All Fall Down (27 page)

T
hough it wasn't that late—just shy of 11:00 p.m.—the streets were quiet, the traffic light. Melanie drove toward home on a kind of autopilot, her thoughts whirling with the events of the day and Connor's parting words.

Her father, a Dark Angel victim? Why hadn't she considered it before? He could have been. He died in the same manner as Jim McMillian, and as all the others for that matter—a victim of his own frailty. He was a batterer, one who had lived his life without paying for his sins.

She should have seen it before. But she hadn't.
Why?

Melanie flexed her fingers on the steering wheel. As hard as it was for her to admit, two Dark Angel deaths in her family couldn't be a coincidence. If both her father and Boyd were the Angel's victims, there was no way the killer could have randomly selected them, years apart.

What would the odds of that happening be? Too great to bet on, that was for sure.

The Dark Angel was close to her family. She knew them, their secrets.

Dear God. Ashley.

Melanie caught her breath at the thought. Her third sister fit Connor's profile to a T—her age, the abuse in her background, her history of broken relationships with men, the way she seemed to be unraveling, that she had family in law enforcement. Ashley had been outspoken in her belief that the Angel's victims had deserved their fate. Thinking back, Melanie realized it was then, when she first presented her Dark Angel theory, that Ashley's behavior had seemed to spiral out of control. It was then that Ashley had begun alluding to the “things” she had done for her sisters. Ones they couldn't even begin to imagine.

Had she meant her sisters, Melanie and Mia? Or all her sisters, women everywhere?

Melanie pressed her lips together, hating her thoughts, but unable to stop them. As a pharmaceutical rep, Ashley knew about drugs, about poisons and allergic reactions. She talked to doctors day in and day out, she could easily obtain the kind of information she needed by asking a seemingly innocent question here and there. She traveled the Carolinas and was gone for days, sometimes a week at a time. It would have been easy for her to select a victim in Charleston or Myrtle Beach or Columbia.

Dear God, could it be true? Could Ashley be the Dark Angel?

No. Melanie curled her fingers more tightly around the wheel. No. Ashley was troubled, but she wasn't a killer. Melanie would prove that.

But how? The only surefire way she knew of to prove Ashley's innocence was to find the real Dark Angel killer.

Her beeper went off and she jumped. Thinking first of Casey, she checked the beeper's display and saw that it hadn't been Mrs. Saunders who had called, but headquarters.

Using her cell phone, she dialed in. Loretta, the night dispatch, answered. “Loretta, it's Melanie. What's up?”

“Hey, Melanie. I hate to disturb you, but I thought I'd better.”

The traffic light up ahead turned red and Melanie drew to a stop. “It's okay. Shoot.”

“Call just came in for you. A woman. She sounded really upset. Scared to death. Wouldn't talk to anybody but you.”

“A woman?” Melanie repeated. “Who?”

“She wouldn't give her name. Just said that
he'd
contacted her. The one you'd wanted to know about. Said you'd know who.”

“That I'd know who?” Melanie frowned. “She leave a number?”

“Nope, hung up when I pressed her for more.”

Melanie searched her memory, reviewing what the caller had said—that
he'd
contacted her, the one she had wanted to know about.

Joli Andersen's killer. Sugar. Of course.

 

Ten minutes later, Melanie drew to a stop at the west side corner where Sugar had been picked up. The west side of Charlotte boasted a disproportionate percentage of the city's crime. It was there one would be most likely to score sex or drugs, it was also the most likely place to be raped, mugged or shot in the head.

Melanie scanned the sidewalk. Sugar wouldn't have gone home, Melanie was certain. If she had been afraid a killer was after her, she wouldn't have led him there, to her son. Nor would she be out on the street, a sitting duck.

In her rearview mirror, Melanie saw Connor's white Explorer turn the corner behind her. After making arrangements with Mrs. Saunders for Casey, she had called Connor. Protocol had dictated she contact Harrison and Stemmons—after all, the Andersen murder was their investigation.

But Sugar was her witness, so Melanie had figured to hell with protocol.

Connor pulled to a stop behind her, climbed out of his vehicle and came to her window.

“You have any ideas?” he asked.

“Yeah, she's holed up somewhere public. Lots of people. Where she feels safe.”

“She going to be okay with me?”

“I'll make it okay.” Melanie opened her door, then slid across the seat. “You drive, I'll scout.”

They cruised within a ten-block radius of Sugar's corner, checking out anyplace there were people—several clubs, restaurants and an all-night minimarket. At each stop, Melanie went in while Connor waited in the Jeep.

Melanie found the woman on their eighth stop, at a diner called Mike's, a place that catered to people like Sugar, to the night people. She sat alone in a booth at the rear of the restaurant, her back to the wall, her gaze fixed on the door.

She looked terrified.

Melanie made her way to the other woman. “Hello, Sugar,” she said, stopping beside the table. “I hear you were looking for me.”

She nodded.

“He found you tonight, didn't he? The guy I was asking you about?”

She nodded again. Melanie saw that she trembled. “On the…street. I…gave him the slip.”

“How?”

“I told him I had to…pee. The bathroom…window. I…cut myself.” She held up her hand. A vicious-looking gash ran diagonally across her palm.

“Come on,” Melanie murmured. “Let's get out of here.”

Within moments they were out of the diner and at the Jeep. Sugar saw Connor and stopped short. “Who's he?”

“A friend.” Melanie glanced at him, then back at the woman. “He's okay, Sugar.”

“Maybe this wasn't such a good—”

“He's the one who created the profile of the guy we're looking for, the profile of the man who killed Joli Andersen. He, better than anyone, will know if the man who approached you tonight is a killer.”

She took a step backward. “I don't know. I think this was a mistake, I think—”

“You called me because you're scared, Sugar. Because you recognized the john I described, because you'd been with him. And now he's found you again.”

The hooker paled and Melanie pressed harder. “He'll kill you this time, Sugar. Because he won't be
able to help himself. And because you're the only one who can finger him.” Melanie opened the vehicle's rear door. “What are you going to do? Help me or wait for him to find you?”

The woman hesitated a fraction of a second more, then climbed in.

Melanie followed her. She made the introductions, then instructed Connor to drive. She turned to Sugar. “Is your son okay?” she asked. “Right now, is he being taken care of?”

“He's with a neighbor. She baby-sits him.”

“Good. Tell me what happened.”

She began, words halting, voice low. “You were…right, I recognized that guy you were asking me about. I'd been with him a few times. At first it wasn't so bad. He liked to play the big seduction scene, you know. He even brought wine, sometimes chocolate—”

“Champagne?” Melanie asked.

“Yeah, the stuff with the bubbles.”

“Go on.”

“He never fucked me, never wanted me to blow him or anything like that. It was kind of nice. Like taking a couple hours off.”

“If he didn't want sex,” Melanie murmured, “what did he want?”

“He'd tie me up and just touch me. Real nice like. And talk to me.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“Not much. He wanted me to just…lie there.” She was quiet a moment. “It was as if he was…playing.
Exploring. Like I was a doll. Yeah,” she nodded, “that's it, like I was a doll.”

Melanie glanced toward Connor. He met her eyes in the rearview mirror, then returned his attention to the road. “Something changed then, didn't it, Sugar? You got scared.”

She shuddered and rubbed her arms, as if chilled. “He started puttin' things…in me, you know, to fuck me with. Things that…hurt. Some of 'em hurt real bad. When I told him to quit, he—” She stopped, seeming to choke on the words.

“What?” Melanie urged. “What did he do?”

“He…had this…tape. He put it over my mouth so I…so I couldn't… 'cause of the ropes, I couldn't do nothin'…I was…”

Her words shuddered to a halt. But they landed between them as surely and loudly as if she had shouted it.
Helpless. She had been helpless.

Melanie leaned toward the prostitute; she covered her hand. “What did you do, Sugar?”

She met Melanie's eyes, hers filled with remembered horror. “I laid real still. Just the way he liked it. And even when he hurt me bad, I didn't make a sound. I wanted to live, Officer May. I wanted to live to see my boy again.”

U
nfortunately but not unexpectedly, Sugar didn't know the john's name. But she could describe him and Melanie convinced her to agree to do so for a police artist.

They took her to the Whistlestop PD. There, after notifying her chief of the night's events in progress and arranging for the artist, Melanie contacted Harrison and Stemmons.

The two investigators were none too happy with the situation. They became even more unhappy when they arrived and learned that not only had Sugar already given her statement to Melanie, but that Connor had been in on it.

Melanie had reminded them that without her, they would have no witness at all, then suggested they get over it and down to business.

It seemed clear that Sugar's john and Joli Andersen's killer were one and the same man. It also seemed clear, once the artist's rendering was complete, that Ted Jenkins was not that man. They arranged a photo lineup anyway—Jenkins passed with flying colors.

After Jenkins and his lawyer left, Harrison and Stemmons turned to Connor. “Any suggestions as to how we flush our man out?”

Connor nodded. “Our UNSUB's hungry, he's starting to hunt. But he's afraid. So he went back to a place where he felt safe before. Where he'd gotten relief before.”

“Sugar,” Melanie offered. “But she slipped out of his grasp. He's not dumb, he's got to figure she's made him.”

“I agree. It's my opinion that he hasn't acted again until now because he's been afraid. The amount of press Joli's murder spawned, though exciting, frightened him. He's been afraid to cruise the bars, afraid he'd be recognized. Now he's even more frightened.”

Pete swore. “The sick bastard's going to skip town.”

“I don't think so. This is a professional guy, not a laborer. That's not so easy to walk away from. The time's right to stake out Joli's grave.”

“We tried that, we got zilch.”

“That was then, this is now. He's hungry, he's desperate and he's scared. He's going to pay Joli a visit.”

Harrison drew his bushy eyebrows together. “What are you thinking?”

“Audio, video, infrared. Undercover officers around the perimeter. Three days. After that, he's cold. What've you got to lose?”

Harrison thought a moment, then nodded. “I'll call in.”

He returned a few minutes later, mouth set in a grim line. “Got the okay. But I've been warned, I come up empty on this, the cost of the operation comes out of my hide.” Pete looked at her. “You and Taggerty want in? We could use the help.”

Twenty minutes later, Melanie walked Connor out to his Explorer—which he'd had a uniform drive over the night before. Harrison and Stemmons had left only moments before, after powwowing with her and Bobby about the coming night's undercover assignment.

Melanie glanced up at the noon sky, a brilliant, unrelieved blue. “I should be tired, but I'm not. I'm jazzed.”

Connor smiled, understanding. “There's nothing like a break in a case to get the adrenaline going. Sometimes it stays with me for days.”

“It's like I know this guy now.” She looked at him. “Like I'm so close I can almost slip the cuffs on him. And I want that, so bad I can taste it.”

“Funny, but my thoughts are running in a slightly different direction.”

“Oh?”

His lips curved into a wicked smile. “Something along the lines of you and me and getting naked.”

She laughed. “You're incorrigible, Agent Parks.”

“I try, Officer May.” They reached the Explorer and he unlocked the driver's door. “Ever do it in a cemetery?”

“Hardly.” She arched an eyebrow. “And if you have, I don't want to hear about it.”

His smile faded. “Tonight, be careful.”

“I will.”

He reached out a hand, as if to touch her, then dropped it. “Never forget, not even for a moment, that this guy's a killer. Promise me that, Melanie.”

“I promise,” she murmured, thinking of Sugar's
statement, the ordeal she had lived through, picturing Joli's lifeless face. A shudder rippled over her. “I've got too much to live for not to.”

A moment later, he climbed into his vehicle and drove off. Melanie watched him go, then headed back inside, her thoughts returning to all that had transpired the previous evening. Sugar's story had affected her deeply. Because she had understood, because she had been able to relate to the other woman's fear—to her willingness to do whatever was necessary to live another day.

What would she endure, Melanie wondered, in the hopes of seeing Casey again? In an effort to hold on to life?

Ashley. The Dark Angel.

She hadn't thought about her sister or her fears concerning her since Sugar's call had come in the evening before. Now they came crashing back to the fore of her consciousness with a vengeance.

As much as she longed to, Melanie acknowledged, she couldn't share her fears with Connor. Or anyone even remotely associated with the case. She couldn't betray her sister that way. But she could talk to Mia, feel her out on Ashley's stability, query her as to her memory of Ashley's reaction to their father's death, ask her what she knew of their sister's whereabouts of late. Then she would call Ashley herself.

While Bobby was in the rest room, she dialed Mia's number, silently cursing when she got the answering machine. “Mia,” she said, “it's Melanie. We have to talk. It's about Ashley. I'm afraid—”

“Hello? Mel?” Her sister sounded winded. “Sorry,
I was in the middle of my workout.” She sucked in a deep breath. “What's wrong?”

“We need to talk…about Ash. But not on the phone. Can I come over?”

“Now?”

“Yes. It's urgent.”

Mia was silent a moment. “Now's not good. Give me…an hour. Will that work for you?”

Melanie said it would and an hour later, she was facing her sister across her kitchen table.

“Now,” Mia said, pouring herself a glass of orange juice from a cut-crystal pitcher, “what's all this about Ashley?”

“Have you talked to her since the funeral?”

Mia shook her head and took a sip of her juice. “But it's only been a couple of days.”

“How about before Boyd's death, had you talked to her much?”

“Almost not at all. Why?”

Melanie stood, too anxious to sit still. “I think there's something going on with her, Mia. Something bad.”

“You're just figuring that out?” Melanie looked at her sister, surprised by her harsh tone. “Veronica told me about the stunt she pulled at the Charleston D.A.'s office. I mean,
really.
Pretending to be you to try to dig something up on Veronica. How bizarre was that? Veronica thinks Ashley needs professional help and I'm forced to agree.”

“This is worse than that, Mia. It's…I think she's—” Melanie couldn't say it. Not yet, not even to her sister.

She tried another tack. “At Father's funeral and…after, how was Ashley? How did she…react to his death? Even though I was there, I can't remember.”

Mia thought a moment. “I don't know, the same as us, I guess. Relieved. Guilty.”

Melanie jumped on the last. “Guilty? What do you mean?”

“For being happy he was dead,” she said flatly. “We all were, let's face it.”

That was true. A part of her had cheered when she'd learned the news. But that didn't make her a killer. It didn't make either of her sisters one.

She leaned forward. “What about nuances? Did you find anything strange about her behavior? Do you remember anything striking you as odd?”

“About
Ashley's
behavior?” Mia arched an eyebrow. “Get real, Mel.”

“I'm serious. Besides, it wasn't until recently that Ashley's become strange.”

Mia gazed at her a moment, her expression speculative. “What are you not saying, Melanie? What's going on?”

“I don't know for sure. But I have this suspicion that—”

“Hi, Melanie.”

Startled, she turned. Veronica stood in the kitchen doorway, dressed in an ecru linen suit, briefcase dangling from her right hand. She smiled at Melanie, though the curving of her lips looked stiff. Even though they had made up, things had never been the
same between them since their altercation at the dojang, a fact Melanie felt bad about.

Veronica turned her attention to Mia. “I'm back to work. Call me later, okay?”

Melanie moved her gaze between the two women, unsettled. What was Veronica doing here at noon, on a workday? And why hadn't Mia told her the woman was there? She had thought they were alone in the house.

“Thanks for everything, Vee.” Mia blew her a kiss. “You're a sweetheart.”

“Bye, Melanie.”

“Bye,” she murmured, watching her go, a strange sensation in the pit of her stomach. A moment later, she heard the rumble of the garage door going up, then the roar of an engine coming to life.

Melanie turned to her sister. “Is Veronica still staying with you?”

Mia drained her juice glass and set it on the table in front of her. “She has been, but she's moving back home tonight. She stopped back to get the rest of her stuff. I'll sure miss her. I swear, this whole thing has been such a nightmare. I don't know what I would have done without her.”

Melanie experienced twin pinches of guilt and envy. Once upon a time, she would have been the one Mia turned to. The one who would have been there for her—sister, best friend and confidante.

What had happened to them?

Melanie swallowed past the lump in her throat, past the feeling that somehow, something important in her life had changed without her even knowing it.

“What's happened to us, Mia?” she asked, a slight tremor in her voice. “You, me and Ashley? We used to be best friends.”

“I don't know. I guess we've grown apart.”

“Grown apart?” Melanie repeated. “How can you say that so casually? You and Ashley have always come first in my life, I thought you felt the same way.”

Mia looked at her. She drew her eyebrows together. “Me? First in your life? Please. The way I see it, you kept me around because I did what you wanted. Because I was your little cheering section.”

Melanie recoiled, hurt. “That's not true. We've always been partners. Equal partners.”

“Right,” Mia said sarcastically. “You played leader, me follower. You were the strong one, I the weak.”

She leaned toward Melanie, lips twisted into a bitter smile. “You never wanted me to be strong, did you? You liked being the capable, confident one, the one everyone looked up to. After all, if you'd been the wimpy little victim, then you would have been the one Dad targeted, not me.”

Melanie's mouth dropped at her sister's words. At the anger and bitterness behind them. She shook her head. “If I could have, I would have taken your place when Dad singled you out.”

Mia stood and Melanie saw that she trembled, as if with great emotion. “I think you might even believe that, Melanie. It's so heroic. So brave and selfless. And believing it makes the past a whole lot easier to live with, I'll bet.”

Melanie followed her sister to her feet, heart hurting so badly she could hardly breathe. “Where's this coming from?” she asked. “When did you start hating me? When did you start thinking—”

Melanie brought a hand to her mouth. “It's Veronica, isn't it? She's the one who's turning you against me and Ashley. She's the one who's…changing you. The one who's making you…bitter.”

“It's always someone else who's the problem, right, Melanie? It's never you. Veronica's my friend. She understands me. She wants me to be happy.”

Melanie struggled to right her reeling world. First Ashley. Now Mia.
What was happening to them? To her?
“I've never wished anything but the best for you. I've never wanted you to be anything but completely, deliriously happy.”

“Well, then you've gotten your wish,” Mia snapped. “Because I've never been happier.”