Bone Cold (11 page)

“Bob,” his wife begged. “Please.”

He ignored her and took a threatening step toward Anna. “Don't you get it?
We've
been through this before. You haven't. Girls like Jaye don't hang around. The minute something doesn't go their way, they're history. They leave without a word to the people who cared for them. Period.”

He took another step toward Anna; she instinctively backed up. “I'd like you to leave now.”

Anna looked beseechingly at the other woman. “Please, Fran…I know Jaye. She's my friend and…she wouldn't do this. I know it.”

The woman backed away, expression closed. “If we hear anything from her, we'll call you.”

“Thank you.” Anna tightened her grip on Jaye's keep-sake box, unwilling to let it go—although she wasn't quite sure why. “May I keep this for her?”

“In this situation we're supposed to turn all of Jaye's belongings over to Social Services.”

Anna swallowed hard. That sounded so ominous. So final. As if they were discussing the belongings of someone who had passed. “Please. I'll make sure Paula gets it. I promise I will.”

The woman hesitated a moment more, then agreed. The Clausens walked Anna to the door, standing guard and watching as she walked away, box clutched to her chest. When Anna reached her car she glanced back to see Fran and her husband exchanging furtive glances.

In that moment, Anna was filled with dread. It stole her ability to move or think; in that moment, she was incapable even of unlocking her car and climbing inside.

As she stood there frozen, gaze fixed on the couple, a single question kept playing in her head: What had happened to Jaye?

Thursday, January 18
11:50 p.m.

J
aye awakened with a groan. Her head and back ached and her mouth felt dry and dirty, like the inside of a ditch after a month with no rain. She moaned and rolled onto her side. A sour smell filled her head and she opened her eyes.

And remembered. Walking to the bus stop. Looking over her shoulder for the old pervert. Grinning because she had given him the slip. Or so she had thought. In the next moment she had found herself being dragged behind an azalea hedge before something was forced over her nose and mouth. She remembered her terror. The silent scream that sounded in her head.

Her world going black.

Jaye scrambled into a sitting position, heart racing, breath coming in small gasps. She darted her gaze around the dimly lit room, seeing at once that she was alone.

Jaye breathed deeply through her nose to calm herself, her survivor instincts kicking in.
Stay cool. Figure it out.

She was sitting on a foldout cot. The mattress was bare, soiled from use. Jaye pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling. The only other piece of furniture in the room was a folding lawn chair, one of those flimsy aluminum and nylon web ones. Located against the far left wall was a single sink and commode. Beside the toilet sat a roll of toilet paper, on the sink a new toothbrush, tube of toothpaste and a towel.

Jaye choked back a sound of despair and shifted her gaze. The plaster walls were cracked, what was left of the faded wallpaper water-stained and peeling. The room's one window had been boarded over, slivers of dim light peeked around the edges of the crudely nailed one-by-fours. Directly across the room from the window lay the door.

Jaye scooted off the cot and tiptoed to the door. She reached cautiously for the knob. Her hand shook. She remembered a horror flick she had seen a couple of weeks before. In it a girl in a similar position had tried to escape; as her fingers had closed over the knob, it had become a writhing snake.

That had been a movie. This nightmare was for real. And she had to find a way out.

Swallowing hard, Jaye grasped the knob. It was cool, smooth and unyielding against her palm, and she let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Saying a silent prayer, Jaye twisted it.

The knob didn't budge. Tears flooded her eyes and she blinked them back, scolding herself for hoping for a miracle. What kind of kidnapper would have left the door unlocked? The criminal equivalent of Dopey?

She would just have to find another way out, the hard way. She lowered her gaze, noticing what she hadn't
before: that one of the door's panels had been replaced with a pet door.

Jaye knelt and examined it. It looked to be newly installed, unmarred by even one scuff mark. She pushed against the panel, finding it latched from the outside. Jaye pressed harder, felt it begin to give, then drew back, frustrated. She could kick it open, but she couldn't fit through the opening, so what was the point?

She stood and turned to face the boarded-over window. She crossed to it and pressed her face close to the cracks between the boards, hoping to get an idea of where she was. She saw immediately that it was night, that the light seeping around the edges of the boards was artificial, provided by a nearby street lamp. She couldn't place anything else.

But she could hear—the muffled sound of traffic and music, of people talking.

People! Someone who would hear her call out and come looking. Or contact the police.

“Help!” she called, excited. She pounded on the boards. She screamed again and again, pausing between cries to listen. The conversations from somewhere beyond her prison didn't change tempo. No one came looking for her. No one answered her cries for help.

They couldn't hear her. They were too far away.

Frantic now, she turned and raced to the door and began to pound, kick and scream. Her voice grew hoarse, her hands sore and arms weak. Still she cried out, until her pleas became feeble mewls of despair.

Finally, exhausted, she sank to the floor and sobbed.

Friday, January 19
The French Quarter

H
er name had been Evelyn Parker. She'd been beautiful, well liked, fun-loving. A regular of the downtown club scene. She'd worked as a hygienist for an uptown dentist and had resided in the area of the city called the Bywater.

She had died on her twenty-fourth birthday.

“Hell of a thing, getting whacked on your birthday, eh, Malone?” This came from Sam Tardo, one of the evidence collection team. “And don't touch anything, we haven't done the body yet.”

Quentin grunted in response to the other officer and squatted beside Evelyn Parker. He moved his gaze over the victim, looking for something that might have been missed: a button or scrap of paper, spots of blood, a footprint.

“You thinking what I'm thinking?” Terry asked, stooping to get a better look.

Nancy Kent.
“Yeah.” Quentin frowned. Evelyn Parker was a beautiful strawberry blonde; she had been out
clubbing the night of her death. It looked as if she had been raped, then suffocated. And like Nancy Kent, Evelyn Parker had been found in an alley behind a club.

“Captain's going to be pissed.” Johnson rolled his shoulders. “Like it's our fault or something.”

“Who found her?” Quentin asked.

“Jogger.”

Quentin looked up, frowning. “What's a jogger doing in an alley?”

“Chick runs early. Brings her golden retriever along. For protection, she says. Anyway, at the alley entrance the dog goes nuts. She decides to check it out and gets more than she bargained for.”

“Walden take her statement?”

“Yeah.” Johnson jerked his thumb in the direction of the club. “He's with the bar owner now. So, where've you guys been? Me and Walden practically have this thing solved already.”

“Kiss my ass, Sleeping Beauty.” Terry made a sound of disgust. “Didn't you hear? While you and Walden were snug in your beds, me and Malone were in the Desire. Drug-related triple homicide.”

A downtown housing project, the Desire was the most dangerous piece of real estate in New Orleans. Life expectancy for a cop who wandered in alone was slim to none. Life expectancy for the folks who lived there wasn't much better.

“Lucky you.” The other officer shrugged deeper into his coat. “I'll take a French Quarter alley over the Desire any day.”

Walden called to his partner from the bar doorway. Johnson excused himself, and Quentin returned his attention to the victim. Unlike Kent, this woman had put
up a good fight. There were contusions around her face, neck and chest. She had been wearing skintight jeans and from the looks of them and the twisted position of her body, the perp had had a hard time holding her down and getting them off. They were bunched around her knees; her panties torn away.

Quentin glanced at Terry to comment on the jeans, but swallowed the words, noticing for the first time how tired his friend looked. How bloodshot his eyes were. How quiet he had been.

Quentin frowned. He and his partner had been at the Desire for the past few hours, before that Quentin had been home, sleeping. Where, he wondered, had his partner been? “You okay?” Quentin asked.

“As well as can be expected with no home to go to and no sleep.” He rubbed his eyes and swore. “I'm getting damn sick of this shit.”

The evidence team moved in and they stood to give them room to work. There wasn't much left for them to do here anyway. Next step was sorting through the physical evidence, immersing themselves in Evelyn Parker's life and the night of her death.

Quentin drew his eyebrows together. He looked at Terry. “I don't think she was raped, Ter. No way could this perp have penetrated her with those jeans around her knees. So unless he took the time to try to get her jeans back up, I think he gave up and just killed her.”

“Goodbye DNA.”

“Exactly.” They started out of the alley. “Which will make the likelihood of linking the cases with physical evidence a lot more difficult.”

“Near impossible.” For a moment, Terry was silent. “Which doesn't help me out.” He swore. “I hope they don't try to pin this shit on me.”

Quentin stopped and looked at his partner. “Why would they?”

“Because of Nancy Kent, of course.”

“But you were cleared.”

Terry shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, mouth twisting with bitterness. “Yeah, but this changes everything. They're going to revisit every suspect from the original homicide. You know that. Expect us to be called in the minute we hit headquarters. Shit.”

Quentin hoped his partner was wrong, but admitted he probably wasn't. “When the captain asks where you were last night, what are you going to tell her, Ter?”

“The truth. That I was at my crappy-ass apartment. Alone and nursing a bourbon. Before that, I was with Penny.”

They exited the alley and angled toward their vehicles, parked side by side along the curb. “Any progress convincing her to let you move back in?”

“Move back in?” Terry laughed, the sound bitter. “What? And ruin her good time? Life's a party for her. She's fucking one guy after another, apparently making up for time lost married to me.”

It wasn't just his partner's ugly words that stunned Quentin, but their tone as well. The venom behind them. “No way,” Quentin said softly, thinking of his friend's wife. Quentin couldn't picture the woman he knew her to be—a devoted wife and conscientious mother—sleeping around.

“Hell of a thing,” Terry said, all but spitting the words. “She won't let me, her husband, near her, but she'll share her goodies with every Tom, Dick or Harry who comes around.”

“You got any proof, Ter? That sure doesn't sound like the Penny I know.”

“I've got proof all right. Alex told me she's been out a lot at night, that Grandma Stockwell's been sitting for them. He said it's really late when she gets home.”

“That's it?” Quentin unlocked his car door. “That's your proof? Alex, who's six? Pretty flimsy, Detective.”

“Why else would she be out at night? What else would keep her out so late?” He balled his hands into fists. “She's my wife, goddammit! She belongs at home with our kids.”

“She could be visiting with a girlfriend. Or at the show. You don't know for sure that she's with other men.”

“I know. I just do.” Terry swung to face Quentin. “You've got to talk to her, Malone. She likes you. She respects your opinion.” His friend's voice took on a desperate edge. “Please, talk to her. Convince her to take me back.”

When Quentin hesitated, Terry took a step toward him, expression pleading. “You've got to help me out, buddy. You've got to make her see it's the right thing to do. The best thing for the kids.” He glanced over his shoulder, then back at Quentin. “I gotta be honest, I don't know how much longer I can go on this way.”

“All right,” Quentin said. “Against my better judgment, I'll do it.”

Friday, January 19
Central Business District

T
wenty-four hours passed with no word from Jaye. With each hour, Anna grew more certain that Jaye had not run away. And more certain that the Clausens were not the caring, concerned foster parents she had once hoped them to be. In fact, as Anna had replayed her conversation with the couple in her head and had recalled their expressions, tones of voice and body language, she had become convinced that they were hiding something.

What she was thinking frightened her to the core.

Desperate, Anna had decided to pay a visit to Paula Perez, Jaye's caseworker. Anna poked her head through the doorway of the woman's windowless, closet-size cubicle. “Knock, knock.”

The woman looked up and smiled. “Anna, come in.”

“The receptionist wasn't at her desk, so I came on back. Is this a good time?”

Paula motioned the top of her desk—every available inch was covered with case files, memos, textbooks and
court reports. “Here at Social Services there's no such thing as a good time. Or a bad one. Have a seat.”

Anna did as the woman invited, clutching Jaye's memento box to her chest. “I came to talk about Jaye.”

“I figured. There's been no word yet, Anna.”

“I know.” Anna lowered her gaze to the box, then returned it to the social worker. “I wanted you to see this. It's Jaye's.”

She handed it over. The other woman opened the container and leafed through its contents. After a moment, she looked back up at Anna. “How did you get this?”

“From the Clausens, the night Jaye disappeared.”

“I'll have to keep it. As a ward of the state—”

“I know. But I was afraid…” She drew in a deep breath. “I was afraid if I didn't take the box, it might disappear.”

Paula drew her eyebrows together. “I don't understand.”

“The contents of that box are proof Jaye didn't run away.”

“We went over this on the phone, Anna. I know you don't want to accept—”

“She wouldn't leave these things behind, Paula. She wouldn't! They represent her history. They're all she has of her past.”

“Jaye's a smart girl, Anna. She knows that anything she leaves behind gets sent to us for safekeeping. She also knows we have no time limit on storage of her things. She shows up for them ten years from now, and they're here for her.”

Undaunted by that logic, Anna tried another tack. “If Jaye had planned to run away, why not fill her book bag with food and clothes? Why pack it with textbooks? Why leave her music behind? It doesn't make sense.”

“Fran and Bob called just this morning. Seems quite a number of food items are missing from their pantry.

“So they say.”

Paula stiffened, her cheeks growing red. “What's that supposed to mean, Anna?”

“It means, maybe Fran and Bob aren't telling the whole truth. Something's fishy about—”

“For God's sake!” Paula stood and glared down at Anna. “These are nice people. People who have been foster parents for nearly twenty years. They are very highly thought of by everyone, including me. How dare you come in here and suggest them guilty of some sort of…criminal activity.”

Anna got to her feet. “All I ask is that you dig a little deeper into Jaye's disappearance. Question the Clausens more thoroughly, call the police—”

“I have contacted the police, I reported Jaye missing, just as I'm required to by law.”

“I know Jaye, Paula. She wouldn't do this. She wouldn't. Something's happened to her.” Anna leaned forward. “She told me a man followed her home from school. Maybe if you told the police—”

“Fran passed that information to me and I passed it to the authorities.” The woman let out a tight-sounding breath. “You may not know Jaye as well as you think you do. She's a complex child, one capable of unexpected and troubling behavior. That may be difficult for you to hear, but it's true.”

“I know about her past. That she's run away a half-dozen times. That she attacked one of her teachers. That she tried to take her own life. But she's grown so much in the past two years. Emotionally. Spiritual—”

The social worker held up a hand, stopping her. “Before you say another word, Anna, I want you to
ask yourself how much your own guilty conscience is contributing to your refusal to accept that Jaye's run away.”

“My guilty conscience?” she repeated. “What do I have to feel—”

“I understand you two fought recently. That she felt you betrayed her. That by keeping the truth about your past from her, you lied to her.”

“That has nothing to do with this.”

“Doesn't it? Have you considered that she ran specifically because you hurt her? Just as she ran so many other times in her life? That the emotional growth you saw in her, growth based on trust, was shattered by what she perceived as you lying to her?”

A denial raced to Anna's lips, choked back by the lump of tears that formed in her throat. “I didn't mean to hurt her,” she finally managed to say. “I tried to explain about my past and why I kept it from her.”

“I know,” Paula said softly. “I understand. But I'm not a hurting teenager who's been betrayed by everyone she ever loved and trusted.”

Guilt overwhelmed her. As did regret. And despair. “I didn't mean to hurt her,” she said again. “I love Jaye.”

The social worker's expression softened. She picked up the box and held it out to Anna. “Keep it for now. I think she would like you to be the one holding it for her.”

Anna took the box, turned and walked away. As she left the building, Anna prayed that Jaye was all right. Safe and warm. She prayed that she really had run away and that she would come to her senses and return home soon.