She glanced at the newspaper she’d bought in the hotel lobby. The headlines screamed of a serial killer at large in Dutton. Old news. But below the fold was an article on the Dutton dead, as of the day before. One name caught her eye. Sheila Cunningham. They shared a bond, she and Sheila. Tomorrow Sheila would be laid to rest and Susannah knew she needed to be there. So tomorrow she’d stand in the Dutton cemetery once again.
Tomorrow would be a difficult day.
Her stomach growled, mercifully derailing her thoughts and reminding her of the time. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast and room service was late. She’d picked up the phone to check its status when there was a knock at her door. Finally.
“Thank y-” Her mouth fell open. Her boss stood outside her door. “Al. What are you doing here? Come in.”
Al Landers closed the door behind him. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“How did you know to come here? I didn’t tell you my hotel.”
“You’re a creature of habit,” Al said. “Every time you travel you stay in this hotel chain. It was just a question of calling around until I found the right one.”
“But you came to my room. Did the front desk give that information?”
“No. I overheard a reporter trying to bribe the concierge for your room number.”
“I guess this was bound to happen. Vartanians are big news in Atlanta right now.” Simon had made sure of that. “So did the concierge tell him?”
“Yes, that’s how I knew your room number. So I reported him to the manager. You may want to consider a different hotel the next time you come to town.”
When this was over, there wouldn’t be a next time. “You said you wanted to talk.”
Al looked around. “Do you have anything to drink?”
“Scotch in the minibar.” She poured him a glass and sat on the arm of the sofa.
He went to her desk and glanced at her laptop screen. “I’m here because of that.”
“My statement? Why?”
He took his time answering, first sipping at the scotch, then downing it in a gulp. “Are you sure… very sure you want to do this, Susannah? Once you are cast in the role of a victim, your life, your career will never be the same.”
Susannah went to the window and stared out at the city. “Believe me, I know. But I have my reasons, Al. Thirteen years ago I was…” she swallowed hard, “… raped. A gang of boys drugged me, raped me, and poured whiskey all over me, just like they would do to fifteen other girls over the course of the next year. When I woke up, I was shoved in a little hidey-hole behind my bedroom wall. I thought it was my secret hiding place, but my brother Simon knew about it.”
Behind her she heard Al’s careful exhalation. “So Simon participated?”
Oh, yes. “Simon was the team captain.”
“Wasn’t there anyone you could tell?” he asked carefully.
“No. My father would have called me a liar. And Simon made sure I didn’t tell a soul. He showed me a picture of me being… you know.”
“Yeah,” Al said tightly. “I know.”
“He said they’d do it again. He said there was nowhere I could hide.” She drew a breath, the terror as fresh as if thirteen years had not passed. “He said I had to sleep sometime, that I should stay out of his affairs. So I did. I never said anything. And they went on to rape fifteen others. They took pictures of all of us. Kept them as trophies.”
“Do the police have these pictures now?”
“GBI does. I found them this afternoon, in Simon’s hidey-hole. A whole box full.”
“So the GBI has incontrovertible proof. There’s only one of those bastards left, Susannah. Why put yourself through this now?”
Anger bubbled and she whirled to face the man who’d taught her so much about the law, the man who’d been a shining example. The man who’d been everything Judge Arthur Vartanian had not. “Why are you trying to talk me out of doing what’s right?”
“Because I’m not so sure that it is right,” he said calmly. “Susannah, you have been through hell. Nothing will change if you come forward. The facts will be the same. They have pictures of this man… what’s his name? The only one left?”
“Garth Davis,” she spat.
His eyes flashed dangerously, but his voice remained level. “They have pictures of this Davis raping you, raping others. If you come forward, you will be known as the victim who turned prosecutor. Every defense attorney you go up against will question your zeal. ‘Is it the guilt of my client Ms. Vartanian is trying to prove, or is she trying to get revenge for her own assault?’ ”
“That’s not fair,” she said, tears close to the edge.
“Life isn’t fair,” he said, still calmly. But his eyes were tormented and she could keep the tears at bay no longer.
“He was my brother.” She glared at him, blinking away the tears in frustration. “Don’t you get it? He was my brother and I let him do that to me. I let him do it to others. Because I said nothing, fifteen other girls got raped and seventeen other people are dead in Philadelphia. How do I ever make that right?”
Al gripped her upper arms. “You can’t. You. Can’t. And if that’s why you’re testifying, it’s the wrong reason. I won’t let you ruin your career for the wrong reason.”
“I’m testifying because it’s the right thing to do.”
He looked her square in the eye. “Are you sure you’re not doing this because of Darcy Williams?”
Everything inside her froze. Her heart stopped. Dropped to her stomach. Her mouth moved, but no words would come out. In a blink, she saw the scene. All the blood. Darcy’s body. All that blood. And Al knew. He knows. He knows. He knows.
“I’ve always known, Susannah. You didn’t think a smart cop like Detective Reiser would take an anonymous tip on something so important, did you? Not on a homicide.”
Somehow she found her voice. “I didn’t think he ever knew who’d called him.”
“He knew. He set up a second call, saying he wanted to verify your initial information. He’d traced your first tip to a public phone booth and when you called a second time, he was waiting down the block, watching.”
“I’m a creature of habit,” she said dully. “I went back to the same phone booth.”
“Most people do. You know that.”
“So why didn’t he ever say anything?” She closed her eyes, mortification mixing with the shock. “We’ve worked on a dozen cases since then. He never let on he knew.”
“He followed you home that night. You were working for me then and Reiser and I go way back, so he came to me first. You were only an intern, but I already could see the promise in you.” He sighed. “And the rage. You were always polite, always in control, but behind your eyes was rage. When Reiser told me what you’d witnessed, I knew you had to be into something very dark. I asked him if he believed you’d done anything illegal yourself and he didn’t have anything to say you had.”
“So you asked him to keep my name out of it,” she said stiffly.
“Only if he found no evidence of your having done anything wrong. He was able to use your tips to get a warrant and found the murder weapon in the killer’s closet along with shoes with Darcy’s blood in the laces. He made his case without you.”
“But if he hadn’t been able to, you would have let him call me to the stand.”
Al’s smile was grim. “It would have been the right thing to do. Susannah, you visit Darcy’s grave every year on the day of her death. You still grieve for her. But you turned your life around. You’ve prosecuted offenders with a passion we rarely see. There was nothing to be gained from your coming forward on Darcy Williams’s death.”