Cold-Blooded, page 28
The gun jammed.
“No,” she shrieked. “No, no, no, no.”
She stared at it momentarily, like it was a part of her own body that had betrayed her. Then Pantalone was on her, raging like a wild animal, like a bear, his paws swatting the gun out of her hand. He whacked her on the side of the head with a half-closed fist. Her skin stung, and a pain streaked down the back of her neck. She moved backward, away from him, until her hips hit against one of the sawhorses in the corner. She fell backward, ass over head, landing hard on her right shoulder. The pain took her breath away. The sawhorse had fallen on top of her. She thrashed, trying to get free of it, to gain purchase, to put some distance between her and Pantalone. But it was too late.
He straddled her and wrapped his hands around her throat.
“You fucking bitch,” he said as he squeezed.
Even with his grip weakened from her beating, the pressure on her windpipe was torture. With one hand, she yanked his hands down, and with the other, she reached blindly beside her, searching for anything she could use. As his weight settled more fully over her hips and stomach, she flashed back to the year before. Suddenly she was in her living room with a man on top of her. Her lungs screamed. Then, the nail—
Her hand closed around something hard and edged. It felt like aluminum. As she swung it wildly toward Pantalone’s head, she saw that it was the level. It glanced off his shoulder, only making him angrier. Making him squeeze harder. She wriggled beneath him, reaching, reaching, reaching.
Goddammit, a voice in her head said. You are not going out like this.
Her hand closed around something else. Something heavy and squared off and long. In an instant, she knew it was the nail gun. Her fingers scrabbled over it, like a blind person feeling someone’s face, looking for something familiar. Then she felt a trigger. She knew what a trigger felt like. She slid her fingers beneath it, fitting her hand around it like it was her own gun. It was so heavy, so much heavier than her Glock. But it was all she had.
She brought it up, found soft flesh, and pulled the trigger. Pantalone’s body jerked, his hands loosening around her neck. She sucked in a deep breath, her chest burning, and pulled the trigger again. And again.
Then Davey Pantalone’s skull exploded, raining hot blood, bone and brain all over her. His body slumped to the side, and she kicked at it, up on her elbows, trying to get as far from it as she could. Through the red mist all around her, she saw Kevin.
He stood in a shooter’s stance, both arms extended, his brow drawn down in concentration. A thin coil of smoke rose from the barrel of his Glock. He wore a black Kevlar vest over top of his dress shirt. She hadn’t seen him in one of those in years. It was disconcerting. For a moment, he seemed frozen, suspended in time, like a still life. Or an apparition. Then he lowered his gun, holstered it, and walked toward her, stepping over the sawhorse, the level, and Pantalone’s body. He reached out a hand.
“Rush,” he said.
She took his hand and let him pull her to her feet. “Kevin?”
He smiled. “I told you. I got your back.”
She looked behind him. SWAT team members and EMTs began pouring into the room. A few feet away, two paramedics knelt and started working on Trent. Jocelyn felt a flood of relief as they strapped an oxygen mask to his face. That meant he was still alive.
“You didn’t—you didn’t identify yourself,” she said to Kevin in a quiet voice. “You didn’t give him a chance to surrender.”
Kevin leaned in. “Sure I did.” He winked and handed her a handkerchief. “You just didn’t hear me.”
She looked around until her eyes found her phone, discarded on the floor. “But the call,” she said. “You were listening.”
“Yes,” Kevin said. “Very smart. We were listening. Until I hung up.” He took her elbow and guided her toward the door. “Let’s go. Inez is downstairs, and I promised her I’d bring you out alive.”
December 3, 2014
“Maybe for our next big case we don’t take a murder,” Anita said. She stood in a slant of sunlight streaming into their conference room as she pulled thumbtacks out of the wall and tossed evidence and notes into a box on the table. “Maybe for our next big case, we could do something like a missing cat.”
She looked over her shoulder and winked at Jocelyn. Jocelyn laughed and twisted the lid on her Dunkin Donuts coffee. She sat across from the seat Knox used to sit in, the untouched cup of coffee and the flirty photos of Sydney Adams fanned out before her.
“I think I could handle Fluffy the Cat,” she mused.
Anita moved down the wall, removing more items. In the space she just vacated, dust motes floated lazily. “I thought you said this case wasn’t going to beat you. Oh wait, you said you weren’t going to let it fuck with your head.”
Jocelyn picked up one of the photos of Sydney and put it back down. “I’m not,” she replied.
She didn’t need to look at Anita to know that her friend’s brow was severely arched. “Best drink that coffee then,” Anita told her. “Before it gets cold.”
Jocelyn felt a small tick of annoyance. Not at Anita. Her friend was right, she had said that she was going to start drinking coffee again. She had also said she wasn’t leaving the table until she did.
Because fuck Francine Rigo.
That woman had taken daughters away from their parents. She’d taken bright, accomplished young women with unlimited potential from a world sorely in need of brilliance. She’d taken Davey Pantalone’s free will and any chance he had at a normal life. She’d nearly killed Jocelyn—thrice if you counted the confrontation with Pantalone.
She wasn’t taking Jocelyn’s coffee.
“Go on,” Anita prodded.
Jocelyn pulled the lid all the way off. She’d watched the clerk at Dunkin Donuts prepare it. She knew it was just a coffee. She dipped a finger into the caramel-colored liquid. Lukewarm. She lifted the cup to her lips and chugged it until the foam cup was three-quarters empty. It tasted exactly like she remembered. From across the room, Anita gave her a slow clap.
They had taken the week of Thanksgiving off, and even though they’d been back in the office for two days, they hadn’t been able to face Sydney’s file until today. Just seeing Sydney’s photos brought back Knox’s death and the ugly clash with Pantalone. Jocelyn was lucky that she hadn’t broken any bones. She was scraped and bruised, and her shoulder still hurt like hell, but she would be fine. Except for the skull-exploding, red-mist nightmares. She could add those to her collection of Schoolteacher Attacker nightmares. It had taken hours of bathing at Caleb’s house to clean all the blood from her body. She hadn’t wanted to go home to Olivia looking like something out of a horror movie, and Caleb was all too happy to have her for the evening, so relieved that she was alive.
The ping of the door alarm snapped Jocelyn to attention. A moment later, Trent appeared in the doorway of the conference room. He still looked exhausted. His arm was in a sling and would be for some time, but he was finally out of the hospital. In his free hand, he held a padded manila envelope.
“Ladies,” he said.
Jocelyn pointed to the envelope. “Is that what I think it is?”
From behind her, Anita said, “Is that the tape?”
Trent’s expression was half scowl, half smile. “Yeah,” he said. “This is Davey Pantalone’s tape, all right. You guys got a VCR?”
They hadn’t yet returned Kevin’s VCR. “As a matter of fact, we do,” Jocelyn said.
“I have to put this into evidence as part of the investigation, but I figured you’d want to see it.”
Anita grimaced. “I don’t think Rush needs to see it. She’s already traumatized. How about you just tell us what’s on it?”
Jocelyn laughed. “I’m fine. Besides, what’s a little more trauma?”
“All right, let me start again,” Trent said. “I need you to watch this tape so I don’t have to be the only one carrying around this awful knowledge of it.”
Jocelyn and Anita exchanged a look. “Well,” Anita said sardonically. “Since you put it that way.”
They locked the front door, pulled the mini blinds down, and situated themselves around the conference room table. “Coffee?” Jocelyn asked Trent.
He glared at her. She downed the rest of her cold Dunkin Donuts coffee, feeling accomplished.
The footage was grainy, or maybe they’d all become so accustomed to seeing everything in high-definition that it made old, standard-definition videos look blurry. It opened on a large bed in a dimly lit room. Part of the frame was obscured by what looked like a bottle of perfume, as if someone had set the camera on a dresser and tried to hide it. The bedsheets were rumpled. On the nightstands, candles burned, casting flickering shadows over the room. Two women entered the frame, giggling, their bodies fused together in a passionate embrace. Jocelyn recognized a much younger, thinner Francine Rigo. The other woman was waiflike, pasty and exceptionally slender, with waist-length black hair. When she turned in the direction of the camera, Jocelyn could see how sunken her cheeks were.
“The other lady is Davey Pantalone’s mom, Delilah,” Trent supplied. “I’ll fast-forward.”
Anita slid him the VCR remote, and he forwarded through the two women tumbling onto the bed, kissing, touching, and removing each other’s clothes. Various sex acts followed. Once they appeared to be finished, Delilah lay on her back, a sheet pulled to her waist. Her eyes were half-closed, a satisfied smile on her face. Naked, Francine sat beside the woman, her calves tucked beneath her. She looked toward the camera and smiled. Jocelyn had a horrible feeling in her stomach.
Francine beckoned someone from beyond the camera. A shadowy figure entered the frame. It took Jocelyn a moment to realize the tall, gangly boy was a seventeen-year-old Davey Pantalone. He was all bony angles and awkward, jerky movements. His hair was cut short but unevenly, and it stuck up in places. His chalky skin seemed to glow in the dark room. He wore a T-shirt and sweatpants. His erection strained against the soft material of the sweats. He gave Francine a handful of items, and she spread them on the bed.
“Heroin,” Anita said.
“Jesus,” Jocelyn murmured.
Francine reached out of the frame, to one of the nightstands. Davey’s eyes were glued to her bare ass. Jocelyn was sure Francine intended it that way. She came back to her seated position with a belt in her hand, which she cinched around Delilah’s skinny arm. The woman’s eyes widened in confusion. “What’s going on?”
Francine smiled and leaned down to kiss the woman. She held up a syringe. “Just having some more fun is all.”
Delilah smiled and closed her eyes. “Okay. Just don’t give any to Davey.”
Francine made quick work of preparing and injecting the drugs into Delilah’s veins.
“That’s enough H to kill a large horse,” Anita remarked.
Trent nodded. “Exactly.”
Francine left the needle dangling from Delilah’s arm. She turned away from the woman and faced Davey.
“You—you sure this will work?” he asked.
Francine smiled her wicked smile. She rose up so she was on her knees and inched to the edge of the bed where Davey stood, his eyes roving her nakedness. Francine pulled him closer and placed both of his hands on her ass. His breathing became rushed and shallow.
“It’s already working,” she assured him. She kissed him hard on the mouth like she was trying to steal the air from his lungs. Or his soul from his body, more likely. Afterward, she cupped his face with her hands. “Now that I’ve done what you asked, will you do something for me?”
“Anything,” he breathed.
“Good boy,” Francine said. “There’s a girl I’d like you to get rid of.”
“Get rid of?”
She thrust a hand into his sweatpants, and he nearly doubled over. “Yes, you know. Kill her.” She drew out the word kill, sending a shiver up Jocelyn’s spine.
“Who?” he gasped as she worked him over.
“She’s in your class. Her name is Sydney Adams.”
Davey’s face scrunched up. “Sydney? But I—”
She silenced him with the deft movements of her hand. He was reduced to a series of grunts and moans. “Take off your clothes,” she commanded, and he quickly obeyed.
While Delilah took her last breath beside them, Francine and Davey fucked like rabbits. Trent pressed stop on the remote, and the screen went mercifully blank.
Jocelyn couldn’t find any words. She felt cold all over. Of course, she had seen Francine’s psychosis up close and personal and had heard her admit to all kinds of unimaginable things. Jocelyn had been there when both Craig Hubbard and Davey discussed the things she’d done, what she had really been like, but still. There had always been a part of Jocelyn that couldn’t reconcile the sweet, pitiful Francine she’d initially met with the raging psychopath she now knew her to be.
But here was a tape.
Beside her, Anita shuddered and hugged herself. “That was so fucked up, I don’t even know where to start. I mean I have seen some fucked up shit in my life. Shit that will make your hair turn gray overnight, but that—that’s really fucked up.”
Trent nodded. “I took five showers after I watched it, and I still feel dirty. Look, I’m glad we solved Sydney’s case, but there are a shit-ton of things I found out working on this one that I wish I could un-know. You know what I mean?”
“Or un-see,” Anita added.
A loud buzzer sounded outside the conference room door, like the kind a dryer makes when it’s finished with a load of clothes. All three of them startled.
“What the hell is that?” Trent asked.
“Doorbell,” Jocelyn and Anita said in unison.
Jocelyn stood. “I’ll go.”
December 3, 2014
Knox’s daughter stood on the other side of the door, clutching a white envelope and a set of car keys. Her purse hung from her shoulder. She was dressed all in black, like she had been at her father’s funeral the day before Thanksgiving. The service had been short and to the point. It had taken place in the cemetery, just before Knox’s casket was lowered into the ground. No church, no funeral home. Jocelyn, Anita, and Kevin had gone. Trent had still been hospitalized. Jynx and her husband had come bearing flowers. Knox’s daughter, who had said nothing other than to introduce herself to them, had cried quietly during the pastor’s short bible reading, but from where Jocelyn stood, she looked more angry than grief-stricken.
Now, as she stepped over the threshold, her face was haggard, her expression tight and strained. “Miss Rush?” she said. “Do you remember me from the funeral?”
“Of course,” Jocelyn said. She motioned to the cushy chairs loosely assembled around a coffee table. “Have a seat, Bianca.”
“I’d rather not. I just came to give you these.” She thrust the envelope and keys at Jocelyn.
Jocelyn took them. “What is this?”
“My dad left you a letter, apparently. One for you, one for Trent, and one for me. I only read mine. Yours and Trent’s are in the envelope.”
“Did it help? The letter? I know things weren’t good between the two of you.”
Tears brimmed in the woman’s eyes. “I don’t know. It . . . it said a lot of things. Must have taken him a long time to compose it. The gist was that he was sorry—for everything.”
“I’m sure he was.”
Bianca laughed bitterly. “He was always a day late and a dollar short. He might as well have died the day Sydney Adams died.”
Jocelyn grimaced. She had no doubt Knox had scarred his daughter, that his absence and unreliability had wounded Bianca deeply and irreparably, but Jocelyn had known a different man, a man consumed with getting justice for a young woman who had been permanently silenced. That quest had touched her in her core.
“Parents hold a lot of power, don’t they? The power to destroy our lives with their bad decisions. I know you’re angry with your dad. Maybe you always will be. But I’ve seen a lot, and as shitty dads go, Knox, well, I think if he could have gone back and changed things, he would have.”
“He said that in his letter. But it doesn’t matter. All of it is too late. Anyway, I know it’s hard for people to understand.”
Jocelyn said, “Not for some. My dad was a psychopath. My sister was gang-raped when she was fifteen. My dad brushed it under the carpet. He paid people off to keep quiet about it. He blackmailed the families of the boys who did it, and he had no remorse. I was seventeen, just like you were when Sydney Adams was murdered and your dad disappeared from your life.”
Bianca’s eyes were wide as saucers. “Holy shit,” she blurted.
“Yeah. It destroyed my family. I didn’t even go to my dad’s funeral. Look, I’m not trying to play who has the shittier dad here. I know it’s too late for you and your dad. I’m just saying you should remember that your dad—he was trying to do a good thing.”
A tear slid down Bianca’s cheek. “Thank you,” she said.
Jocelyn held up the car keys. “What are these for?”
Bianca wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. “He left you his car.”
“The one that he lost?”
Bianca laughed. “The very same.”
Jocelyn saw the woman out and locked the office door. Anita and Trent came into the reception area and stood in silence while Jocelyn opened her letter from Knox and read it. It was short and sweet.
Jocelyn,
If you’re reading this, it means I died before you solved Sydney’s case. That’s okay because I know you’ll close the case, so I want to say thank you for fulfilling a dying drunk’s last wish. Maybe I didn’t deserve it but Sydney Adams did. You did a good thing.
