Skye Cree 02: The Bones Will Tell (20 page)

F
rank De Palo was beyond pissed.

How the hell was he supposed to explain his fucking broken nose to his trainer? Not only that, for the first time in ten years, he’d failed to control the situation.

He’d let the bitch get away from him.

Frank didn’t take failure well.
Never had. His fractured schnozz still hurt. The bitch had caught him right across the bridge when he’d been distracted by her kid. If he hadn’t turned his head he’d have been able to take care of both woman and boy. Should’ve taken care of the damned kid beforehand, he thought now.

Frank popped three more ibuprofen, even though he rarely took drugs of any kind, and gulped them down with half a bottle of water. He hoped like hell it eased the pain because he had a
Goddamned match in less than two hours. What the hell would his opponent think when he walked into the arena with a bandage already stuck across his beak?

Just thinking about last night had Frank making a fist, ready to pelt the face of his next challenger he faced in the octagon, the place where he ruled.

For the past three years, he’d dominated the world of Mixed Martial Arts. Since pursuing his dream in MMA he’d discovered his calling. Without really knowing it, he’d been training for the sport most of his life. Originally a long-distance runner in high school, the sport gave him the one-on-one adrenaline of facing an opponent and beating the shit out of him with his superior skill. The game had turned out to be his means of escape. Even if that release valve didn’t last very long, it had more than likely prevented him from getting arrested many times over the last thirty-six months.

Not only that, it encompassed all the disciplines he loved.
Karate. Kickboxing. Jiu-jitsu. Judo. Muay thai. And of course, his first love, wrestling. Since he’d made varsity three straight years during high school, he’d been good enough to get a scholarship. Since first stepping into the octagon, he’d been able to maintain his welterweight status and the required minimum seven-percent body fat. Physically fit, in shape, he trained daily with Seattle’s well-known fitness guru Mick Hyatt.

Mick hadn’t really taught him anything he didn’t already know. But appearances were everything, especially if you needed to hide a darker self. No one in their right mind would ever link Frank De Palo, the all-American athlete and MMA star, to his daily early-morning reconnaissance, or his B&E extracurricular activities, or Frank’s personal favorite—outdoing Gary Ridgway, the local man dubbed the Green River killer—in body count.

While Ridgway had focused on many of society’s throwaways, hookers and teenagers with problems at home, Frank aspired to achieve greater things with better more worthwhile victims. With his strict religious upbringing he refused to go near prostitutes. And teen girls didn’t interest him much.

But snooty women who considered themselves independent and better than the common guy were a different story. Those types who thought they were so safe, tucked inside their upscale homes and snuggled in their beds where they were most vulnerable, presented a challenge to him. Getting to them, controlling them, and
having
them were the essence of the game.

As he took a second look at his broken nose in the mirror, he decided Janie Holliman hadn’t been his first choice anyway.

Who wanted a woman who’d gone through childbirth? He should’ve passed up the bitch and left her to the sleazebags she’d hooked up with in the past. Obviously, she wasn’t much of a woman in the sack if she couldn’t live with the man who’d fathered her child.

From now on, he’d avoid single moms. They didn’t really do anything for him anyway. They weren’t worth his time and effort, too slutty. From now on, he reasoned, he’d stick with the hot, single women, he preferred.

“Harry, you have
a survivor. You just don’t know it. Check the log from last night. You had two patrol officers respond to an attempted rape by what they considered to be nothing more than a prowler in the neighborhood who got a little frisky. That prowler was our guy. And he got away.”

“Goddamn it! I’ve told those beat cops to report anything like that to the task force.
Which neighborhood, Skye?”

“That I can’t tell you, Harry.
Before you blow a gasket, I’m not holding back. I just don’t know the answer. But the woman escaped his attack with a little boy in tow. How many times could something like that have taken place last night?”

“Good point. I’ll go through the incident reports and get back to you.”

“Let us know what you find out. Because Josh wants to talk to the survivor.”

The wheels of
bureaucratic red tape were slow. Wading through reports took another ten hours before Harry got back to them.

He had been able to confirm what Skye and Josh already knew. Janie Holliman had barely escaped from a serial killer with her life and probably that of her child. Over the phone Harry tracked Janie down at her mother’s house and got the woman to agree to sit down with all of them to recall what had happened.

So the next day, Skye and Josh drove all the way out to Redmond because Janie refused to go back inside her little cottage in Olympic Hills.

Harry met them on the sidewalk in front of a two-story, Tudor-style house belonging to Janie’s parents.

“It’s probably a good thing she’s staying with someone,” Skye noted. “Just remember to go easy on her, guys. The woman’s been through a life-changing event.”

Josh and Harry exchanged glances before turning to Skye. “I’m a little insulted by that,” Josh said. “I’m not here to beat her up.”

“Nor am I,” Harry added.

“I know that. But having to replay the whole cycle of events is traumatic and will conjure up all the panic and fear she felt at the time. That’s gonna stay with her for years even though she got away.”

Janie’s mother, Jeanette Frazier, greeted them at the door, ushering the trio into the living area, she reminded them, “Janie hasn’t been herself since it happened. My daughter hasn’t stopped shaking for the past twenty-four hours. I’m mostly seeing to it that David is taken care of while Janie tries to deal with all of this. But every time I think about what could’ve happened to her in that house and to my grandson, I get sick to my stomach and break out in a cold sweat.”

“I don’t blame you,” Skye said. “She got lucky, Mrs. Frazier. And she knows it. But she’ll move past this…eventually.”

“Call me Jeanette. And I hope you’re right, Miss Cree because my Janie is a good person, a good mother even though she has to work and do the parenting for two people sometimes.”

“What about David?” Josh asked which earned him a glare from Jeanette. “David saw this guy, too, right?”

“Surely, you don’t intend to question a three-year-old, do you?” Jeanette wanted to know, ringing her hands in front of her. She sent an accusing scowl toward the detective. “You didn’t mention that you wanted to talk to David when you called.”

But it was Josh who answered. “Don’t worry, we won’t talk to David. I doubt he’d be able to tell us much anyway because of his young age.”

“Thank goodness for that,” Janie exclaimed from the doorway.

Three pairs of eyes stared at their survivor. They hadn’t expected the woman to be so petite. The little brunette couldn’t have stood any taller than five-three at the most. She looked as if she might weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet.

“So you took down a man who outweighed you by seventy pounds and had you in height by seven or eight inches?” Skye asked, clearly impressed.

Before she replied, Janie turned to her mother and suggested, “Mom, will you go make sure David is occupied while I talk to these people.”

“Sure, honey. You call me if you need anything.”

As soon as Jeanette had left the room, Janie sunk down into the nearest chair. She finally addressed Skye’s question. “I guess I was able to take down the asshole because David ran into the room and he turned his attention on my child. It was all fear then. I thought he’d hurt my son. And when I saw an opening, I took it. I was afraid he was going to hurt David,” Janie repeated, her eyes misting over at the reminder.

“From reading the police report, I’d say you kicked his fucking ass and broke his nose,” Skye commented. “Way to go, Janie!”

Janie couldn’t help it. That assessment caused her to crack a grin. Her smile broke some of the tension in the room. “You know it wasn’t until much later that morning that I realized who it was in my house that tried to attack me. I’d seen the news, never ever considered I’d be a potential victim.”

“What can you tell us about him?” Harry wanted to know, getting right down to business. “From the report I read, we already know he wore some kind of a ski mask. We know you wouldn’t recognize him again. We’re not dragging you anywhere to look at a lineup of suspects. There’s no need. So relax here. We just want to see if, by any chance, you can give us something, remember anything that might help us catch this guy.”

Janie shook her head and corrected Harry. “Well, for one, I never said he wore a ski mask. That to me means like a knitted cap or something. This was more lightweight and sheer. A stretchy fabric almost like what Spider-Man wears.” At that, Janie smiled a little wider. “That’s what David asked me after the cops left and I was putting him to bed at Tara’s. It was Tara’s house I ran to, to get away. Anyway, when I was trying to get David to go back down to sleep, he asked why Spider-Man came into our house naked.”

“Interesting,” Skye mumbled, as if considering the child’s take on what he saw. “Could this mask have been homemade?”

“Sure, I guess. It reminded me of one of those masks the wrestlers we sometimes watch on television wear. But instead of ending around the mouth this one covered his entire face and his throat area. It was shiny, too. At least that’s what I remember thinking.”

Josh exchanged glances with Skye as if keying in on the wrestler angle. “You mean it sparkled or glistened in the light?” he asked.

Janie closed her eyes to try to remember. “Sort of, I guess I’d say it glistened more than sparkled. Huh, that’s odd.”

“What?” Skye prompted. 

“When I fell asleep on the sofa, the lights were on and so was the TV. Oh my God! When I woke up the only light came from my little kitchen, the light above the stove. He must have turned the light on in there.” Both of Janie’s hands flew to her mouth. “I just realized. He must’ve been in my house with us for some time before I woke up, long enough to make
himself at home. I remember trying to wake up because I could hear footsteps. I don’t know how much time passed before I was able to fully come awake. I remembering thinking it was David and hoped he would go back to sleep. Then I heard a dragging sound or some kind of thumping along the floor. I thought David had gotten up to play.”

Janie sat there stricken at the realization. “I make sure I lock all the doors and check them every night. Like I said, I’d listened to the news. He got in anyway. I didn’t respond to the noise I heard soon enough. I thought it came from outside, a cat or dog. But…how did he get in?”

Harry thumbed through the police report. “The two officers agreed that he made entry into the house by way of the window in the smaller bedroom.”

Janie’s eyes went wide and she swallowed hard, before her hand moved to her stomach.
“David’s room? I think I might be sick. I’ve already told my landlord I can’t live there after what happened.”