Stalked (32 page)

Mitchell Brandt was being blackmailed. If Serena meant what he thought she did, then Dan Erickson was being blackmailed, too. By someone who also knew about the sex club and the alpha girls. That made him a prime suspect in the string of rapes and in the murders of Eric and Tanjy.

He suffered a flash of anger as he wondered how much Serena knew and why she didn’t tell him.

After months operating in the shadows, the blackmailer had to realize the clock was ticking. The police knew about the rapes now. It was only a matter of time before Stride put the pieces together.

That meant Dan Erickson was in the path of the hurricane. So was Serena.

Serena parked in an empty lot underneath the soaring span of the Blatnik Bridge leading across Superior Bay to Wisconsin. Its concrete Y-shaped supports aligned like a row of soldiers marching from the city out into the water, following a trail of white lights. Every time a car sped by overhead, the steel highway bed became a tin drum and boomed. As Serena got out of her car, the ice sheet of the harbor was on her right. On the opposite side of the road, where it circled back to the city, were the dark fields leading to the silos of the port terminal. This was where the industry of the city was done during the warmer months, bustling with dozens of ore boats loading and offloading their bellies. The port was abandoned now, locked up with ice and awaiting the spring thaw.

Snow had begun, whipping through the bridge lights like a field of shooting stars. She blinked as the flakes assaulted her eyes. She had her Glock tightly in one hand and a duct-taped shoe box under her arm, heavy with hundred dollar bills. The road, the park, the frozen water, the port buildings, and the fields leading across the railroad tracks were all deserted. She wondered where he was.

Her heels were buried in six inches of wet snow, and her feet quickly grew numb and cold. She didn’t have time to change after finding the note, only time to make the pick up at Dan’s house and follow the freeway back to the harbor basin. Now, she wished she had kept spare boots in the car. She found an open area near the bridge tower where the snow was matted down and waited there. She danced impatiently, stamping her feet. The chill traveled up her body.

A wave of vibration rumbled through the concrete as a double-trailored semi streaked along the bridge out over the water directly above her. The thunder of the tin drum made her shudder, as if the bridge were falling around her.

Her cell phone rang, and she put the shoe box down in the snow so she could grab her phone with her free hand.

“Where are you?” Stride asked.

Serena took a cautious look around the empty lot. As the snow intensified, it was becoming hard to see. “I’m on a job. I can’t talk.”

“Is this about Dan’s blackmail?”

She hesitated. “Yes.”

“Get the hell out of there,” he told her. “Brandt was being blackmailed, too. This guy knows all about the sex clubs and the alpha girls. He may be our perp.”

“Then this is our chance to get him,” Serena said.

“Not by yourself.”

“I was a cop for ten years. I can take care of myself.”

“You should have told me what was going on with Dan.”

“I couldn’t, you know that.”

“Where the hell are you?”

She thought about not telling him, but she realized she was being stupid and stubborn. “I’m down in Rices Point under the bridge.”

“Are you completely fucking crazy?”

“He picked the spot.”

“Get out right now, he may be coming after you.”

“He’s coming after a box full of money. That’s what he wants.”

“I’m sending a car down there.”

“
Don’t
do that,” Serena insisted. “You’ll scare him off.”

“Then I’ll come myself.”

Her phone beeped in her ear. Another call was coming in. She knew who it was.

“No, don’t do that, Jonny. Not yet. Give me half an hour. If I don’t call you back, send in the troops.”

She hung up before he could answer. When she switched over to the other call, she heard the blackmailer’s voice and realized there was something distantly familiar about it. She wished she knew why, but it was one of those memories that had to come in its own time and couldn’t be rushed. The one thing she knew was that the memory carried something dark with it, and the vibration in her spine this time wasn’t from the traffic on the bridge, but from a sudden fear.

“Did you have fun tonight?” he asked.

Serena was silent.

“I was picturing you inside,” he went on. “Did you get naked like all the others?”

“Fuck off.”

“Did all that sex make you wet? Did you play with yourself?”

“I’m leaving,” Serena said. “With your money.”

“No, you’re not. You’re staying right there.”

“Watch me.” Serena bent down to pick up the shoe box and hoped he could see her. She waited, wanting to see what he did next.

“Tell me what it’s like,” he said.

“It sounds like you know.”

“Do you want to be an alpha girl?”

“No thanks.”

“Too bad,” he said. “You could be just like your friend Maggie. Or Katrina. They were alpha girls.”

The implications of what he said made her whole body go rigid. She clutched her gun tighter and didn’t reply.

“You’re afraid of me now,” he said.

“Why should I be?”

“You know what I did to them.”

She stood there, frozen, letting the snow paint her body white. “Yes.”

“I’m going to do the same thing to you. I just wanted you to know that now.”

“You bastard.”

“And much worse, Serena. Much, much worse.”

She hung up the phone. Stumbling, falling, getting up, she began running back to her car. She peered over her shoulder, hair flying, and then spun, spying everywhere around her, certain that she would see him coming for her. The tin drum boomed again; she screamed and bit her tongue, quieting herself, and tasted blood. Snow swarmed down and followed her like bees roused from a hive.

As she ran, the box of money slipped from her grasp and tumbled away. She cursed and bent to retrieve it, and when she stood up, she was blinded by the glare of a white beacon bathing her body in light. A familiar siren shrieked and stopped. She saw twisting red lights rotating atop a Duluth city police car, and she had never been so grateful that Jonny hadn’t listened to her.

Paralyzed in the light, feeling like a deer on the highway, she also realized she was holding a gun and a box filled with cash.

The cop saw it, too. He used a loudspeaker, and she heard a Southern accent. “Throw the gun away.”

She did.

“Put the box down.”

She did that, too.

“Lie down and keep your arms away from you.”

Serena’s arms were in the air. She went down on both knees and then laid her palms flat on the snow as she stretched out her body. She craned her neck to see, but the searchlight was in her eyes. She heard the door of the squad car open, and the cop shouted to her without the microphone.

“Don’t move.”

She was absolutely still, holding her breath.

“It’s okay, officer,” she said as he came closer. “My name is Serena Dial. I’m Lieutenant Stride’s partner.”

“Shut up.”

He was angry, and under the anger was probably fear. She didn’t say anything else, not wanting to rile him. She saw a silhouette of long, muscled legs, and in his hand, by his thigh, was his gun, pointed at her. He came around behind her. She lay there, not moving; it was like having a bear sniff around you as you played dead. He retrieved her gun where she had thrown it in the snow, removed the magazine, and deposited it in his pocket.

She grimaced as his knee landed in the center of her back. He took one of her wrists roughly, twisted it behind her, and latched her wrist in the loop of his handcuffs. He took her other arm, too, and secured her. He grabbed the scruff of her neck with thick fingers. She smelled his hands.

“Get up.”

He hadn’t holstered his gun yet. She came up to her knees as he pulled her, and she got to her feet carefully, not making any sudden movements.

“What’s in the box?” he asked.

“Money. Look, call Stride. He knows what’s going on.”

“Get in the car.”

He landed the heel of his palm on her neck and shoved her forward. He picked up the box as they headed for the police car. She walked a couple of paces ahead of him and listened to her senses, which were saying an odd word to her.

Fish
.

In her nose, a stench of fish spoiled the fresh aroma of snow, and she realized it came from the cop, where his fingers had roughly grabbed her skin. His hands smelled like fish.

That was just how her car smelled when she got back into it after the party.

Exactly
like that.

Thoughts spilled through her brain, and the more they did, the more her relief blew away like ash from a fire. She thought about how odd it was that Jonny would ignore her and send a car down here anyway. She thought about how fast the car had made it here. She thought about an offhanded comment Jonny had made to her yesterday.

Pete McKay managed to get his patrol car stolen while he was on a call at the high school
.

She had made a horrible mistake. The accent in his voice was a disguise. There was no cop behind her.
It was him
. He had told her what he was going to do to her, and she let him walk right up to her, disarm her, and put her in cuffs.

Serena didn’t look back or change her gait, but she knew she had only a few seconds to make a move. Once they got to the car, she was trapped. Overhead, on the bridge, she saw the lights of a truck speeding away from the city, and she knew that it was about to bang the tin drum loudly. She tensed.

The highway bed boomed, and the man behind her jerked involuntarily. She could hear his clothes rustle as his instincts kicked in and he looked back over his shoulder just for a split second. Serena ran. She galloped through the snow, breaking away from him and heading for the fields and long grass that led toward the port terminal. He recovered and was after her immediately, but Serena was fast. Her shoes slipped off her feet, and she ran even faster that way, struggling to stay balanced with her arms locked behind her. She didn’t look back, but heard him grunt as he fell. She reached the road, shot across it, and leaped down into the tall brush, which rose almost to her neck. When she risked a look back, she didn’t see him.

Fighting through the snow was like running through deep water. The effort exhausted her, and only the blood pumping madly through her veins kept her feet from freezing. She passed under drooping telephone wires and near the concrete skeletons of a bridge that had been torn down years ago, leaving behind rubble that may as well have been the bombed-out remains of a war zone. He was back behind her again; she could hear him beating through the weeds. She emerged out of the field after a hundred yards and found herself in the middle of a field of snow-lined railroad tracks winding into the heart of the port. Rusted railway cars sat there, abandoned for the season. The struggle to run without her arms pumping at her side was wearing her down. As she followed the tracks, she pitched forward, tripping on a brick of ice. Something hard and sharp cut her face. She lost precious seconds twisting and turning and fighting back to her feet, and she saw him behind her, a violent shadow, bursting from the grassy field and steering for her, closing the gap.

She didn’t know how much time had passed, and she prayed that Jonny would soon be flooding the area with police.

The tracks led her into the port, and she found herself in a world populated by sleeping giants. Cranes soared into the sky, hooks dangling on steel cables like hangmen. Snow-covered mountains of dirt, scrap metal, and taconite dwarfed her, and concrete silos more than a hundred feet tall towered over the flat land. She tried to lose herself in the huge, silent maze, where the only noise was the hiss of the blizzard. She watched and listened for him, but he had melted into the port behind her and vanished. He could be anywhere.

She had trouble walking. Her feet trailed blood, and she could barely feel them or move her toes. Cuts and bruises stung her face, and she tasted more blood on her lips. The handcuffs rubbed her wrists raw. She couldn’t move anymore. She stopped where a crevice had eroded into a pyramid of earth and forced herself inside, hating that she couldn’t see out, hoping he wouldn’t cross in front of her. She squatted, making herself small, but she swayed on her frostbitten feet and toppled forward, exposed. Snow continued to fall in a white rain that chilled and enveloped her. She tried to right herself, but she had no strength anymore except to lie there and hope that the giants would protect her.

Her cell phone began ringing. It was ungodly loud. Her hands were tied, and all she could do was listen to it shoot up a flare for him. She heard the slow, sure crunch of his footsteps as he found her and glimpsed his shadow looming over her, and she didn’t even care. He laughed, staring down at her prone body, and dragged her by her collar off the ground. His revolver was flipped in his hand, the butt facing out. She had no more fight.

“Time for a little payback,” he said.

The gun flew up, it flew down, and somewhere she saw the orange light of the sun coming closer and burning her eyes and leaving her blind.