True Colors (31 page)
“Jesus,” Noah said. “So with these other murders, did he contact any of the victims’ significant others like he did you?”
Logan rubbed at his right temple. “No. His only pattern is to grab a woman, spend a few days raping and torturing her, then he kills her and moves on. When he took Alex, he broke that pattern for the first time, as far as the feds can tell anyway. He had a more specific goal with her.” And that goal made Logan want to slam his fist through a wall.
“This could be the break the feds need to nail this guy,” Noah said. “Alex is the only one to get away.”
Logan reached for the MacBook open on Noah’s desk. “Do you mind? I have a contact in Detroit who was going to e-mail me a copy of Butch McGee’s Michigan driver’s license.”
“Go ahead.”
Logan pulled up the Safari Web browser and accessed his e-mail account. Phil’s message, with attachment, was at the top of his in-box. He clicked through to the attachment, and as the color copy of Butch McGee’s driver’s license opened on the screen, Logan studied it. Date of birth put the guy at thirty-seven. Dark brown hair. Gray eyes. In the photo, McGee’s wide, genial smile exposed somewhat crooked teeth. What thirtysomething guy smiled that big for his driver’s license photo?
“Well?” Noah prodded.
“Doesn’t look familiar, but he matches Alex’s description.” He turned as Noah’s fax machine came to life. “That might be the security camera photos.”
Hopping up, Noah grabbed the sheets of paper as the machine fed them out and handed them to Logan.
Logan held the first one, a full-on shot of the guy standing at the Hertz counter, an amiable smile on his average-Joe face. Logan could tell without squinting that it was the same man from the driver’s license. Whoever this guy was, he hadn’t swiped Butch McGee’s identity. He
was
Butch McGee.
was
Butch McGee.
Don Walker had told him that the alert they’d put out for him had yielded nothing so far. He might have fled Lake Avalon after his car was found at the storage facility. Logan suspected, though, that McGee wouldn’t give up so easily. He’d killed twenty-three women without getting caught—and Logan suspected the actual tally went much higher. The man knew how to operate under the radar.
“So,” Noah said. “From the look on your face, I’m guessing you still have no idea who he is.”
“Not a clue.”
“He said you took away his brother. Do you know what that means? Took away as in killed? Took away as in sent to prison?”
“I don’t know,” Logan said through his teeth. “I don’t fucking know. After talking to Alex, I thought it meant ‘killed,’ because I had the one incident in Detroit. She mentioned the name Brian, the same name as the man I killed, but he apparently didn’t have any siblings.”
“What else do you know about the Brian you killed?” Noah asked. “He have any other relatives you can check in with?”
Logan shook his head. “Full name was Brian Lear. Picked up for hustling at twelve. He’d been living on the streets since he was nine or ten. No record of him before the arrest, and he spent the next six years, until he was eighteen, in and out of the system.”
“Brian Lear probably wasn’t his real name.”
“He never gave up his real name, and social services couldn’t track it down. No one ever showed up to claim their lost kid. Chances are, he started showing signs of deviant behavior early on and instead of getting help, the parents dropped him somewhere and drove away.”
“That’s just sick.”
“Lear was a real piece of work, too. Liked little boys, if you know what I mean.”
“Yikes.”
“He was a regular at a brothel in downtown Detroit that catered to deviants. Run by a guy, Chad Ellis, who interestingly enough wasn’t a deviant himself. More of a businessman.”
“And his business was sex.”
“Yep. Women, teenagers, little kids, you name it. The night I busted up his . . . business, I shot and killed Lear. Ellis was arrested and went to prison.”
“Think Ellis would be worth a visit?”
“I don’t know. The guy was tight-lipped as hell when he was arrested. I got the feeling he and Lear knew each other well—Ellis seemed broken up by Lear’s death—but he’d never fess up to it. All of this is probably moot anyway. The name Butch McGee never once came up in that case. And his MO isn’t to visit brothels. He likes ordinary women, not prostitutes.”
“That you know of.”
“True.”
“McGee could still be connected in some way,” Noah said. “I mean, if Lear’s the only guy you’ve killed . . .”
Logan thought about it. Dead end, his gut told him. Even if Lear and McGee shared a connection, the chances that Chad Ellis would start sharing information after two years in maximum-security prison . . . Well, Logan didn’t expect that to happen. Still, Noah had a point, and Logan had no intention of blowing off his only lead.
“I’ll ask my former lieutenant to feel Ellis out,” he said. “Maybe we could make a deal of some kind with him.”
“Good idea.” Noah picked up a pen and tapped it against the edge of his desk. “I don’t suppose you’ve had an in-depth conversation with Alex about her time with McGee.”
“I followed up with her on Don’s questioning at the ER.”
“I mean
in-depth
, Logan. The details. Alex is a damn perceptive woman. I’ll bet you a hundred bucks she’s got info in her head that she might not even realize is important. Info that could answer some of these questions.”
in-depth
, Logan. The details. Alex is a damn perceptive woman. I’ll bet you a hundred bucks she’s got info in her head that she might not even realize is important. Info that could answer some of these questions.”
Logan rose, his jaw tightening at the thought of asking her to relive her nightmare as McGee’s captive.
“Listen,” Noah said, “I know it’s hard, but she’s tough. She can handle it. You both can.”
Logan flashed him a rueful smile before he opened the office door, just in time to see Alex collapsing, blood spilling from her mouth.
Charlie shouted her name and tried to brace her on the way down, succeeding only in keeping her head from bouncing against the carpet.
“Alex!” Charlie slapped at her sister’s cheeks. “Alex, come on. Don’t do this to me.”
Logan dropped to his knees next to Alex’s prone, unmoving body—Jesus, the blood, what’s with the blood?—and pushed Charlie back so he could check for a pulse. The beat in Alex’s throat drummed against his fingertips, strong but frantic. She was breathing, too.
He glanced up at Charlie’s whitewashed face. “What the hell happened?”
“We agreed that I would be the one to do it, but then she pushed me out of the way.”
“What did she do?”
“She touched Justin.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
M
y bedroom window is unlocked, just as I left it, and I tumble through the opening head first. As I get up off the floor, I listen for noise downstairs. Nothing. They’re probably at the dinner table, cutting into thick steaks. I bet the topic of me living on the streets never even comes up.
y bedroom window is unlocked, just as I left it, and I tumble through the opening head first. As I get up off the floor, I listen for noise downstairs. Nothing. They’re probably at the dinner table, cutting into thick steaks. I bet the topic of me living on the streets never even comes up.
I sit on the edge of the bed. Man, I’ve missed this bed and its kick-ass feather pillow. The rest of the situation is shit, but what can I do? That cop is going to haul me off to social services and some fucked-up foster home that’s way worse than this. At least here I have my iPod and Wii and a decent bed. Even if it is a farce.
I get up and start to strip out of my stinky clothes. The bedroom door flies open and Mom stares at me like I’ve got a Mount Vesuvius zit in the middle of my forehead.
Before she says anything—welcome home, you’re grounded, where have you been, I’m divorcing your dipshit of a stepdad—the scumbag comes up behind her.
“What is it, Toni?”
She shifts to let the bastard share the doorway. His snake eyes go to slits when he sees me. “Justin.”
He says my name like it tastes like sewage. He’s such a tool. Life was good before he came along and started screwing my mother. As if screwing the Florida taxpayers hadn’t been enough.
“Apparently, you’ve decided to play by the rules,” Senator Tool says.
“I’ll do what I can, but I can’t change the fact that I’m a dick-loving homo, and I plan to shout it to the world. I don’t give a shit about your run for governor in an old-fashioned, conservative state.”
Senator Tool’s fat face flushes bright red, right to the top of his shiny bald head, and even though I know I’ve just screwed myself, I flash him a bite-me grin.
A glance at Mom says I’ve gone too far, and I regret it for about a second, because I hate disappointing her. Used to, anyway.
Senator Tool takes a step toward me, but I refuse to back up. He’s going to hit me. That’s his deal. If you don’t jive with what he believes, he destroys you.
His fist slams into my jaw. Rockets explode in my brain. My head hits the bedroom carpet, and then I’m blinking away the stars. I have a full-on view of under my bed. Hey, there’s the extra Wii remote I couldn’t find.
He jerks me up by the back of my shirt. My head spins and spins. Mom turns and walks away. That hurts worse than the punches. I’ve stood up for her more than once.
The tool smacks me again. Hard. Fuck, that
hurts
. Blood floods around my tongue, metallic and salty.
hurts
. Blood floods around my tongue, metallic and salty.
He smashes his fist into my face again. When he lets go, I hit the floor, fading fast . . .
Logan cradled Alex in his arms on the sofa in Noah’s office, his brain screaming at him to get her to the emergency room. Her head lolled against his shoulder, her breathing shallow and hitching as though she were still caught in the throes of a seizure.
But Charlie had steered him, his arms full of Alex, to the sofa. “Just give her a minute.”
“She’s not responding,” Logan said. What the fuck was
wrong
with these people?
wrong
with these people?
Charlie dabbed at the trickle of blood at the corner of Alex’s mouth, her hand shaking.
“What’s going on?” Justin asked. He had backed into the corner, looking small and defenseless in Noah’s too-big shorts and T-shirt, his don’t-screw-with-me attitude nowhere in sight.
Logan didn’t even look at him. All he could focus on at the moment was Alex, limp and too fucking pale in his arms. He heard Noah say to Justin, “Let’s wait in the other room, okay? I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
“She was fine just a minute ago,” Justin said. “Is she epileptic or something?”
“Something like that.” Noah steered the boy out of the office.
Alex shifted in Logan’s arms then and opened her eyes, blinking as if against too-bright lights. Relief pounded through him a second before she went rigid, her head pressing hard against his shoulder. As quickly as she’d stiffened, she relaxed.
He looked at Charlie. “What the hell was that?”
She winced. “We should have tried to protect her from the flash of you finding her on the floor. Too late now. I’m just glad she’s back.” She pushed to her feet, a hand on his arm for balance. “I’m going to get her some water. I’ll be right back.”
Logan didn’t watch her go. He was more concerned with Alex as she shifted in his arms with a soft moan, her tongue tentatively exploring some leftover blood at the corner of her mouth.
He loosened his death grip on her and helped her into more of a sitting position, keeping her legs draped over his thighs. Leaning toward the table next to the sofa, he plucked several Kleenex from a box there and gently wiped away the rest of the blood.
She looked dazed, not quite fully in the moment. Her jaw obviously hurt her, because she worked it with a pained wince. “Ow.”
He lightly stroked a finger over the left side, where a large bruise had formed. Holy shit, how was that even possible? “You must have hit it when you fell.”
She closed her eyes without agreeing or disagreeing and seemed to concentrate on slowly breathing in and out.
Charlie returned with a small bottle of Advil and a glass of water. She knelt next to Alex and tapped four orange caplets into her palm. “You should take these right now,” Charlie told her. “It’ll help with the pain. I asked Noah to run across to the Java Bean for some ice.”
Alex’s fingers trembled as she accepted the pills and swallowed them with the water that Charlie handed over. “Thanks.”
“What happened?” Logan asked Alex. “Did you faint?”
Alex jerked her head up, as though just now becoming fully conscious. “Where’s Justin?”
“He went with Noah,” Charlie said. “Don’t worry. He’s okay. Kind of wigged, of course.”
“Oh, God, that poor kid.” Alex’s voice thickened with emotion, and she gripped the front of Logan’s shirt. “The senator did that to him. Senator Wells.”
“He told you that?” Logan asked, stunned.
The kid hadn’t told him squat in three weeks, yet he’d spilled his guts to Alex within an hour of meeting her? And what did that have to do with her ending up on the floor, unconscious and bleeding?
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