Rules of Crime (33 page)

Just say it.
“Her hands had been duct-taped to the gun. The kidnapper sent her out to distract us so he could get away.” Jackson knew Hartwell wasn’t actually the kidnapper but that didn’t matter right now.

“You shot Mom?”

Like a knife in his heart. “I didn’t know it was her. I’m so sorry.” Hot tears filled his eyes and he fought the tide of emotion. Katie needed him to be strong.

Jan lurched forward and hugged him. “Oh, you poor man.” She cried and squeezed until he thought he might pass out.

Katie just sobbed, shoulders heaving. A silent deluge of grief. Jackson freed himself from Jan and sat next to his daughter. “You have to forgive me. It’s not my fault.” Yet he knew he would never forgive himself.

After a long moment, she leaned her head on his shoulder and he finally let his tears flow.

Wednesday, January 11, 7:05 p.m.

“Maybe you should leave us alone for a few minutes.” Evans needed Mrs. Murray to step outside. The hospital had called earlier to tell Evans that Lyla was awake, but so far, all the young woman would say was that she didn’t remember much.

Karen Murray had a new worry line on her forehead, but she patted her daughter’s hand and said, “Tell her what happened.”

After the mother left, Evans tried again. “I understand it was an initiation and you don’t want your friends to go to jail, but—”

“They’re not my friends.” Lyla’s voice was soft but angry.

“I agree. They’re not. And my concern is that the practice will continue until someone dies or is crippled for life. Do you want that to happen to another young woman?”

Lyla closed her eyes. “No.”

“Then tell me their names. Tell me why they beat you so badly.”

Lyla was silent.

“We know who they are. Taylor Harris and Dakota Anderson. And we will prosecute even without your help. But if Taylor knows
you’re willing to testify, we can probably reach a plea agreement and save everyone the pain and expense of a trial.”

“Why just Taylor?”

Of course—she didn’t know.
“Dakota Anderson is dead.”

After a long moment, Lyla suddenly cried out, “It wasn’t supposed to be like that.”

“What was it supposed to be like? Do the initiations have rules?” Evans wanted this woman to open up and help her understand. “Tell me everything.”

Lyla didn’t really know what the initiation was supposed to be like because the other women in the house hadn’t talked about it. But she knew they’d all been through it and had not only survived, but thrived, in the Potter house. And she’d wanted to join so badly. Even though she’d told the detective she didn’t remember anything, the details of that night were burned in her brain. And they came flooding back to her.

She’d downed a can of Moonshot, hoping the caffeine would give her courage and the alcohol would make her a little numb. She’d waited until the last minute to leave, then hurried out into the chilly night. From her tiny apartment she walked five blocks toward campus, noticing other students and wondering how each of them survived the pressure. The endless reading, studying, and memorizing. Biking to work in the cold to wash dishes for a paycheck that barely covered the rent. Could she survive three more years of it? Probably not without the help of the house she was about to join. The upper-class girls had cheat sheets, class notes, and old term papers to work from. And some had family money to share. All of it would help get her through. She wasn’t as smart
or as confident as her mother thought and failure was not an option. Her mother expected a return on her investment.

Lyla crossed Eighteenth Avenue and entered the cemetery across from Mac Court. She’d passed by it a hundred times and until tonight hadn’t given much thought to its purpose and reason for being on campus. Tonight, the bones of the dead seemed to hum in the ground below, but not in a comforting way. Goose bumps formed on her arms and the laughter in the distance seemed to mock her. Only a fool would put up with everything she’d endured this week. A fool, or a terrified teenager a thousand miles from home.

She hurried through the headstones, using her miniature flashlight to find the statue. Her instructions were to be there at eight, strip naked, sit, and wait for the assault. But it was near freezing, and for a moment, she couldn’t make herself take off her clothes. What if they didn’t show up for an hour? They’d promised that tonight would be painful but fast.

Unlike the hour Monday when she’d sat naked under bright lights while her
sisters
wrote nasty comments all over her body with a black felt pen. This time she would endure a solitary hazing,
customized
for her. Lyla suspected someone had read an essay she wrote about her fear of cemeteries and decided this was the perfect spot. The dead didn’t scare her anymore though. What frightened her were the living, laughing women who were about to hurt and humiliate her.

Lyla peeled off her jacket, an old zip-up fleece she didn’t care about, and set it on the ground. She pulled off her jeans next and folded them on top of the jacket. Before yanking off her shirt, she looked around, not seeing another soul in the graveyard. Even in the dark, she could see the outlines of students across the street, passing the old basketball court. But in the cover of trees, they couldn’t see her. Lyla stuffed her bra and panties into her jacket
pockets and dropped down on the pile of clothes. Keeping her socks on, she pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, protecting herself from the frigid air as much as she could.

She dreaded the assault that was coming, yet she wanted it now rather than later. Was that the point of making her sit naked in the freezing night air? To force her to look forward to the beating? To actually begin to crave it as an end to the cold, dread, and humiliation?

After a long stretch that seemed like fifteen minutes, her teeth began to clatter and her back ached from tensing against the temperature. Should she give up and go home? What if she did? Would she be rejected or have to endure something worse tomorrow?

Leaves crackled behind her and she braced herself, afraid to even turn. A split second later, something putrid and gooey hit her in the back. Dog shit, she suspected. Lyla clamped her teeth together. It would wash off, she told herself, easier than the damn black marker had. Taylor suddenly stood in front of her. She drew back her arm and slung a handful of dirt into Lyla’s chest. But it wasn’t just dirt. Wiggly worms dripped and crawled down her body. Lyla shuddered and picked them off her stomach, not wanting them anywhere near her private parts.

Another woman named Dakota, who no longer lived in the house, doused her with cold water. The shock of it pushed her over the edge. Lyla jumped to her feet, anger burning in her chest. She was torn between the impulse to run and the need to strike back. But her rising was their cue.

The assault began.

Taylor grabbed her by the elbows and pulled her arms together behind her back, while Dakota rushed forward and struck her with a golf club. The first blow landed under her left
breast and the pain hurt more than anything she’d ever experienced. Lyla saw stars and felt like she couldn’t breathe. Another blow nailed her rib cage, and in the searing pain, Lyla thought she heard a crack. She tried to stay upright but the pain pushed her to her knees.

“Get up, you little cunt, or we’ll make this worse.”

Taylor grabbed her by the ear and twisted, pulling her up at the same time. Lyla was on her feet but she felt foggy and unable to think straight. Someone began to beat her back with what felt like a bat. Then a blow landed on the back of her head. The pain was a fireball of explosion. Blood rushed out of her brain, she felt her eyes roll back in their sockets, and she dropped to her knees again. Before she passed out, Lyla’s last thought was
If I die, I hope my mother gets her tuition back
.

But what she said to the detective was, “If you promise she’ll only get probation or something, I’ll tell you what I know.”

The detective looked annoyed. “Let me make a call.”

CHAPTER 42

Friday, January 13, 2:30 p.m.

Jackson pushed away his last-minute doubts, squared his shoulders, and walked into Sergeant Lammers’ office. “Sorry I’m late. I just had a long interrogation session.”

“I hope it was connected to the kidnapping case.” His boss signaled him to sit down.

“Indirectly. Ashley Harris confessed to vandalizing the Elks Lodge last summer. It was her initiation ticket into the crime club founded by Austin Hartwell.”

“The crime club?” Lammers pulled off her glasses and gave him a look.

“A group of bored, rich young people who mostly party and vacation together. But to belong, they have to commit a crime every once in a while, just to prove they’re sporting.” Jackson couldn’t hide his disgust.

“For fuck’s sake.”

“They have rules though. No one can get hurt, they can’t use the crime for personal gain, and they have to leave some kind of calling card.” Agent River had given him just enough information to pry the details out of Ashley. He’d also used the assault charge against her sister, Taylor, as leverage. Jackson continued, “But once you’ve committed a crime, it gets easier, and Dakota Anderson finally kidnapped her future stepmother for the money. She’d run up nearly seventy thousand in credit card debt and we assume she was feeling desperate.”

“How does a young person run up that kind of debt?” Lammers shook her head. “Never mind. Tell me how and why Dakota died.”

“Our theory is that Austin Hartwell saw her televised plea for help with the ransom and decided she was a wildcard and a risk to the rest of the club. We think he waited for her outside her apartment, lured her out to the dog park, then commanded his Presa Canario to kill her. A dog he bought from Renaldi, by the way. The two are friends and that’s how Dakota met Renaldi.” Jackson slumped a little, knowing the real work on the case was just beginning. “Hartwell isn’t talking and he’s hired Roger Barnsworth to represent him.”

“Can we connect Hartwell’s dog to her death?”

“The lab found nonhuman saliva on Dakota’s necklace and we’re still waiting for the state lab to compare the dog’s DNA to the saliva. But the county’s animal expert pulled seeds from the dog’s fur that match seeds found at the crime scene and on Dakota. So it’s starting to add up.”

“Will Harris testify that Hartwell knew about the other crimes?”

“Yes. The DA offered her a probation plea deal, so she’s given us all the names and crimes she knows about.”

“Good work, Jackson. This was a fucked-up case.”

“I had a lot of help. And we caught a break showing up at the hostage location when Hartwell was with Renee.” Jackson didn’t feel lucky. He wished they’d been ten minutes late. Renee might still be dead, but at least it wouldn’t be his doing.

“It’s not your fault,” Lammers said, as if she could read his mind. “It was a clean shooting. Tragic yes, but not a mistake.”

“It’s hard for me to see it that way.” Jackson took a deep breath. “I have to resign. I don’t think I can carry a gun anymore.” His CAT scan the day before hadn’t looked good either, and they wanted to increase his meds for a while.