The Drowned Girls (Angie Pallorino Book 1) Read online

  His decision to come after her was swift. He caught up to her and grabbed her arm, stopping her, applying a little too much pressure. Large hand. Iron grip. A slight fear washed through her, and it excited her, awakened her. Slowly, she breathed in, calming herself, and then she turned to face him. Her heart skipped a beat at the sexual tension she saw tightening his features now, the darkening of his already dark-blue eyes.

  “What do you mean?” he said.

  “What do you think I mean?”

  His grip remained firm on her upper arm, and his gaze lowered, taking her in—all of her. Her breasts, her hips, the length of her legs, her black biker boots. His pulse became visible at his carotid. Lifting his free hand, he touched her hair, which she wore long and loose tonight. Gently, he felt the texture of it, and then he lifted a fall of it to expose her neck. And he cupped the side of her neck, tracing his thumb along her jawline. Her vision blurred, legs felt weak. He lowered his head, bringing his mouth close to hers. “You’re cheap,” he whispered. “Why?”

  Her lids flickered. “You … don’t trust me because I’m free?”

  “I don’t trust anyone.”

  “If you’d rather waste your cash, try one of the ladies up on the stage.” She turned to leave.

  But his grip only tightened on her arm. “Fine,” he murmured in her ear. “Let’s go.”

  Red light pulsed into the motel room from the neon sign in the parking lot outside, setting the thin drapes aglow like a beating heart, like a crucible in a devil’s basement. Thrum. Thrum. Thrum. The bass of the music from the club could be heard through the thin walls, felt through the very floorboards, and it matched the throbbing pace of the neon. Somewhere, far off, a siren wailed. Ambulance, maybe cops, or fire. Society taking care of its citizens, policing.

  The headboard thumped as Angie rode him in time to the bass thud coming through the walls, her blood hot, her skin slick. He was naked under her, and she’d zip-tied his wrists to the headboard above his head. Their clothes pooled on the old carpet, boots scattered across the room. She dug her nails into his skin as she fucked him with all her might, panting, sweating, breasts bouncing, obliterating all thoughts of the past months from her mind … all the things she couldn’t do to save the kids … her limits, her vulnerabilities. The toll this unit took on cops. The depravity she’d witnessed over the years. And just when she thought she’d seen it all, the job dished up yet something more.

  He was blessed with a fucking big dick and she loved it, let it fill her. The hair on his chest was rough and dark, his body honed, skin pale like alabaster, carved marble. A Michelangelo masterpiece. That buried voice rose again into her consciousness. Something’s wrong here. Who is he? Why does he want this? Why did he come to this place when any woman would probably throw herself at his feet? No band on his ring finger, but a faint, telltale indentation of paler skin. Recently out of a relationship? Hiding it? Whichever way, this is not a man without history. Without relationships. What is wrong, deviant about him … ?

  Angie shut out the voice, opened her thighs wider, and sank deeper onto his dick. She rocked her hips faster, filling herself, making herself hurt. She was close, so close, and he could feel it. He bucked under her, wilder, wilder, thrusting his cock up into her. She tried to pull back, to deny him full pleasure, but suddenly she froze, her entire body going rigid, as if in rigor. Her breath caught in her chest, and she held still a moment, red lights pulsing, bass beating. And suddenly, she came, her vision blurring, a cry suffocating in her throat as her muscles contracted and released in hot, rolling waves. She collapsed onto him, her breasts against his rough chest hair. He was still hard inside her as aftershocks continued to ripple around his erection.

  A noise sounded in her jacket on the floor. Her phone—the familiar ringtone she’d set for Holgersen. Shit.

  Angie tried to focus. She wasn’t on call. Not tonight. She’d booked the weekend off to help her dad with her mom.

  The phone rang again. She reached down and groped along the floor for her jacket.

  “Leave it.” His command was husky. Velvet on gravel. Surprisingly authoritative. “Untie me,” he said. “My turn.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment. The call went to voicemail.

  “Untie me.”

  Angie looked up into his face. Something in his eyes whispered “danger.” The phone started to ring again. It had to be urgent. Holgersen, her new partner, would not contact her on her night off otherwise. Angie slid off the man’s cock and padded over to her jacket. She extracted her phone. Pushing a tangle of thick, damp hair off her face, she connected the call.

  “Yeah,” she said, not using her name. She hadn’t given Mr. Big Dick her name, and had no intention of doing so either, so she wasn’t about to mention it while answering the phone.

  “Party’s over, Pallorino,” came Holgersen’s oddly accented voice. “You and me got us a Jane Doe over at Saint Jude’s. Young—mid to late teens. Sexual assault. Paramedics picked her up in Ross Bay Cemetery. Critical condition. Nonresponsive.”

  She glanced at Mr. Big D. He was watching her intently, listening, his hands still bound above his head. She turned her back to him, moved naked to the window. “What about the others?” she said quietly. “Dundurn and Smith? They’re on tonight.”

  “Dundurn wants to pass it on. He and Smith have been on seventy-two hours straight with this flu bug hitting the department. And they’re still winding down on another call.” A pause. “He said you might want it. Could be your guy from the Fernyhough and Ritter cases. Except this time the mark has been carved into her forehead.”

  Everything in her body went stone still. Her and Hash’s old cases. An unsolved thorn in Hash’s side—a repeat rapist who’d first come to their attention four years ago in the sexual assault of sixteen-year-old Sally Ritter, and then again a year later in an attack on Allison Fernyhough, fourteen. They never found him. “I’ll be there in twenty.”

  “What are you, like in the States, or what? You coming by bicycle?”

  “Handle whatever you can until I get there. Twenty minutes.”

  She killed the call, grabbed her jeans, rammed her feet into the legs, and shimmied them up her hips. Pulling her shirt on quickly, she scooped her hair back and twisted it into a tight ponytail at the nape of her neck. Angie yanked on her boots, reached for her leather jacket, and paused, looking at the man tied to the motel room bed. His sheathed penis glistened, not near going flaccid. Nice. A warm rush flushed through her. Her gaze tracked up his body. He was watching her—analyzing her. Oddly calm and in control for a man bound naked to a bed. She met his eyes.

  He jerked his chin to his groin. “We have unfinished business,” he said.

  She moistened her lips. From the back pocket of her jeans she took the carbon-fiber Sebenza 25 knife that she carried everywhere. Sharpest blade she’d ever met. She opened the knife, leaned over, and sliced through the hard plastic ties binding his wrists. He continued to hold her gaze as he lowered his hands. The skin on his wrists had been rubbed raw.

  “Give me your number?” he said. “For next time.”

  Again, she felt that whisper of unease—a faint sixth sense of warning that maybe this time she’d bitten off a bit more than she could chew, or control. Because she wanted to do him again. He was like the first taste of a potent, addictive drug. And she didn’t like the feeling—she didn’t want to need him. She’d made that mistake once before.

  Do it. Do it again. He’s like medicine. He took all your cares away …

  Angie hesitated, her brain racing through the options. One more time couldn’t hurt—could it? She moved quickly to the small table next to the bed and scrawled her private cell number onto the hotel pad. It was for a burner phone. She could get rid of it anytime she wanted. She shrugged into her jacket as she made for the door.

  He called after her. “You got a name there, warrior princess?”

  She paused, hand on doorknob, and the devil on her shoulder whisp
ered, Yes, you can control this. You can stop anytime you want to … Besides, she was only human. She could have a life. It wasn’t as though it was forbidden to have a relationship. As long as she held the reins, all the control.

  “Angie,” she said.

  Silence.

  “You?” she asked.

  He smiled slowly, one side of his mouth curving slightly higher than the other. “I’ve got your number.” He paused. “Angie.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Wherever he steps, whatever he touches, whatever he leaves, even unconsciously, will bear silent witness against him.

  —Locard’s exchange principle

  SUNDAY, DECEMBER 10

  Snow came down in big fat flakes now, swirling between the city buildings and settling on the night streets. It was 3:00 a.m. Sunday when Angie turned off Douglas, her wipers carving arcs on her windshield. An unarticulated anxiety filled her as she peered at the shining storefronts filled with Christmas fare. Twinkling lights had been strung over the streets in the older, touristy parts of town. Across the black waters of the Inner Harbor, the legislature buildings shimmered like a Disneyland palace outlined with fairy lights. An old Bing Crosby rendition of “Silver Bells” came on the radio … city sidewalks … dressed in holiday style …

  Irritably, Angie jabbed the button, switching the station to a news channel. New mayor-elect Jack Killion and his council will be sworn in on Tuesday …

  She hit the OFF button.

  VOTE KILLION signs from the civic election two weeks ago still lingered on the occasional lawn. Killion had managed to oust mayoral incumbent Patty Markham by a mere eighty-nine votes. Apparently that was all it was going to take to usher in a new tough-on-crime-clean-sweep-the-police-board policy. Long live democracy. And if Killion was true to his election mongering, he’d start the ball rolling for change from the second he and his slate of councilors were sworn in on Tuesday.

  Make this city great again.

  Whatever that meant. What it did mean for Angie and her colleagues in the Victoria Metro Police Department was an irascible chief constable growing ever more testy over Killion’s threats of radical change. It had created an internal climate of festering unease and finger-pointing over crime stats, budgets, overtime allowances, staff costs, and case closure rates. And then there was the speculation that Chief Gunnar’s own head would eventually roll and that he’d be replaced by one of Killion’s lackeys.

  Angie found a parking space outside Saint Auburn’s Cathedral, which rose dark and gothic beside the similarly designed buildings of the adjacent Catholic-run hospital. She removed her service weapon from the lockbox, holstered it under her leather jacket, pulled on her black woolen skullcap, and exited her vehicle. As she hurried through the snow toward the red-lit emergency entrance, gargoyles peered down at her with stone eyes.

  Holgersen was slouched in an orange plastic chair near the nurses’ reception area, looking more like a recovering street addict in need of medical attention himself than a major crimes detective. As he saw Angie approach, he pushed himself up to his lanky six-foot-two height.

  “So what kept you, Pallorino?”

  “Where is she?”

  He eyed her for a moment, then made a sign with his finger under his eyes. “Your mascara is running.”

  “Where is she, Holgersen? What have we got? Any ID on her yet?”

  “She was still in surgery when I arrived. They’re moving her into ICU now. The uniform upstairs will brief us—she and her patrol partner were the first responding officers. They arrived on scene at Ross Bay Cemetery just after two paramedics had started working on her.”

  “She regain consciousness at all?”

  “Nah.” He started for the elevator, saluting the admitting nurses with two fingers as he went. Angie kept pace with him. The antiseptic smell of hospitals always made her oddly edgy—even more so tonight.

  He pressed the elevator button. “One of the docs said they actually lost her for a few minutes in the ER.”

  “Lost her?”

  “As in, she died. They brought her back. Twice.”

  Going up in the elevator, Angie peered at her distorted reflection in the metal sides and rubbed under her eyes, trying to remove her smudged mascara. Holgersen observed her in silence.

  “What?” she said. “It’s snowing out. I got wet. Makeup runs.”

  “I didn’t say nothing, Detective.”

  If he had said something, he’d probably have said, Yeah, in the three weeks since I’ve been partnered with you, I’ve not seen you wearing makeup once. He might look like a washed-up junkie, but Holgersen didn’t miss a beat. His mind was razor-sharp, and he was weighing her, filling in puzzle pieces from the first day they’d met, building a mental image of her.

  He’d worked years in narcotics, both up north from whence he came and locally, with several stints undercover. His lazy speech and weird syntax fooled most, and Angie suspected he liked to keep it that way. At least he was easier to bear than the last asshole they’d tried to pair her with. Plus Holgersen deferred to her. Most of the time. She liked that. She didn’t know much about him otherwise—a closed book. And she didn’t pry, either, because she preferred to keep her personal life personal, too.

  As they exited the elevator, a patrol officer waiting on a chair farther down the corridor came abruptly to her feet. Sometimes it felt like yesterday that Angie had been a beat cop herself. Other times it felt like decades.

  “Detective Pallorino—sex crimes,” Angie said, introducing herself. “And this is Holgersen.”

  “Constable Tonner,” said the uniform, opening her notebook. “My partner, Hickey, and I were the initial responding officers. I rode in the rear of the ambulance with the victim and have been at the hospital since. Hickey remained on scene to secure the area and interview witnesses.”

  Small mercies. “Where’s our survivor now?”

  “They’ve just moved her into the intensive care unit.”

  “Who initially called it in?” Angie said.

  “A ghost tour guide.” Tonner checked her notes. “Name’s Edwin Liszt. He and a group of four clients found her lying on one of the grave plots. They made the nine-one-one call.”

  “Ghost touring? In this weather?” Holgersen said.

  Angie glanced at him, thinking of the image she’d thought she’d seen on the road below the cemetery.

  “Apparently it’s on nights like this when an infamous female apparition appears around midnight,” said Tonner. “We arrived after the EMTs were already working on her. Victim was soaked, hypothermic, nonresponsive, bleeding from a face wound and from her vaginal area. Her skirt had been pushed up, her stockings had been either ripped or cut away from her pelvic area, and her legs were splayed open. She was still wearing her boots.”

  Silence hung a beat.

  Angie cleared her throat. “We’ll need contact details for the paramedics, and for Liszt and his clients.”

  “Got them. Hickey officially ID’d all the witnesses and took initial statements.”

  “Her clothing?” Angie said.

  “Logged and bagged.” Constable Tonner nodded to the paper evidence bags on the chair behind her. “Pair of Francesco Milano boots in there. Skirt was a designer label, too.”

  “And no ID—wallet, phone?”

  “Negative.”

  “Rape kit?” Angie said.

  A strident female voice sounded behind them. “Our primary commitment was patient survival.” They all spun around. A doctor in green surgical scrubs approached them. She was tall with a clean, strong face. Bright eyes, but they were lined with what Angie read as fatigue, stress.

  “Dr. Ruth Finlayson.” She held out her hand. Angie reached forward and shook it. Firm grip.

  “Angie Pallorino. And this is Kjel Holgersen.”

  “There’s always an ethical problem when an unconscious patient presents with signs of sexual assault,” said Dr. Finlayson. “Performing a forensic exam without consent can make
patients feel an additional loss of control once they regain consciousness. However, I am trained to administer a forensic examination, and our hospital policy does allow leeway to gather evidence if the collection occurs during necessary emergent care. So we did what we could. Usually we hold on to that evidence kit until consent for release is obtained, either by the patient or a surrogate decision-maker such as a family member, guardian, or judge.”

  “I’m aware of the policy,” Angie said. “How is she? Can we see her?”

  The doctor held her gaze for a moment, then inhaled. “Come this way.” As she took them down the corridor, she glanced over her shoulder. “If you could turn your mobile phones off—they can interfere with equipment in the unit.” Angie and Holgersen powered off their phones as they entered the intensive care ward, and the doc led them to a room. She slid the glass door open.

  They stepped inside. Machines beeped and hissed. Angie’s attention shot to the girl lying on the bed. Ventilator tubes were plastered to her mouth, and drips fed into her veins. Monitoring equipment was strapped to her arms, pasted to her chest. A loose dressing covered her brow. She was a brunette, young, and there was a strange tinge to her skin.

  “She’s … blue,” said Holgersen. “What’s with the color? That from cold?”

  “Cyanosis,” Dr. Finlayson said quietly, her gaze upon her patient. “It can occur when the blood oxygen level drops too low. She had no heartbeat when she arrived. It’s a miracle she’s even alive. The next twenty-four hours will be telling. However, if she does manage to pull through, there will likely be permanent neurological damage. Of the near-drowning patients who do present without a heartbeat, thirty-five to sixty percent die in the emergency department, while almost all of those who do survive are left with permanent disabilities.”

  Both Angie and Holgersen’s attention snapped sharply to the doc.

  “Near drowning?” said Angie. “What do you mean?”