Page 43 of Shattered
Once my shift was over, I changed back into black and headed to Melissa’s house. By now, I knew that as long as she wasn’t entertaining a businessman privately, she would be back at this hour. I had a feeling there wasn’t much business at the Dahlia District lately. Those club members should have understood that as long as they hadn’t committed a crime, then they had nothing to worry about. But abandoning ship altogether was like raising a hand high and proclaiming that they had raped and abused sex workers.
Eventually, I would pick them off, one by one. Perhaps starting with Jake.
After I put on the mask, I let myself in through the kitchen door. She left it unlocked every night now. She was always waiting for me.
She was lying on her stomach, the comforter scattered over her lower legs. The bare skin of her upper thighs reminded me of seeing her spread and quivering. This time though, her legs weren’t restrained. I let my mask come into the light. The crunch of the carpet under my boots made her turn.
She smiled. That damn beautiful smile. At me.
But I couldn’t let that interfere with the answers I needed. “Your friend. Jake. The one who raped you,” I said.
“Yes?”
“Did he roofie you?”
She rubbed her forehead. “They were some of the worst hangovers I’ve ever had,” she said. “But I figured I just drank too much.”
“Do you drink too much often?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes.”
I sat down on the bed, careful not to touch her. This was a delicate conversation, one that needed to be executed in a way that was comfortable to her.
“You never considered that he might have roofied you?”
“We’re best friends,” she said. She sat up in bed and crossed her arms. “He wouldn’t do that to me.”
“And how many Jakes work at the Dahlia District?”
“Just one.”
I clenched my fists. He had drugged these women, but unlike the women working on Ivy Ledge Bridge, these women, like Melissa and the dancers from the strip club, were in a position, for the most part, that if they wanted, they could go to the police. They weren’t technically prostitutes; they were entertainers, which didn’t immediately put them in a criminal’s position. But even so, many probably had too much at stake to risk pursuing him. But at least they had the ability to try.
But Melissa had admitted to him raping her multiple times. And there was a good chance that she, and the women from the emergency department, weren’t the only ones. That he had gotten a taste for it, and hadn’t stopped.
“You know I’m the Angel. Whatever the hell they’re calling me now,” I muttered. “When you think of what I’ve done, tell me, what acts justify retribution?”
Melissa’s eyes fluttered down to her lap. “Maybe he deserves to think it out in prison.”
“You know, as well as I do, that many of those women don’twantto go through the traumatic process of a conviction. And that’s only those thatcancome forward. And when they do? Fifteen years.” I shook my head. “Do you think a repeat offender, like Jake, can be changed in a correctional institution after a maximum sentence of fifteen years?”
“A lot can happen in fifteen years.”
“And what if the rapist never gets convicted?”
She was silent then. Moonlight trickled in around the edges of the window blinds. I hadn’t lit the candle this time. I had other objectives in mind, and I didn’t want her to think otherwise.
“I would kill someone,” she said quietly, “if it meant protecting my brothers and sisters.”
I tilted my chin. “Siblings?”
“The people at the Dahlia District are the closest I’ve ever had to family,” she said, “Jake included. The shit we’ve gone through together? I couldn’t imagine doing it without them.” Her head hung down low. “I would defend any of them if they needed it. Even the ones I didn’t like.”
“Which is why you killed Reeves Aldrich,” I said.
Her eyes shot up to mine in the mask. “You know about that?”
“Since the beginning, yes.”
