Down the Darkest Street (22 page)

By the time Pete turned around to enter the office, Harras had let out a long sigh of relief. She was alive, Pete thought.

He peered over Harras’s shoulder and saw Henriquez, crouched on the floor, sobbing. The cries were low but wracked her tiny body. She hadn’t turned around to face them. The window above the small desk had been opened—by force. Shattered glass covered the desktop and parts of the floor, including Henriquez.

It took another second for Pete to notice the piece of paper a few feet away from Henriquez’s hand. It was crumpled. Harras gave Pete a freezing stare that said,
Look at what you did
. The FBI agent backed out of the office and walked into the tiny Laundromat’s main area. Pete could hear him shouting orders over his phone, probably calling the main office. Pete kept his feet in place, his eyes frozen on the still sobbing middle-aged woman, her body shaking. He took a small, tentative step forward. Still not in the office, but closer. Close enough to read the hastily written letters on the piece of paper:
NINA’S DEAD. EMILY’S
NEXT.

The words sent a cold snap through Pete’s system, blocking out Harras, blocking out everything as he ran back to where he’d last seen Emily.

“Are you fucking crazy?”

The Messenger was agitated. Julian had stepped out of the Realtor’s office to take the call. He’d been expecting it.

“I can’t talk—I’m at work,” Julian said. He had ducked away near a garbage area, surrounded by massive metal bins full of trash, keeping his voice quiet and his movements casual. He’d let his ego interfere. There’d been no upside to leaving the note. It had been tricky, too. He enjoyed that. Hearing the woman scream. He’d left work without a word, which raised some eyebrows. The edges were beginning to fray.

“People are figuring it out. I can’t believe you dealt with her without letting me know. You’ve ruined the moment,” the Messenger said. “That note was stupid. There were prints! I’ll take care of that. But Fernandez is heading over. I’m ahead of him, thankfully. I’m going to resolve my end of the bargain, because we have no choice.”

“I kill on my schedule,” Julian said. “Do your part. Fix my Fernandez problem. Execute the task I’ve written for you. Don’t let this fall apart.”

Julian slammed the phone against the garbage dump. He turned to go back to work when he saw her. She looked up from the compact she’d been using to check her makeup. The girl couldn’t have been over twenty, and stood just outside the garbage area. She looked scared, her big brown eyes open wide in fear. Her hair was cut short, almost like a boy. A cigarette was at her feet. She’d come out for a smoke to find this.

He took a step toward the girl. “Sorry you had to hear that,” he said, his voice sweet and welcoming, a warm smile on his face. “Give me a second to explain.”

“Meet me at Emily’s house,” Pete said, his breath short. He hadn’t even waited to hear Kathy say hello.

“What? In Homestead?” Kathy said. She sounded annoyed. They hadn’t talked in a few days.

“Hurry,” Pete said and hung up, tossing his phone on the passenger seat. He’d been trying Emily’s number nonstop but it was going straight to voice mail. Harras had assured him a cruiser was on its way to Homestead—but Pete hadn’t heard from him since then. A cruiser with sirens blaring had a distinct advantage over most people, but this guy wasn’t “most people.”

Pete felt his foot press on his rental car’s accelerator, its engine groaning with the strain. The radio was off. The windows were down. The drive to Homestead was not a quick one—the suburb was the last vestige of civilization south of the city of Miami before you hit the swamplands of the Everglades and the first hint of the Florida Keys. It was mostly agrarian, large farms and miles of unblemished land that were slowly getting populated by people looking for more space and cheaper housing. Pete hated it there.

His mind veered back to the exchange with Emily. Pete cursed himself under his breath. The sociopath who’d been stabbing teen girls to death to get his rocks off was on his way to do the same with Emily. The car was stopped at an intersection, the light red. Homestead was at least forty-five minutes away, even at top speed. The intersection was a busy one: Sunset and 137th Avenue. Cars were whizzing across. Pete felt a chill cover him. He imagined Emily working on her garden. He pressed the horn and let it ring out, a long, droning squawk. Then he pushed down on the accelerator.

He’d looked both ways enough to discern a lull in the oncoming traffic, but not much of one. He ignored the horns from behind and both sides and pushed the car forward. He made it across the intersection and let out a quick sigh of relief. He was pushing seventy in a fifty-five mph zone. He kept his eye on the road, checking the rearview mirrors for cops.

***

There were two police cars in the driveway at Emily and Rick’s house when Pete pulled up and parked in front, leaving the driver’s side door open as he ran to the front door. He was met by a uniformed police officer.

“Hold it, bud,” the cop said. “Can I help you?”

“Is she here? Is she OK?” Pete said, out of breath. “I want to make sure she’s inside.”

The officer walked toward Pete and motioned for him to move to the side of the walkway, concern in his eyes.

“Say that again?”

“I think my friend is in trouble,” Pete said, starting to get frustrated. He tried to look over the cop’s shoulder to see what was happening in the house, but could only see a few other uniforms. “I need to find her.”

He started to move past the cop when he felt the man’s firm hand grab his left arm.

“You’re not going anywhere just yet,” the cop said. “I need to have one of our detectives talk to you. You don’t just waltz in here and—”

Pete pulled his arm away and sidestepped the officer. The cop was only doing his job, Pete realized, but that wasn’t Pete’s problem. He ran for the front door and made it inside the house before he felt his body slam into the hallway entrance. He hadn’t seen the man coming, but his voice was familiar. He felt the knuckles of a fist as they made contact with his chin.

“Where is she? Where is she, you motherfucker?” Rick screamed. It was pure luck that Pete turned his head to the left and noticed Rick’s arm careening toward him. Rick’s face was red and his eyes wet. He looked wobbly and rough.

Pete shoved Rick back and raised his hands up. He wasn’t here to fight.

“Where is she?” he asked.

“She’s gone,” Rick said, his voice a charred whisper. “She never came home. Her phone’s off. The cops found her car on the side of the road, blood on the front seat.”

Before he could say anything else, Aguilera appeared. He got between Pete and Rick, his hand pushing Rick away from Pete.

“Gentlemen, take a deep breath and try to relax for a second,” Aguilera said, his tone calm if a bit condescending. Pete looked around at the house. It seemed very little was out of place. Pete tried to weave farther into the home, but was met by Aguilera’s other hand. Pete fought the urge to twist Aguilera’s arm back and move ahead anyway.

Aguilera seemed to notice the flicker of violence in Pete’s eyes and turned his gaze on him. He seemed calm, Pete thought. He didn’t care about what was happening. This was his job. Just another day for him. Pete tried to push the resentment out of his head.

“We need to stay calm,” Aguilera continued. “Pete, why are you here? What’s going on?”

“Did you talk to Harras?” Pete said. “I thought you were off the case.”

“Don’t worry if I’m on or off the case. Yes, he called me; then we got the call from Rick,” Aguilera said, looking to Rick briefly, as if to confirm he was still there. “Emily’s gone. We have no idea what state she’s in or where she may be going. Someone pulled her off the road and kidnapped her. Do you have any idea who that might have been?”

Pete took a half step back. Aguilera’s tone bothered him. It was a positioning question; he was asking as if he knew the answer already, which was not what Pete wanted to hear.

“I have no fucking idea, man,” Pete said, shrugging Aguilera’s hand away. “Harras saw the same thing I did. Someone left a note on the floor saying ‘Nina’s dead. Emily’s next.’”

“We’re still checking that note for prints,” Aguilera said. “But Harras says they’ve got nothing so far.”

“Well, I’m not a big pro like you are,” Pete said. “But considering I had just finished talking to Emily before meeting with Harras, I put two and two together and figured he was going after her.”

“Who’s he?” Aguilera continued, his tone still calm and probing. He ignored Pete’s annoyed look.

“I don’t know,” Pete said. “But he might be the same guy who beat the shit out of me, blew up my house and car, and killed all these girls.”

“This is your fucking fault,” Rick said, his voice a low, menacing growl. “You got her into this mess. You got her involved. It was bad enough when he took Alice, but now this…”

Pete could already see Rick shoving Aguilera aside and charging for him, but before that scene could roll, another uniformed officer approached, the same one who’d stopped Pete out front. His appearance slowed Rick’s momentum.

“There’s a reporter from
The Times
outside, sir,” he was talking to Aguilera, ignoring Rick and Pete. “Says she knew the victim. Wants to talk to this guy.” He motioned his head to signal Pete, and not in a positive way.

Aguilera nodded and turned to Pete. “Come with me,” he said. “Let’s talk to your partner and see what we can figure out.”

They both walked past Rick and toward the front yard. Pete looked past Aguilera and could see Kathy standing alone in the fading light of dusk. She was wearing a black T-shirt and slim jeans, her face scrubbed and eyes curious. She’d made it. Pete felt a great warmth toward her.

She reached for him and grabbed his arm. She looked Pete over, as if checking him for any bruises or wounds.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” Pete said. “Emily’s gone.”

“I figured as much,” she said, looking at Aguilera for a second. “What happened?”

“Harras and I were talking to Nina Henriquez’s mom,” Pete began.

“No, you were talking to her,” Aguilera said. “If Harras hadn’t been following you, you would have talked to her alone.”

Pete cleared his throat and kept going. “We talked to her, but got nothing—she hasn’t had a relationship with her daughter in at least a year,” Pete said. “Harras and I went outside to regroup. That’s when we heard her scream.”

“Oh God,” Kathy said.

“When we came back, she was on the floor wailing, crying,” Pete said, not enjoying having to repeat the story. “She had a note in her hand. It said ‘Nina’s dead. Emily’s next.’ I’d just seen Emily—by chance—minutes before, in the same mall.”

“This is your fault.” Aguilera’s words cut through the night and left Kathy and Pete frozen for a few seconds.

“What?”

“You heard me,” Aguilera said. His look and demeanor hadn’t fluctuated beyond the calm, collected, and sharp vibe he’d given off when Pete arrived. “You shouldn’t have been at the Laundromat. You know this. Your pretty friend might have made it home to tend to her garden, or to a nice dinner with her husband if you hadn’t decided to play cowboy.”

“Since when are you so serene and matter-of-fact?” Pete said.

“Do you have any leads?” Kathy said, cutting him off.

“A few,” Aguilera said. “But none I’m going to share with a delusional wannabe and a newspaper columnist.”

Aguilera seemed to relish the opportunity to put them down. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it. He slid the lighter into his coat pocket and let a puff of smoke leave his mouth.

“I suggest you both go home, or wherever you live,” Aguilera said, looking at Pete as he said the last part. “And wait. She may reach out to you if she can. Or we may have some more questions. But we don’t need you here. Frankly, we don’t want you here. This is the last time we let you interfere with our investigation.”

“Fuck you.” The words left Kathy’s mouth seconds after Aguilera finished. By the time Pete had registered them, she was halfway to her car. He took a slight bit of pleasure in seeing Aguilera’s feathers ruffled again. The agent looked at Pete before turning back and heading to the house without another word.

Pete saw Rick coming toward him. He turned to face him, his hands balled nervously into fists. Rick’s approach was not menacing, though. If anything, he seemed defeated and tired. He stopped a safe distance from Pete.

“I’m sorry about how I got in there,” he said.

“It’s fine,” Pete said.

“I need you to find her, Pete,” Rick said. “Find her for me. We were finally getting back to—back to where we were. To being together. I can’t lose her now.”

Pete swallowed. His throat was dry.
He has no idea what went down with me and Emily.

“I don’t think these guys want my help,” Pete said, motioning to the police still looking around the house. “But I want to find her. We have to find her.”

Rick looked around before talking again. “They left another note,” he said. “And I think it was meant for you. It was in Emily’s car.”

Pete felt himself begin to shake. The dusk had turned to darkness, leaving only the dim porch light to illuminate the front yard. Rick’s eyes wide and searching, desperate for anything that could help him. Pete didn’t want to hear anything else from him. He didn’t want this to be real. He rubbed his sweaty palms on his jeans.