Brian Freeman - The Cold Nowhere

‘Unless they knew you wouldn’t say a word,’ Serena said.

Lenny chewed his lip. His tanned face turned red.

‘What about it, Lenny?’ K-2 asked. ‘Did you forget something during our little chat?’

‘This is over,’ Lenny said. ‘I’m leaving.’

‘You leave and our deal’s off,’ K-2 told him. ‘I start an investigation tomorrow into every business transaction you’ve conducted in the last ten years.’

‘Is that the problem?’ Serena asked. ‘Was the heist masterminded by someone who knew all about your incentives program? Did they threaten to expose everything if you didn’t keep your mouth shut?’

‘It had nothing to do with money,’ Lenny snapped.

‘Then what was it?’

Lenny put his hands on top of his head and yanked at his messy hair. ‘I can’t believe this.’

‘You might as well tell us,’ K-2 said. ‘It’s all coming out. You can’t run from it.’

‘I was launching my first political campaign! My wife had just been murdered! You think I wanted shit like this in the papers? You think I wanted everyone to know? I would have been humiliated. Ruined.’

They waited. The silence was excruciating. Lenny looked like a guilty little boy.

‘Look, here’s the thing. Rebekah wasn’t exactly interested in sex the way I was. Understand? So when I got rich I figured I deserved to get some of what I was missing.’

‘Prostitutes,’ Stride said.

‘They were more like escorts. High-class, expensive. When Rebekah was away, sometimes I’d arrange to have some fun, okay? They were young, beautiful college girls, and they would do anything I wanted. What guy could say no to that?’

‘Except somebody found out about it,’ Serena concluded.

‘Yeah, somebody set me up. They had photos from a motel I’d visited. Very explicit, very embarrassing photos. Serious fetish stuff. The pictures were waiting for me when I got home from the Keys and found Rebekah. Bad enough to have my wife lying there dead, but then to know I’d be a fucking laughing stock, too? They said if I talked to you guys about what was taken, the pictures would go to the press. I didn’t know why they cared until I heard about the search at Fong’s place. Then I figured … I figured it was a cover-up.’

‘Lenny, you let an innocent man take the fall?’ K-2 demanded. ‘You just sat on your hands while we put him in prison?’

‘Innocent, hell. Come on, Kyle, he was an ex-con. A low-life crook. You found loot from other burglaries at his place, too, right?’

‘He was convicted of murder, Mr. Keck,’ Serena said. ‘It was a murder he almost certainly didn’t commit. Were you really okay with the idea that the people who killed your wife were still out there? That they never paid for what they did?’

‘I didn’t have a choice,’ Lenny said. ‘Don’t you get it? I had my whole reputation to think about.’

Stride shook his head. ‘Tell us about the girls,’ he said. ‘You said they were college girls.’

‘Yeah, very pretty, very smart. That was part of the attraction. They weren’t low-life street girls.’

‘Did you ever take them to your house?’

Lenny nodded. ‘Sometimes.’

‘So they could have seen you enter your alarm code,’ he said.

‘I–I suppose so.’

‘We need names,’ Stride told him.

‘You think I had their real names? They didn’t tell me, and I didn’t ask.’

‘How did you find them?’ Stride asked. ‘Who set it up?’

‘There was — there was one girl. A business major. I spoke at her class, and she came up and talked to me afterwards. We went for coffee, and — I don’t know, I made a pass at her. She said if that’s what I wanted, fine, but it wasn’t free. She gave me a price, and I said sure, why not. That’s how it started. When I wanted more, she introduced me to other girls who were willing to do the same thing.’

‘Who was the girl?’ Serena asked.

‘She wouldn’t have been part of a plot like this. Not her.’

Stride squatted in front of him. ‘ Who? ’

Brooke Hahne stared at the knife on the passenger seat.

She’d taken the knife from the kitchen drawer in her apartment. It was stainless. Sharp. She picked it up and clutched it in her hand and studied the blade, which glinted under the dome light of the Kia. The handle felt cold. When she tensed her wrist, she saw the radial artery bulge from her skin. She touched the flat edge of the blade to the swollen artery. With a vertical flick, she could open it up. Blood would spurt, warm and bright red, like a poinsettia.

It wouldn’t take long for her to die. Not long at all. It would be swift and painless.

She’d driven aimlessly in the darkness for two hours, and now she’d finally parked. She sat in the chill of her car and wondered how everything had gone this far. How the past had spiraled out of control. She should have put an end to it ten years ago, but she’d fooled herself into thinking she could do penance and make it right. Every day at the shelter, saving lost lives, was atonement for her sins.

Except that was a lie.

In reality, she was a coward, afraid of spending her life in prison. She’d been scared and selfish, unwilling to face what she’d done. Now more people had died because of her, one after another, like a bad dream that wouldn’t stop.

People she’d never met. And people she’d loved.

‘Oh, Dory,’ she murmured. ‘What did I do?’

A photograph of the two of them dangled from her rear-view mirror, where she’d taped it. They sat on top of the stone runs known as the Cribs just off the Boardwalk, in their bikinis, cheek to cheek, arms around each other’s waists, silly grins on their faces. A few seconds later, she remembered, they’d dove into the cold lake water hand in hand. They were roommates and college freshmen then, giddy about everything that was ahead of them. If only they’d known.

For Dory, drugs were ahead of her. Misery, addiction, shame.

For Brooke, it was Leonard Keck. That was how it all started.

Back then, it hadn’t seemed like a big deal. She needed money, and he had money, and all she had to do was disconnect her body from her mind. She wasn’t the only one doing it. Some of the other girls talked about it in hushed tones, behind closed doors. A party. A nice dress. It was like a date, but the happy ending came with cash. Two hundred, three hundred, sometimes five hundred dollars. A fortune.

Lenny had hit on her after class like a rich old fool, and she’d thought, This is my chance . Why not? You can fuck me, but it’ll cost you. It was business, like selling a car. They both got what they wanted out of the deal. She could smile and fake it as he did whatever he wanted to her, and the end justified the means. No student loans. No mountain of debt.

It was her body. Her choice. Everybody said it was a victimless crime.

No one was supposed to get hurt.

No one was supposed to get killed.

He pawed her everywhere with his old, clumsy hands. His fingers fumbled with her silk blouse, and he popped the buttons, ripping the flaps apart and yanking the cups of her lace bra down to expose her breasts. He covered them with his mouth, sucked on her pale pink nipples, and squeezed her small mounds until he left fingerprints.

‘Shit, look at you,’ he panted, his eyes wide, feasting on her nude flesh.

It was the same every time they were together. Like she was a museum piece. Like he couldn’t believe she belonged to him.

Lenny still wore his tux from the university fundraiser. The studs on his white shirt rubbed her bare skin as his body crushed her. She could feel his hardness through his trousers, aching to be released. He already had her skirt bunched above her hips, her panties around her ankles, and her knees spread like butterfly wings. She watched his back arch as he sank down her body. He buried his face and tongue between her legs, lapping at her slit like a dog at a water bowl.