The Avenger (19 page)

With a groan like a man in pain, he released her lips to trail a line of ravaging kisses down her neck and across her collarbone. He slipped his large warm hands under her shirt, up her bare back, and reached around to cup one of her breasts through the flimsy lace of her bra. Delicious tingles began in her nipples and moved down to pool between her legs as he ground his hips into her. He fumbled with the clasp at the front of her bra and she felt the sweet release of her breasts and the unbearable pleasure of his fingers caressing her nipple.

She ran her hands underneath his tee shirt, slid them up the smooth hard muscles of his back, and felt him tremble at her touch. Fumbling with his jeans, she undid the buttons and shoved at the garment until it hung low on his hips. A sigh of pleasure escaped her as she felt the texture of his skin, the furred dip below his waist. She reached for him, burning to take the hard hot length of him in her hand.

Without warning she heard him growl, a low feral sound that rumbled from his chest up into his throat. In the dim light she saw his dark eyes gleam, black slits set in even blacker pupils. As she tightened her arms around his waist, she registered the changes in him: the muscled flesh of his back and chest, the thickness of his thighs and the stockiness of his body. The heavy jutting of his groin against her stomach.
He seemed different.

"For God's sake, Livvie." He shoved away from her and she lost her balance, landing hard on the carpet. "Don't make me hurt you!"

She gazed up at him from her position on the floor, shuddering at the changes in him. She'd always known Jack was trouble. From the beginning he'd been different from the other boys in school. Something dark and foreboding had always lingered near him, something that'd intensified during his senior year.

But she'd briefly known another Jack, the boy-man who'd saved her from the demon named Roger. As a teenager, she'd loved him with all the sentimental ardor of youth. As a grown woman, she understood the desires of her body and knew what she wanted. Even after all these years, Jack's claim on her was a giant fist gripping her heart.

With a groan that was like an animal's cry of pain, Jack knelt on the floor beside her. "Let me go, Livvie," he whispered in her ear. "Let me go before something awful happens." He pulled her to her feet, holding both her hands in his.

Unable to speak, she nodded mutely.

Jack heaved a relieved sigh and then he was gone.

Although Olivia was exhausted, she couldn't rest, and in spite of the chilly night, she opened the bedroom window and watched the shadows on the street below. A soft breeze ruffled the curtains, making the coldness inside her more chilling. A shudder ran through her, but not from the night air.

Hours ago she'd watched Jack get in his car. The temptation to race down the stairs and beg him to stay had been so intense she dug her fingernails into her palms to keep from giving in to it. He'd sat there for a long time like a man in a trance before he'd turned on the lights, put the car in gear, and driven off.

When her cell phone rang, she grabbed it from the nightstand, certain it was him.

Waylon Harris' deep bass sounded over the line. "Uh, sorry to bother you so late, Dr. Gant, but I can't get Agent Holt on the phone, and I thought maybe ... " His voice trailed off and Olivia wondered if he'd noticed something pass between her and Jack. Had they been so transparent?

She glanced at the clock. "Is it important?"

She could almost see his dark face blush, heard the embarrassment in his voice. "Uh, well, ma'am, I think he'd want to have my report right away. I just got back from the Lake Tahoe crime scene."

Where Keisha's body was found.

"I took a crime tech up there with me," Harris continued. "We enlarged the perimeter, and after about four hours of searching, we found another note. That's why I'm calling so late. Uh, you want I should read it to you?"

"Yes," she answered, grabbing a pen and paper from the dresser.

Haltingly, one letter at a time, Harris read the note and Olivia carefully repeated the letters as she wrote them down.

RECTAESTFATMAINMAGNISHABITAT.

"We found the paper caught in the brush down a ways from the body site," Harris added. "The wind must've blown it off."

After hanging up, Olivia examined the note. Like the note on Carl Bender's body, this message had all capital letters, no spaces or punctuation. She drew vertical lines between certain letters, dividing them into words, and then separated them into two separate sentences. The first half of the note translated to 'She has been ruled' and the second, 'Fame lives in great things.'

She jotted down the translations even though she had absolutely no idea what they meant in relation to poor Keisha's mangled body.

Chapter Nineteen

Olivia managed to pull into her campus parking space with nearly half an hour to spare before her first class. Hurrying up the concrete steps, she hurried across the crowded campus toward her office in Vincent Hall. The door was closed.
Good, apparently Howard hadn't arrived yet.
She slipped her key into the lock and noisily entered the room.

Howard Randolph jumped back from the edge of her desk, a guilty look on his face. Every part of her body must have showed the shock that rippled through her at Howard invading her privacy. "Howard! What are you doing?"

Her officemate's normally unflappable demeanor slipped. He'd been caught snooping through her private materials. What excuse could he offer?

Howard made a weak attempt at humor. "Olivia, my dear, you frightened the bejeezus out of me." He laughed weakly. "Sorry for the language, but you really shouldn't sneak up on a person like that."

When she continued to stare at him, he rushed on. "I've run out of those little yellow sticky pads. I thought you might have an extra packet in your desk drawer."

Did he think she was an idiot?
Her eyes slid to the spot where he'd let his hand linger on her in-box, and she noticed that her computer was turned on, the home page brightly lit as though someone had recently touched a random key. She hadn't left so hurriedly yesterday that she'd forgotten to turn it off, had she? No, she distinctly remembered closing it down. Anyway, the screen saver wouldn't be flickering if it'd been in sleep mode since yesterday. She frowned, enraged at both his transparent attempt to cover up the fact that he was spying on her, and at herself for questioning her memory.

"I don't have any," she answered sharply. Better to grab the bull by the horns and confront the man straight on. "Why did you turn my computer on?"

Howard looked flustered and turned to the monitor, gaping as though he'd just noticed the light from the screen. "I'm sure the computer was on when I came in, Olivia." His voice took on a priggish tone. "You don't think I did that, do you? I assure you I didn't. And I'm sorry I was searching for the note pads. I'll be sure not to disturb you again."

His self-righteousness irked her, but she refused to be put on the defensive. Howard was the trespasser. "You need to respect my boundaries, Howard."

"Of course, you're absolutely right." Stiff-lipped, he strolled over to his desk and dipped his head into the open book that lay on his desk, effectively ending the discussion. Olivia sat behind her desk and covertly watched him.

No more than a few moments of awkward silence had deepened between them, when Ted Burrows entered the office, bearing a batch of papers. He glanced at Olivia once before he pulled up the extra chair close to Howard's desk.

Olivia turned to her computer, her back to them, and began a search of last-visited sites. She didn't believe Howard's story for a second, but what could he be looking for on her computer? Uneasiness crept up her neck. How could she be comfortable around the man any more?

"Got these papers, Dr. Randolph," she heard Burrows say with sly familiarity, the words followed by the soft plop of papers landing on a hard surface. Ted wasn't as innocent as his charm suggested, but she reminded herself, what exact harm had either done?

What provable harm.

Olivia didn't want to eavesdrop on the two men, but shreds of their conversation wafted to her through the space of the small office. They appeared to be arguing quietly, Ted's voice wheedling and coaxing until Howard's rose in agitation.

She heard something like, "Back off" and "You don't want to go there, Ted."

Finally, she heard the shuffling of papers, the scrap of chair wheels on linoleum, and Ted's final words. "Don't fuck with me, Randolph. I know too many secrets."

Olivia glanced over her shoulder to meet the stormy eyes of her office mate. Something dangerous she'd never seen before raged on the icy surface of the blue irises. However, before anything was said, Howard grabbed his briefcase and hurried out the door, shooting a final grim look her way. What was going on between the two of them? Their relationship seemed far more intense than professor and teaching assistant, especially ones who'd just begun working together? And what was Howard
really
looking for when he rifled through her desk?

#

The team met in Slater's office later that morning. Deputy Harris was there, and no one mentioned the absent Jack. Isabella Torres was trying to make her case for another interview with Diego Vargas. "The whole Vargas family has ties to the Norteños." Torres rested a hip on Slater's desk.

"You're messing with a dangerous bunch," Slater argued.

"That’s why I have to take him down."

"The Mexican Mafia – the Sureños – keep to the southern part of the state," Slater explained for Olivia's benefit, "but the Norteños run the north."

"Diego Vargas is a vicious man," Torres said. "In my interview with him he was almost completely devoid of affect. He enjoys playing little mind games with people."

"See – a full-blown sociopath," Slater said.

"Could he be involved in something deeper than campaign fraud?" Olivia ventured.

"Like what?" Slater asked.

Torres threw up her hands in exasperation."His wife’s claims of abuse? Vargas likes to hurt people – women – he’s ruthless, and he has absolutely no boundaries."

"You'd better get your hard evidence shored up, counselor," Slater warned.

"I'm setting up another appointment with Vargas." Isabella glanced at Olivia. "I thought Dr. Gant could accompany me."

"Me? Why?"

"Vargas is a dyed-in-the-wool Catholic." Torres shrugged. "You might see something I don't."

Olivia smiled although she didn't feel like it. "Why not?"
What else did she have to lose?

When the conversation turned back to the DLK case, Olivia could tell Slater was pleased with the translation of the latest note, although no one had any idea what it meant in relation to the case. Minutes later they finished up and Isabella and Harris left.

"Be careful around Vargas," Slater warned Olivia.

She remembered the yellowing bruises and frightened eyes of Magdalena Vargas' photos and thought of her ex-husband's violent tendencies.

"Diego Vargas is a dangerous enemy, and like a cornered animal, he'll attack desperately and viciously if pinned against a wall," Slater warned. "Torres is young and sometimes she gets a little cocky. Be careful around Vargas."

#

Olivia and Isabella Torres sat across from the Councilman Vargas as guests in his office. Olivia suspected he’d arranged the meeting here as a psychological advantage.

An imposing and taciturn giant named Santos leaned against the wall in a pose that reminded her of a crouching tiger toying with a small animal. Vargas was a bull, charging straight on and goring his enemy with a single powerful thrust, but Santos was the one who meted out indifferent violence as warnings, the cost of running the smoothly oiled machinery of Vargas’ activities.

Olivia had done her homework on the councilman.

She glanced around the spacious office at the trappings of power and position. A flag of Mexico hung behind Vargas' desk, its green, white, and red vertical stripes oddly unsettling beside the red, white, and blue of Old Glory and the California Bear Flag. In a picture of César Chávez at a rally with his arm draped around a dark-skinned boy who surely must be the young Vargas, both grinned into the camera. The usual municipal code books aligned against the wall behind her. All photos were political in nature, one of Vargas with the current governor, another of him shaking hands with the head of the United Farm Workers of America. Noticeably absent were pictures of Vargas’ wife and family.

The councilman allowed them several moments of gazing around the room. She understood this, too, was a power ploy. Vargas controlled the meeting.
He
determined when it began and when it ended. When she met his eyes, he was smiling with the bearing and stance of a proud and confident leader.

"So, the beautiful and persistent ADA requests yet another interview with me." Vargas inclined his head in an old-world gesture, inviting them to sit in one of a pair of dark leather chairs. "How can I extend the service of my office?"

"Just a few more loose ends if you don’t mind." Isabella reached into her briefcase and retrieved a pen and notepad along with a small recorder. "I’ll record this conversation." She paused and raised her eyebrows in question. "If you don’t mind, that is."

The flush began in his bull’s neck and crept steadily up to the snowy collar of his shirt where a blue tie with red flecks threatened to choke off his air. "Of course, I do not mind. Only someone with secrets to hide would object." Vargas spread his beefy hands in a parody of apology. "But alas, my attorney would absolutely forbid it." He let his gaze slide to Santos, who'd straightened up from the wall.

Olivia was surprised by the implication that Santos was both bodyguard and lawyer. Surely the brute of a man to whom they’d turned their backs hadn’t the patience or intelligence to study for the bar. But the crafty gleam in his eyes told her Santos was cleverer than she’d believed. She felt ice deep in her bones.