The Third Victim Read online

  “What did Alex want you to do?” Carrie asked.

  Allison looked at her lap and her voice dropped. “S and M.”

  “What kind of S and M?”

  “First it was just me tying him up and teasing him. He told me I was in control and I should excite him and … and not let him cum until he begged. I could see he liked what I did, so I didn’t mind. But then…”

  “Yes?”

  “He wanted to tie me up.” Allison looked at Carrie, her eyes pleading for understanding. “Since I had done it to him, I had to say yes.”

  “How did he bind you?” Carrie asked, fighting hard to suppress her excitement.

  “He used duct tape. I had to put my wrists at the ends of the bed and my ankles at the other ends. I would be—what do you call it?—spread-eagled. And he would make it so I couldn’t move.”

  Carrie didn’t want to chance a look at Kyle, but she bet his heart rate had gone up as fast as hers had.

  “Okay. Go on. What happened?”

  “At first it was exciting. It made the sex so much more intense. But then Alex wanted to take it to another level.”

  “How?”

  “Pain. He wanted the sex to be more violent.”

  “Violent in what way?”

  “He would burn me with cigarettes. It hurt. I begged him to stop, but he said I would come to enjoy the pain.” Allison dropped her gaze. “Only I didn’t.”

  “How far did he go with this? Did he ever cut you?”

  “No. I wouldn’t let him. One time, he stood over the bed with a knife. I said I wouldn’t do it. That I’d stop having sex if he cut me. He apologized and swore he would never do anything I didn’t want to do.”

  “So that’s as far as it went?” Carrie asked.

  “No, not really. He never did anything more than burn me a few times, but he did start … I don’t know how to say this.”

  “Take your time.”

  “He would get real mean and humiliate me. He started berating me at home and sometimes even in public. He would say I was stupid and a bad wife, but he wouldn’t tell me what I’d done wrong. He would say I had to be punished.”

  “How would he punish you?”

  “There were three times that Alex tied me up and left me and wouldn’t say how long he would be gone. I begged him not to leave me, but he said it would heighten my sexual tension because I couldn’t be sure when he would come back. He even hinted it might be several days or a week.”

  Allison started to cry. “I begged him not to do it, but he just left. After a while I … I had to go and … and I couldn’t hold it in and I wet myself.”

  Allison took several deep breaths. Anders waited while she regained her composure to ask her next question.

  “You said you read about the women who were kidnapped,” Carrie said when Allison was ready. “Were the times your husband tied you up and left you around the times the women disappeared?”

  “I can’t be sure.”

  “Why did you put up with what he did to you?” Carrie asked.

  Allison looked ashamed. “He wasn’t mean all the time. Most of the time he was good to me. I love him. I wanted to make the marriage work.” She looked at Carrie with beseeching eyes in which tears had begun to appear. “And he did treat me like a queen. He bought me jewelry and took me places I’d only dreamed of going—Venice, Paris. But now…” She shivered. “If he did these things…”

  “Mrs. Mason,” Carrie said, “do you still have marks or scars from Mr. Mason’s abuse?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could I take a photograph of the marks? We’d do it in a private place. Kyle wouldn’t be there.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “I can understand that, but the photographs might be very important. I can’t tell you why, but I can assure you they might have significant evidentiary value.”

  Allison spaced out for a moment and stared at the wall across from her. Then she looked down and nodded.

  “Thank you,” Carrie said.

  * * *

  “We’ve got him, Carrie,” Bergland said. He’d kept his emotions bottled up during the rest of the interview, but he exploded as soon as they were in the car and headed back to town.

  “It sure looks like it. The burn marks on her body are similar to the burn marks on our victims, and there was even some chafing on her ankles from the duct tape that resembles the marks on Meredith Fenner’s ankles.”

  Bergland smiled. “It always feels great when a case comes together.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Miles Poe paced back and forth outside room 220 of the Weary Traveler Motel, muttering, “This is bad; this is bad,” and holding his pistol so tight that it cut into his palm. Mordessa screamed again. Poe squeezed his eyes shut and pounded his fist into his temple. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he screamed, every muscle in his body tight as piano wire, his gut in a knot. Then another scream cut through the door and raced down the hall and Poe knew he had to move or Mordessa would become damaged goods.

  Poe had bought a skeleton key from the night clerk when his whores started using the motel. He jammed it home and wrenched open the door. Arnold Prater’s head snapped around and he paused with his fist in the air.

  “What the fuck!” Prater exclaimed.

  Poe looked past Prater to Mordessa, who was naked and had her wrists secured to the headboard of the bed with a pair of handcuffs. Her right eye was swelling and her bloody nose was bent to one side. But what shocked Poe the most were the tears in her eyes. Mordessa was one tough bitch. Mordessa did not cry.

  “This has got to stop, Arnold,” Poe said, trying to keep his voice from trembling so that he would sound tough.

  “Get the fuck out, asshole,” Prater yelled.

  Poe was shaking, but he sucked it up. “This is no good. I told you the last time, a little rough stuff is okay, but this shit is out-of-bounds.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s out-of-bounds, dickhead, peddling dope and selling whores, and that’s something you won’t be doing if I throw your ass in jail.”

  “Throwing my ass in jail would put a serious dent in your income, and beating Mordessa so bad that she can’t work will put a dent in mine, so this session is over, right now.”

  Prater took a menacing step toward the pimp, and Poe pointed his gun at Prater’s groin.

  Prater laughed. “You gonna shoot a cop, Miles?”

  “It’s a gamble, but I figure if they find you dead with your dick hanging out and Mordessa all beat to shit, a good lawyer will have me on the street pretty quick. So let’s negotiate instead of getting angry. Say I slip you two hundred bucks to compensate you for the time you’ve lost fighting crime. That way, you leave richer, Mordessa goes back to work, and we avoid violence.”

  Prater stared hard at Poe. Then he walked to the side of the bed and grabbed his clothes. When he bent down for his pants, his lips were close to Mordessa’s ear and he whispered something to her that Poe didn’t catch. Mordessa turned her head away and squeezed her eyes shut. Prater laughed and pulled on his pants before unfastening the handcuffs.

  While Prater was dressing, Miles had pulled a wad from his sock and peeled off two one-hundred-dollar bills. Prater snatched them from the pimp’s hand.

  “You just made a big mistake, Miles, one you are going to regret.”

  Prater walked out and slammed the door. Poe collapsed on the bed. He hadn’t been this scared since he was a kid and his father came home drunk. Prater was not just a crooked cop; he was sick in the head and capable of doing just about anything.

  “Thank you, Miles,” Mordessa croaked.

  Poe turned toward her. This close, he could see how much damage Prater had done. There were the blood and broken bones, but there was also a lit cigarette on the end table next to the bed and several festering burns on Mordessa’s torso. Miles shook his head. This bitch wouldn’t be working for a while, that was for sure.

  Mordessa was weeping, and that tugged at Poe’s heartstrings
. He reached out and stroked Mordessa’s forehead.

  “It’s okay, baby. Nobody hurts my women; you know that. You work hard and I’ll always be there to protect you. Miles gonna give you something good for the pain soon as we get back to our crib, something that will make you forget all about this shit.”

  But Poe knew she wouldn’t forget. He wouldn’t, either, because Arnold Prater was an evil bastard and Poe had no idea what kind of revenge he was planning.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Harry White had a big smile on his face when he walked into Meredith Fenner’s hospital room. Fenner smiled back when she saw who was visiting. Harry studied Meredith’s face. There was still evidence of the abuse she had suffered, but the signs were mere shadows of the way she had looked when she’d been admitted to the hospital. When Harry had seen her that first night, he had suspected that Meredith was beautiful. Now he was certain.

  “You know, you look great,” he said with a grin.

  Meredith blushed and looked away. “No I don’t.”

  “Well, that’s just my opinion.” He shrugged. “Someone else might think you’re really ugly.”

  Meredith’s mouth opened for a second. Then she laughed.

  “You sure know how to build up a girl’s self-esteem,” she said.

  “I learned my people skills at the police academy. And I learned a few more things today. I’ve got good news for you. Actually, I’ve got more than one piece of good news.”

  Meredith stopped smiling and looked wary.

  Harry smiled to reassure her. “Sometimes good things really do happen to good people. First piece of good news: Nick thinks you’re well enough to be discharged.”

  Harry saw fear in Meredith’s eyes.

  “That’s the second piece of my gool news. You don’t have to worry. Alex Mason is in jail. You’re safe now.”

  “He … he can’t get out?”

  “There’s no automatic bail in a murder case and you can bet no judge will let Mason out when they see what he did to you and those other poor women.”

  Meredith didn’t smile, but she did take a deep breath.

  “So,” Harry asked, “what will you do now?”

  “I … I guess I’ll go back to my apartment in Portland and see if I still have a job.”

  “Do you have someone who can drive you?”

  Meredith shook her head. “I haven’t made any real friends since I moved to Oregon.”

  “How about I drive you?” Harry asked.

  Meredith looked at the detective, wide-eyed. “Would you? That would be so great.”

  “It’s all part of the service,” Harry replied.

  Meredith smiled. “Thank you.”

  “It’s nice to see you smiling,” Harry said. “I haven’t seen too many smiles since Caleb rescued you.”

  Meredith looked down. “I haven’t had much to smile about.”

  “Well, you do now.”

  “I … I still have nightmares, Harry.”

  “I know, but they’ll stop and you’ll get better. No one should ever have to go through what you did, but look at how you dealt with it. You didn’t cave; you didn’t fold like some people would. You were strong and you escaped all by yourself. No one helped you.

  “You’re one tough cookie, Ms. Fenner, and because you’re tough, Mason is behind bars. You’re responsible for saving all the other women who could have been his victims. They don’t know it, but there are young women walking the street without fear because of what you did.”

  Meredith’s breast swelled. “Thank you, Harry. I am still scared, and I won’t feel completely safe until they execute that bastard, but I always feel safe when you’re around.”

  Harry blushed. “Go get dressed,” he said. “Then I’ll get you back to Portland.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Regina Barrister had been working nonstop for the past four days on Alex Mason’s case when it dawned on her that she was ignoring the rest of her caseload. When she arrived at the office at seven in the morning, she vowed to finish writing a motion to suppress in a federal drug conspiracy case. She’d had the best of intentions, but she had trouble concentrating because she kept thinking about the way Stanley Cloud had made love to her the night before. No one had made Regina feel that way in a long while and she could not get enough of the time they spent together. Unfortunately, that time was limited to clandestine getaways or stolen moments because the chief justice of the Oregon Supreme Court had to be free from scandal.

  Regina’s first and second marriages had been brief and painful. She had married husband number one while still in college. He was a mediocre student with a gigantic ego and had informed Regina that she would work to support him while he was getting his MBA, then spend her days at home hosting dinner parties that would help him build his career in finance.

  Regina, an academic all-star, received a full ride to a top-tier law school. When she made it clear that was where she was bound, hubby number one opted out of the marriage. Regina heard through the grapevine that her ex had married a secretary, whom he had dumped as soon as she’d paid his way through the graduate program at a middling state university.

  Hubby number two, another disaster, was a suave and apparently successful partner in a big firm. He was a whiz at cocktail-party conversation and really good in bed. Unfortunately, he was totally lacking in substance. Regina had ignored the rumors that her fiancé’s firm was looking for a way to dump him and the warnings given her by his former girlfriends. By the time Regina figured out that number two had married her to shore up his shaky finances, she was out a considerable sum and ready to give up on men forever.

  Then Stanley came along. He was everything she’d ever wanted in a man, but he was also trapped in marriage to a mentally ill, drug-addicted wife who was frequently in rehab and was an expert at making his life hell when she was out. Stanley had made it clear to Regina that he was very much in love with her but that he could not divorce his wife. The chief justice was a devout Catholic. His religion played a part in his decision, but guilt created by his belief that he was partially responsible for his wife’s condition kept him from abandoning her. Cloud was convinced that he had been so driven in his early quest for success that he had ignored the signs of his wife’s disease when he could have helped her.

  Regina was slipping past middle age and had given up on love when she and Stanley began their affair. She was certain that he loved her and she knew she loved him, so she had resigned herself to moments of wonder and stretches of loneliness. Regina’s memories of her evening at the Hilton were interrupted when Robin Lockwood rapped on her door and entered.

  “A man named Arnold Prater is in the waiting room. Do you have time to speak to him?” Robin asked.

  Regina pulled herself out of her reverie and looked at her watch.

  “Send him in and sit through the interview. It will give you some ideas about how to handle a meeting with a client.”

  Robin grinned. “Thanks.”

  “Oh, and bring me Mr. Prater’s…” Regina’s features clouded. Then she forced a smile. “The thing with all the police reports and witness statements.”

  “His file?” Robin asked with a laugh.

  “Yes,” Regina said, trying not to sound flustered.

  “This is Mr. Prater’s first appointment. We don’t have a file yet.”

  Regina reddened. “I know that,” she snapped. “Send him in.”

  Robin flushed, startled by her boss’s rebuke, and left Regina’s office.

  A few moments later, Arnold Prater strutted into Regina’s office and made a bad first impression. But most of Regina’s clients were criminals and few made a good first impression.

  Prater was of medium height, with a stocky build and a slight paunch. Tufts of hair grew on his ears, and thick eyebrows arced over close-set muddy brown eyes. His face was puffy, and Regina spotted early signs of alcoholism.

  “How can I help you?” she asked when Prater was seated.


  Prater looked at Robin, who had taken a seat on a couch set against the wall.

  “Who’s she?”

  “Miss Lockwood is one of my associates. She’ll take notes so that I can concentrate on what you have to say. And don’t worry. She’s covered by the attorney-client privilege, so anything she or I hear is confidential. Now, what can I do for you?”

  Her visitor slapped a stack of legal papers on Regina’s desk. “A scumbag named Miles Poe had me served this morning. He’s suing me, and I want you to crush this asshole.”

  Regina didn’t react to Prater’s outburst. Instead, she picked up the complaint and read it over while Prater seethed in silence.

  “You’re a policeman?” Regina asked.

  “And Poe is a nigger pimp and drug dealer.”

  Regina smiled tolerantly. “If I’m going to represent you, you’ll have to banish the n word from your vocabulary. If it slips out while you’re in a deposition or on the witness stand, you can kiss your case good-bye.”

  Prater didn’t look chastened, but he nodded conspiratorially. “Yeah, I get it. From now on, Mr. Poe is a ‘person of color.’”

  “I’m very serious, Mr. Prater. Do you remember what happened in OJ’s case when Mark Fuhrman was tagged as someone who called African-Americans ‘niggers’?”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “Now, why don’t you tell me what this is all about?”

  “Poe is a drug-dealing pimp and he’s pissed at me because I interfere with his illegal businesses.”

  “It says here that you and other Portland police officers stopped him almost every other day last month—thirteen times in all—to give him traffic tickets and that you arrested some of the female employees from his pool hall for littering, public intoxication, and other minor crimes when there were no legal bases for the arrests.”

  “Poe is paranoid. I did give him two traffic tickets, but different officers gave him the other tickets.”