The muted light through the window told her the sun was setting. She knelt by the bed and scratched another line into the wood. It was the five hundred and fiftieth. She knew some were missing from the early days when fear kept her huddled on the bed for most of the day. That was before she realized he wouldn’t kill her. Now she marked the end of each day rather than the beginning of a new one. She suspected her end would come at night.
Frustration filled the woman as she stood. She had to get out, but the room was a beautifully decorated and posh fortress. She had all the comforts of home except for a way to contact the outside world. She also didn’t have a television or a radio. She’d been his captive for too long. Soon she’d be replaced with a new plaything. That was how it worked. What he did with his old playthings, she didn’t know. Probably sold them or killed them.
The thought ran a shiver down her spine. She hoped he’d kill her. The last thing she wanted was to be sold to another man in another country. If she had a way to do it, she would kill herself just to steal his joy, but he made sure there were no weapons for her to use. Who was he? She had no idea, but he had money, and he must have power. You don’t keep women locked away in the basement of your home for years without the ability to make people look the other way. Then again, she had no idea if anyone lived in this house other than her. Maybe he just came to visit her or lived alone upstairs. In the early days, she’d tried to ask questions but soon learned he wasn’t interested in answering them. Her fingers played across the puckered scar on her cheek. The night she pushed him too far with her questions, he showed her rather than told her to stop.
Her gaze drifted to the window above her bed. She’d tried to break it until she realized it wasn’t glass. It was layers of plexiglass that no amount of pounding would break. She paused. Were those footsteps?
She moved to the door quietly on practiced tiptoes to listen. He should be bringing her dinner soon. He would sit with her while she ate and engage her in conversation that would be considered mundane in a different time and place. He stayed to ensure she didn’t try to hide the utensils or kill herself with them. When she finished eating, he’d want her to thank him for dinner if he were in the right mood. She learned early on to obey that order, or she’d spend a week drinking her food through a straw until the swelling in her face receded from his beating. Oh, sure, he’d always apologize for hurting her and bring her ice and medicine, but he wasn’t sorry. He thrived on the power he held over her, and beating her turned him on.
The footsteps stopped at the door, and a key jingled. She was back on her bed as the door swung open, and her monster walked through with a tray balanced on his arm. He was wearing his full leather hood and his smoking jacket tonight. He always wore the mask, but the smoking jacket meant she’d have to thank him properly tonight. Initially, she had nightmares about the mask, but after a few months, she found a way to ignore it and imagine the man behind the mask. She came up with ways she would take him down if she ever escaped.
He set the tray down on the bed and ran a finger down her cheek. She forced herself not to recoil. “Good evening, my angel. Little Daddy brought you dinner. Are you hungry?”
“Yes, Little Daddy,” she obediently said while trying hard not to roll her eyes. She stopped being scared of him months ago, but she’d learned if she didn’t want a backhand, she’d best comply with his demented fantasies.
“This will be one of our last meals together, angel.”
Her breath hitched in her chest. This was it. She had to act tonight.
“Soon, you’ll go to your new home with your new daddy. He can’t wait to meet you. I’ll miss you, but you’re ready for him now. Are you ready for a new daddy, angel?” he asked as he set up the food on the table.
She nodded but knew she was out of time. This was it. It was time to put her plan into action. She’d spent months earning his trust, and tonight, she’d thank him properly for all the things he’d given her, but more so for the things he’d taken away.
“HOW LONG UNTIL the cops get here?” Mack asked Cal as they stood in front of the body. They’d laid her on the shoreline on a tarp, but they didn’t cover the body for fear of contaminating it more than it already was.
“At least another thirty minutes,” Cal answered while he fielded questions from the rest of the team as they sent kids home with their parents.
Selina was caring for the two girls who had discovered the body. They would wait at mobile command until their parents arrived. The police would need to speak with them, but Mack had no doubt their parents would want to be present.
“Who are we kidding?” Mack muttered. “The tumble she took down the Mississippi left no evidence of her killer for us to find.”
“Us?” Cal asked with a brow up in the air. “There is no us. This is for the cops to figure out.”
“And they’ve done a smashing job with the other three bodies they’ve found in the last few months.”
The authorities had pulled three women from three different rivers over the last six months. The first woman had been found in The Red River and was wearing a red dress, which was how this particular serial killer had earned his moniker.
“Not my monkey,” Cal said again. “We can’t get involved in this, Mack. We have enough on our plates at Secure One.”
“We’ve been involved in this since the day you brought Marlise onto the compound,” Mack reminded him. “If this is yet another nameless, background-less woman like Marlise or Charlotte, that means someone is buying and killing women from the street. How long are we going to brush it under the carpet before we get involved?”
Cal whirled around and stuck his finger in Mack’s chest. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what, Cal?” Mack knew challenging his boss was risky, but they were also brothers, and sometimes you had to call your own family on their crap.
“Don’t accuse me of inviting this into our lives. That was not what I did when Marlise came to Secure One.”
Mack held up his hands in defense. “That’s not at all what I was saying, Cal. I simply meant that we’re taking care of women just like this one,” he said, motioning at the woman behind him, “while others are still dying. The cops are missing something. How long will we stand by without at least trying to prevent more deaths?”
Cal shook his head and planted a hand on his hip. “Mack, I wish there were a way to get involved in this case, but there isn’t. The FBI is involved and—”
“The FBI can’t find their way out of a paper bag!” Mack exclaimed.
“I don’t disagree,” Cal said with a smirk, “but we still can’t go traipsing in like the Mod Squad and take over their investigation.”
Mack snorted. “The Mod Squad. Okay, Grandpa, but I’m tired of women dying because of our inaction.”
“Same,” Cal said with a sigh. “In each victim, I see Marlise or Charlotte. It was just chance they made it out of The Miss’s grasp alive. These poor women.”
“All of them,” Mack agreed.
As a man, he hated that some men thought they could use a woman and then throw her away like garbage. It enraged him to the point of violence, which didn’t solve anything. The only way to stop it was for someone to figure out who was doing it. Unfortunately, Cal was right. With the feds involved, they couldn’t be. Cal had been read the riot act after The Miss fiasco when he went rogue, and the woman ended up dead because of it. In the end, it was brushed under the carpet as a problem solved, but Secure One had to tread lightly whenever the feds were around. They didn’t like their tiny toes stepped on.
“Secure two, Sierra.”
“Secure one, Mike. Go ahead.”
“Charlotte is on her way down,” Selina said over the comm unit in his ear.
“What?”
“I said Charlotte is on her way down.”
“No, don’t let her leave the mobile center. She doesn’t belong down here.”
“Already tried that, Mack. You’ve met the woman, right?”
“I’ll have Eric intercept her. Thanks for the heads-up.”
Mack huffed as he grabbed his radio to call Eric. Of course, Charlotte would try to come down here. She felt responsible for these women as much as Marlise did. If Marlise weren’t back at Secure One with Mina working the other client security, she’d be down here too. “Secure two, Mike,” he said and waited for Eric to reply. Once he did, Mack explained the situation and signed off.
“You’re not going to pass me off on someone else, Mack Holbock,” a voice said from his left, and he spun in the dark without drawing his weapon. He knew it was her, even if he was frustrated by her inability to follow orders. He secretly loved that she still had some fight left in her. She didn’t back down on something she believed in, regardless of what she’d been through in life, even if that personality trait made his job harder.
He stepped to the side enough to hide the woman on the ground, and Cal moved alongside him. “You shouldn’t be here, Charlotte,” Cal said firmly. “This is a crime scene.”
She stopped and stood before them with her hand on her hip. Mack had to bite his tongue to keep from smiling. “I’m not contaminating your crime scene,” she said, throwing around air quotes. “The Mississippi is contaminating your crime scene.”
“What do you need, Char?” Mack asked, softening his voice as he took a step toward her. She needed to be on her way before she saw the body and realized she was a victim of the same nameless, faceless perp.
“I need to see the body.”
“Not happening,” Cal said, crossing his arms over his chest. “No one views the body without the police here.”
“When the police get here, it will be too late. They’ll bungle it the way they always do, and more women will die.”
“More women will die? We don’t know how this woman died,” Mack reminded her.
Charlotte rolled her eyes so hard that Mack couldn’t stop the smile from lifting his lips. “She’s the fourth woman found dead in a river in six months. More women will die if we don’t find the killer, Mack.”
Mack turned and lifted a brow of I told you so at Cal before turning back to the woman in front of him. “Be that as it may, we must follow protocol, Charlotte. Protocol says we have to wait for the authorities.”
“Are you going to tell them?” she asked, both hands on her hips.
“I won’t put you through it. I know you want to help, but you can’t.”
“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do, Mack,” she hissed, standing chest to chest with him.
Cal’s grunt was loud to Mack’s ear, and he grimaced. His boss wasn’t happy. Cal’s flashlight snapped on, and he lifted it to Charlotte’s chest. “It’s not up to us, Charlotte—”
Her gasp was loud enough to stop him midsentence. His flashlight had illuminated the woman’s head by accident, and Charlotte’s eyes were pinned on her. Mack grasped her shoulder to turn her, but she fought him.
“I know her,” she whispered, dropping to her knee on the muddy shore. “I know her, Mack.”
Mack knelt on both knees, not caring that the cold mud soaked through his pants. He cared that someone on his team could identify this woman. “Char, how do you know her?” He could see shock kicking in, and he wanted the answer before she couldn’t speak.
Cal switched the light off, and it went dark again just as Charlotte reached her hand out toward the body. “That’s Layla.”
“Layla who?” Cal asked as Mack put his arm around Charlotte. She was starting to shiver, whether from the cold or trauma, he couldn’t say.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I met her in Arizona when I worked for The Miss. She was from one of the small towns around Tucson.”
“Wait, she was with The Miss?” Cal asked from behind them to clarify.
Char nodded but dropped her gaze to the ground now that the body was in the shadows. “Layla wasn’t there very long. She cried nonstop and cowered in the corner whenever The Miss came around. We woke up one morning, and she was gone. We figured she tried to run, and The Miss killed her. That or she got away.”
“Would it be safe to say you met her two years ago?” Mack asked, trying to get some kind of timeline to help the police when they arrived.
Charlotte turned to him with wide eyes as she nodded. “Something like that. Where has she been all this time, Mack?” She grabbed tightly to his coat when she asked, her face just inches from his now.
“I don’t know, but now that we know who she is, maybe we can find out.”
Charlotte shuddered, and Mack wrapped his arms around her as he glanced up at Cal and mouthed, “Don’t tell the cops.”
Cal tipped his head for a moment in confusion, but after a long stare, he cleared his throat. “Mack, please walk Charlotte back to the command center. I’ll wait here for the police.”
With a nod, he helped Charlotte up the grassy hill toward the lights shining in the distance. “I want you to listen to me, Char,” he whispered, and she nodded. “Don’t tell anyone outside of Secure One that you know the victim.”
She tripped on her next step, and Mack steadied her as she lifted her gaze to his. “But, Mack, they have to find her killer!”
“Shh,” he said, hushing her immediately. “First, the police will have to decide if she was murdered.”
“You know she was!”
His finger against her lips muffled her exclamation. “We know she was, but the cops must prove she was. Does that make sense?” She nodded against his finger, and he lowered his hand and started walking with her again. “While they’re busy proving she was murdered and searching for her identity, we’ll be after her killer.”
“But I already know who she is, Mack. If I don’t tell them, I’ll be in trouble when they find out I knew her.”
He squeezed her to him to quiet her again. “You will tell them as soon as they release her image to the press. That won’t happen until they determine her cause of death. The same as they have with the other women found dead with no identity, though in this case, they may be able to get her identity if she wasn’t washed like you and the women from The Madame’s ring.”
“That’s true,” she agreed with a nod. “She was a street girl but had a record, at least according to her.”
“Good, good. Then the police will find out who she is without you telling them. When they do, you’ll call to tell them you knew her for a few days and the dates she was with The Miss. That’s as far as your responsibility goes with this case.”
She stopped abruptly, and he caught himself from falling at the last second. “Wouldn’t it save time if we could give them her identity tonight?”
“It would,” Mack agreed, lowering his head closer to hers so no one overheard them, “but then we have no time to look into it at Secure One.”
“But this sicko is out there hurting other women!” she exclaimed, and his finger returned to her lips.
“He’s following a pattern. One woman every six weeks, at least that’s been the frequency they’ve been finding the bodies. We can take a couple of days to try and track down the last knowns on this woman before we turn what we know over to the police. We’re trying to prevent another woman from dying by helping the police, not working against them, okay?”
“Why do you think you can help now? Just because you have a name?”
He turned her and started walking toward the command center again. He wanted to get back before the cops showed up so he could hear what Cal told them. “This is the first time we’ve had the name of the victim, which means it’s the first time we can put Mina on the task of following her trail before she disappeared. All we needed was one mistake from this guy, and he may have just made it.”
“Killing a woman with an identity?”
“Killing a woman with an identity and leaving her where Secure One could find her. Our record speaks for itself regarding getting justice for women being held against their will.”
A smile lifted Charlotte’s lips, and he squeezed her shoulders one more time before reaching the steps to the command center. “It’s safe to say Secure One has done better than the police, that’s for sure,” she agreed.
“Then trust us, just one more time, and we’ll get justice for women like Layla too.”
A shadow crossed her face, but it was gone before he could grasp its meaning. He had shadows of his own that he kept hidden, and he wouldn’t judge her for hers. When she leaned in close to him, her scent of apple blossoms filled his senses, and he inhaled deeply. He reminded himself that he had no business liking this woman for any reason other than to keep her safe while on a job. At the mere thought, he laughed at himself. As if that were the only reason he liked Charlotte.
“Isn’t it illegal to withhold information?” she whispered, so close to him that he could bury his nose in her neck and fill his head with her. He didn’t, but it took every ounce of willpower not to.
“As far as the police know, only four people have seen the body, and only two up close—me and Cal. That’s all they need to know. Right?”
She nodded once, zipped her lips and tossed away the key. Then she climbed the steps and disappeared inside the trailer. Mack couldn’t keep the smile off his lips as he turned on his heel and walked back toward the shore in awe of the woman half his size with twice his strength.