Silenced Read online

  “Ivy?”

  “Shh, something’s wrong. I think we should get out. But be quiet.” Ivy didn’t have to explain that there could be a threat, and Kerry didn’t ask questions. “I’m checking downstairs.”

  Ivy ran lightly down the stairs, the pungent antiseptic smell growing stronger.

  At the base of the stairs, she turned to check the alarm.

  A green light blinked at her. It was off. She glanced at the front door—it was locked—but the alarm was off.

  Ivy set the alarm herself every night. She’d never forgotten. Never.

  She listened for any sounds that didn’t belong—heavy steps, heavy breathing—but there was nothing.

  She tiptoed quickly down the hall to the office, took the gun from her top desk drawer, and went to search the rest of the house. Six pairs of feet pounded on the ceiling and she winced. If someone was inside, now he knew they were all awake.

  The front of the house was clear, but when she passed the basement door on her way to the kitchen, she stopped. She still smelled alcohol, but now she smelled smoke as well. She put her hand to the wooden door, then pulled it immediately away. Hot. Was the furnace on fire? They hadn’t used it in months. The water heater? Smoke pushed out of the cracks in the door and the floor vents had begun to belch the same black tendrils.

  For one brief moment she wondered if maybe she had forgotten the alarm after all, and maybe the fire wasn’t an attack, but an accident. She still needed to get everyone out, call the gas company or fire department.

  Her natural suspicion prompted her to look out the window before opening the back door. On the other side of the fence that separated their yard from their elderly neighbor’s, she saw a flicker of light. Just a brief flare, like a match igniting, then going out.

  She blinked. Then saw it again. Flare, then gone. Had she imagined a figure in the blackness? The streetlights didn’t shine into the backyard. She wanted to believe she’d seen nothing but an innocent light in the shadows.

  But she knew better.

  Alcohol burned.

  Ivy coughed as the smoke thickened. The fire crackled in the basement, reminding Ivy that this old house would burn fast. By the time she reached the staircase, Kerry and the girls were coming down.

  “Someone’s in the backyard,” Ivy told her. “Get everyone out the front, I’ll be right there.” She handed Kerry the gun and went back to her den.

  Kerry ordered the girls out the front, then grabbed Ivy’s arm and pulled her back.

  “Ivy, you don’t have time.”

  Ivy jerked her arm free. “I need my stuff!”

  “You’ll be no good to Sara if you’re dead!”

  But freedom was locked in the bottom of her desk. Identities and passports and money. A sudden, deep tremble under their feet told Ivy to bolt, but she closed her eyes, wishing it all away like she’d done when she was thirteen.

  “Ivy!” Kerry shook her again, but before she could make a decision, a small explosion almost knocked them down.

  She patted her pockets, but realized she was wearing shorts and her keys were upstairs. The key to her desk. She had no choice. She glanced behind her one last time.

  She had to let it go.

  “Hannah?” Sara grabbed her arm when Ivy and Kerry came out. Ivy cringed, hearing her real name. “Is it Daddy?”

  Any evil was possible with Reverend Kirk Edmonds.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Out!”

  Ivy and Kerry pushed the others from the porch into the yard. Kerry had the gun, watchful. They knew a stranger was in the back, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t someone else lurking in the front yard. Or that he wouldn’t easily hop the fence.

  Sara grabbed Ivy’s hand as they ran across the yard. They’d hide out in half-deaf Mrs. Neel’s detached garage while figuring out what to do. Maybe she’d call the social worker who had been practically begging to help them. Ivy hated asking for help, but right now she had nothing. Her plans, her resources, were gone.

  A small explosion followed by a pulse of hot air pushed them the final feet across the narrow street. A second, louder explosion forced them to their knees on Mrs. Neel’s lawn. Ivy covered her head, expecting fire or debris to rain down, but all she felt was heat searing her skin.

  Sara screamed, grabbed Ivy so hard it shocked Ivy back into action.

  She got up, unsteady on her feet, and took one last look at her home. The dark gray smoke couldn’t hide the flames that licked at the windows.

  All hope burned inside.

  Ivy looked up and down the street. Lights were on, neighbors were coming out of their houses. The police, the fire department, strangers would be here soon.

  Ivy motioned for them to go down Mrs. Neel’s driveway, which would shield them from view. In the distance, sirens cut through the sound of ruin.

  Ivy couldn’t talk to the police. She’d lied to everyone in the neighborhood. She wasn’t a college student. She didn’t exist. She had a fake ID, not a real false identity. But worse, if her father had reported Sara as missing, her photo and prints would be in a database. She had to protect Sara.

  “We have to split up,” Ivy said. “Lay low until we find out who did this.”

  “It wasn’t an accident?” Sara’s face was filthy from soot and dirt, but her big blue eyes were so trusting, so innocent. Even after all she’d been through at the hands of that bastard, she was still innocent.

  “No,” Ivy said. “It was no accident.”

  Bryn silently cried. Nicole was enraged. “Everything’s gone!” She held up her backpack. “Two hundred dollars and a handful of clothes, that’s all I have?”

  “You’re alive,” Kerry snapped.

  “Jocelyn promised she’d help us,” Ivy said. She hoped she wasn’t wrong about the social worker. But she didn’t trust Sergio, and though she didn’t think he’d done this, how could she be sure? Why would the people she worked for try to kill her?

  A chill ran down her back. Was one of these girls, her friends, a Judas? She looked at their faces, one by one. Pain. Fear. Confusion.

  She trusted all these girls with her life.

  But did she trust them with Sara’s life?

  The sirens were closer, prompting Ivy to act.

  “Sara, Maddie, come with me. Mina, go with Nicole.”

  “I want to come with you,” the sixteen-year-old said, wiping away her tears, but more came tumbling down. “Please.”

  Ivy bit her lip. How could she manage both of them in addition to Sara? “I’ll come get you as soon as we’re settled. All of you.”

  The seven of them together would draw far too much attention.

  Mina nodded, but her eyes rested on Sara. Ivy stomped on her own guilt. Mina had been like a sister to her, they all had, and yet she’d been replaced by Ivy’s real sister. Ivy wished things could be different, but she’d broken untold laws rescuing Sara, and she couldn’t risk unwanted attention their large group would bring.

  The increasing sirens, flashing lights, shouts of neighbors from the street, added to the cacophony of panic that rose in Ivy’s chest.

  “It won’t be long,” she promised. “Forty-eight hours.”

  Mina didn’t look at her. She took Nicole’s hand.

  Kerry handed Ivy her backpack and the gun. “I put some clothes and shoes in for you, and your purse.”

  Ivy realized everyone had had time to get dressed but her. “Thank you.” She quickly put on her tennis shoes and a T-shirt over her tank top.

  “Go,” Ivy told them. “Be careful. Trust no one. Keep your phones charged. I’ll call when I figure this out.”

  They left, avoiding streetlights and neighbors who now watched with curiosity and horror as the house on Hawthorne Street burned.

  Ivy glanced over her shoulder as the first fire truck rounded the corner. The red lights swirled and the siren died down as the truck whooshed to a stop.

  Ivy not only had to keep Sara safe and hidden from their father, she had t
o keep her alive.

  I’ll never let anyone hurt you, Sara. Never again.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The trail closest to where the female victim had been found was blocked off with crime scene tape and guarded by DC Metro cops. The FBI rarely attended homicides, but when the victim was the mistress of a sitting congressman whose affair was recently exposed in the press, the FBI took interest.

  Lucy Kincaid had spent the last two months working primarily as an analyst in the FBI office tracking online sex predators, so when her training agent, Noah Armstrong, asked her to join him in the field, she was both excited and nervous.

  “Slater is heading up the squad on this one,” Noah told her as he showed his identification to the cop who blocked the trail. “I’m point.”

  Supervisory Special Agent Matt Slater was Noah’s immediate supervisor and directed the Evidence Response Teams out of the DC Regional Office. He’d made it clear to Lucy from her first day in the office that she wasn’t a field agent yet.

  “Are you sure this is okay with him?” Lucy kept up with Noah’s long strides as they walked up the gently sloping trail through the middle of Rock Creek Park. She’d run in the park many times, though never on this particular trail, which was close to the condos and apartments on Massachusetts. The park could be dangerous, but most runners kept to well-traveled trails, ran in pairs or groups, and didn’t get caught in the park after sunset. There were more patrols now and a steady police presence, but no law enforcement agency could cover all two thousand acres of the park all the time.

  Noah stopped walking, glanced around to make sure no one was within earshot, and kept his voice low. “We’re operating with reduced staff and resources, and everyone is antsy because of the victim’s connection to Congress. Slater told me to bring in an analyst.”

  “You didn’t tell him it was me.” She hated the insecurity of her position. She was in limbo, neither an agent nor a civilian. Three weeks and it would be a moot point, but she didn’t want to do anything that might jeopardize her admission into the FBI Academy.

  “It’s my call, you’re qualified, plus ERT certified.” He started back up the trail. “I’ll handle Slater, but this isn’t going to be a problem.”

  Lucy followed Noah, hoping he was right. She didn’t know why SSA Slater made her nervous.

  Trust your instincts, Luce.

  She heard her boyfriend Sean’s voice in her head, reminding her that her instincts were usually good, at least when it came to murder.

  What that said about her, she wasn’t certain, but she hoped it would help bring justice for Wendy James.

  Three weeks ago, in a big front-page article, Congressman Alan Crowley had been exposed as having an affair with the much younger, beautiful Wendy James, secretary for a powerful DC lobbying firm. In typical politician fashion, Crowley had denied the affair, then claimed it was private, between him and his wife of twenty-eight years, then said he was sorry and asked for forgiveness.

  Some people were calling for Crowley’s head, others complaining what he did was no worse than any other politician, and still others were using the events to highlight that the media preferred sex scandals over serious policy.

  In fact, Ms. James’s murder wouldn’t have caught the FBI’s attention except for two key facts. Because of Ms. James’s position with a lobbyist, she’d been interviewed by the FBI for possible influence peddling—specifically, had Congressman Crowley asked for, or suggested, contributions to him or any other campaigns? During that interview last week, Ms. James had contradicted herself and put a lawyer on retainer. The FBI had secured an appointment for a second interview this week, and now she’s dead.

  Was this truly a random act of violence, or was she a specific target because of her involvement with Crowley, the FBI, or both?

  “Does the press know yet?” Lucy asked Noah quietly when they reached the crime scene.

  “Not from us.”

  Matt Slater, who, like Noah, had been in the military before joining the FBI, was talking to the DC deputy coroner. He beckoned Noah. “Miles West, DC coroner’s office,” Slater said, in introduction. “He’s ready to move the body as soon as the gurney’s here.”

  Lucy had been an assistant pathologist at the morgue as part of a yearlong internship program, and Miles had been one of her favorite people. He was two years shy of retirement and had talked often about moving to Nashville to be close to his daughter and grandchildren.

  Miles smiled at her, his teeth vividly white against dark skin. “If it ain’t Ms. Lucy. Out of the Academy already?”

  “I start—”

  Slater cut her off. “It’s not going to get any cooler. Let’s take a look at the body before it’s hauled to the morgue.”

  Lucy let Noah and Slater walk in front of her. Miles jerked his head toward the men and whispered, “You want to be one of them?”

  She didn’t answer. “The report said she was strangled.”

  “From behind.”

  “Behind? You’re certain?”

  He cleared his throat. Of course he was certain—he’d been an investigator longer than Lucy had been alive. “Possible attempted rape, no obvious sign of penetration, but the ME will confirm that when we get her on the table.”

  “Did he use a ligature?”

  “Hands.”

  “Unusual.” Manual strangulation was an intensely personal method of murder. Almost without exception, the killer wanted to watch the victim die. Lucy asked, “Could he have accidentally strangled her while attempting to rape her?”

  “Accidentally?” Miles snorted. “I doubt it, but again, I’ll leave it to the ME. I don’t think he took his hands off her neck once he started.”

  “You can tell that after a visual examination?”

  “From the back of her neck. You’ll see what I saw.”

  “And smell.” The stench of decomposition filled the hot, unmoving air.

  He put his hand on her arm. “Heat, humidity is bad enough. But animals got to her too.”

  Death is never pretty, Lucy thought, but when she saw what had been done to Wendy James, she realized this was particularly ugly.

  It wasn’t the murder itself—strangulation wasn’t messy or bloody—but what had happened to her body after death was gruesome.

  The moisture in the air caused the gases in her body to build and swell. Her extremities were bloated and discolored, suggesting she’d been dead for two or three days. But taking in account the summer heat, the high humidity, and the tree-sheltered area, Lucy suspected time of death was closer to twenty-four hours ago.

  “Rigor has already broken, but the heat speeds that up along with decomp,” Miles said. “She’s been here less than thirty hours, more than twenty. We get her on the table, the ME can be more precise.”

  “Between three A.M. and one P.M. yesterday. I doubt she went running before five in the morning. Maybe she lives in a secure building, and we’ll catch her on video.” It would be too much to ask that the killer was on tape, too, but all security videos from her residence and the surrounding areas would be scrutinized.

  The victim was lying on her side, moved from where she’d died—evidenced by impressions in the mulch and five feet of wide drag marks. Noah and Slater were standing beside the body, talking quietly.

  She said to Miles, “The animals moved her?”

  “Wild dogs. Their barking is what alerted the joggers who found the body. They scared away the dogs with noise and pepper spray.”

  Wendy James had been murdered and discarded without care. Lucy replaced her discomfort with anger, and her stomach settled.

  “The blood—”

  “Postmortem. There’s bruising on her hips and thighs, but on the outside.”

  “That doesn’t sound like rape.”

  “It looks more like he straddled her fully clothed while he strangled her.” Miles shook his head. “Sometimes, this job isn’t worth it.”

  Lucy squeezed his hand. “We’ll catch him.”


  Miles’s phone rang and he walked off to answer. Lucy slipped on latex gloves and stepped over to the body. The wild dogs had done extensive damage to the victim’s left arm and leg, but her right side was virtually unmarked. She squatted down to look at the bruising on the outside of the hips and thighs, which was consistent with the deputy coroner’s theory. She gently moved the blond hair away from the back of the neck. Two distinct oval bruises were visible on either side of the spine—thumb imprints. While the front of the neck was also purple, the thumbs were most distinct, indicating that once the killer took hold of the victim, he squeezed until she died.

  From behind. Not looking at her face.

  “What?” Slater asked. Lucy hadn’t realized he’d been scrutinizing her so closely.

  Lucy rose and took off the gloves. “I don’t know, just thinking.”

  Noah raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything.

  Slater said, “West said possible attempted rape. The killer could have been unable to perform, or heard someone coming and bolted. Except—” He gestured toward the victim’s buttocks. “He took the time to write that.”

  Lucy tilted her head. She hadn’t seen the marks at first, but once Slater pointed it out, it was obvious. The bloating of the body caused the ink to spread and fade, but she could make out the words.

  And this guilty whore don’t cry no more

  “He had no intention of raping her.” Lucy didn’t intend to speak out loud.

  “Didn’t want to or failed?” Slater asked.

  “Didn’t want to,” she said. “Miles pointed out the bruising on the outside of her thighs, not the inside. But more important, the way she was facedown while he killed her. In manual strangulation cases the killer wants to watch his victims die. It’s crucial. Part of the fantasy, his control over life and death. In the majority of cases where there is a serial murderer, the killer will release pressure, let the victim breathe for a few seconds, then start asphyxiating her again. The control makes them feel like a god.”

  “This,” she continued, pointing specifically at the thumb marks on the back of the neck, “shows he planned to kill her, had no need to watch her die. He didn’t torture her, he simply squeezed until she was dead. Of course,” she added quickly, “the autopsy will provide a more definitive answer.”