Melody (THE LOGAN FAMILY) (8 page)

She wasn’t only lovely, but a challenge as well. She’d been working the sex crimes unit long enough to know that most rapists loved challenges. She wanted to catch the guy the same as Steven. But she wouldn’t resort to scaring the victims in order to do it.

“Steven,” Brianna sighed. “I want to catch this bastard just as much as you do, but this is not the way. We can’t interrogate the victims like they’ve done something wrong!”

He looked at the woman in between them. “Look, I’m sorry if I frightened you.” He knelt beside her. “But you may be our only hope, right now. The man who tried to rape you last night could have been the Albany Predator.” Steven glared at Brianna. She sighed. “You gotta tell us all you remember.”

“You don’t understand.” The young lady shook. Her puffy ponytail resembled a black cotton ball. She looked lovely even in tears. The cops imagined she could be an even bigger heartbreaker otherwise. “Detective Kemp, you can’t know how this feels.” She sniffled. “You think that just because I got away that I shouldn’t be afraid? I’m afraid, okay. I don’t even think I can go back to my own damn home!”

He touched her knee. She jerked. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I guess me being a man, I can’t understand. But you were lucky, okay? You weren’t raped, and what you tell us could help.”

“Why badger me when this man has raped nearly half the black population in Albany? There’s a new victim in the paper every day!” Steven and Brianna exchanged glances. “Oh, I get it. The victims aren’t talking? So you want me to do their dirty work?”

“Monica?” Brianna stood in front of her. “You got away, true. But don’t believe that you’re safe now. He is still out there and something tells me that he hates it when he doesn’t get his way.” Monica held her head. Brianna got on her knees. “I know how frightened you are. I’m a black woman myself, and I’ve been crazy since this started happening. I want to catch him more than anything, believe me.”

“Detective Morris, you’re also a cop with a gun and a police force to protect you. I think that’s the difference between me and you. This isn’t fair. You can’t expect me to give you all the answers.”

“Monica, we need you, damn it!” Steven hit the table. “Think about what you felt last night! Think about the fear you still feel! Now do you want another woman to feel this way? He may not stop if we don’t get him. He could even move on to another place! And we don’t know if he will stop at rape.”

Monica sucked her fingertip. “What do you mean?”

Brianna shrugged. “We don’t know how far he could go or has gone. We only know of the women who’ve come forward. We’re sure that many were too afraid to. Monica, you may have been the only one who’s fought him and lived.”

“Oh God. You mean he may even be…a killer?”

“You tell us.” Steven sighed. “Monica, I’m sorry for how I came down on you. But we need you right now. We need everyone who’s come close to this asshole to help us. We can’t bust him alone. Every time we think we have a pattern, he switches on us. He lays low for days, then he rapes like crazy for weeks. All we know is he’s white and…attractive.”

“He’s gorgeous,” Monica whimpered. “He wore a mask but I could tell by his mouth and eyes. You would think a man like that wouldn’t have to rape anyone. I’ve never come across someone so…so violent. I can’t get it out of my head how he shoved me down on the couch and…his hands…his lips were so…so hard. I never knew you could kiss someone so roughly. I kept begging for him to leave me alone. I couldn’t believe he’d been in my house all that time, almost the entire night, and I didn’t know it.”

“Don’t blame yourself.” Brianna took her hand.

“The mayor thinks a curfew is gonna stop this guy? Oh no, you have no idea who you’re dealing with!” Monica shook. “He is a monster, I swear to you! He doesn’t care who he hurts. He likes to hurt he…he’s so sick…he’s…oh God!” she sobbed. “I can’t get it out of my head! He had me on the couch and I…I don’t know where I got the strength, but I kicked him. I kicked him and I ran. I ran as fast as I could!”

Brianna held her. “Shh it’s okay, Monica. It’s gonna be all right. You don’t have to tell us anything right now.” Steven walled his eyes. “But, we do want you to talk to the officer downstairs to go over your report, okay?”

Monica stood. “Thank you. If I can get myself together, I will talk to you. I’m not trying to protect him, but I’m just so scared.”

“We understand.” Steven nodded. “Your well-being is what’s most important here.”

“May I go now?”

Brianna nodded. “You have our number. Please use it. You can call us day and night.”

“Thanks.” She left.

“Fuck!” Steven kicked the chair.

“Steven, please, calm down, all right?” Brianna rubbed her temples. “Look, this has been a very grueling case and we need to regroup and…”

“What? Start from scratch?” He chuckled. “News flash, Bree, we’re sitting right smack in the middle of scratch because we haven’t found one fucking thing to bring us close to that maniac!”

“Don’t you think I feel the same way? Steven, I’m a woman myself! Do you think I like having other women terrorized by this man? If I had him now, I’d probably hang him by his balls, but that is not the way to handle things.” Steven shook his head.

“We’re cops, Steven. We are allowed to be afraid, but we’re not allowed to lose control.”

“Seems to me you need to start losing control before it gets too late, Bree.”

She ran her hands through her curly black hair. Her almond-brown eyes fluttered at the remark. “Is this personal, Steven?”

“Come on, Bree.” He sighed.

“No, I’m just wondering because you’ve been shooting remarks at me for weeks. Do you blame me for us not finding this guy? I’m only one woman in the department, Steve.”

“I know that, Bree. Look, I still care about you, even if you don’t want me to.” She looked away. “I know it’s been a long time but my feelings never died. I will always have this need to protect you.”

“So why do I feel like you’re blaming me for what this guy is doing?”

“Look, I just get sick of you questioning my methods all the damn time. This shit is hard for me, too, Bree. I mean, lately all I think about is that bastard and trying to catch him. And it’s not easy with a bitchy female captain breathing down my throat.”

Brianna grinned, thinking of her rough superior. “Well, that’s her way.”

“I went off on Monica because I can’t see how she can sit there and not want to help.”

“Then you truly don’t understand what it’s like to be afraid. You were right when you said you couldn’t understand her fear being a man, Steven. Think about that. Remember her words when you come down on another victim like it’s her fault.”

He rubbed his chin. “Jesus, is that what I was doing?” She nodded. He sat down. “Brianna, I’m so worried.”

She touched his shoulder. “We’ll catch him, Steven.”

“No.” He laid his hand on hers. He looked her in the eyes. “Bree can’t you see why this case winds me up more than any other we’ve dealt with? We’ve probably gone after what, millions of rapists? But can you see why this bothers me? It hits a little close to home, sweetie.”

“Steven.” She knelt beside him. “You’re talking about me, aren’t you? Oh Jesus, that’s why you’ve been acting so crazy. You’re worried about me. Steven, I’ll be fine.” She smiled. “We’ll get this asshole like we’ve gotten all the others.”

He exhaled into his hands. “If anything ever happened to you, I don’t know what I’d do.” She walked to the other side of the room. “I never stopped caring for you, Bree.”

“Steven, please.” She leaned against the wall. She rested her hand on her gun. “We can’t keep going on like this.”

“Bree, I have tried to get over you, but…” He chuckled. “You’re too amazing for me to do that.”

“Steven, we can’t go back.”

“What, because we’re cops?” She turned away. “Bree, I didn’t fall for that flimsy excuse when you dumped me, and I sure as hell won’t now.”

“This is not the time, Steven. We have to think about this case. Now, you know you are my friend and partner. I care about you deeply, but as far as what we used to be, it’s…it’s out of the question.”

He shrugged. “Everything seems to be ‘out of the question’ with you these days, huh?”

“Stop it, Steven! Damn it, look at the big picture! We have a man terrorizing people! The last thing we need to talk about is some love affair that we couldn’t even hold on to.”

“That you didn’t
want
to hold on to.” He held his waist. “I guess being with me was exciting at first. Then when you found me to be your career competition, you lost the fire, huh?”

“Steven, you know why I broke it off.” She leered at him. “You
know
and I don’t want to discuss this right now.”

“Are you prepared if this guy comes after you, Bree? Can you honestly handle that? I think about that every day. I hope you’re scared because you need to be.”

“I don’t need you to tell me how to be, Steven. Unlike you, I don’t need to be led around by the nose to get things done,” she scoffed. “Let’s just stick to the job and let all this other shit go. Agreed?”

He sucked his lip. “Agreed. After all, you’re the better cop, aren’t you?”

She sighed.

Captain Jersey flounced into the room. The middle-aged woman overlooked her officers with gravity. She held a clipboard against her chest. Her green eyes shimmered through her red-rimmed glasses. She straightened the lapel of her gray suit.

“Kemp, Morris, I’ve been looking all over for you. What happened with the girl?”

“Monica?” Brianna shrugged. “Nothing much.”

“And why not?” Jersey walked up. “She was almost raped. We know it was the predator, and she sure as hell knows. Why isn’t she still here helping us find this guy?”

Steven gulped. “Captain, she was too frightened to be of any real help. She was shaking so badly she could hardly talk. We told her to call us when she got herself together, and she agreed she would.” Jersey looked at the chalkboard in the back of the room. “I see. You are supposed to be the best in the sex crimes unit. Am I wrong? Yet each day you come up with nothing.”

“Captain, it takes time.”

“We don’t have time, Morris! This man is dangerous. The rapes are happening closer and they get more and more violent each time. We gotta get his ass off the street before he kills someone!”

“So you get that feeling too, huh?” Steven sighed. “Captain, we’re doing what we always do, our best. We feel that the victims are opening up more and more. We can’t make them talk.” He looked at Brianna. “We’ll go over the victims’ statements and see if there are any leads. But we’ve talked to everyone we felt may have known or seen some man at one point who fits the description, and we get shit each time.”

“I don’t like badgering victims, but at this point we have no choice.” Jersey tapped her foot. “I want you to start arresting the victims if they refuse to cooperate.”

Brianna jumped. “Oh, Captain, that’s not a good idea. I mean these ladies are already over the top. If we treated them like they did something wrong, it could damage them for life! Captain, we just can’t do it like that.”

“We have no choice, Morris. The victims are the only ones that can tie things together for us, and if they’re holding out it’s going against the investigation. We can’t let that slide. We’ll just have to bring them in.”

“This is sick, Captain.” Brianna sighed. “We can’t force them to do this. Look at what they’ve been through.”

“I am, Brianna. I don’t want anyone else to go through this either. So we’ll do it my way. Until you can find something else solid that gets us closer to the rapist, we’ll sweat it out of the victims.” She went to the door. “And if they don’t cooperate, they’ll spend time here with us…in jail.” She left.

“What the fuck was that?” Steven shook his head.

“Fear.” Brianna went to the door. “Don’t you recognize it by now?” She left.

Melody decided to take that spin by Aileen’s after all, later that day. She never needed her girlfriend so much. She hadn’t gotten any relaxation at home. She couldn’t stop thinking about Keith’s kiss. She kept her eyes focused on the car in front of her. Driving always took her mind off weird situations. The perfect time to think things out. Course the situation had been more than weird.

She didn’t care to figure out the “why” when it came to Keith anymore. She just wanted him gone.

Melody and Aileen were closer than friends could be. Entering adulthood hadn’t affected their relationship, either. At times Melody considered Aileen her sister. After all, she shared things with her that she hadn’t told Sarah. Melody knew Aileen could help her come to terms with Sarah’s intimidating new boyfriend.

Melody and Aileen had tons of things in common. They both loved the same music. They loved the same types of food. They even dressed similarly. They were both tall. They both loathed beauty regimes like doing hair and nails. They were quite creative. They were both hopeless romantics. They both loved to read but hated to be called “bookworms.”

Melody loved Agatha Christie. Aileen had always been obsessed with Sidney Sheldon. Neither had missed a book by their favorite authors.

Melody respected Aileen for being a leader instead of a follower. Aileen never cared what others thought. She didn’t care if an entire city disagreed with her. Nothing dissuaded Aileen’s opinions, if she truly believed she was right. Such bravery wasn’t easy to find in people under thirty. Her strength had been the reason everyone looked up to Aileen in high school. They came to her for advice. She always seemed to make the worst problems easier to handle.