Kill Her Again (A Thriller) (2 page)

And until she was, she’d simply have to fake it.

“Looks like we’re here,” Royer said, and sure enough the lights of Ludlow, California, twinkled in the distance ahead, a dusty oasis in the middle of the Mojave Desert.

Anna wondered how people lived out here, wondered what compelled them to seek out the isolation and the dry, oven-like temperatures. Places like this were scattered throughout Southern California, with no apparent connection to the rest of the world.

Maybe that in itself was the attraction.

“You might want to brace yourself,” Royer said. “I’m told the scene is pretty grisly.”

Anna didn’t mind.

Maybe grisly was just the distraction she needed.

2

I
T WAS SMALL
as houses go. A worn, two-bedroom box made of brick and stucco, surrounded by a low, sagging wooden fence and fronted by a tiny patch of earth that had never held much more than a few desert weeds.

Anna had always harbored the notion that everything looked better at night. More stylized. Romantic. But there was no romance here. The house was a desolate and dreary reflection of the neighborhood—and town—it occupied.

A half-dozen County Sheriff’s vehicles were parked haphazardly in the street out front, a coroner’s van backed into the driveway, its rear doors hanging open.

Several neighbors stood watching from across the street, a mix of old and young, fat and thin, clothed and half-naked, every one of them with a leathery, sun-baked complexion that added a good ten years to their appearance.

The first thing Anna noticed as she climbed out of the cool interior of the Explorer was the oppressive summer heat. Middle of the night and it had to be over a hundred degrees. She felt as if someone had thrown a thick, wool blanket around her, and she wanted desperately to take off her coat. That, however, wasn’t about to happen unless Royer took his off first, and Anna wasn’t holding her breath.

Good thing, too, because Royer actually
buttoned
his coat before flashing his creds at a nearby deputy. Ducking under the yellow crime scene tape, he headed for the open front door.

Anna followed, but before they reached the porch, a sinewy guy in a western shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots stepped into the doorway.

“Agent Royer?”

His voice was a deep, somber baritone, but there was no hint of hostility on his face as he moved forward and held out a hand to shake.

Royer shook it, looking mildly surprised by the man’s courtesy.

“That’s right,” he said. “Deputy Worthington?”

Worthington nodded. “Sheriff’s Homicide. But call me Jake.” His gaze shifted to Anna, lingering briefly on the scar before finding her eyes. “And you are?”

Royer cut her off before she had a chance to respond. “This is Agent McBride.”

“Welcome to Ludlow,” Worthington said, as Anna grabbed his outstretched hand.

She’d always hated shaking hands with a man, feeling awkward whenever she did it, wondering how to negotiate the task. Squeeze too hard and she might come off as some desperate female trying to prove herself, while not hard enough painted her as weak and ineffective. Finding a balance was tough, and the moment was usually stiff and uncomfortable.

Anna managed to get through this one with a minimum of fuss, however, and was relieved when Worthington didn’t hang on longer than necessary.

“I’ve gotta warn you both that what you’re about to see isn’t pretty. We’ve got more than one deputy almost lost his dinner over it, including me.”

“The minute it stops bothering you,” Anna said, “you’d better start thinking about a change of careers.”

Royer shot her a frown, but Worthington nodded solemnly, then handed them each a pair of latex gloves and gestured for them to follow him inside. “Let’s get to it.”

Royer didn’t wait for Anna or offer her the chance to go in first. She was, she realized, merely an accessory here. A show of force that didn’t really translate into action. This was Royer’s party and she was the annoying little sister whom Mom had foisted on the big kids.

Her only sense of satisfaction came from the fact that Royer had been wrong about the reception. Worthington seemed genuinely glad to see them.

Pausing at the doorway, she turned as she snapped on the gloves, taking another look at the neighborhood, at the ramshackle houses that lined the street. She had a feeling that even out here in the desert, a street like this was no stranger to violence. There’d have to be something extra special going on inside to gather such a crowd at one-thirty in the morning.

Grisly, Royer had warned her. Not pretty.

Turning back toward the house, Anna stepped past the threshold and took it all in.

T
HE FIRST THING
she noticed was the blood. It was hard not to, considering it was everywhere, arterial spray all over the furniture and walls. She didn’t need gloves; she needed a hazmat suit.

A split second after the blood registered in her brain, the smell hit her, the same smell that accompanied too many of the homicide scenes she’d been to.

Urine and feces.

It’s the thing they never tell you about in movies and on TV. That when some people die violently, they evacuate their bladder and bowels. From rock stars to anonymous paupers, it isn’t unusual to find them swimming in their own waste.

Mix that with the scent of the blood and rotting entrails and you’ve got the smell of death.

A smell you never get used to.

Royer and Worthington were standing over a body on the right side of an unkempt, standard-issue living room. A couple of coroner’s men stood nearby, waiting to bag it.

The victim was female, possibly thirty years old, although it was hard to tell, thanks to the way the body had been carved up. The killer had been quite liberal with the use of his weapon, which had been sharp enough to cut very deep.

More blood soaked the sofa cushions just above the spot where the body lay, and Anna figured this was where the victim had been killed. She felt the Lean Cuisine meat loaf she’d scarfed for dinner start to back up on her, but forced it down. She wasn’t about to give Royer any more ammunition against her.

Not that he needed any.

When she joined them, he said, “What took you?”

She ignored the question and stared down at the corpse, feeling a sudden sense of sadness wash through her. She didn’t know this poor woman, didn’t know anything about her, but nobody deserved to be displayed like this to a room full of strangers.

Anna looked at Worthington. “Who is she?”

“Rita Fairweather. Twenty-seven-year-old single mother of two.”

Christ, Anna thought. Only a year younger than me.

“She worked at a bar in town, place called The Well. Was there until about eleven p.m.” He gestured to the blood on the walls. “Near as we can figure it, it was pretty much a blitzkrieg attack. They never saw it coming.”

“They?” Royer said, raising his eyebrows.

Worthington hitched a finger and they followed him across the room through a doorway that led to a small, dingy kitchen. Lying on the faded linoleum in a sticky pool of blood was a man of indeterminate age, multiple stab wounds to his chest. An unopened can of Colt 45 lay at his feet.

“One of her boyfriends from the bar,” Worthington said. “John Meacham. Poor sonofabitch picked the wrong night to get horny.”

Anna noticed something on his neck and crouched down for a closer look. The flesh was slightly pink, with two fresh, reddish marks about half an inch apart.

“Looks like he used a stun gun on this one,” she said.

Worthington nodded. “That’s what we’re thinking. We’ll know for sure once the M.E. gets him on the table.”

Anna stood up. “You say Fairweather has kids. Where are they?”

“Ahh,” Worthington said. “The reason you two are here.”

He turned again, crossing through the living room to a narrow hallway. As Anna and Royer followed, she began to get a vague feeling of déjà vu.

There was a bathroom at the far end of the hall, and two bedroom doors on either side, facing each other. Worthington led them to the one on the left, to yet another body—a teenage girl, her mouth taped shut, her wrists and ankles bound, more stab wounds.

An image flashed through Anna’s mind—

—the little girl, bound and gagged in the backseat of a car—

Anna blinked it away, forcing herself to concentrate on the room, which was largely occupied by two twin beds and a parade of stuffed animals and action figures. One of the beds sported Los Angeles Dodgers bedsheets, while the other carried a pastel pink comforter covered with a throwback to Anna’s own childhood: My Little Ponies.

A bookshelf to her right held dozens of children’s books, including some of Anna’s own favorites.
Little House on the Prairie
.
Through the Looking-Glass
.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
.

She remembered many a night, her mother perched on the edge of her bed, reading aloud to her, and she wondered if Rita Fairweather had ever had the chance to do the same.

Worthington gestured to the body on the floor.

“Tammy Garrett. The family babysitter. She looked after the kids three nights a week.”

She couldn’t have been more than fifteen, sixteen years old. Plump. Baby faced.

“And the kids?” Anna asked, already knowing the answer.

“Like I said, the reason you two are here.”

Worthington moved to the nightstand between the two beds and with his gloved right hand picked up a small digital camera, pressed a button, and handed it to Anna.

“Evan and Kimberly.”

Anna looked down at the photograph on the tiny LCD screen. A woman whom she assumed was Rita Fairweather stood with her two young children, a boy and girl, on the grounds of what looked like a carnival. There was a Ferris wheel in the distance, and directly behind them the black hole of a doorway led to what a gaudily painted sign said was DR. DEMON’S HOUSE OF A THOUSAND MIRRORS.

Something stirred at the periphery of Anna’s brain—another image flash, too fast to decipher, accompanied by a sudden unexplained rush of vertigo.

Acutely aware that the deterioration of her mind was still in progress, and that the distraction of blood and feces and dead bodies had been temporary at best, she waited for the dizziness to pass.

“You all right?” Worthington asked.

She knew her face must be showing her distress. “Fine,” she said. “Just a little touch of nausea.”

He nodded, offering her a grim smile. “Like you said, the minute it stops bothering you, you’d better start thinking about a change of careers.”

Anna managed a smile in return, but Royer was having none of it. Giving her an impatient scowl, he snatched the camera out of her hands and stared down at the image of Rita Fairweather and her kids.

“Where was this shot?”

“High school football field. Carnival comes through town every year. Still here, as a matter of fact, so the photo is recent.”

“I take it they’re missing?”

Nothing like stating the obvious.

“No sign of ’em,” Worthington said. “And being so close to Nevada and all, we figure there’s a fairly good chance they were taken across the state line.”

There was no guarantee that this had happened, of course, but Worthington had been smart enough to hedge his bets and call in the FBI. Crossing state lines automatically made it a federal case, and the Ludlow County Sheriff’s Department was undoubtedly ill prepared for a crime of this magnitude—which explained the complete lack of hostility toward a couple of federal outsiders. They were anxious to hand it off.

“What about the father?” Royer asked. “He still in the picture?”

“Dead two years, according to the neighbors.”

“Is there a ransom note?” Anna asked.

It seemed like a ridiculous question. Who was left to pay ransom? And even if she were still alive, Rita Fairweather obviously wouldn’t be able to afford one.

But you never knew whether there was a rich relative somewhere in the picture, and for all of her faults, Anna believed in being thorough.

“No notes, nothing,” Worthington said. “I figure we’re dealing with a predator—and not just any predator at that.”

“What do you mean?”

“This’ll sound a little crazy, but you work a crime scene long enough, the victims start to talk to you.”

“And what are they telling you?”

“That whoever did this, it wasn’t his first time. He’s had practice, and a lot of it.”

Anna thought about the serial perps she’d studied back at Quantico. Sociopathic savages who brutalized and tortured their victims, treating them with less sympathy, less mercy, than they would a bug on a wall. It was true that many of them had been victimized themselves, but this was a reason for their behavior, not an excuse, and she knew that should she ever encounter one in the wild, she wouldn’t hesitate to blow him away.