Behind the Mask (Ava James FBI Mystery Book 9), page 1
Behind the Mask
Copyright © 2023 by A.J. Rivers
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Author's Note
Also by A.J. Rivers
3 years ago…
Something was wrong. Charity struggled to open her eyes and close her mouth. Her eyes finally fluttered open to slits, but something prevented her mouth from closing all the way. She couldn’t sit up. Her arms were numb from the shoulders to her fingers, and her legs were painfully numb from hips to toes. How long had she been lying there?
Lying on her side, she flexed her hands and fought to pull them in front of her. The floor was cold and hard and unforgiving. The room was dark. Too dark to make out anything. And her vision was playing hell with her. It was like trying to look through grease-smudged glass for some reason. Probably the same reason her head thumped like she had the world’s worst hangover even though she hadn’t been drinking.
She concentrated on listening for movement of any kind that would suggest someone else was in the room with her, but heard none, so she started tensing her muscles and relaxing them to force the blood flow.
What was the place? Why was it so dark? And what was that high, keen smell of something that had been rotten for a long time? So long that it almost didn’t smell bad anymore. Almost sweet.
Working the numbness out of her fingers and forearms, Charity grasped the thing that was preventing her from pulling her hands in front of her and kept her from sitting up. It was a cold metal beam. Her hands had been zip-tied behind her back and then that tie had been zip-tied to the pole.
If her arms weren’t around the pole, there was a chance she could get loose before whoever had done it returned. The only sounds were her own panicked breathing and the steady trickle of water running close by her right side on the floor. From the sound of it, the water was going into a drain or ditch of some kind only a couple of feet in front of her.
She twisted her hands in opposite directions and the zip-tie bit deep into the tender flesh. She bit the fabric gag in her mouth, hoping it wasn’t as nasty as it smelled and felt, and then twisted her hands violently in the opposite direction. She had read once that you could break the little locking mechanism with enough friction and force like that. Had even seen a petite woman break free of a large zip-tie around her wrists after a man bound her wrists in front of her. It had been a class demonstration given by an ex-FBI agent when Charity had been a freshman in high school.
She wrested her hands in opposite directions again, biting harder than ever on the gag to keep from screaming as the tie cut into her skin and drew blood. She scooted away from the pole as far as she could and jerked her hands toward her butt. There was a hollow thudding ring as the zip-tie around the pole held tight, but nothing gave. She was still bound.
Why was plastic so strong when it needed to break and so weak when it needed to be strong? Like the time she was five and her father had bought her a purple plastic shopping cart complete with little plastic groceries and cash register. She had climbed into that plastic shopping cart just because she had been five and it had looked like it might be fun to do. The thing broke, and Charity ended up with three cuts, two broken fingers, and more than a few bruises. A plastic shopping cart had been broken by the slight weight of a five-year-old, yet the two scrawny, insignificant bands of plastic holding her bound as an adult were apparently strong enough to withstand anything. She made a mental note to buy the biggest pack she could find at the local hardware store and keep them in her car. Who knew when she would need to tie a door back on or use one in place of a motor mount?
Thoughts tumbled and scrambled together leaving her confused and frustrated and deeper in panic by the second. Straining to regain control of her thoughts, she pressed her memory for the last clear thing she could remember.
She had gone to Sherrell’s house. They were playing Marilyn Manson’s cover of “This is Halloween” on repeat as they put on their Halloween costumes.
Tears leaked from her eyes. Her stomach churned. Where was Sherrell? Where were Steve and Tiny, their unofficial dates?
She yanked against the stubborn ties again. More blood. More searing pain. A muffled scream made it to the back of her mouth where it met the thick, choking fabric.
Sherrell had taken hours to perfect her zombie-fairy makeup and outfit. Charity had been jealous that her best friend had looked so much better than she had. In light of her situation, that jealousy sent a pang of sorrow through her heart. There was nothing wrong with going to a haunted house as a cute devil, was there?
As she inhaled the odors of things long dead and listened to her own ragged breathing, tasted her own tears, and felt her own blood running from her wrists, she no longer thought there was a damn thing wrong with it. It wasn’t trite. It wasn’t cliché as Tiny had said. There had been nothing to feel bad about, although Steve had suggested that Charity looked a bit too sexy and that it might draw unwanted attention.
Why hadn’t she listened?
Because I wanted to be the prettiest one in the group for once. Because I wanted the attention instead of taking a backseat to Sherrell again, she thought.
It was amazing how unflinching and brutally truthful she could be when faced with such horrific realities as being tied to a metal pole in a darkened and unfamiliar room awaiting God knew what from God knew whom.
Her heart thudded harder as she strained against the ties again. Her shoulders cramped, and she squeezed her eyes shut just as they had begun adjusting to the darkness.
A loud pop followed by an electrical buzz drew her undivided attention. She opened her eyes and held her breath. A light had turned on somewhere in the distance. Not close enough for her to see, but close enough in the pitch dark that the ambient glow washed away some of the black at one edge of her room.
It was enough for her to work with.
She rolled her head from side to side, taking in the concrete floor, the room-length, foot-wide drain covered with metal grating, the skeletal remains of an overhead hoist system with some of the hooks and chains still intact.
Her stomach tried to curl into a tiny ball and disappear through her back. Her skin shrank two sizes.
It was Helton’s Meat Processing Plant. The old abattoir where her father had worked until she was ten.
The scream was long and unbidden. Her convulsive thrashing was induced by pure soul-searing horror. She had been tied on her side to a pole in the center of the killing floor of the old, abandoned slaughterhouse.
The property was huge. There were no houses close by. No businesses. And acres upon acres of pens and chutes and buildings and loading docks for big trucks.
Helton’s had been purposefully situated a little over a quarter mile off the main road to be out of sight. It had been purposefully placed in the middle of all those acres for much the same reason. Trees had been planted all around the property as a sort of blind and sound-damping technique.
Charity had gone there only once, when she was nine, and that had been more than enough to mentally scar her for life. Her father had given her strict instructions to remain in the truck, but being a curious and headstrong child, she hadn’t listened. She had sneaked in only minutes behind him, right past the workers, and right into the killing room.
Meat had never been part of her diet again, and the experience had served as nightmare fuel forever after.
Even as she thrashed on the floor, those nightmares came back. Was she dreaming? Was it yet another nightmare?
The burning pain in her wrists and the cramps in her shoulders said it was not. The warmth of the blood running from her cut wrists smelled metallic. Would those vivid details be present in a nightmare? She knew they would not be.
A sharp whine cut through the building, echoing from the high ceilings and reverberating off the concrete walls to pierce her ears.
The icy fingers of dread traced her spine and gripped the base of her skull, effectively silencing her scream and paralyzing her efforts to break the plastic ties. She knew that sound. Even if she had never heard it before—though she had briefly that day when she was nine—she thought she would have known what it was.
A carcass saw.
Lucifer’s Lounge.
That was where she had been going with Sherrell, Steve, and Tiny. It was a haunted house attraction that had moved to the edge of town the year before, but Charity had not gone, thinking it would be lame. After word got around about how awesome it was with all its gore and jump-scares and animatronics, and how the employees mostly turned a blind eye to the teens who were hitting on the devil’s lettuce and sneaking booze, she thought she would give it a whirl.
Lucifer’s Lounge.
Ironic that where she had been hogtied and gagged felt as if it were a more accurate representation of Lucifer’s lounge, or his playground, or Lucifer’s anything.
The saw turned off and so did the distant light.
Heavy boots tromped toward her in that darkness. Slow, methodical steps of a heavy man who meant to terrify her with his approach.
He didn’t fail in his mission.
Male laughter echoed and bounced. Low, menacing, evil.
Was it the devil himself? Had Lucifer come topside to carry her off for poking fun at all things evil?
Childish, but her mind kept circling back to that thought. Maybe not childish but just hopeful because, deep down, she knew that would somehow be better than whatever a real flesh and blood man would have in store for her.
She had been separated from her small group at the haunted house when one of her stiletto heels got caught in some mesh over a doorway where a jump scare was supposed to happen. Her group went on ahead while she stayed behind to detangle her shoe with the help of a super-cute vamp boy. By the time she had freed her shoe and was ready to move on, the workers had let in a couple of late stragglers, and Charity had finished the tour with them.
What had happened after that?
She couldn’t remember ever making it to the end of the tour or meeting back up with Sherrell, Steve, and Tiny.
Her head pounded, threatening to turn her eyeballs to mush and implode her skull. Her stomach crawled into her throat as the boots moved ever closer, and the laughter rolled again like distant thunder growling over the mountains, threatening to rain down destruction.
One of the stragglers? Both of them? Employees of Lucifer’s Lounge?
A very tall shadowy figure stepped into view. He was broad at the shoulders, lean at the hips, bulky in a muscular way. He was slightly darker than the darkness around and behind him.
A bright blast of concentrated light made her gasp. If her hands had been free, she would have covered her eyes. Instead, she urinated on herself.
The figure leaned closer with the headlamp blinding her.
“You wanted attention so badly,” the man said, pushing his voice to the limits of its bass capacity.
She strained her eyes against the brilliant circle of light, trying to see under or around it to get a hint of who the man was, but it was useless. “Who are you?”
“Everything you ever feared.” He laughed and turned off the headlamp as he reached for her.
Charity screamed. She tried to evict her soul from her body with that scream. It was the loudest she’d ever screamed.
Dinner Finally
The weather held out nicely. Molly, Shelly, and the Jameses enjoyed dinner outside on the back deck overlooking the peaceful backyard at Elizabeth and Hank James’s house. Ava hadn’t smiled so much in… well, she couldn’t remember when. It had been a long time. Too long. And more than once, she wondered if she was being too happy, too joyous, and making a nuisance of herself.
Shelly tittered nervously randomly throughout the long meal and at things she wouldn’t have found amusing years ago. Was she forcing her own appearance of happiness? Did she still hold against them what had happened to her daughter?
Could Ava blame her if she did?
The thought dampened her high spirits more than a little. No, she couldn’t blame Shelly if she still held the Jameses at least somewhat responsible for Molly’s situation. She also couldn’t blame her if she couldn’t find it in her heart to forgive them. Especially Ava. She was the one who ran away and left Molly with those awful men. Left her to a fate worse than death.
“Anyone want more wine?” Elizabeth asked, smiling broadly and holding the nearly empty bottle of red aloft.
Shelly covered her glass and shook her head. “No more for me, thank you.”
Molly nodded. “You don’t have to twist my arm.” She held out her glass. The index finger of her right hand stuck out straight, unable to bend at any of the joints. It was, like so many of her scars, a stark and permanent reminder of what she had endured while being held prisoner for so many years.
Ava grimaced inwardly and made an effort not to flinch as Molly’s shoulder caught and she had to set the wine flute down to prevent dropping it.
“Almost a whoopsie,” Molly said, laughing as she picked up the delicate glass with her left hand and drained half the deep crimson liquid.
Shelly seemed embarrassed as she put a gentle hand on Molly’s arm and leaned in close. “Molly, honey, you might want to slow down on that. You know you’re not supposed to—”
“I know, I know, I know,” Molly said, putting the glass down again. “It’s not like I’m chugging shots of Jaeger, Mom. It’s just a little red wine. Last glass. I promise.” She smiled.
It took part of the bite out of her sharp retort, but Ava didn’t like where the scene was headed. Her friend was changed in fundamental ways, and Shelly, along with the rest of the people who knew and loved Molly before she was kidnapped, were left wondering how the hell to deal with the new version of the sweet girl she had once been. Was that same version still in there anywhere? Perhaps buried deep in some dark corner, cowering, and still frightened. Or had she been eradicated with the years of violence and drugs and constant abuse?
“The doctors said any alcohol, honey. It’s because of the medicines. It’s—”
Molly jerked her head toward her mother and held up a hand in obvious irritation. “Mom, please. I think I can handle a little wine mixed with painkillers.” She barked dry laughter and shook her head. “Like, it’s definitely not the worst thing I’ve done in the last six months.” One eyebrow shot up and her lips pursed into a thin line.
Shelly swallowed hard, glanced around at the others uncomfortably, and nodded. “I know. I’m sorry, honey.” She patted Molly’s arm and nodded again before turning her attention back to her plate. “Ava, you have outdone yourself with this meal. It’s delicious.”
“Thanks. Mom helped, or I would never have gotten it finished in time,” Ava said, glad to help steer the conversation in a different direction.
“I helped, too,” Hank added. “Don’t I get any credit?”
Elizabeth scoffed and tossed a napkin at him. “For carrying in a few bags of groceries? Get out.”
Everyone laughed.
Ava laughed, too, but she laughed mostly to hide that she was more worried about Molly than ever. The longer her friend was back in the normal world, the more abnormal she seemed to act. Was it the slow detox from the drugs the traffickers pumped through her system all the time? Was it the sudden and shocking change of environment from violent chaos to calm safety and little movement? To be able to help, Ava needed to understand the psychology behind the behaviors.
