyone else, they
understood.

Bella felt her eyes well with
tears as she sat there, frozen, and she didn’t want them to see her like this.

“Let’s go, Billy,” Mack said.

Bella loved him in that moment; he
knew what she was going through and wanted to give her her privacy.

He gave her a long, meaningful
look before he walked out:

“You’ll meet us there, kiddo,” he
said, looking her in the eye. “I know you will.”

They turned and walked out the
door, and as Bella sat there in the silence, staring out the window, she wanted
to say yes. She would go on. She would take the next case.

But as she stared into the rain,
descending on the Bronx like a plague, she was no longer sure of anything.