The Power (23 page)

“Isn’t that bad enough of a crime to deserve such a fate? They planned to kill me.” Miss. Rogers said through clenched teeth. “Who knows what they would have done to my daughter if she had been there.”

“She was there.” Jack said, meeting her gaze. The woman gasped. “She was down on the street, in the freezing cold. It was very late. She was too afraid to fall asleep, but exhausted all the same. She sat out there as drug dealers, gang members
, and probably much worse, all, luckily, passed her by on the front stoop were she crouched.” Jack told the woman, wanting her to see the full picture, to know exactly what she had done, the danger she had put her small daughter within. “Even now, she is frightened and alone in a shelter across town. I bet she is wondering where her mommy is, and why you left her.”

“You’re cruel.” Miss
. Rogers looked up with tears swimming in her eyes. The emotional pain was evident in her sallow face.

“I am generous. I could have told you how the child screamed for you, her would-be mother, when they took her away.” Jack wanted it to sink in, what she was doing to her daughter. “I imagine she feels quite abandoned.”

The woman began to hiccup and cry. Tears ran down her face, and she was shivering, but the shivering was more than likely from the withdrawals, Jack reminded himself. “I didn’t mean to allow it to get this far.” she confessed. “I love my daughter.”

“Yea
h.” Jack bit out sarcastically. “I bet.”

“You don’t know me!” Miss
. Rogers hissed angrily. “You don’t know what I’ve been through.”

“No, but I know what your daughter has been through,
and to say the least it hasn’t been easy for her.” Jack walked away giving the woman his back. “You haven’t asked who I am or why I’m here.” he mentioned.

“Are you with the Social Services?” Miss Rogers’ guessed as she swiped at her eyes.

“No ma’am. My name is Detective Stone. I’m working the murders that have occurred in our city over the last few months. The two men that were killed in your apartment a few nights ago were the last two victims in my case.” he explained.

“Last two? This has happened be
fore?” Miss. Rogers looked up in concern. It was difficult for her to lift her head with her wrists and ankles tied to the bed, difficult for her to see Jack where he stood across the room. Jack came back to the bed.

“Many others.” he informed her. “And I’m positive there are even some out there we haven’t located as of yet. This is serious, Miss
. Rogers. I know you have no pity for the men who died in your apartment, but I need to know all that you heard and saw that night. I need to know everything.” Jack insisted firmly. He stared at the woman. It was obvious she was going through another withdrawal pain. He waited until her teeth unclenched and her brown eyes focused on him again.

“All I know comes from the hopped up mind of an addict. Most of what I s
aw and heard that night probably was not even real.” she said in shame, and she looked away to take care of the tears in her eyes.

“I’d still like to hear it.” Jack encouraged, and he took
up a seat next to the bed. Miss. Rogers turned her head to the side, staring with her wet eyes into his.

“It will sound insane.” she promised. “And I can only recall bits and pieces.”

“That’s all right. Tell me what you do remember.” Jack took out a pocket recorder, and turned it on. “For my own records.” he explained, and she nodded slightly.

“Where do I start?” Miss Rogers asked almost shyly.

“Start with the men.” Jack suggested. “Who were they?”

“I only know their first names.” she admitted. “David and Jerry.” she said the names as if she were repeating the names of the monsters in her ni
ghtmare, and Jack couldn’t help but to think that that was exactly what she was doing.

“How did David and Jerry end up back at your apartment?”

“Um, we went there together, I think. I was high. We had gotten high together, shooting up in a dark alley somewhere. I don’t recall where.” she was shivering, and shaking almost violently now. Her words didn’t create a pretty picture in Jack’s mind. Where had her daughter been during this time, he wondered?

“Had you met these two men before?” Jack asked, feeling a tightness gather in his chest. The woman had been raped. She had placed her daughter in danger as well, and Jack knew that she had done it all for a high. She had probably never met old David and Jerry before that night.

“I don’t think so. They knew my name.” Miss. Rogers said thoughtfully. “I remember that they called me by name. I was broke. I needed a fix. I was desperate.” The tremors had seized her. She gritted her teeth as another strong pain took control of her body. Jack waited patiently.

“Somehow, we ended up back at my place. I don’t
recall how, but Kylie was there sleeping on the sofa. I didn’t want her to see me that way. I remember that. I remember sending her out.”

In the middle of the night, Jack thought furiously, but it was better that the child
had been sent out that night than had stayed to witness her mother being raped, then killed, and possibly suffering the same fate herself, Jack hated to admit. The hell the child had been through that night, the terror she must have felt sitting out on that freezing stoop so late at night was a lesser evil than what could have occurred if the mother had not sent her out. Gritting his teeth to keep the furious lecture in his mind behind his teeth, Jack motioned for Miss. Rogers to go on.

“David and Jerry had more drugs. They shot me up again when we got back to my place, even though I hadn’t come down off the first hit fully. My heart was racing. I couldn’t catch my breath. I thought I was going to die, and then the next thing I know we’re in my bedroom and David is sweating over me. All I can do is cry. It’s like I can’t move. I can feel a sharp blade at my throat, but it’s like I’m pinned down, like my limbs won’t work, like their paralyzed.” she looked into Jack’s amber gaze, but it was clear to Jack that she was lost in her own dark memories. “I drift in and out of consciousness, I think, because I only remember bits and pieces of the rapes. It’s as if one moment
David is over me, and the next it’s Jerry.” She swiped at her eyes as best she could with her tied-down hand.

“How long after the rape did the woman come in?” Jack asked bluntly.

“The woman? Then it was a woman?” Miss Rogers asked curiously. Jack nodded.

“All I remember is the glass raining down on me.” Miss Rogers said deep in thought. “I could see it, uh her, moving in the shadows
like a demon. The white eyes.”

“White eyes?” Jack leaned forward to inquire.

“Full, white pupils and everything, white and glowing with an inner-light it seemed.”

“Did you see her face?” Jack asked urgently, feeling he was getting closer.

“Yes, but it was a face like no other.” Miss. Rogers said, and she sucked in her breath.

“What do you mean?”

“It wasn’t human. She wasn’t. The face was distorted, the nose peeled back, the upper lip torn and fangs protruding down past the bottom lip. She was very pale, veins showing through her nearly translucent skin. She looked…”

“What?” Jack persisted.

“Evil.” Miss. Rogers breathed out in a fog. “She looked evil. That’s why when she told me she was the devil, I believed her.” she confessed on a stony whisper. Jack breathed out slowly.

“I cou
ldn’t see her fully. The light had burst before she entered the room. Then the next thing I know, Jerry is being ripped off of me. I see in shadows, and I hear David talking to it, to her. He asks who she is, and she tells him that she is what he deserves. Then seconds later, I hear his body hit the floor. Shortly after, I hear her do away with Jerry as well.”

“Then you didn’t actually see her kill these two men?” Jack asked skeptically.

“No, but I could hear the struggle. I could see in shadows. I was terrified. I wasn’t sure if I was hallucinating or not.” Miss Rogers explained almost eerily.

“What happened next?” Jack pressed the woman to go on.

She shrugged as best she could manage. “She played in the shadows as if playing with me, as if trying to frighten me, as she came closer and closer to the bed and to me. Then suddenly she was there, leaning into my face.”

“And you got a good look at her?” Jack leaned closer with earnest interest, but Miss
. Rogers shook her head negatively.

“Yes, but like I said, it was a face like no other, a demon’s face.” She breathed out.

“And she said something to you?” Jack asked.

“Yes. Her words came to my mind.” Miss
. Rogers said in deep memory.

“Your mind?” Jack countered, not understanding.

“Yes.” Miss. Rogers’ dark eyes widened. “I could hear her speaking in my mind, not out loud like you and I are talking now.” she said, and she waited while Jack digested her unbelievable words.

“And what did she say to your mind?” He didn’t believe it for a moment. It had to of been the heroine.

“The words, ‘What am I?’. They echoed in my mind. That was when she leaned in, and snarled to me that she was the devil. Then she slipped back into the shadows. She told me to get clean. To take care of my daughter. She said if I didn’t do this then she would be back for my soul.” Miss. Rogers finished her impossible tale. “And then the police were pounding on the door, and the devil was gone.”

Jack could only stare at the woman. The story was insane, but there had to be some form of truth to it, he thought. Something had occurred in that apartment two nights ago. Two lives had been taken, and this woman had witnessed it. Perhaps it was still too soon, Jack thought as he shut off the tape recorder.  He would h
ave to question her again later when her mind was clearer.

Bordello met Jack in the hall. “Nothing.” he said, meeting Jack’s curious, amber gaze. “Doc says they’re getting the Heroine out of her system, and then sending her off to the Betty Ford Clinic.”

“The Betty Ford Clinic?” Jack’s brow rose. “She can afford that?”

“No, but someone else could. Some do-gooder who saw the story on the news is taking on the debt.” Bordello related.

“We don’t have the name of this do-gooder, do we?” Jack wondered out loud.

“Anonymous.” Bordello said with a shrug of his shoulder.

“We should get someone on that.” Jack said, but just then a familiar face made its way into the
Rogers woman’s room. Josh Meisner, Lillian Saint Rose’s bodyguard. What the hell? Jack crept back to the room, and stood just outside the door that had been left cracked open. Bordello followed on quiet feet, and they both listened in at the door.

“Everything is set, Miss
. Rogers.” Josh said in a low, sympathetic tone. “You leave for the clinic in the morning.”

“I don’t know if I can leave my daughter.” Miss Rogers said in a trembling, doubtful tone.

“I assure you, ma’am, this is the best thing for your daughter.” Josh said firmly.

“But she’ll be afraid
and all alone in a strange place.” The mother went on, sounding almost frightened for the child.

“Pardon my saying so, ma’am, but let’s face facts. At this point, the state isn’t offering your daughter back to you. Completing the twenty-eight days at Betty Ford will show the state that you are putting an effort forth, that you want to be a good mother.” Josh was saying, when the woman cut him off.

“But I can’t just leave her there! She’s my baby!” Miss. Rogers was growing near hysterical.

“There is another option.
” Josh put to her.

“Another option?” she repeated, calming down just a tad.

“Yes. I know that you don’t know me well, but I am recently married. My wife is pregnant with our first child. I know how difficult it must be to think of your daughter in that awful place. Well…” Josh stumbled over his would-be option. “Well, the girl could come stay with my wife and I. We have a decent, safe home. You can call her there, write to her, and we could bring her to see you on visitors’ day at the clinic.” He offered.

Miss
. Rogers was quiet, and Jack didn’t know if the woman was weighing her options or what. Had Lilly sent Josh to make this offer? Was she the one paying for the rehab clinic? Of course she was, but why, Jack asked himself, but then Miss Rogers burst into fitful sobs.

“I’m a horrible woman, a horrible mother! My daughter is probably scared out of her mind, and it’s all my fault!” she wailed.

You got that right, lady, Jack thought harshly, but a part of him felt bad for the woman. She was an addict. He had seen many over the years. He knew from experience that the woman had to want to get clean for herself or it would never take.

Josh didn’t say anything to the woman’s outburst. Instead he merely waited. “Your offer is a kind one, but you’re a stranger.” Miss
. Rogers spat out more quietly after she had regained her composure.

“Yes ma’am.” Josh said lowly. “I’m aware that this is a difficult decision, and that also I am in fact, a stranger
, but my employer and I as well want what is best for the child, and that ma’am is getting you, her mother, clean, sober, and back to being her mother.”