Kate wanted it to be over. She closed her eyes and cried into the gag. Then he put his mouth on hers. She smelled alcohol and cigarettes and bad teeth. Gagging, she turned her head. Surprise and hope flashed inside her when he withdrew and let her turn away. Then she was on her belly and he was coming at her from behind.
Her seventeen-year-old mind could never have imagined what he did to her next. The pain was like nothing she’d ever experienced. The horror was too much for her mind to absorb. He wrapped one hand around her neck and crammed her face into the dirt. Then he was pushing into her. Tearing her skin. Pain ignited like fire. She struggled, but he shoved her face harder into the dirt. It was in her eyes, in her mouth. She could feel something sharp cutting the side of her face. She couldn’t breathe. . . .
Then he was inside her and she couldn’t think of anything except the pain. The horror of what this evil man was doing to her. And for the first time in her young life, Kate wished she was dead. She did not want to survive this. She did not want to carry this experience with her for the rest of her life. She thought about Kirsten and prayed that God would spare her. This was Kate’s doing. She’d been the one to suggest they sneak out of the house. This was her fault.
She didn’t know how long the violation went on. It seemed like a lifetime. When he finally withdrew and stood, she lay there, her body racked with pain. Her mind too overwhelmed with horror to react. She could feel the warmth of semen and blood between her buttocks. Her mouth was open, the bra hanging out. Blood and saliva forming a puddle. At some point she’d vomited. She could smell it as it wet the dirt. But still she didn’t move.
Vaguely she was aware of his boots crunching in the dirt. The two men talking. Then he was standing over her. Groaning, Kate shifted onto her side. Drawing her knees up to her chest, she looked up at him. He was holding a wrench in his right hand, looking down at her, intent clear in his eyes.
“Close your eyes,” he said.
She knew he was going to kill her, but she was strangely unafraid and accepted that she would die here and now.
He raised the wrench over his head.
She closed her eyes.
And then the world shattered.
Kate jerked awake abruptly. Groggy and disoriented, she fumbled for the alarm and punched the snooze, but it didn’t stop the incessant noise. By the fourth ring she was awake enough to realize it wasn’t her alarm drilling into her brain, but the phone.
The first thought that struck her was that something had happened to Kirsten. Kate had had enough tragedy in her life to know phone calls in the middle of the night were never good.
Rolling onto her side, she reached for the phone, “Hello?”
Silence.
“Hello?” she repeated. “Is someone there?”
She could hear the faint hiss of an open line; she sensed someone on the other end. She could hear faint breathing. A slight rustle.
The hairs at her nape prickled. Gooseflesh raced down her arms. “Who’s there?”
“Check your front porch, Katie,” came a guttural, whispered voice.
Kate sat up straight, adrenaline shooting from her belly to her toes. “Who is this?”
“Are you sure you want to know?”
A click sounded and then the line went dead.
For the span of several seconds, Kate sat there holding the phone, her mind racing in perfect time with her heart. All she could think was that the caller knew her name. He had her phone number, which made her uneasy because her number was unlisted. As an ADA, she dealt with some form of the criminal element on an almost daily basis. Even though the State of Texas kept her abreast of the release dates of prisoners she’d sent to prison, she’d gotten an unlisted number to keep some convict from calling her when he was released.
So how had this guy gotten her number? Who was he? And what had he meant when he’d told her to check the porch?
For an instant she considered calling 911. But with Dallas being one of the most violent cities in the nation, she knew something as minor as a prank call wouldn’t warrant sending an officer. What could the police do? The caller hadn’t threatened her. All she could do was report the incident to the phone company first thing in the morning and get her number changed.
Slipping into her robe, she opened the night table drawer and pulled out the mini magnum. Easing the hammer back with her thumb, she left the bedroom and padded down the hall and into the living room.
Around her the house was silent and still. Her footsteps were little more than a whisper as she crossed through the living room. At the front door she parted the curtain at the side-light and peeked out. Her vision was relatively unobscured. The porch was small, and she could see there was no one there. Then she spotted the small object about the size of a wadded-up sock on the welcome mat, and a chill raced through her.
Kate flipped on the porch light. The gun cocked and ready in her hand, she stepped onto the porch and looked around. “Who’s there?” she called out in her toughest voice.
The only answer was the hiss of wind through the trees.
Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, she stooped to get a closer look at the object. If some prankster had thrown a used condom or something gross, she was going to . . .
Adrenaline struck her like a fist when she realized the object was a tattered blue bandanna. A bandanna just like the one used to bind her hands on that terrible night eleven years ago . . .
Facedown in the grass. Dirt in her mouth. Horror exploding in her brain. Pain ripping through her body. Her innocence shattered. Her life changed forever . . .
She heard her quick intake of breath. Nausea filled her mouth with the bitter taste of bile. She stared in disbelief. All the while her heart screamed a denial. This couldn’t possibly have anything to do with what had happened in Houston all those years ago.
But Kate didn’t believe in coincidence. Her logical mind knew the bandanna had not been tossed onto her porch randomly. Someone knew. And they were using that knowledge to frighten her.
The overriding question was who. Who would have something to gain by frightening her? Had some convict been released and decided to exact revenge against the woman who’d sent him to prison? Did it have something to do with the Bruton Ellis case? Or maybe the man who’d raped her and left her for dead had come back to finish the job . . .
Shuddering at the thought, Kate went back inside and locked the door behind her. Flipping on lights as she went, she strode to the kitchen, yanked open the drawer, and removed a plastic freezer bag from its container. At the small desk where she paid her bills, she opened the pencil drawer and removed a letter opener. Then she crossed back through the living room, checked the sidelights again, and opened the door. Kneeling, she used the letter opener to put the bandanna in the freezer bag.
She knew one of the trace evidence analysts at the Institute of Forensic Sciences. She could take it to him, pay for testing herself, and see what came back. But Kate knew that even if the thing was covered with blood or semen, unless a crime had been committed, there was nothing the police could do.
But how could anyone possibly know what had happened? Her parents had gone to great lengths to protect her and Kirsten’s privacy. Their names had never been made public. The only people who’d known about the sexual assaults were the police and hospital personnel.
Holding the mini magnum in one hand, the bag containing the bandanna in the other, Kate looked out at the trees surrounding the gravel driveway. “You make one wrong move, you son of a bitch, and I swear to God I’ll put a bullet in your heart.”
The night responded with a cold gust of wind that chilled her to the bone.
NINE
FRIDAY, JANUARY 27, 7:23 A.M.
Frank had had a bad night. He’d had a lot of bad nights in the last year. Nights that were sleepless and black and endless. Judging from the pain zinging up his leg, this morning wasn’t going to be any better. Maybe even worse.
The doctor had warned him this c
ould happen. He’d prescribed painkillers, which Frank was all too willing to take. But it was like trying to put out a forest fire with a straw.
The first tinges of pain had wakened him at midnight. At first, it had been a gentle ebb and flow that had lapped at the backwaters of his consciousness like tentative fingertips. But within an hour those waves had augmented to huge undulating monsters that had pulled him from sleep and into a black abyss of torment.
He’d been dreaming of that day at the café in Jerusalem. Of Gittel in her pretty blue dress. A smile so lovely it hurt just to look at her. A need so powerful he could barely bring himself to remember.
Even in sleep his mind could recall the moment with startling clarity. The violence of the blast. The shock of pain when his eardrum had burst. Searing heat that ran from his left buttock to his toes as shrapnel severed muscle and shattered bone. He saw blood against the cobblestone street. Black smoke billowing into a blue sky. He smelled burned flesh and singed hair and the coppery stench of blood. He could feel the heat of the fire burning his skin.
The nightmare was bad enough.
But the pain was worse.
By midnight it had been like death, black and vicious, and Frank thought he died a little more with every minute he endured it. At one A.M. he took the usual dose of muscle relaxers. An hour later he doubled the dose. By two forty-five he was sweating and writhing and cursing the very God who’d spared his life that fateful day one year ago. By four-thirty A.M., desperate and willing to do anything to stop the cycle of pain, he did the one thing he hated most and dug the powerful painkillers out of his medicine cabinet and downed them with vodka and tap water.
But not even the marvels of modern narcotics could ease the pain of a nervous system gone haywire. By the time six A.M. rolled around, Frank was starting to think death was a better alternative than the agonizing existence he’d been relegated to since a piece of shrapnel had shattered his leg. The doctors had saved the leg. With the help of a titanium rod and a small piece of bone from his hip, they’d even managed to keep him out of a wheelchair.
No one had counted on an obscure nerve disorder stepping in eight months later and turning what was left of his life into a living hell. After four doctors and too many misdiagnoses to count, he was ultimately diagnosed with Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome. A chronic condition characterized by severe burning pain, swelling in the afflicted limb, and extreme sensitivity to touch. A terrible disorder that affected the nerves, skin, muscles, blood vessels, and bones. Frank had been in stage two by the time it was diagnosed. By then the disorder had affected every facet of his life, including his job and his frame of mind.
He spent the night in a hazy world of cold sweats, total physical exhaustion, and pain so horrific at times he could hear his own screams echoing inside his head. It hurt to lie on the sofa. It hurt to lie in bed. He tried elevating his leg, but the pain was so bad he couldn’t lie still. It was too goddamn cold to get into the pool. A warm shower usually helped, but by then he was so fucked up on painkillers he couldn’t stand.
So much for that pain management clinic he’d attended a couple of months back.
Several times he considered calling the emergency room. A couple of times he even reached for the phone. Both times Frank set it back into its cradle. He would never forget the way the paramedics and emergency room personnel had looked at him last time. As if he were some kind of mental case. The doctor had taken one look at his mangled leg and year-old scars and chalked his “discomfort” as psychological in origin. The ordeal had been a humiliation Frank could do without. If it killed him, he was going to wait until his personal physician’s office opened at eight-thirty.
He knew he should call Kate. But he knew from experience that no matter how hard he tried to speak normally, the powerful narcotics invariably affected his speech. He could imagine how the conversation would go down if he called in, slurring his words.
Groaning, he reached for the painkillers on the night table beside his bed. He couldn’t remember how long it had been since he’d taken one, but he didn’t care. If he was lucky, he’d pass out.
An animal sound squeezed from his throat as he twisted the lid off the brown bottle. He could feel his heart pounding madly in his chest, his leg throbbing with every excruciating beat. His hands shook as he tapped out a pill. His fingers were so thick he could barely get the capsule into his mouth. His mouth was so dry he didn’t know how he was going to swallow. Then he remembered the vodka.
He tossed back the pill and took a long pull. Setting down the glass, he fell back onto the pillows. Another hot wave of pain rolled up his leg. His quadriceps cramped. Searing heat spread from calf to thigh to buttock to spine.
“Aw, God.” Frank saw stars. Felt his eyes roll back in their sockets. He heard that terrible sound again and for a moment thought some wild animal was running loose in his house. Then he realized the sound had come from him. He acknowledged that he was in trouble. That he needed help. That he should have done something about this a long time ago.
Another wave of agony struck him like a tidal wave, burning him with heat so intense he clamped his teeth together to keep himself from screaming. But he didn’t have the breath to scream.
Stars exploded black and white in his peripheral vision. The room dipped and spun like a carnival ride. Closing his eyes, Frank cursed and prayed for the darkness to take him.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 27, 5:25 P.M.
“Damn you, Matrone.”
Kate set the phone in its cradle and tried hard not to let the anger get the best of her. But she was fuming. It was the third time she’d tried to reach Frank and the third time she’d been forced to leave a message.
He hadn’t shown up for work this morning, didn’t bother to call, and by the end of the day Kate was ready to drive over to his house and strangle him with her bare hands. She’d spent the morning in court, the afternoon had been divided by meetings and a conference call she hadn’t been able to wriggle out of. Every moment in between she’d been unsuccessfully trying to run down her AWOL investigator. Where the hell was he? What was he thinking not showing up for work?
Resigned to picking up the slack herself—at least until she could get the situation resolved—Kate opened the brown expandable file she’d pilfered from Frank’s desk and began to page through it, trying to figure out what he’d been working on.
“You look frazzled.”
She glanced up to see Liz Gordon at her door and managed a weak smile. “You have no idea.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
Kate sighed, wanting to unload, knowing she couldn’t. Being an ADA definitely had its advantages. But at times like this—times when she was stressed out and weary to her bones—Kate wished she were one of the girls so she could confide. Maybe even complain a little. “Thanks but I think I’m going to have to deal with this particular problem on my own.”
Liz plopped into the visitor chair opposite her desk. “Matrone?”
If Kate hadn’t been so surprised, she might have laughed. “Does that mean I’m not the only one who’s noticed he doesn’t show up for work half the time?”
“Please tell me you’re not going to fire him.”
Kate didn’t respond.
Liz made a sound of exasperation. “Kate, do you have any idea how many hearts you’ll break?”
“I have no earthly idea what that means.”
“Half the women in this office are in love with him. The other half just wants to sleep with him.”
Kate rolled her eyes. “Oh, brother.”
Leaning back in her chair, Liz smiled. “Don’t tell me you’ve got your head buried so deep in work that you haven’t noticed.”
“The only thing I’ve noticed is that he doesn’t show up for work.”
“Kate, the man is drop-dead gorgeous. We’re talking hot. We’re talking melted Belgian chocolate and Godiva dark rolled into a single, mouthwatering piece of man-flesh.”
Kate stare
d at her friend, not sure what to say, painfully aware of the heat creeping up her cheeks. She did not want to think of Frank Matrone in terms of man-flesh or chocolate.
“You’re blushing.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Oh my God!” The paralegal choked out a laugh. “You have noticed! Kate Megason is human. Break out the champagne!”
Kate glanced uneasily toward her office door. “Would you keep your voice down? I’m trying to maintain a professional image here.”
“Oh, Kate, I was starting to get worried about you. Like maybe you’d been born without ovaries or something.”
“My ovaries are just fine, damn it. Not that it’s anybody’s business.”
“So do you think he’s cute?”
“I think my dad’s pug is cute.”
Liz bit her lip. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this.”
“Tell me what?”
“Promise you won’t get mad.”
“The only thing that’s going to make me mad is if you don’t tell me what you’re talking about.”
“Someone in accounting started a running bet.”
“A bet?”
“You know, like the Super Bowl pool? Everyone puts in five bucks. Winner takes all.”
“I know what a pool is, damn it. What I’m wondering is what it’s got to do with me.”
“The accounting department has you and Frank together by Valentine’s Day.”
“What?”
“Payroll thinks you’ll sleep with him before then. Well, everyone except for Teresa Berg. She thinks you’ll blow it before it gets that far. There’s almost two hundred and fifty dollars in the pot.”
Kate didn’t know what to say. She felt foolish and embarrassed and utterly certain that she did not want to continue this conversation. “That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“You were in on the pot when Steve Wetzel and his admin got together.”