Scream for Me (4 page)

“She likes red,” Meredith observed.

Alex swallowed hard. “I don’t even want to consider the implications of that.”

Meredith lifted a shoulder. “It may mean nothing more than that she likes red.”

“But you don’t think so.”

“No.”

“She’s holding a red crayon now. I finally gave up and let her take it to bed with her.”

“What happened when she ran out of red crayons last night?”

“She cried, but she never said a single word.” Alex shuddered. “I’ve seen thousands of children cry in the ER, in pain, in fear . . . but never like that. She was like . . . a robot the way she cried—no emotion. She never made a sound. Not a word. Then she went into what looked like a catatonic state. She scared me so badly that I took her to the clinic in town. Dr. Granville checked her out, said she was just in shock.”

“Did he run any tests?”

“No. The social worker had told me she’d taken Hope to the ER after they found her hiding in the closet on Friday. They ran tox screens and titers to check her immunization record. She’s had all her childhood immunizations and everything else was in order.”

“Who is her family doctor?”

“I don’t know. Granville, the doctor here in town, said he’d never seen Hope or Bailey in ‘a professional capacity.’ He seemed surprised Hope was so clean and well cared for, as if he’d seen her dirty before. He wanted to give her a shot, to sedate her.”

Meredith’s brows lifted. “Did you let him?”

“No, and he got a little huffy, asking why I’d brought her at all if I didn’t want him to treat her. But I didn’t like the idea of drugging a child if you don’t need to. She wasn’t violent and there seemed no danger of her hurting herself, so I didn’t want her drugged.”

“I agree. So all this time Hope never said a word? Are we sure she can speak?”

“The preschool says she’s very talkative, big vocabulary. In fact, she can even read.”

Meredith looked taken aback. “Wow. She’s what, four?”

“Barely. The preschool said Bailey read to Hope every night. Meredith, none of this feels like a junkie abandoning her child.”

“You think foul play, too.”

Something in Meredith’s voice rubbed Alex wrong. “Don’t you?” she demanded.

Meredith was unperturbed. “I don’t know. I know you’ve always given Bailey the benefit of the doubt. But now this isn’t just about Bailey, it’s about Hope and what’s best for her. Are you going to bring her home? To your home, I mean?”

Alex thought of the little apartment she only slept in. Richard had kept the house. Alex hadn’t wanted it. But her apartment was big enough for herself and one small child. “That’s my intent, yes. But Meredith, if something did happen to Bailey . . . I mean, if she has changed and she’s met with some harm . . .”

“What will you do?”

“I don’t know yet. I couldn’t get anywhere with the police over the phone and I couldn’t leave Hope alone to go in person. Can you stay with me for a few days? Help me with Hope while I check this out?”

“I had all the appointments with my most critical patients moved to Wednesday before I left. I have to fly back late Tuesday night. It’s the best I can do for now.”

“It’s a lot. Thank you.”

Meredith squeezed her hand. “Now go get some sleep. I’ll sleep here on the sofa. If you need me, wake me up.”

“I’ll sleep in there with Hope. I’m just praying she sleeps through the night. So far she hasn’t slept more than a few hours at a time, then she wakes up and colors. If she needs you, I’ll let you know.”

“I wasn’t talking about Hope needing me. I was talking about you. Now go to sleep.”

Chapter Two

Atlanta, Sunday, January 28, 10:45 p.m.

D
aniel, I think your dog is dead.” The voice came from Daniel’s living room and it belonged to fellow GBI investigator Luke Papadopoulos. Luke was also quite possibly Daniel’s best friend, despite his being the reason Daniel owned the dog to begin with.

Daniel slid the last plate into the dishwasher, then went to the doorway to his living room. Luke sat on the sofa, watching ESPN. Riley the basset hound lounged at Luke’s feet, looking like he normally did. Which, Daniel had to agree, was like a dog who’d gone on to meet his Maker. “Offer him a pork chop, he’ll perk up.”

Riley opened one eye at the mention of a pork chop, but closed it again, knowing he probably wouldn’t get one. Riley was a pessimistic realist. He and Daniel got along well.

“Hell, I just offered him some of the moussaka, and he
still
didn’t perk up,” Luke said.

Daniel was able to visualize the results of such an irresponsible action all too well. “Riley can’t have your mom’s cooking. It’s way too rich and that’s bad for his stomach.”

“I know. He got into some leftovers while you were gone up north and he was staying with me.” Luke winced. “It wasn’t pretty, trust me.”

Daniel rolled his eyes. “I’m not paying your carpet-cleaning bill, Luke.”

“It’s okay. My cousin owns his own carpet-cleaning business. I got it taken care of.”

“If you knew, then why for God’s sake did you try to feed him tonight?”

Luke gently nudged Riley’s butt with the toe of his boot. “He always looks so sad.”

“Sad” in Luke’s family meant “feed me.” Which explained Luke’s showing up on Daniel’s doorstep tonight with a full Greek meal when Daniel knew full well he’d had to break a date with his on-again-off-again flight attendant girlfriend to do so. Mama Papadopoulos had been worried about Daniel since he’d returned from Philadelphia the week before. Luke’s mama had a kind heart, but Mama Papa’s food did not agree with Riley, and Daniel did
not
have a cousin with his own carpet-cleaning business.

“He’s a damn basset hound. They all look that way. Riley’s not sad, so stop feeding him.” Daniel sat in his recliner and whistled. Riley trotted over and plopped at his feet with a huge sigh, as if the four-foot trek had tired him out. “I know how you feel, boy.”

Luke was quiet a moment. “I hear you pulled a tough one tonight.”

Daniel’s mind immediately conjured the victim in the ditch. “You could say that.” Abruptly he frowned. “How did you hear about that already?”

Luke looked uncomfortable. “Ed Randall called. He was worried about you. Your first day back and you pull a case like the Arcadia woman.”

Daniel swallowed his irritation. They all meant well. “So you brought me food.”

“Nah, Mama had that all prepared before Ed called. She’s worried about you, too. I’ll tell her you ate a second helping and that you’re doing all right. So,
are
you all right?”

“I have to be. There’s work to be done.”

“You could have taken more time off. A week’s not that much, considering.”

Considering he’d had to bury his parents. “When you add in the week I was in Philly looking for them, I’ve been out for two weeks. That’s long enough.” He leaned over to scratch Riley’s ears. “If I don’t work, I’ll go crazy,” he added quietly.

“It wasn’t your fault, Daniel.”

“No, not directly. But I knew what Simon was a long time before now.”

“And you thought he was dead for the last twelve years.”

Daniel conceded the point. “There is that.”

“If you ask me, I’d say your father carried most of the blame. After Simon, of course.”

Seventeen people
. Simon had taken seventeen lives, with one old woman still holding on in cardiac intensive care in Philadelphia. But Daniel’s father had not only known Simon was evil, he’d known Simon was
alive
. Twelve years ago Arthur Vartanian had banished his younger son and told the world he’d died. He’d even buried a stranger in the family plot and erected Simon’s tombstone, leaving Simon free to roam, doing whatever he wished, as long as it wasn’t under the Vartanian name.

“Seventeen people,” Daniel murmured, and wondered if they weren’t the tip of the iceberg. He thought of the pictures that were never far from the front of his mind. The pictures Simon had left behind. The faces flashed before his eyes like a slide show. All female. Nameless victims of rape.

Just like the victim today.
He had to see that the Arcadia victim got a name. That she got justice. It was the only way he’d stay sane. “One of the Arcadia officers mentioned a similar murder thirteen years ago. I was working on checking it out when you got here. It happened in Dutton.”

Luke’s brows came way down. “
Dutton?
Daniel, you grew up in Dutton.”

“Thanks. I’d forgotten that fact,” Daniel said sarcastically. “I looked in our database back at the office when I filed my report earlier tonight, but GBI didn’t investigate, so it wasn’t there. I called Frank Loomis, the sheriff in Dutton, but he hasn’t returned my call yet. And I didn’t want to call one of the deputies. If it hadn’t been anything, I would have added fuel to the fire. Bastard reporters are crawling all over the damn place.”

“But you did find something,” Luke pushed. “What?”

“I searched online and found an article.” He tapped the laptop he’d set on the coffee table when Luke had arrived with the food. “Alicia Tremaine was found murdered in a ditch outside Dutton on April 2, thirteen years ago. She was wrapped in a brown wool blanket and her facial bones were broken. She’d been raped. She was sixteen.”

“Copycat killer?”

“I was thinking that. With all the news about Dutton the past week, maybe somebody found that article and decided to re-create it. It’s a theory. Trouble is, these old online articles don’t have pictures. I was trying to find a photo of Alicia.”

Luke shot him a long-suffering glance. A computer expert, Luke was often appalled at Daniel’s lack of what he considered basic computer skills. “Give me the laptop.” In less than three minutes Luke sat back with a satisfied, “Got it. Take a look.”

Daniel’s heart thudded to a stop.
It couldn’t be.
It was his tired eyes playing tricks. Slowly he leaned forward and blinked hard. But she was still there. “My God.”

“Who is she?”

Daniel jerked a glance back to Luke, his pulse now racing. “I know her, that’s all.” But his voice sounded desperate. Yes, he knew her. Her face had haunted his dreams for years, along with the faces of all the others. For years he’d hoped they’d been faked. Posed. For years he’d feared they were real. That they were dead. Now he knew for sure. Now one of the nameless victims had a name.
Alicia Tremaine
.

“You know her from where?” Luke’s voice was firmly demanding. “Daniel?”

Daniel calmed himself. “We both lived in Dutton. It makes sense that I knew her.”

Luke’s jaw went hard. “Before you said you ‘know’ her, not ‘knew.’ ”

A spurt of anger burned away some of the shock. “Are you questioning me, Luke?”

“Yes, because you’re not being honest with me. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I have.” He stared at her face. She’d been beautiful. Thick hair the color of caramel spilled over her shoulders and there had been a sparkle in her eyes that hinted at mischief and fun. Now she was dead.

“Who is she?” Luke asked again, his voice quieter. “An old girlfriend?”

“No.” His shoulders sagged and his chin dropped to his chest. “I’ve never met her.”

“But you know her,” Luke countered cautiously. “How?”

Straightening his spine, Daniel walked behind the bar in the corner of his living room, pulled the
Dogs Playing Poker
painting from the wall, revealing a safe. From the corner of his eye he saw Luke’s brows go up. “You have a wall safe?” Luke asked.

“Vartanian family tradition,” Daniel said grimly, hoping it was the only tendency he shared with his father. He dialed the combination and pulled out the envelope he’d stored there on his return from Philly the week before. He picked Alicia Tremaine’s picture from the stack of the others just like it and handed it to Luke.

Luke flinched. “My God. It’s her.” He looked up, horrified. “Who is the man?”

Daniel shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Luke’s eyes flashed fire. “This is sick, Daniel. Where the hell did you get this?”

“My mother,” Daniel said bitterly.

Luke opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Your mother,” he repeated carefully.

Daniel sat down wearily. “I got the pictures from my mother, who’d left—”

Luke held up his hand. “Wait. Pic
tures?
What else is in that envelope?”

“More of the same. Different girls. Different men.”

“This one looks like she’s been drugged.”

“They all do. None of them are awake. There are fifteen of them. That doesn’t count the pictures that are obviously cut from magazines.”

“Fifteen.” Luke blew out a breath. “So tell me how your mother gave them to you.”

“More like she left them for me. My father had the pictures first and—” Luke’s eyes widened and Daniel sighed. “Maybe I should start from the beginning.”

“That would be best, I think.”

“Some of this I knew. Some my sister Susannah knew. We didn’t put it together until last week, after Simon was dead.”

“So your sister knows about these, too?”

Daniel remembered Susannah’s haunted eyes. “Yes, she does.” She knew much more than she’d told, of that Daniel was certain, just as he was certain that she’d suffered at Simon’s hand. He hoped she’d tell him in her own time.

“Who else?”

“Philly PD. I gave Detective Vito Ciccotelli copies. At the time I thought they were part of his case.” Daniel leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his eyes on Alicia Tremaine’s face. “Simon was the first owner of the pictures. First that I know of, anyway. I know he had them before he died.” He glanced over at Luke. “The first time he died.”

“Twelve years ago,” Luke supplied, then shrugged. “Mama read it in the paper.”

Daniel’s lips thinned. “Mama Papa and millions of her closest friends. It doesn’t matter. My father found these pictures and threw Simon out of the house, told him if he ever came back he’d turn Simon over to the police. Simon had just turned eighteen.”

“Your father. The judge. He just let Simon go.”

“Good old Dad. He was afraid if the pictures became public, he’d lose the election.”

“But he kept the pictures? Why?”

“Dad didn’t want Simon ever coming back, so he held the pictures as insurance, blackmail. A few days later my father told my mother that he’d received a phone call, that Simon had died in a car crash in Mexico. Dad went down there, brought the body home, had it buried in the family plot.”

“But it’s an unidentified man almost a foot shorter than Simon.” Luke shrugged again. “It was a good article—had lots of details. So how did your mother get these?”

“The first time she found them in Dad’s safe. That was eleven years ago, a year after Simon ‘died.’ She found the pictures and some drawings Simon had made from them. My mother rarely cried, but she cried about those pictures. I found her that way.”

“And you saw the pictures.”

“Only a glimpse. Enough to suspect at least some of them were real. But my father came home then and was so angry. He had to admit he’d had them for a year. I said we should turn them over to the police, but my father refused. He said it would be bad for the family name and Simon was already dead, so what was the point?”

Luke was frowning. “The point? Like, the victims? That was the point.”

“Of course it was. But when I tried to take the pictures to the police, we got into it.” Daniel clenched his hands into fists, remembering. “I almost hit him. I was so mad.”

“So what did you do?” Luke asked quietly.

“I left the house to cool down, but when I came back, my father had burned the photos in the fireplace. They were gone.”

“Obviously not gone.” Luke pointed to the envelope.

“He must’ve had copies somewhere else. I was . . . stunned. My mother was telling me it was for the best and my father was standing looking so smug and superior. I lost it. I hit him. Knocked him down. We had a terrible fight. I was on my way out the front door when Susannah came in the back. She’d missed the reason for the fight and I didn’t want her to know. She was only seventeen. Turned out she knew more than I thought. If we’d talked then . . .” Daniel thought of the seventeen bodies Simon had left behind in Philadelphia. “Who knows what we might have averted?”

“Did you tell anyone?”

Daniel shrugged, disgusted with himself. “Tell them what? I had no proof and it was my word against that of a judge. My sister hadn’t seen any of it and my mother would never have crossed my father. So I said nothing and I’ve regretted it ever since.”

“So you left home and never came back.”

“Not until I got the call from the Dutton sheriff two weeks ago that they were missing. It was the same day I found out my mother had cancer. I just wanted to see her once more, but she’d already been dead for two months.” Killed by Simon.