Vanished - A Mystery (Dixon & Baudin Book 1) (15 page)

30

Dixon was woken by his cell phone, and he silenced it without seeing who it was. Hillary lay nude next to him, only the corner of their sheets lying across her breasts. He watched her a long time, the curves in her soft flesh, the way her chest moved with each inhalation of breath, the perfect lips with the strands of hair that came down over her face… She was even more attractive than when he’d first seen her.

He turned finally to his phone and saw that Baudin had called. Dixon texted him.

What?

You need to come to my house

Why?

You’ll see. Just come down

He exhaled loudly and rose from bed, rubbing the back of his head before hitting the shower.

The baby had slept all night, giving Dixon that weird euphoria that the sleep-deprived got when they suddenly were allowed to sleep. The shower went quickly, and he dressed and was eating breakfast before Hillary was even up.

“Morning,” she said, heading for the coffee.

“Morning. Little guy slept the whole night.”

“I know. Let’s hope he makes a habit of it.”

She retrieved her coffee and sat next to him. He reached out and set his hand over hers before leaning in and kissing her. “I love you,” he said.

She looked down at the table. “I love you, too.”

He squeezed her hand, rose, and kissed her again before leaving.

The sky was a light blue, a little hazy but without too many clouds. A breeze blew, and he sat in his car a moment and listened to it rustle the leaves on the trees surrounding his home.

Once he was on the road, he turned on a country station, and Lynyrd Skynyrd was playing. He turned it up, tapping his hand on the door as he took the interstate.

At the baseball field near Baudin’s home, a man was walking around flattening the dirt with a machine that looked like a riding lawnmower. Dixon waved to him as he got out of the car, but the man’s head was down, and he didn’t see it.

He knocked, and Baudin answered a second later. He wasn’t dressed, and his eyes were rimmed with red.

“You look like shit,” Dixon said.

“Good morning to you, too,” Baudin said, leaving the door open.

Dixon shut the door behind him and followed Baudin into the kitchen as he prepared some tea.

“You want some?” Baudin asked.

“No, thanks.”

“Tea’s good for you. Lots of antioxidants to get all that shit out that the corporations pump into our food.”

Dixon sat on a stool. “I thought we’d go interview that friend who works at Macy’s today. See if she knew who Alli was hangin’ out with.”

Baudin nodded while taking a sip of his tea. “I got something to show you first.”

Dixon hopped down and followed him to the stairs leading to the dark basement. Baudin flipped on a light, one bare light bulb for the entire basement. Several photographs were pinned above a desk pushed up against the wall. A copy of the composite sketch they’d gotten hung next to the photographs.

“What’s this?”

“He’s there,” Baudin said, his eyes on the photos. “He’s in one of these photos.”

“How do you know?”

“He’s an alum, or he’s in the frat now. I know it. No one else would have a Sigma Mu up on their rearview. He’s a brother.”

Dixon put his hands on his hips, surveying the photos. “How’d you even get these?”

“They got the years written on ’em, but the hard part’s going to be the names. There’s no names on any of these photos.” He thrust his middle finger at a boy with a circle in marker around his face in one of the photos. “It’s either him,” Baudin said, then pointed at another boy’s circled face, “or him.”

Dixon leaned in close. The composite sketch was rough, little more than a general outline, as though the artist just didn’t have the time, or didn’t
want
to take the time, to fill in the details. “Could be, I guess. Could be a buncha other people, too.”

Baudin shook his head, taking a sip of his tea. “It’s one of them.”

“Well, I guess we can take the photos to Dora and see if she recognizes one of them.”

Baudin put his tea down. “Lemme get dressed.”

Macy’s wasn’t terribly busy as Dixon and Baudin strode in. Dixon had never liked the store. Maybe something about the lighting or the customer service… something didn’t sit right with him. As soon as he walked in, that uncomfortable feeling hit his gut.

Baudin went up to an older woman behind a counter near the clothing and said, “Excuse me. We’re looking for Dora.”

“She’s in the fragrance department.”

The fragrance department was completely empty except for a young girl with straight black hair who was busy stocking a shelf. Dixon approached her. She looked fragile, and he was worried that Baudin’s direct style might intimidate her.

“Are you Dora?” Dixon asked.

She looked up with soft blue eyes, and Dixon could tell her first response was fear. “Yes?”

“I’m Detective Kyle Dixon with the CPD. Um, did you know Alli Tavor, Dora?”

She closed the shelf she was working on, pulling a transparent plastic sheath over it. “I heard what happened. Her mom called me and told me she was dead. I’m sorry, I told one other person, and now everybody at school heard. They announced it on the PA and had a moment of silence.” She looked away. “I had to leave school. I couldn’t stop cryin’.”

“I’m sorry about your friend,” Dixon said.

She nodded. “She was always partying, always hanging out with college guys and going to clubs. She ran away once and moved in with this thirty-year-old guy who was divorced. Her mom got her back, but it didn’t do nothin’. I always thought… I mean, I didn’t think
this
… but I always thought somethin’ bad was gonna happen.”

Dixon nodded. He glanced down and saw that the girl was wearing an engagement ring. “Can we talk somewhere private?”

“Sure. Lemme get someone to cover.”

Dora left, and after a few moments, another girl had taken her place. They walked outside, and Dora took out a package of cigarettes. Belatedly realizing she was with two cops, she put the cigarettes away again.

Baudin took out his pack and lit two. He handed one to her and smoked the other one.

“Thanks,” she said bashfully.

“These guys she was hanging out with,” Dixon said. “You ever meet ’em?”

“Sure I met ’em. I met that thirty-year-old guy, too. He always creeped me out.”

Baudin said, “You catch his name?”

“Tom. I don’t know his last name. He lived in them apartments up on Orem Street. Philip somethin’.”

“Philip Arms,” Dixon said. “I know the place. Did Alli ever tell you Tom was mean to her or acting strange? Was she afraid of him?”

“No, I don’t think so,” she said, blowing out a puff of smoke. “He was creepy, though. Made us watch pornos when we was at his apartment. I think he was hopin’ to fuck both of us.”

Dixon nodded. “What about the college guys?”

“Just college guys. A lot of ’em. She’d go party up at their frat.”

Baudin pulled out the photo from a manila envelope he had tucked in his waistband. “You recognize any of these guys as people she hung out with?”

Baudin had erased the circles around their faces. He slowly flipped through the photos as Dixon hung back and watched the girl’s reaction. Baudin flipped back ten years, and she didn’t say anything.

“Nothin’?” Dixon said.

“I mean, some of ’em look familiar, but it’s kinda hard to see. Them pictures is blurry.”

Baudin said, “Do you have any photos on your phone of any of the guys?”

She shook her head, holding the cigarette low between two fingers. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Was she dating any one frat guy in particular?”

“Um… I don’t think so.”

Dixon said, “Did you go up there with her?”

The girl looked away. “No. Because of them parties.”

“What parties are those?” Dixon asked.

“They call ’em slut parties, but only the guys in the frat call ’em that.” She took a pull of smoke. “They’re really rape parties.”

“Rape parties?” Baudin asked.

“Yeah. They, like, throw a party and invite a bunch of girls. Then they kinda, I guess, vote on which one they’re gonna do. Then they get her drunk or put, like, roofies or GHB in her drinks. When her friends aren’t paying attention, the guys take her upstairs.”

Dixon couldn’t speak for a second and just stared at the girl. “Are you telling me they organize and rape girls at these parties?”

“Yeah, they throw ’em, like, for special occasions, I guess. New people comin’ into the frat or somethin’.”

“Have you seen one?”

She nodded. “I wasn’t picked, but a girl I knew was.”

“I’ll need her name.”

“Ruth Chase. She’s a grade behind me. Or was. I dropped out.”

Baudin took down the name in his phone. “We’re looking for one person in particular, Dora. A man who knew her, spent time with her, and then wasn’t that broken up about her disappearing. Can you think of any man like that?”

She shook her head. “No, I didn’t go to those parties after what happened to Ruth.”

Dixon stood grinding his teeth. Baudin must’ve noticed because he said, “Thanks for your help. We’ll give you a call if we need anything else.”

As they were walking back to the car, Dixon couldn’t speak. The anger inside of him was too much.

“I worked campus police there, man,” Dixon said. “There was nothin’ like that back then. What the hell is wrong with the world?”

“You’re just seeing more of it. Or you didn’t see enough of it back then.”

“Bullshit. There weren’t no rape parties twenty years ago.”

“Maybe not here. I worked some. It’s a type of binding oath they have. Everyone in the frat has to rape her, that way none of them can go to the cops because they were part of it, too. Keeps their silence. It started in the Ivy League. The rich kids would invite the poor ones from other schools and rape one. Degradation, man. It’s what it’s always been about.”

Baudin opened the door to the car but stood there a second. “I think we should visit the friend at school before the porno guy. She’ll know more about what the frat guys are like than anyone.”

31

Hillary Dixon finished her workout and cooled off by walking on the treadmill. The sweat had poured out of her in a way she wasn’t used to, and she checked her distance: she’d run ten miles, four miles more than her usual.

The gym was always busy with the stay-at-home mothers who kept their bodies in perfect shape. She saw the way they looked at her as though she were poison but then would all smile and pretend they were her friend when she spoke to them. She didn’t understand their jealousy. Hillary had always been beautiful and never gave a second thought to it. Intelligence was more important to her, but she didn’t hate those more intelligent than herself. She admired them and tried to learn from them. Pettiness wasn’t an emotion she could relate to.

The daycare worker was a skinny woman with a tattoo on her neck, and she was playing with Randy, making him coo and smile. From a few steps back, Hillary stared at her son. The older he got, the cuter he got. But he also resembled his father more and more.

She’d told herself to get a paternity test dozens of times. Once she’d gotten as far as walking into the clinic before turning around. A glimmer of hope still existed that Randy was her husband’s child, that she wasn’t the worst wife she’d ever known—something she felt constantly—and that life could go back to some sort of normal, without the endless bouts of crying and dread that would eat up her days.

A day would come when Kyle would look at his son and realize he looked nothing like him, and she didn’t know what she was going to do on that day.

“Hey,” she said, “you miss me?”

Randy cooed as the daycare worker laughed. Hillary picked him up in her arms and kissed his cheeks. Regardless of what she had done, of what she and Chris had done, the child was innocent. He was pure and good… and her son. Even if he wasn’t Kyle’s.

She walked out of the gym and to her car. As she approached, she saw a man leaning against the driver’s side door. Chris stood there with a grin on his face. His arms were folded, and his eyes never left the baby.

“Are you following me?” she said.

“We used to meet in places like this,” he said, looking out over the traffic in the street. “Anywhere we thought Kyle wouldn’t be. Little nooks of the city I didn’t even know existed.”

She pushed him away and opened the backdoor. Buckling Randy into his car seat, she saw Chris get into the passenger side.

“Get out.”

“I need a ride.”

“I said get out.”

“I’m serious. Just a ride. I took the bus down here.”

She sighed. Once the baby was buckled in, she sat in the driver’s seat and closed her eyes for a moment. His scent still gave her shivers down her spine. Every man had a unique scent and, though she had known many lovers in her life, she had only known the scent of two men.

“Please, Chris, if you ever cared for me at all, please leave us alone.”

“How can you ask me to do that? We have a child together. Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Are you really so cold that you would raise this boy without telling him who his real father is? Do you think he would love you for that?”

Tears were streaming down her face. “Please, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Just please leave us alone. Please.”

He was quiet a moment. “I’m sorry, I can’t do that.” He took some papers out of a satchel and laid them on the dash. “That’s a petition to force a paternity test. If he’s mine, I’m going to sue for custody. Just weekends. Even every other weekend. Just so he doesn’t grow up thinking his father’s completely abandoned him.”

Reason had gone out the window, and Hillary felt nothing but a deep ache that started in her gut and ran up to her head. It dulled everything and filled her with a terror that made her tremble. “Please… please… why are you doing this?”

He gently took her hand. “Because I love him… and you.”

“No, no… no.”

He kissed her, and she let him. His lips were soft, far softer than Kyle’s, and the pit of her stomach quivered at his kiss.

“I’m married,” she whispered, pulling away. He brought her head onto his shoulder. “I’m married.”

“I know. But you don’t have to be. We don’t have to be apart, Hillary. Do you still love him?”

“Yes.”

“But you love me, too. I know it. I can see it when you look at me.”

He held her, his arms wrapped around her as she wept. A single image kept coming to her: Kyle. Her husband. The one who she swore she would always be loyal to. The one who had always been loyal to her. The one who she had betrayed in the deepest way possible. Somewhere inside her, she knew there was a price that would have to be paid. Betrayal this intimate had to be avenged.

She pulled away from Chris, stared into his eyes, and then pressed her lips to his.