Midnight Caller (29 page)

He laid her on the bed and brushed the damp strands of hair from her face. Rain's tongue felt too thick to speak, her limbs too heavy to move. A stuffed animal sat next to her, a pink French poodle with a rhinestone collar and flat button eyes. Her brain was fuzzy, but she knew this place from somewhere deep within her earliest memories. The scent of rose and sandalwood drifted around her, creating a bittersweet nostalgia.

Carteris eased from the room, shutting the door behind him. She heard the metallic slide of a lock being fit into place.

Rain's mind floated like a life preserver on the ocean. As a child, the door in the upstairs hallway had always been closed. But whenever she could, she'd sneak inside the room and play dress-up with her mother's things. She recalled the perfume bottle and the exotic fragrance that emerged from it when she removed its stopper. The scent was ingrained in her memory—was her brain playing tricks?

That room no longer existed. It had been a decade after the murder when Celeste had finally found the courage to redecorate. She'd transformed the bedroom into the upstairs study,
banishing the last of her mother's presence from the house. But tumbling closer to darkness, Rain was there again.

Somehow, Carteris had re-created Desiree's old room.

L
ooking through the murky glass of the two-way window, Trevor studied the source of the nightmares that had plagued him for most of his life. His father sat hunched behind the scarred, wooden table in the precinct's interrogation room. McGrath was with him, and his voice was a low growl through the intercom.

“You want to spend what's left of your sorry life in prison, Rivette?”

“What do you want from me? I already told you everything I know!”

McGrath leaned over the table. “You expect me to believe a guy you never met just walks into a bar and hands you a wad of cash and an expensive piece of jewelry?”

“I was paid to deliver a package!” James pounded the table with a balled fist. “I didn't do anything illegal!”

“You keep telling yourself that. But you were a cop, you know better. You want to know how it looks to me? Like you were in on it from the beginning. We're talking about kidnapping, maybe murder. You're fucked, Rivette.”

The yellowed folder that held James's departmental records lay in front of the detective. Trevor already knew what the file contained—he'd read through it days ago. In addition to
a laundry list of civilian complaints that included brutality and extortion, it gave the official reason for his father's dismissal from the NOPD. James Rivette had falsified an insurance claim. He'd turned in items as stolen during a home invasion, then gotten caught fencing the goods at a pawnshop in Treme. But the file contained no mention of the near-fatal beating of his son, which had also supposedly occurred at the hands of the invented thieves. Trevor assumed the NOPD hadn't investigated that far. It hadn't wanted any further bad publicity. Instead, the department had closed the file on the maelstrom and quietly gotten rid of a blight on its force.

James spoke inside the interrogation room. His voice cracked. “I—I want an attorney. A public defender.”

“What's the matter, you sobering up?” McGrath shoved a legal pad at him. “Look, I'm tired of hearing the same thing over and over. Why don't you write your crap story down. I'll give you extra credit for proper spelling.”

The door opened and McGrath stepped out. A deep line furrowed his forehead. “For what it's worth, I don't think he had any idea of the shit he stepped into when he agreed to deliver the necklace.”

“Maybe not,” Trevor said quietly. Still, his father was far from innocent.

“I've shown him the photos of Baptiste. He swears up and down he wasn't the guy in the bar. There's a sketch artist coming in and he's agreed to work with him, but the man wore sunglasses, so it's going to be a partial at best.” He tugged at the already slackened tie around his neck. “What about the guy who got clubbed at your sister's house? The photographer?”

“I just called the hospital. He hasn't regained consciousness yet.”

“Damn.” McGrath shook his head. “I read through your father's personnel files, Rivette. He's a real piece of work.”

Trevor nodded but didn't say anything. He didn't want to think about the possible charges against James being upgraded to accessory to murder. Dante—
whoever the hell he was
—had made this personal by drawing James into the battle. It was clear he wanted Trevor's wound to be as deep and painful as possible. The vision of Rain's body, brutally slaughtered, made a cold sickness wash over him.

“What're you still doing here?” McGrath asked as Thibodeaux turned the corner into the corridor at a brisk pace. “I thought you were headed to the Carteris residence to see if the son ever turned up.”

“He turned up, all right,” Thibodeaux announced. “I was getting in the car out back when it came over the scanner. Two uniforms went by the Ascension for a premises check. They found a kid swinging from the rafters by his skinny goth neck. According to the driver's license, the deceased is Oliver Carteris.”

Trevor knew the club had been closed down since the night of the raid. “They're sure it was a suicide?”

“The M.E.'s just now on the scene, but all signs point to it.” Thibodeaux clicked the top of a ballpoint pen up and down as he spoke. “The kid's cell phone indicates the last number called belonged to Dr. Sommers.”

Had the call been a final plea from a despondent patient, or was it something more? Trevor was reaching for anything that might translate to a lead. Rain had been missing for three hours. FBI and police were frantically searching for her—manning roadblocks, distributing flyers—but they were running out of time.

“I'm going to the Ascension.” He looked at McGrath. “You'll call me when the sketch is ready?”

“Sure.”

“Hold up,” Thibodeaux said, following. “I'll go with you.”

McGrath called after them, “What do you want me to do with your old man?”

“When you're done with him, call the FBI to pick him up. I don't give a damn what happens to him after that.”

 

Sunlight filtered through the stained-glass windows of the Ascension, casting a prism of colors across the battered dance floor. Trevor watched as two forensics technicians lowered the body of Oliver Carteris to the church's pulpit. A metal folding chair on the platform lay on its side. Evidently, the youth had stood on its seat before stepping off and hanging himself with an electrical cord tossed over one of the iron chandeliers.

He'd been tall, Trevor estimated as the body was laid prone. An inch or two over six feet. Even in death, Oliver appeared handsome in a young–Johnny Depp kind of way—lankily built, with dusky skin and ink-black hair. Had he seen him before? Trevor wasn't sure, but he thought of the kid who'd been standing at the edge of Coliseum Square Park that day as he and Brian drove past.

He held the clear evidence bag that contained the contents of Oliver's pockets. There were the driver's license and cell phone Thibodeaux had mentioned, a small glass pipe for smoking marijuana or crack, and six Ecstasy tablets matching the ones confiscated during the raid. The bag also contained a set of car keys on a pewter fob. It was engraved with a pentagram—the equivalent of a Lacoste alligator for those who ran in Oliver's social circle. One of the keys was undoubtedly to the Mercedes coupe that Forensics was combing over outside. But there was another with a black plastic handle bearing the Cadillac crest.

Trevor lingered on the last item, a tasteful white business card printed in black ink. He felt his emotions splintering like glass.

“Body's in full rigor mortis,” Thibodeaux announced. He knelt next to the corpse and gripped its stiffened arms. “Kid's been dead for around twelve to fourteen hours. Based on the outgoing time stamp on his cell phone, it looks like he did a felo-de-se right after trying to reach Dr. Sommers.”

Trevor walked over for a closer look. Tiny red spots called petechial hemorrhaging dotted Oliver's face and neck. One of the technicians removed the rubberized cord from around the boy's throat, revealing the blackened ligature mark where it had been stretched tight by the victim's body weight.

“What about a suicide note?”

Thibodeaux shook his head. “Nada.”

As the flash of the technician's camera started again, Trevor peeled off his latex gloves. The key chain continued to nag at him.

Frowning in thought, he walked to the arched wood doors and exited the church. Outside, a few clouds had entered the vibrant blue sky and heat rose from the concrete like a barbecue grill. A ponytailed Asian male in a Forensics jump-suit was vacuuming the inside of the Mercedes for even the smallest particles of evidence. He turned off the equipment and emerged from the driver's side as Trevor approached.

“Find anything?”

“An eight-ball of cocaine in the floorboard. There're also a few hairs that don't match the deceased. Long ones that look like they might be female, but it's hard to tell these days.” The technician wiped perspiration from his forehead. “One weird thing—the passenger door's scratched up from the inside and the handle doesn't work.”

Trevor squinted against the sun. “What about vehicle registration papers?”

“The car's registered to a Christian Carteris.”

“Send the hairs to the lab for analysis.” Trevor handed the technician his card. “Put a rush on the results and notify me as soon as they're back.”

“Yes, Agent.”

Walking away from the vehicle, Trevor dug his cell phone from his jeans pocket and made a call. It took less than a minute to run his requested search. The Mercedes was indeed registered to Christian Carteris. But the surgeon also owned a second vehicle. A black 2010 Cadillac Escalade.

There were thousands of black SUVs in Orleans Parish, but as he disconnected the phone, Trevor clung to the feeling in his gut.

“Rivette.” Thibodeaux called his name as he jogged toward him. “I just got a call from the uniform sent to the Carteris house to break the news about the son's death. No one answered at the residence, so he went to the hospital to try to locate Dr. Carteris at work. According to his staff, the surgeon was paged for an emergency triple bypass this morning, but he never showed up. You think Junior offed Daddy before killing himself?”

Trevor headed back toward their car. “I think Christian Carteris is Dante.”

T
he Victorian mansion's mahogany door took four blows with a battering ram before it gave in, enabling the FBI and police SWAT team to pour inside. Trevor entered after them, his gun raised, with McGrath and Thibodeaux bringing up the rear.

“Clear!” The word echoed along the hallways as rooms were searched for inhabitants. Within minutes, however, the SWAT-team leader returned and shook his head.

“Negative. The place is empty. There's no SUV in the garage, either.”

Trevor holstered his gun, disappointment nearly overwhelming him. He scanned the opulence of the two-story entrance, from its glittering chandelier to its Italian-marble floor and French rococo furniture. A curved staircase led to the second floor, and overhead, a stained-glass skylight depicted a Mardi Gras scene in traditional purple, green and gold.

This was the guy, Trevor was certain of it. The black SUV, his unexplained disappearance and connection to Rain through his son—even the description his father had given the sketch artist was a reasonable match. He felt as if an hourglass sat in front of him with sand slowly funneling through
to its bottom. If Carteris hadn't brought Rain here, where were they?

“To think we were here a few days ago talking to this asshole,” McGrath grumbled, looking around.

“If I was Oliver Carteris, I'd have eighty-sixed myself, too,” Thibodeaux observed sarcastically. He stood in front of glass doors that led onto a porte cochere veranda overlooking a lush courtyard and swimming pool. “This place is a real dump—”

He stopped speaking as one of the FBI field agents appeared on the second-floor landing. “Agent Rivette, there's something up here you should see.”

Trevor took the stairs two at a time with the detectives behind him. They trailed the agent down the corridor and into the master bedroom. The suite was spacious, with heavy antique furniture and elegant, masculine decor. But it was the tall clothing armoire that captured Trevor's attention. He stepped closer. Its black walnut doors hung open and taped inside were photos.
Rain, her red-gold hair shining in the sun as she weeded the flower garden in her yard. Exiting the radio station in a green top and flowing black slacks. Sitting on a blanket and reading a book in what appeared to be Coliseum Square.
There were dozens of snapshots, their edges overlapping and newer images placed over older ones. Trevor recognized himself in one of the photos. He stood next to Rain, waiting as she unlocked the door to her home.

“Contact Forensics and let them know we're going to need them here. In the meantime, limit who comes into this room,” he said, throat tight. The agent who'd escorted them up nodded and went back down the hallway.

Handing Trevor a pair of latex gloves, McGrath studied the collage. “There aren't any of the other females. Why's that?”

“Because Rain's the one he wanted all along.”

“If this was about Dr. Sommers, why didn't Carteris just take her from the start? Why all the rest?”

“Maybe the Count's got an appetite,” Thibodeaux theorized from the other side of the room as he searched the drawers of an antique writing desk. “The other vics were an appetizer. Dr. Sommers was the main course.”

The comment sliced through Trevor. He couldn't allow himself to think of Rain in the past tense. She was still alive, she had to be.

Anxiety pulling at him, he stared out the room's floor-to-ceiling windows that provided a postcard-quality view of St. Charles Avenue with its large antebellum houses and stately trees. Carteris was a top cardiologist and a member of the hospital's board of directors. He had to be exceedingly busy. How did he have time to follow Rain around and take such a large portfolio of photos? Did he have help? Trevor thought of Oliver's body being lowered to the floor of the Ascension.

“The son killed himself because of what he knew about the murders,” he said quietly. “Either that, or he was directly involved. He couldn't handle the guilt.”

“Yeah?” McGrath pushed tailored suits and shirts around inside the armoire, looking for additional evidence. “How do you figure?”

Trevor didn't respond, still trying to work out the hypothetical scenario in his head. He again contemplated the difference in ages between the victims in New Orleans and in the other cities where the killings had occurred. All the localities had major universities and medical institutions. Was it possible Carteris traveled a lecture circuit? He wondered, What if Carteris had been the sole perpetrator outside New Orleans, but here, he'd been using Oliver to lure the females? It would explain why the local victims were younger, since Oliver was a teenager himself. Not to mention, his height and
hair color matched the vague description Marcy Cupich had provided.

If Carteris had forged some type of dominant-subservient relationship with his son, then Oliver might have been forced to do his bidding. Trevor took it a step further—perhaps he was being trained to follow in his footsteps. Even if he was conflicted about his involvement, it was likely Oliver was afraid to refuse.

“When you talked to Carteris, what was your impression of him?”

“Seemed like your typical doctor,” McGrath recalled. “Busy, condescending, on his high horse. He acted pissed that we'd interrupted his day—”

“Son of a bitch!” Thibodeaux pried at the desk's fall-front writing slope, but the intricately carved panel wouldn't budge. “Damn thing's locked. Which means there must be something inside it worth seeing.”

Pulling a pair of nail clippers from his pocket, he extended the metal file. Then he inserted it into the brass keyhole and began jiggling the blade.

“Didn't grow up in the Lower Nine without learning a few things.” He looked up as Trevor walked to the door. “Where are you going?”

“To find the son's room.”

He snorted. “Shouldn't be hard to find. Probably looks like an upright coffin.”

Trevor headed back down the hallway, his thoughts fractured. He assumed, like most therapists, Rain encouraged her patients to keep journals. Could Oliver have written something that might be of use?

He reached a series of bedrooms as a young police officer rounded the corner.

“Agent? You need to come back downstairs. We found something.”

The look on the man's face made his heart plummet. “What?”

“Blood, sir. Under a table. There's a lot of it.”

 

The room appeared to be under renovation, with plastic sheeting and canvas drop cloths protecting the furniture and floor. Bookcases lined the walls, and transom windows let in the flow of bright daylight beneath the crumbling trey ceiling. Conversation halted among the other law enforcement as Trevor entered.

“Did anyone touch anything?”

“What do we look like, rookies?” one of the men on the SWAT team wisecracked.

“This area's sealed off until Forensics gets here.” He waited for them to file out, cognizant of the sickening metallic odor in the air. Then Trevor moved to the alcove where a canvas-shrouded table sat under a framed oil painting. Doing the best he could to steel himself, he slowly raised the cloth covering the table. A second tarp stuffed underneath it was saturated in blood. He wiped the back of his hand over his mouth and felt his heart pound.

Had she been killed here? Despite her abduction, despite the blood staining the cloth at his feet, he couldn't accept that conclusion. Squeezing his eyes closed, Trevor fought a rush of dizziness. He stayed like that until he heard the shuffle of feet moving past the open doors.

“What's going on?”

A field agent paused at the threshold. “The cops found a body. It's in a freezer off the kitchen.”

Utter blackness washed over him. He walked from the library on wooden legs, following the museum-like corridor until it spilled into a massive gourmet kitchen with stainless-steel appliances and marble counters. Trevor pushed through
the men who congregated there. He had to hold it together. He owed it to this investigation, to her.

An elongated butler's pantry led from the kitchen into a work space, the kind used by caterers preparing food for a large number of houseguests. He stopped in the doorway. An industrial-size sink gleamed under copper lights, and double warming ovens took up space in the brick wall. On the far end of the room, a rectangular freezer sat with its lid upraised. Puffs of chilled air rose from inside it.

“I've heard of frozen dinners, but geez,” an officer remarked.

A second uniform loitered near the freezer. “Hey, Agent. What do you call this? A Gothsicle?”

Trevor stepped across the checkerboard-tile floor, his heart pounding. Gripping the freezer's rim, he looked down. But among the packages of frozen steaks and king crab legs, it was the face of Armand Baptiste who stared back at him. Ice crystals had formed over the corneas of his eyes, concealing the faded blue irises. Baptiste's mouth hung open in a state of perpetual surprise. A pink slit ran across his neck, and blood spilled in a frozen cascade down his shirtfront like cherry ice.

Relief nearly brought Trevor to his knees.
It wasn't her.
The blood in the library just as likely belonged to Baptiste. Which meant there was still a chance Rain was alive.

“That's the club owner?” the officer next to him asked. “What the hell is he doing—”

The question went unfinished. The officer ducked and swore loudly as the house shook on its foundation. A booming sound like cannon fire faded into eerie silence. Trevor had barely recovered from the discovery in the freezer, but he recognized the blast from his Homeland Security training.

An IED.

He took back off through the kitchen and sprinted toward
the foyer with the others. Behind him, the SWAT-team leader called over his radio for emergency support. The acrid smell from the explosion permeated the air, and thin gray smoke leaked over the upstairs landing. The Mardi Gras skylight had shattered, scattering shards of glass over the marble floor.

“I need a countoff, now!” the team leader yelled.

Along with two of the men, Trevor ran up the staircase and into the haze. An officer lay motionless in their path.

“Help him!” Trevor kept going along the hallway. He neared the master bedroom as McGrath stumbled out, his left arm bloody and dangling against his side. His knees faltered and Trevor kept him upright by wedging his body under the detective's uninjured shoulder. Carrying the bulk of McGrath's weight, he moved him down the staircase toward safety.

“Where's Thibodeaux?” Trevor shouted over the din.

McGrath pointed to his ear, gone temporarily deaf from the discharge. “I can't hear a damn thing!”

In the foyer, Trevor passed McGrath to one of the others, then raced back upstairs and down the hall again. The passage was darkening with smoke, and he pulled his T-shirt over his nose in an effort to block out the fumes. Fuel. Whatever detonation device Carteris had planted, it was designed not only to explode but also to ignite.

Reaching what was left of the bedroom's splintered door frame, he saw flames dancing on the curtains of the broken windows. The armoire lay on its side. It must have protected McGrath from the worst of the explosion. But where was the other detective? He called out for Thibodeaux, but got no response. Coughing, his eyes burning, he searched the rubble.

Dear God.
He finally saw him, sitting nearly upright against the far wall.

Scrambling over splintered furniture and chunks of plaster,
Trevor dropped down beside Thibodeaux and felt frantically for a pulse. But he could tell almost instantly the damage was too great. The blast's impact had ripped a large hole in his chest. His face was unrecognizable, the skin peeled away by the intense heat.

Smoke and anger stung Trevor's eyes. But there was no time to mourn. The fire had leaped to the mattress, and it would be seconds before it engulfed the room. Dragging Thibodeaux's body into the hallway, he was met by two officers who helped him carry the fallen detective down the stairs. They laid Thibodeaux on the marble floor. Trevor started up again, but the SWAT leader grabbed his arm.

“You can't go back up there!”

He jerked free and began ascending the stairs. Outside, he could hear the cessation of sirens as emergency vehicles came to a stop in front of the mansion. But he couldn't wait. He'd been headed to Oliver's room when he'd been called downstairs. What if there was a clue, some small piece of evidence that pointed to where Carteris had taken Rain? He couldn't let it be destroyed.

The second blast sent a wave of pressure rolling through the upstairs. It knocked Trevor backward. He landed sprawled on the lower steps with the breath sucked from his lungs. A low flame snaked over the landing and spread quickly down the carpeted runner.

Just before the blaze reached him, strong hands pulled him to his feet and forced him out the mansion's front door. Firefighters in bright yellow protective gear ran past him under the portico, heading into the smoke-filled interior. Trevor coughed and attempted to draw in fresh air as a paramedic led him onto the lawn.

“You need oxygen,” the paramedic advised, but Trevor refused. He spotted McGrath hunched on a gurney near one of the ambulances. The grimy sleeve of his dress shirt had
been cut away, and a bandage was being wrapped around his bicep by another paramedic. Even from a distance, Trevor could see blood soaking the gauze.

McGrath looked up as he neared. “I found love letters, Rivette. Dozens of them. Ones Carteris wrote to Desiree Sommers—”

He wheezed painfully, and Trevor laid a hand on his shoulder. “Just take it easy.”

“The letters were in envelopes stamped Return to Sender. The postmarks were over thirty years old. You tell me how that's possible when—”

Another spasm of coughs racked his body. Trevor exchanged a glance with the paramedic, who tried to place an oxygen mask over McGrath's face. But the detective shoved it away.