While she had been assured of a steady supply, she’d never given much thought to the jail time she was risking. The drugs weren’t even the worst of it. Chris Grimm wasn’t even sixteen when she seduced him and that was statutory rape. And now that Chris had been killed, she was part of a murder conspiracy. She took some deep breaths and looked over her right shoulder at the duffel bag containing the stash she’d taken from Petra’s trunk. She could run.
There were enough pills in the bag to keep her going for a very long time, but not forever. Forever. She laughed an angry laugh at herself. Forever no longer had any meaning to her. For her, forever was the time between hits, and her tolerance was building up so that the duration of her high was shrinking. It took more and more Oxy to get her where she needed to be, never mind where she wanted to be. Simple want was a luxury she could no longer afford. Those days, the days of enjoying the high, were gone as gone could be.
Wasn’t that the trap, the lie of it, the incredible euphoria of the initial high? How it made all the pain go away. Not just the physical pain, though that would have been enough. It was a magical thing, the way it was equally effective in vanquishing the little hurts of the day, the nasty remarks or people’s simple rudeness, and the gaping wounds of a terrible childhood or a broken heart. When you were in as deep as she was, it wasn’t the drug that chased those big and little hurts away. It was the desperation and panic about getting the drug that made everything else insignificant. Junkies don’t need to search for or ponder the meaning of life. Life is about one thing and one thing only — chasing the next hit. But the cruelest irony was that once you were hooked, the physical hurt of not having it was worse than the pain that made you take it in the first place.
She had twice tried breaking free of the hold it had on her, and that had been enough to convince her that doing whatever she needed to do to get high was worth it. The cold sweats, vomiting, constant nausea, cramps, diarrhea, and the muscles that would not stop aching. Nothing was worth going through that again. Nothing!
She turned and looked once again at the stash bag in the backseat, stared at it, and decided to run. But just as she placed the key back in the ignition, her cell phone rang.
“Look across the street.” It was a thickly accented man’s voice. “Make a wave at the white van.”
She waved. The headlights on a van parked across the street and facing her flashed on and off.
“You have something for Mr. Sarkassian?”
“Yes.”
“Leave car doors open when you go.”
“Okay.”
“Do not fuck us around. You have seen the picture of the boy. We are doing this to him. To you, we would do much worse. We would pleasure ourselves with you and it would not be gentle like you do with the girl. Make sure the girl keeps her mouth shut. You understand.”
She was so frightened she couldn’t speak.
“Answer me, bitch.”
“She’ll be fine. I will take care of her.”
“Good. You know the boy was calling your name when we hurt him. You must be good. The girl talks and we will find out just how good.”
She was paralyzed with fear. Unable to speak or to move. When she said nothing, the man on the other end of the line laughed. His laugh was almost as frightening as anything he had said. The phone went dead.
She tried not to completely fall to pieces or to look again at the duffel bag behind her. She had removed some of the stash at the motel while she was hidden behind Petra’s raised trunk lid. She knew she could always blame the girl for not keeping a good check on the inventory — they wouldn’t go after Petra. But what she had taken wasn’t going to keep her going for long. She got out of the car and walked as quickly as she could on legs that were weak from fear. She did not look back. When she turned the corner, she put her back against a wall and noticed she had sweated through her clothing. Fear did have a very particular smell. She stood frozen that way until she heard the van speed past. Even then, when she finally felt safe enough to move, she had to talk herself through the process of walking.
Fifty-two
It had been a long time since Jesse was awakened by both his cell phone and landline, and when it happened, it never meant anything good.
“Dad, Brian Lundquist is on the phone for you.”
Dad. He hadn’t yet gotten used to Cole calling him that. He wasn’t sure he ever would. He certainly liked it. It was just that he didn’t quite trust it yet. He didn’t trust that it wouldn’t disappear with a change of mood. But for the moment his concern was Lundquist’s call.
Jesse reached over for his cell and dumped the incoming call. He stumbled into the kitchen. Cole was already dressed for work.
“I have to go,” he said, handing the phone to Jesse. “Take care. See you tonight.”
“See you.” Then he put the phone to his ear and spoke. “What’s up?”
“We got a John Doe outside of Helton. Fits your missing kid’s description.”
“Homicide?”
“From what I’m hearing from the locals, the vic looks like he could have been killed five times over. I’m heading that way. You want me to swing by and pick you up or you want to meet me there?”
“I’ll meet you there. Text me the location.” Jesse looked at his wall clock. “I’ll be there as fast as I can.”
“No worries. We won’t move him until you arrive.”
“Thanks.”
The sun was coming up behind Jesse as he drove west to Helton. Helton was an old mill town, one Jesse was familiar with. Not for any reason he liked. It was a place of old redbrick buildings covered in soot that had once bellowed from its factory chimneys. Nowadays the only thing it manufactured was hopelessness. It was the sort of place that gets skipped over when times are good and suffers the most when they’re not. But Jesse’s unease had nothing to do with the economics or sociology of the place. It was the red line that began with the case that had brought him to Helton, a line of blood, geography, and time. It had begun with the murder of a teenage girl that resonated through time until it ended with a bullet ending the life of Diana, Jesse’s fiancée. No, there was nothing about driving toward Helton to lift Jesse’s spirits.
He turned off the four-lane road out of Helton and into a thickly wooded area that had been taped off by the state police. The usual collection of official vehicles was parked in a small clearing. Along with the Staties, the Helton PD, the office of the local medical examiner, and the local fire department ambulance corps were all represented. Jesse recognized Lundquist’s car as well. He grabbed a file containing photos of Chris Grimm, some given to him by his mother, others generated from the security footage at Kennedy Park.
At the tape, Jesse showed his shield and gave the uniform his name. The uniform pointed the way. It was a scene befitting the kid’s last name — Grimm. At some crime scenes, even at homicides, there’ll be a smiling or disinterested face. That wasn’t the case here. The sight of those faces told Jesse that Lundquist hadn’t been exaggerating. Lundquist heard Jesse’s approach, turned away from the body, and came to meet him.
Lundquist pointed at the file in Jesse’s hand. “Photos of the Grimm kid?” Jesse handed the file to Lundquist who opened it up. Lundquist winced. “Good-looking boy.” He nodded over his shoulder toward the body. “He doesn’t look like this anymore. Whoever did this to him was either raging at him or enjoyed inflicting pain.”