Cold Moon (The Huntress/FBI Thrillers Book 3) (32 page)

Chapter 67

S
anta Cruz’s hundred-plus-year-old boardwalk was a tourist attraction, with a Victorian arcade and an extensive amusement park: a beach strip of roller coasters, haunted houses, Tilt-a-Whirls, and the original 1911 carousel with its hand-carved horses.

At night it became a pulsing fantasy of wheels and lights, a giant child’s glowing toy set lit up on the sand. Organ music from the antique carousel and eerie calls and creaks from the haunted houses wrestled with the strains of Abba, Def Leppard, and Beyoncé coming from more modern rides: Whirlwind, Crazy Surf, Tsunami, Cliffhanger, Fireball. Screams of exhilarated terror echoed over the shimmering water of Monterey Bay.

Roarke stood in the midst of the brightly lit cacophony.

Detective Williams had the Santa Cruz police out in force tonight: on the Ocean Avenue stroll, on Pacific Avenue, patrolling the bus station.

But this carnival was Jade’s kind of place. If she was still in town, it wasn’t beyond reason that she might be here. So while Epps walked Pacific Avenue, Roarke was taking a chance on the boardwalk. He braced himself and plunged into the crowd.

He wove his way through the food trucks and game booths and the shops selling sparkly souvenirs, fast food, and saltwater taffy, eyeing every cluster of teens he passed, on the lookout for Jade’s wild mane of hair.

Like her mother’s
, he thought, though he was using the term
mother
loosely. His rage at Alison Collins seared through him again. He’d texted Singh, updating her on the interview—or whatever you could call it—with Alison. Recounting it had only made him more angry, had chased away any chance he’d had at sleep.

How did it go with Jade? Did she run from her mother’s piece of shit boyfriend? How long was she on the street here before Ramirez snatched her up?

What chance do they have, these kids? Against men who think nothing of abusing them for fun and profit . . . so-called mothers who facilitate the abuse . . .

And now there was Rachel to think about.

He felt an acid rush of fear.

Could she be responsible for the Tenderloin killings? Or the Inty ones? This latest one?

She had been living on the front lines of hell for so long. Would it be any surprise if she finally snapped?

Snyder’s voice suddenly spoke in his head.
“I’ve never understood why we don’t see more women acting out in a similar way. God knows, enough of them have reason.”

Roarke breathed in against the uncertainty and moved on toward the lights of the Casino Arcade.

The old casino was now called Smuggler’s Arcade: a huge wedding cake of a building at the end of the boardwalk, just before the stairs that led down to the ocean. In the old days, the likes of Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman had played there while the California elite danced in silk tuxedos and glittery gowns. Now the halls were crowded with teenagers. The décor was pirate-themed, clashing with the modern booths housing video games with names like
Crimson Skies
and
Lord of Vermilion
and
Terminator Salvation
. And the noise was deafening: the pings and revving engines and gunshots and tinny music of the vintage machines and modern video games, the pops and explosions of the shooting gallery, the shrieking dance machine where lithe Japanese girls quickstepped to a rapid pattern of lights on a screen.

Roarke stared around him at the kaleidoscope of noise and lights and felt exhaustion and despair.

What was I thinking? What are the chances that Jade will show up here?

But he held on to one slim hope: that she might return simply because she had grown up here. In years, at least, she was little more than a child, and children were drawn to their childhood places.

Maybe especially someone like Jade, who had had her childhood ripped away from her.

So he moved farther inside, bracing himself against the din as he walked through the dark, tiered space, surrounded by flashing lights and video screens.

And kids. So many kids.

Kids like Jade. Like Shauna. Like Becca. Every one of them just a heartbeat away from capture by predators like Ramirez. Butler. Cranston. Sawyer.
Predators who were undoubtedly out on the boardwalk right now, even trolling this arcade at this moment.

Roarke’s head was pounding, and not just from the overlapping music. The screams of kids surrounded him, and for a moment what he heard was no longer the excitement and adrenaline of an amusement park, but the agony of unimaginable pain.

Whose pain? Rachel’s? Cara’s? Jade’s? Every kid out there on the street?

He stopped in the middle of the pulsing lights, his heart suddenly racing out of control.

What am I doing? Taking down one pimp at a time? One john? How can it ever be enough?

Rachel’s voice was in his head now.

“Someone should just take a blowtorch to all of them.”

And Molina’s.

“You tell me your way is working, Agent Roarke, and I will call you the liar you are.”

And Cara’s.

“
It
never dies. You can kill
It
over and over and
It
only comes back.”

Their voices overlapped in his head, crying, accusing, begging. Gunshots, shrieks, screams. For the second time in days, he felt himself close to the abyss, to some complete breakdown. He bent over, put his hands on his knees, and gulped back bile.

Out. Get out.

He straightened and shouldered his way through the crowd.

He shoved through the doors of the arcade and strode outside, out onto the promenade, with its elegant arches looking out on the beach and the moon, almost full now over the bay, casting a cold white trail on the blue night water.

In the sudden silence, he took slow breaths and tried to calm his pulse, to think through the black and deafening rush in his head.

He stepped to the arches of the balustrade
and leaned on the concrete railing, staring out at the sea. The salt air was cold on his skin.

You haven’t slept in days. You’re not yourself. Go back to the hotel before you do some serious damage.

But there was more to it than that.

“I’m done,” he said aloud. “Enough.”

He felt a strange elation, an immense weight falling away from him.

“I’m done,” he said again, testing it.

No more of it. He had no idea what he would do for the rest of his life, but it didn’t matter. Life and death would no longer be in his hands. No one’s life or death but his own, to do with as he pleased.

He held on to the concrete railing and breathed in the night.

And his heart constricted.

There was someone below on the sand, looking up at him. The pale, sculptured face, blond hair almost white in the moonlight. Still as a statue, watching him.

Cara.

Chapter 68

S
he turns, and she does not run—she walks across the sand.

He walks, then runs along the concrete balustrade, heading for the steps down to the beach.

He clatters down the steps, grinding concrete under his shoes. And then he is on the sand, sinking into its soft weight as he struggles to follow her into the dark.

Icy moonlight spills over the strip of beach. It is cold, so cold.

He plunges across the sand, as if in a dream. Away from the carnival lights and the raucous music, until there is nothing but the sound of surf churning and waves crashing on the shore and the lonely cry of some gull.

And the moon.

She walks in the stark spill of light toward the black and looming pier and disappears into its forest of pylons below.

He steps into the darkness beneath and stands, listening. The surf rumbles through the drifts below his feet. He can barely breathe as he looks around him at the tall, dark shapes of posts, straight, diagonal, fallen . . .

There is presence behind him, more felt than heard, and he turns. She steps out from behind one wooden trunk and looks at him.

He does not know who moves first, only that she is against him, her body in his arms, icy hot and fiery cold, liquid as moonlight. His mouth is on hers and her hands are inside his clothes, moving on his skin, a maddening, delirious touch. He shuts his eyes against the light of the moon and feels soft darkness closing around them and heat racing through them as they meld, her mouth opening to his, kissing, clinging . . . his body is alive, aching with want . . .

And then something else. Something black and terrifying, rising up from the core of him. Beneath her soft and yielding flesh he can feel the bones in the slender body he holds in his arms, an ancient skeleton, unrelenting death.

And in the dark behind his eyes he sees the white mask and empty eyes of a skull.

The fear is instantaneous, paralyzing. And he is staggering backward, away from her. Through the roaring in his head he cannot tell if he has moved or if she has pushed him away, reading his thoughts.

She is striped with moonlight, breathing shallowly, her glistening eyes locked on his, and her face is glass.

“Cara . . .” he says.

Suddenly she is twisting from him, running in slow motion through the pilings toward the beach.

His legs are like lead, the sand beneath him like concrete, holding him. But deep in the back of his mind, some sense of duty stirs. His hand reaches for the Glock in the holster at his side . . . he can feel the metal against his fingertips as he draws, aiming after her into the dark . . .

And then he drops his arm.

Chapter 69

T
he dark shapes of the posts towered around him, the crashing of waves echoed off the plank walk above. His chest felt as if something had been ripped from inside him.

He didn’t know how long he’d stood there, but when finally he moved, his head was pounding, a headache so blinding he could barely hold himself upright. He smelled salt and surf, and a spicy scent that he knew was hers. His head still swam from desire and fear. And at the same time, he wasn’t sure that any of it had happened at all.

He forced himself to walk, weaving mindlessly through the shadows of posts, stepping out onto the dark sand. The crashing of waves was deafening in his ears.

And it was only then that he felt his suit coat pockets were light. Too light.

He shoved both hands into the fabric, searching. His gun was there, and his wallet. It was his phone that was gone.

My phone? What would she want with it?

He stood under the moon, surrounded by the rolling thunder of the surf.

Then it hit him. His texts to Singh. All the updates on the interview with Jade’s mother.

A wave of sick guilt crashed over him as he recalled his own rage.

If she’s going after Alison . . . Oh, Jesus.

He forced himself to slow down, to think rationally. Of course the phone was fingerprint- and password-protected, data-encrypted. It was next to impossible that Cara, or anyone, would be able to access anything on it at all.

But if she had been following him, he might have led her straight to Alison anyway.

And if he had been half a second from killing Alison . . . what would Cara do to her?

He stared up at the cold moon, just a sliver from full.
Then he lurched forward, running on the sand for the stairs to the boardwalk.

In the arcade, he slammed coins into a pay phone, dialed Epps, and shouted over the roar of motors and gunshots and music. “She’s going after Alison.”

“Jade?”

Roarke closed his eyes. “Cara.”

He left the phone, burst through the doors of the arcade, ran down the stairs to the sidewalk. Providentially, there was a taxi just letting a couple out at the hotel across the street.

He pounded down the arcade steps and dodged traffic. In front of the hotel he jerked open the cab door, dropped into the back seat and flipped his credentials wallet at the cabbie as he snapped out Alison’s address. “As fast as you can.”

It was a living nightmare of a drive. He fought visions of the house burned down, leaving nothing but a torched husk of a human being, a skull grinning out of the ashes, like the guard in Daly City.

It was on him. It was all on him.

The cabin was intact, the first relief.

He ran from the cab, plunging into the scent of pine needles, taking the sagging steps of the cabin in two strides, and pounded on the door. “Ms. Collins.”

No response. No sound within.

He stood back, raised his thigh, and kicked in the door.

The house was dark, and the smell of incense and scented candlewax was thick in the air. He felt along the wall for a light switch and couldn’t find one, but strong moonlight streamed through the window, and as his eyes focused he saw her . . .

Sprawled on the couch and so still . . .

“Ms. Collins,” he said, his heart in his throat. She didn’t move.

He strode toward the couch, his eyes taking in the drug paraphernalia scattered on the coffee table. Cara had killed at least one man by overdose in the same scenario.

“Ms. Collins.
Alison
.” He rolled her over and felt for a pulse. Her face was pale and clammy, her mouth slack. But her blood fluttered under the pressure of his fingers, and she was breathing, slow and shallow.

He was relieved . . . and then livid. He pinched her earlobe hard and was rewarded with an angry groan.

“What did you take?”

He pinched her again, under the arm this time. She flung a limp hand at him, trying to bat him away. “Whafuck . . .”

He strode to an upright lamp in the corner to switch it on, then back to the couch, where he pulled her up to sitting and stared into her eyes, now half-open. Her pupils were pinpricks. Downers, then. He scanned the selection of chemicals on the coffee table. There was no heroin rig, just scattered pills that he didn’t immediately recognize. “What did you take?” he demanded. “Valium? Oxy?” He hoisted her to standing and held her, doll-like and limp, against his hip, forcing her to walk around the living room.

She mumbled, slurred. “Sh’s here.”

“She’s here?” He swiveled around, looking toward the bedrooms.

“
Was
here. Was here.”

“Susannah?”

“Yr fuckin’ agent.”

Roarke fought confusion.
Singh?
Impossible. But . . .

“Dark hair?” he demanded. “Or blond?”

Alison’s head lolled. Roarke held her upright. “The blonde. Your fuckin’ agent.”

Cara, then.

“She drugged you?”

She started to twist in his grip, trying to push him away. “I’m fine. Lemme go.”

“She
didn’t
drug you.”

“I’m
fine
.”

Roarke sat her down on the couch, hard. She let out a howl. “Fuckin’ Feds . . . gonna sue . . . ”

He tried to maintain some level of calm. “This agent. What did she say to you?”

Alison wasn’t that out of it. For a moment she looked as sullen as a teenager. “Bitch said she would cut my face.”

Roarke felt the words as a punch to the gut as he envisioned the scene. He’d gotten nothing out of Alison. But Cara, with her unerring radar, had looked at this vain, pathetic woman and had known exactly what button to push for results.

“What did she want you to tell her?”

She glared at him, truculently silent.

“Do
I
need to cut your face?”

Her eyes blazed fire, and for a moment he saw Jade in her again. “Where Darrell is,” she said sullenly.

Roarke had a sudden flicker of understanding.

“And? Where?”

She stared at him. “Don’t know.”

He took a step forward and she flinched back. “He had a place outside Napa, okay? On Valley of the Moon. That’s what I told that crazy woman.”

“You’re going to write down directions.”

Epps arrived ten minutes later, just after the ambulance. By then Roarke was fairly convinced Alison had passed out rather than been given an overdose, but he wasn’t taking any chances. The woman was loathsome, but he was beyond grateful he hadn’t inadvertently killed her.

There was one more thing he’d asked her before they took her away.

As he walked with Epps out of the house into the night, preparing to fill his agent in, he had to fight a crush of emotions. Relief that Alison was alive. Guilt over his unforgivable lapse. And most shameful of all, the fierce joy of abandon, the overwhelming sensation of Cara under the moonlight . . . regret and loss and desire . . .

He pushed those thoughts away. He knew his career as an agent was over. But there was something yet to be done.

So the story he told Epps as they sat in the fleet car under the moon was not the whole story.

“I was on the boardwalk, and I kept going back to this in my head,” he lied. “We know Jade grew up here. We think she was here last night. We think she might be going after people who have wronged her. So . . . wouldn’t she come after her mother? I couldn’t get it out of my mind, so I came back. Jade wasn’t in the house, tonight, but she
was
here sometime today. I pressed Alison on it just before you got here, and she said that money was gone from her secret stash. She says only Jade would have known where it was.”

Epps, of course, wasn’t buying it. His eyes were hard. “Alison just gives that up to you. Just like that.” He fixed Roarke with his level stare, and Roarke gave him the truth. Some of it.

“She was scared. Cara got to her first.”

He could feel the nuclear reaction building in his agent. “Lindstrom was here.”

“Yeah.”

“Doing what?”

“Same thing we are, I think. She’s looking for Jade.”

Epps gripped the steering wheel. “Looking for her? Or is she
after
her?”

That, Roarke didn’t know. He was afraid to think about it. He shook his head. “But this is what Cara threatened Alison to find out.” He passed Sawyer’s address to Epps.

Epps was still for a moment, processing this.

“Cara’s thinking Jade is going for Sawyer.”

Roarke didn’t know for sure, but he was willing to bet Cara understood Jade’s state of mind better than they did. “If Jade was here looking for money, maybe she got hold of Sawyer’s address, too. And now Cara has it . . .”

It was his best guess. There was a miniscule chance that they could find Cara’s whereabouts by tracking his phone, but he was certain she would be aware of that, that she might even plant the phone somewhere to fake her location.

And his gut said it was all about Sawyer now.

The agents sat in the fleet car, looking out on the road. Epps finally spoke. “So we’re goin’ up there. Napa.”

“I think it should be me—” Roarke started.

“What kind of bullshit is that?” his agent said.

They sat in silence. Roarke could feel Epps raging internally in the seat beside him. After a moment, the other agent spoke. “We could call the locals. Jade’s got . . . how much of a head start on us? Sawyer’s a meth dealer. We want this sixteen-year-old kid going in to confront that waste of skin on his own turf?”

Roarke shook his head. “She could be armed. Local cops not knowing even what we know . . . how are they going to react?”

Epps was silent.

“Napa’s two hours and change from here,” Roarke added quietly. The address Alison had given him was on the outskirts.

Epps shook his head. And shook it. And then reached for the ignition key and started the engine.