The Drowned Girls (Angie Pallorino Book 1) Read online

  “It’ll cost you, Maddocks.” She looked away, fiddled with the knife next to her untouched plate of food. She turned the piece of silver cutlery over, and over, and over. She should just walk away. For his sake. Quit or something. This wasn’t fair on him. But she also didn’t want to step away from a fight. Angie did not like to lose. Ever. Conflict twisted, tore, warred inside her. Yesterday she’d glimpsed a way forward. She wanted that way forward, but the world wasn’t suddenly going to make it easy for her now, was it? She looked back at him. Met those eyes.

  She wanted him, too.

  She couldn’t walk away from him. As much as she should walk away from him.

  “And I’m not alone,” he said quietly.

  “Meaning?”

  “Holgersen, too.”

  “He knows?”

  “Not about the incident outside the church. But he saw us, outside the Pig.”

  She swallowed. Memories of that kiss filled her mind. The club afterward. Her frustration. Her inability to take that blond ice-eyed Adonis to bed. Maddocks following her, unbeknownst to her …

  “Holgersen’s the one who warned me that Fitz was gunning for you. It’s why he tried to call you. Several times.” He paused. “Angie, you’ve got friends. You need to deal with that. Irascible as you might be, as much as you’ve tried to shut out and destroy and break your new partners, Holgersen likes you. O’Hagan likes you. I … I—”

  “You trust Holgersen?” she said quickly.

  He hesitated. “I think so. He’s a dark horse, been bad places, maybe … but I think he’s solid. Maybe more than solid.” He leaned forward. “Look, it’s not just you who Fitz is gunning for. He’s after me, too, using me. Playing me. I’ll bet my ass he’s getting ready to throw me under the bus if this case is not wrapped by Christmas. And if we do close it, he’ll personally take the kudos. He’s a paranoid little control freak on a witch hunt all around—he’s seen a gap, and he’s taking it to push himself up the Metro PD ladder somehow.”

  “Do you trust me?” she said quietly.

  Do you trust me enough to work with me again? Do you trust me to work with others?

  He fell silent, the loaded question hanging between them. But as he was about to speak, her cell rang. Angie scrambled to fish it out of her pocket like it was a lifeline offering escape. She glanced at the caller ID. Unknown. But the same number had called several times.

  “I need to take this,” she said. Connecting the call, she put her phone to her ear. “Pallorino.”

  “Detective … it … it’s Merry Winston.” The voice on the other end sounded weak, odd, slightly slurred. Angie’s spine stiffened. Her gaze twitched to Maddocks. He was watching her intently.

  “What is it?” she said, turning away slightly.

  “I’ve been calling and calling since yesterday. Can we meet? I’ve got something for you. It’s … urgent.”

  “What’s urgent?”

  “I’ll show you when you get here.”

  “Where, Merry?”

  “There’s this place at Ogden Point. The Wharf Bistro, at the top of the pier. It opens early. It’s got a lot of windows—you can see anyone approaching from the street. And you must come alone. Promise me that you’ll come alone, or I’m outta there, and you get nothing.” The call ended.

  “That was Winston,” Angie said. “She … sounds odd. Scared. She wants to meet me, alone. The café at Ogden Point.”

  “Why?”

  “Says she’s got urgent information.” Angie came to her feet as she spoke. “I need to go.”

  “You mean, information about the Limpet case?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Subtext simmered, the question still lingering in his gaze. Do you trust me …

  “I need to go to her, Maddocks,” she said softly. “I told you that I believe I got through to her when I went to see her the other day—it has to be me who goes, alone.”

  He inhaled deeply, got up, and went to open a compartment in the paneling on the wall. Inside was a gun locker. He opened it, removed her service weapon, ammo, and her knife.

  He placed them on the table in front of her and met her eyes.

  “Stay safe,” he said quietly.

  Her gaze locked with his. Intensity hummed off him. And Angie knew. This was it. He was crossing that line. He was betting the odds. On her. A team. And she wasn’t ever going to let him down.

  She picked up her gun, loaded it, holstered it, and pocketed her knife. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  CHAPTER 66

  Angie found Winston hunched at a wooden table in the glassed-in porch area of the restaurant at Ogden Point. She was pressing her hands down flat on a brown envelope as she nervously watched the path that led from the road along the breakwater to the bistro. A fire crackled inside the main restaurant area, and the air was fragrant with the scent of freshly ground coffee and sweet pastries.

  The other tables were all vacant at this early hour, apart from one near the washroom where a senior sipped coffee and turned the pages of his morning newspaper with his shaky liver-spotted hands. Angie guessed that it was his dog tied to the railing outside, black fur ruffling in the salt wind.

  “Why here?” Angie said quietly, removing her coat and hat and taking a seat opposite the slight, dark-haired reporter. The woman’s eyes were bloodshot, and they darted from point to point as if unable to settle or properly focus. There was an odd sheen to her skin, her complexion deathly pale. Drugs, thought Angie.

  “Like I said, it’s … open. Got a good view. Can see who’s coming.” As she spoke, she took two grainy black-and-white photographic prints from her envelope. She slid them across the table. “For you.”

  Angie turned her attention to the photos. One showed a dark-haired man in a leather jacket walking along a dock. The second was of the same man boarding a luxury yacht.

  “What are these?”

  Winston sucked in a shaky breath, rubbed her mouth, her eyes snapping between the window and the photographs. “Faith used to have a pimp. Way back. Damián Yorick. I heard from someone on the street some days ago that Faith had been seen with him again, fairly recently, along with a blond guy in a black BMW. That’s him, Damián.” She nodded to the photo.

  Angie’s pulse quickened. “Can you describe the blond guy he was seen with?”

  “Young, apparently.”

  “How young?”

  “Like early twenties young.”

  “And you’re certain this blond guy was driving a black BMW? Did your contact note the plate?”

  “No plate info—she’s a crystal meth user, lives on the streets. But she was certain it was a Bimmer. One of those little sports models. Black.”

  “What’s her name, your contact?”

  “I …” Winston closed her eyes, as if fighting herself, then made a decision. “Nina. Sometimes she bunks at the Harbor House—it’s where I met her and Faith.” She cleared her throat, glanced nervously around. “I used to live on the streets, see? I was bounced around in foster care and ended up a runaway. Pastor Markus kinda took me under his wing. And Nina, and Faith. We grew close, looked out for each other on the streets. I got out. I came clean. Nina couldn’t. Faith—she got into the escort business, with Damián at first, then I don’t know who. Someone who introduced her into a much higher-end clientele, and she had what seemed like a regular big-paying gig on Tuesday nights.” Winston sniffed and wiped her sleeve across her nose. “She wouldn’t talk about it, but she ended up in that nice apartment. Teeth fixed. Good clothes. Faith was still pretty, you know, once she got off the meth. She has—had—this really young look going on, and the older guys liked it.”

  Angie’s adrenaline was pumping hard now. She knew it—she’d read Winston right. This kid had some big-ass issues and was still struggling to overcome her past. It explained her punchy, fuck-you attitude. Merry Winston had reason to hit back at the world, and she was using her keyboard to do it. A grudging admiration sifted into Angie’s perspec
tive on this little reporter with the bad teeth. Winston might have come clean, but meth-mouth was her legacy. “Go on,” she said.

  “I went to confront Damián, to ask him about the blond guy and Faith. But he lied about having seen Faith. He claimed he hadn’t laid eyes on her in like over a year.” Winston rubbed her mouth again. “So I waited, watching his place, and when he left, I followed his car to this place.” She nodded to the photo. “Uplands Marina.”

  Angie’s pulse dialed up another notch.

  “What day was this?”

  “Friday night into Saturday morning.”

  Angie looked more closely at the photo of Damián Yorick boarding the yacht. The Amanda Rose—the name was clear in the photo. And it struck her like a bullet to the brain. Amanda Rose. Amanda R. The name and initial on Gracie Drummond’s calendar, along with Lara Pennington’s, and the letters B.C. A reminder to meet those nights—usually a Tuesday.

  “What was Damián Yorick doing visiting this yacht?”

  “I don’t know. But he’s a pimp, right? He moves in questionable circles. He buys and sells women and sex, and he takes a cut. So I waited. There were people on board, some kind of party happening. Lights on inside, two guys who looked like they could be security up on deck, so I didn’t want to go any closer. Then while I’m watching, this other guy comes along.” Winston slid a third print out of her envelope. Another grainy nighttime shot, this one showing a second male boarding the Amanda Rose. Dark hair. Lean. Strong looking.

  “Who is he?” she said.

  Winston tightened her lips. She removed another photo and pushed it toward Angie. In this image the two young men were walking along the dock together, heads bent close as if in intense, intimate conversation. Angie’s pulse ticked up a notch—the second male looked like Jayden Norton-Wells.

  “They left in separate vehicles. I decided to follow the second guy to see if I could figure out who he was, where he was going. He drove this vehicle.” From her envelope, Winston took a photo of a red Porsche. Angie’s gaze flared to the reporter’s.

  “And where did he go?”

  Winston placed in front of Angie a photograph of the red Porsche turning into a driveway flanked by two stone columns. On the column a plaque had been mounted. The name on the plaque was clearly visible—AKASHA.

  Electricity crackled through Angie—it was Norton-Wells. She swallowed, staring at the image.

  “Coffee? Anything to order?” said a server who’d materialized at their table. Quickly, Angie turned the photos over. “Could you give us another minute?” The server left.

  Angie leaned forward. Lowering her voice, she said, “Do you know whose residence this is?”

  The reporter nodded. In silence she placed another image in front of Angie. A photo of a man and woman kissing passionately in a white Audi parked under a streetlight.

  “I’d pulled over across the street from the driveway when this couple in this Audi pulled up. The couple kissed, and then the woman got out.” Winston placed another print on the table. Angie stared, mind reeling. Joyce Norton-Wells, her hand resting on top of the car door as she bent down to talk to the male sitting inside behind the Audi’s wheel. The vehicle’s interior light clearly revealed the distinctly angular lines of the male’s face.

  Mayor Jack Killion.

  “Clusterfuck, eh?” Winston said, her gaze flitting back to the path outside the window. She shifted in her seat. Her knee started to jiggle. “Those are for you.”

  Angie sifted slowly through the photos once more.

  From the pocket of her jacket, Winston took a memory stick. She set it in front of Angie. “And this. It’s a copy of the digital recordings I made of my calls from my anonymous source, who I believe is someone inside the MVPD.”

  Angie glanced up sharply. “Who is he?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t even know whether it’s a he or a she. They used voice distortion. I also have my recorded conversation with Damián on there.”

  There was a sense of finality to Winston’s tone, and it set alarm bells clanging in Angie.

  “Why, Merry?” she said, using the reporter’s first name. “Why did you come to me with all of this now, when you could have just run with it, gotten a huge scoop, incredible mileage? That would have been more your style.”

  Winston’s gaze darted back to the windows again. “Because I also got this.” She shoved over the two last photos from her envelope. “That’s me,” she said, pointing to a small figure hunkering in a large, dark jacket between a truck and a sedan, a massive telephoto lens in her hands, a hat pulled snugly over her head.

  “Someone on the boat saw me,” she said. “They shot me while I was shooting them. Those security guys had to have known I was there, watching them the whole while.”

  “How did you get this?”

  “Someone left that photo on the table in my apartment, along with this.”

  Angie studied the final image. A little baggie of white crystals, a pipe, and a Bic lighter.

  “Someone broke into my home, Detective, and left crack and paraphernalia on my table and that photo of me. Read the back.”

  Angie flipped it over.

  YOU ARE DEAD

  Winston’s eyes glistened suddenly. “I came to you because you said that you cared. And I believed you. I don’t know what in the hell is going on, but I want you to nail those fucking bastards who hurt Faith.” She shoved her chair back and got to her feet.

  “One other thing. I did write my story—everything I know. About the deep throat. Faith. Her pimp. The blond guy and the Bimmer. How nice Faith got fixed up with her teeth and all. About the other rapes from years ago. The red Sharpie crucifixes. The words the rapist used about Satan being the father of sin and prince of darkness. About those—” She wrapped her arms tightly over her chest and jerked her chin toward the photos and memory stick on the table. “The Amanda Rose. The ADAG and the mayor. The red Porsche going up the AKASHA driveway … all of it. With photos. And I’ve scheduled the exposé to release on Christmas Eve.” She turned and started to leave.

  “Wait!” Angie reached for Winston’s wrist, stopping her. “Why’d you preschedule the story?”

  Her eyes met Angie’s. “To give you a chance to get him. And in case something happens to me.”

  “Merry, what did you do with the drugs?” Angie said softly.

  “I didn’t use, if that’s what you mean. I … I’m clean.”

  “What did you do with it?”

  “It’s at home.”

  “Get it out of your house, Merry. Bring it to me. It’s evidence. We might be able to trace—”

  But Winston jumped as the door opened. A couple entered, a little bird flying in behind them, becoming trapped inside as the door swung slowly shut. It fluttered into the glassed-in patio area and banged against the panes. Petrified, Winston jerked free of Angie’s hold. “I gotta go.”

  “Come in, let us protect you—”

  “No,” she whispered. “No fucking way. That deep throat, I don’t know who he is, but he’s there, inside the Metro PD. It could have been him who left that shit in my apartment. He could be in with those guys on the yacht. If Damián and that yacht are mixed up with what happened to Faith, and if Damián is tight with the ADAG’s son, and the ADAG is fucking the mayor—Jesus Christ—I don’t know where the connections begin and end anymore. I don’t trust anyone, especially the cops. I gotta look after myself. I’m all I got—me, myself.”

  “Yet you brought me those photos, that recording.”

  Her gaze twitched to the bird trying to get out. “Because of what you said the other day—” She swallowed. “You said you cared.”

  “What about those earlier rapes, Merry? You’ve got to give me details on those.”

  She shot another furtive glance at the windows and the pathway outside that led to the road. Then she leaned down toward Angie, lowering her voice to a barely audible whisper. “I know about them because I was one of his victims, okay? It
happened to me. Five years ago. Red crucifix. Knife at the throat. Missing lock of hair. And it was why Allison Fernyhough agreed to speak to me. And she told me about Sally Ritter.”

  “What about the other—” A middle-aged male came along the path and up the restaurant stairs. Panic flared in Winston’s face as he entered the door.

  “I gotta go.” She spun around and was gone. Out the door. Down the stairs. Through the windows, Angie watched Winston scurry along the breakwater path toward the road, her black hoodie pulled up over her head, hiding her profile. She approached a green Volkswagen Beetle, got in. Angie reached for her phone.

  Maddocks answered on the second ring.

  “I’ve got it,” she said softly as she watched Merry Winston climbing into her Beetle. “Amanda Rose. It’s a luxury yacht. And I have photographic evidence of Norton-Wells boarding that yacht with Faith Hocking’s pimp on Friday night—a pimp who has been seen in the company of a blond male in his early twenties who drives a black Bimmer.”

  CHAPTER 67

  Angie squared her shoulders, hesitated, took a deep breath, and entered the Operation Limpet incident room carrying the envelope Merry Winston had given her at the Wharf Bistro.

  The place was abuzz, detectives shuffling through files, conversing with techs, who worked furiously at the computers on tables and desks arranged on one side of the room. The air was hot and smelled of burnt coffee and doughnuts that someone had brought in for Sunday breakfast. No one even looked up as she came in—her absence long forgotten in the excitement of the investigative discoveries now unspooling before them at warp speed. And they all knew from her phone conversation with Maddocks that the clock was ticking down toward Merry Winston’s prescheduled exposé and photographs, which would launch on Christmas Eve. Relief was a punch to Angie’s gut.

  Maddocks looked up from where he was examining papers on a table at the front of the room with Holgersen. He motioned for her to come over, and he smiled as she approached. She read approval in his eyes. She’d set the ball rolling from the bistro, then gone home for a speedy shower and change of clothing—it was going to be a long day and then some, and she’d been nervous about returning to the station, of the scrutiny she expected to see in the eyes of colleagues like Leo. And she’d wanted to feel fresh and look her power-best.