Waking Nightmare (24 page)
It was the sort of place Dixon would pick, Ryne thought, as he wended his way through the restaurant bar to the table in the back where the commander sat. Lots of gleaming oak and brass, live plants, and polished mirrors. Nothing like the dives he’d frequented when drinking had been his number one pastime.
It’d been eighteen months since he’d taken a drink or stepped foot in a bar. But he’d choose the smoky haze, scratched counters, and cracked leather stools anytime over a yuppie spot like this. At least those places had been free of pretense. They hadn’t pretended to attract anything but serious drinkers and quiet desperation. No wonder he’d felt so at home there.
He drew up to the table, pulled out a chair. “Derek,” he said, by way of greeting. Outside the job they were still on a first-name basis, but they were no longer friends, if they’d ever been.
Which was why he was sure there was a helluva lot more to Dixon’s suggestion for this meeting, regardless of the man’s excuse to get him here.
Dixon raised a finger to summon the waitress, who responded quickly. Ryne’s mouth twisted. Women had always responded to Derek. And his response to them was just as predictable. “Bring me a draft of Premium Light,” he told her, flashing his toothpaste ad smile. “And two fingers of Jim Beam for my friend, straight up.”
“I don’t want that.”
“Bring it.” Dixon shooed the woman away and Ryne knew she’d do the man’s bidding. Just like he knew the order was a way to slice at him.
“Come here often?” Ryne let his gaze drift around the large area. “I’ll bet SueAnne likes it.” With its thick oak columns and tall-backed booths, the place was meant for privacy. He’d wager his monthly paycheck that SueAnne Dixon didn’t even know it existed.
“Try not to be a prick, Ryne.” There was no heat in Derek’s words. “You and I have both made choices others might not agree with.”
Ryne gave a cynical smile. “As long as we’re on that topic, I’ve got something for you to add to the list. Releasing that profile was a publicity stunt, nothing more. It’ll end up obstructing our investigation rather than helping it.”
“You can’t be certain of that.” Dixon fell silent as the waitress returned with their order. He gave her a large bill and a phony smile to send her on her way before returning his attention to Ryne. “At any rate, it was a calculated risk. What better way to counter criticism of the department than to exhibit proof of our expertise? The profile doesn’t compromise any leads you’re pursuing, but it puts a modern forensic face on the investigation. The public will eat it up.”
Ryne shook his head. It was useless to argue with a man who thought in terms of sound bites and public image. And too late, in any case. The damage was already done. “If the purpose of this meeting is just to convince me of the purity of your motives, it’s duly noted. We’ll have to agree to disagree.”
For the first time Derek looked slightly uncomfortable. He picked up the glass of beer and took a long drink before answering. “No, I have something else to discuss with you. Something that will require your utmost discretion.”
Ryne leaned back in his chair, instantly wary. If the man intended to use him, or this case, to mislead his wife again, it was time to tell him to go to hell. “And that is?”
Dixon took another swallow of beer, as if for fortification. “It came to my attention that there might be another victim out there. One who hasn’t come forward. One who has never been questioned by your task force.”
Stunned, Ryne could only stare at the man. An unreported rape victim? Was it possible? He knew the statistics, of course. It was estimated that less than forty percent of all rapes and sexual assaults were ever reported to law enforcement. But given the media coverage surrounding this investigation, it was hard to imagine a victim remaining silent.
Shoving his glass aside, he folded his arms on the table and leaned forward. “Who? When?”
“Her name is Karen Larsen.” Derek reached into his trouser pocket and withdrew a small piece of paper, which he handed to Ryne. On it was written the name and two addresses. “The first address is where she lived up until six weeks ago, when it burned down. The second is her current place.”
Ryne tried to wrap his mind around the enormity of this development, and failed. “What makes you think she was a victim?”
“I can’t be sure. It’s your job to check her out.” Dixon drained the rest of his beer and held it aloft to capture the waitress’s attention. He paused while the waitress delivered his beer, this time not wasting any charm as he handed her a bill.
Ryne was still grappling with the possibilities. “Did she claim to be raped? ’Cuz I checked out all the reports made in the last year, and I didn’t find anything else that sounded like our guy.”
Dixon looked away. “No. She hasn’t mentioned an assault at all. But I happen to know she went to the hospital the next day and had a friend run a discreet tox screen. Turns out it matches the initial hospital tox screen results showing up in all the victims in this case.”
“What?” Aware that his voice had raised, Ryne consciously lowered it. “I talked to docs all over this city months ago. None of them had ever seen anything like this compound the perp is using, which is one of the things that convinced me it wasn’t just some new mutant party drug. If it were, it would have surfaced in the bar scene, and given its properties, there’s no way people wouldn’t have ended up in the ER with . . .”
He stopped then, comprehension slamming into him belatedly. “How would you know what her tox screen shows? Do you know her? Did she tell you?” HIPPA laws precluded them getting access to anyone’s medical information without consent or a warrant.
Dixon rubbed at the condensation on the glass with his thumb. “Listen, Ryne, this is where your discretion becomes imperative. I have a copy of the tox screen. And my . . . informant tells me that Larsen is starting to experience some posttraumatic stuff. She asked . . . my friend for recommendations for therapists. Counselors who deal with victims of sexual assault.”
A dull ache rapped at the base of his skull. Ryne stared at the man, sorting out the spoken from the unspoken message here. Because it was damn certain that what Dixon
wasn’t
saying was far more important than what he was.
wasn’t
saying was far more important than what he was.
“And who is this informant?”
Dixon raised his glass for a sip. “That really isn’t the issue.”
“Of course it is. If I can’t verify the character of the informant, the legitimacy of the information is in question, you know that.”
“I can vouch for the character of the informant,” the other man snapped. “And you’ll have the damn copy of the tox screen on your desk in the morning.”
Cynicism traced through him as all the pieces clicked into place. “And I’m supposed to trust you to be completely objective about this . . . person’s trustworthiness, right?”
Dixon bared his teeth. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? Okay, my informant is the woman I’ve been banging for the last few months, happy? She knows this Larsen, actually ran the test for her, which could get her in trouble, since it wasn’t on the books. She made a copy of the tox screen and gave it to me.”
“You’re fucking unbelievable.” A man at a nearby table turned to look at them, but Ryne ignored him. It was a new low for Dixon, but he shouldn’t be surprised. He was, however, entitled to be royally pissed. “You told your girlfriend about the drug used in the course of the rapes? The most important piece of this asshole’s MO—the information we’re keeping out of the press—that qualifies as pillow talk for you?”
Dixon had the grace to look discomfited. “It’s not like that. Paula . . . the woman I’m . . . seeing is the lab supervisor at St. Joseph/Candler. She documented the results from two of the other victims treated there. Of course when she saw another similar screen, she told me.”
It was Ryne’s nature to be suspicious. Came in handy on the job and it sure as hell helped when dealing with Dixon. “Exactly when did you find out about the tox screen?”
Leaning back in his chair, Dixon checked his watch. “That really isn’t pertinent.”
“Humor me.”
“Three weeks ago. And don’t start unloading on me. It was just a few days ago that she let me know about Larsen’s PTSD. I decided the similarities bore checking out, so I’m turning it over to you. End of story.”
Incredulity fought with anger. Ryne shook his head in disbelief. “And so you decided to play God with this information and keep it to yourself until now. To hell with the fact that another woman got raped in the meantime, right? What was important was keeping your screwing around quiet.”
“I still expect that to be kept quiet,” the man snapped back. He leaned across the table, his expression grim. “My possession of that tox screen is illegal, but it might be a link to the rapist. That’s why I’m turning it over to you.” His mouth twisted. “And spare me the holier-than-thou shit. We all have our addictions, don’t we? It’s hell when they interfere with our work.”
The remark hit Ryne in the gut like a well-aimed jab. He sat back, an eerie sense of calm coming over him. He had a feeling that the words were the most sincere ones Dixon had spoken to him since he’d come to Savannah. “Why don’t you say what’s really on your mind, Derek. You want to talk about Boston? Let’s talk.”
Dixon dug in his pocket for a bill, and tossed it on the table. Rising, he shrugged into his tailor-made suit jacket. “You know the problem with being the brightest star in the sky, Ryne? All eyes are on you when you burn out and fall to the earth. I saved your career from the trash heap, buddy. How about showing a little gratitude?”
He walked away then, his acid-edged words etching a path through Ryne’s tattered conscience. His gaze dropped to the untouched glass before him, but it was the past he was really seeing. Deborah Hanna’s vacant eyes. The censure on his captain’s face. The too-impassive mask of the department shrink. No one to blame but himself. Nothing to do but find a way to live with it.
Without conscious decision, he reached for the glass. The liquor seared a path down his throat as he downed it in one gulp. Slamming the glass down, he shoved away from the table and strode out of the bar.
Senseless tragedies occurred every day, a sad fact of nature. But those that resulted from a personal failure were the bitterest of all.
A couple hours at the gym hadn’t done much to take the edge off Abbie’s mood, so she’d given up, showered, and gotten dressed. If five laps and a punishing hour in the ring weren’t enough to get her mind off the case, nothing would.
The thought of her empty house was unappealing. Although she wouldn’t trade her job, the constant travel and equally impersonal temporary living quarters were its biggest drawbacks. She’d saved a long time to buy a small wooded acreage in Virginia that she’d then spent years stamping with her own personality. She’d slowly begun to fill it with antiques and primitives she’d discovered when she had time to browse the back road shops in a three-state area. The result was a serene, comfortable residence, and the only place she’d ever really felt at home.
She’d long since discovered that one way to make the constant travel easier was to always pack a few favorite special items to give her a sense of home. But those items weren’t enough to lure her back to the rented house either, because it would be the charts she’d made that would engross her upon returning. The grids and logs detailing every fact of the case that led to knowing the UNSUB better.
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