Perfect Trust argi-3 Read online

  If he made it through- if he remained free and survived his wounds -he had promised he would not fail again.

  Rowan Gant would die.

  Ten Months Later

  December 1

  Saint Louis, Missouri

  Heather Burke only half awoke, a substantial part of her remaining submerged in a state of semi-conscious anguish. As consciousness relentlessly crept in, among the heightened sensations to immediately register were a dry throat and a headache like no other she could remember in her thirty-three years. Rapidly following, and skirting the edges of the pain in complete disharmony, blind terror paralyzed her body. Her muscles were tensed, aching, and she felt clammy with cold sweat. Her heart was racing, and out of reflex she sucked in a sharp breath with a startled gasp.

  Holding tight to that frantic gulp of air, she listened, waiting for the source of her terror to make itself known. But no matter how intently she focused, she heard nothing other than the beating of her own heart. Even so, she refused to expel the breath until she could simply hold it no longer. When that moment finally came, the only new sound to be added to the silence was that of her timid whimper.

  She continued to wait while fighting to keep her breathing quiet and shallow. She desperately wanted to suck in the cool air as fast as she could, but something was out there. Something fearful in the darkness and she didn’t want it to find her. She felt like she was seven years old again and hiding from the boogey man of her childhood nightmares.

  Her mind trudged through a thick fog as she tried to center on just exactly what it was she feared so much. Each passing thought bringing her closer to the surface of consciousness. Her muscles finally began to relax as the wakefulness blossomed from half to full, though the murkiness that obscured her thoughts remained.

  And, so did the fear.

  Heather’s head was throbbing in agonizing pulses. This was a mother of a migraine, she thought. No, she decided after a moment, it wasn’t just a mother. This was the great matriarch of the entire clan. It had to be the very one that had spawned all the others throughout history, and it had apparently elected to go into labor inside her skull.

  Slowly, bracing herself against the still unknown terror, she opened one eye. It seemed as though it took forever before she stopped squinting and allowed herself to see. As her blurry vision adjusted, she took note of the gradient blue-black shadows slicing angular paths through the room.

  Nothing moved…

  Nothing leapt at her from the darkness…

  Nothing.

  She allowed herself to relax a little more.

  Letting her monocular gaze roam, she scanned the room. Her eyeball hurt as she moved it, and she realized quickly both of them were sore and itching. They felt gritty and allergic, like something foreign had invaded their sanctity. She blinked hard, but the feeling remained.

  At least what she saw was intimately familiar, shrouded by darkness though it was. There was the TV in the corner with a cheap plastic, tabletop Christmas tree sitting on top of it. The second hand papa-san chair was sitting catty-cornered from her-a basket of wrinkled, to-be-folded-someday clothing occupying it as usual. Everything looked just like it normally did whenever she was sprawled out on her couch in sofa-spud mode.

  And to her relief, there was still nothing there that shouldn’t be.

  This was definitely her apartment, and she found that comforting. However, something still wasn’t right about it all, and although it was continuing to dull, she just couldn’t fully shake the feeling of terror deep down in the pit of her stomach.

  Giving in to a sudden attack of bravery, she moved to sit up, and pain lanced through the center of her head from back to front. She eased herself back down and lay perfectly still, not wanting to further aggravate the troll with the jackhammer that was apparently excavating inside her brain.

  This was not good at all. It was unnerving. Along with the pain, there was an increasingly desperate feeling of disorientation, as if the fog of sleep had given way only to be replaced by another obscuring mist in wakefulness.

  Between staccato bursts of agony, Heather took mental inventory, searching to put her finger on a reason for the headache. It felt a little like a hangover, but not exactly, and she didn’t remember doing any drinking last night. In fact, she didn’t remember much of anything at all from last night. She remembered leaving work, driving home, and then…

  Then what?

  She didn’t know. She concentrated for a minute but gave up almost immediately when she realized that it only served to make the pain worse.

  Her tongue felt thick. She swallowed hard, and the dryness in her throat formed a lump that hesitated for a moment before painfully making its way downward.

  She tried to approach the situation from a different angle. She could see that it was dark. So maybe that meant it was still last night…or tonight…or whatever…night, anyway. Hopefully it wasn’t already tomorrow night. No, it couldn’t be. Could it?

  It made her brain hurt too much to think about it, so she gave up again.

  “Oh man,” she muttered. “This sucks big time.”

  She waited, considering how apropos the statement was. Eventually, there was a temporary lull in the migraine, and she gave thinking another shot.

  She was at home, that much was for certain, but she couldn’t quite remember how she had arrived here or even when. She wasn’t even sure if she could really remember the last thing she remembered. Now wasn’t that a kick?

  So, she was at home, on her couch, and it was dark. In the overall scheme of things, that really wasn’t much to go on. But at least she was at her home, and she hadn’t gotten drunk and gone home with some sleazy bar asshole. Or had she?

  A different kind of fear rippled through her abdomen. Had she screwed up, gotten trashed, and brought some dumbass home with her? God! She hoped not! If only she could remember.

  Without thinking, she lifted her arm to check her watch and regretted it instantly. A new ache added itself to the growing list, this one taking the form of a burning soreness in the vicinity of her ribcage. It seemed isolated to her left side, for the moment at least.

  Opening both eyes this time, she struggled to focus on the face of her wristwatch. Fumbling with her free hand, she managed to press the button to illuminate the digital timepiece, although she was fairly certain that said button had always been on the opposite side from where she finally found it. Centered in the eerie blue glow, she watched as the liquid crystal flickered from something that looked like the number 9l followed by the letter E, to suddenly become the word Ll: E.

  The jumble of LCD segments made little sense to Heather’s clouded mind, and she blinked several times, trying unsuccessfully to get a clearer picture. The digits still read Ll: E.

  “Lie?” she mused aloud, her voice hoarse and thick. “What the? Awww, screw it…”

  The fear had finally become a faded shadow of what it had been a few minutes before, and she told herself that her earlier flashback to childhood must have been dead on. She probably just had a nightmare. She gritted her teeth and pushed upward once again until she was in a sitting position. Swinging first one leg, then the other, over the edge of the cushions, she let her feet touch the floor, then she leaned forward. Elbows on her knees, she cradled her head in her hands and massaged her temples.

  The big question on her mind now was whether or not a nightmare could make you forget what you had done when you were conscious.

  After something just short of forever, she stood and almost immediately fell. With a grimace she kicked off her heels, absently wondering why she hadn’t bothered to do so earlier. “Of course, since I can’t remember much of anything else, why should I be surprised?” she thought.

  Heather stumbled through her apartment toward the bathroom on a single-minded quest for aspirin. If she could make the pain go away then maybe she could concentrate. Surely she would be able to remember how she got here. People don’t just lose entire chunks of time
out of their lives, except maybe in those alien abduction movies.

  “Yeah, right,” she laughed as she mumbled to herself. “Get real, Heather. You weren’t abducted by aliens.”

  Her fingers found the light switch automatically and flicked it on. She squinted and turned her head away as the sudden flood of luminance assaulted her. She groaned audibly and wondered why her entire body seemed to ache. Flu, maybe? That could be it, she thought. Flu, fever, and the whole nine yards. Yeah, maybe that was the explanation.

  Still squinting, she looked up and reached for the medicine chest over the sink. Through slit eyes she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and gasped.

  Her shag of blonde hair was an absolute mess, but that wasn’t what startled her most. Bright crimson smears streaked across her mouth, and her face looked splotchy, uneven. It was as if someone had haphazardly wiped away layers of heavy makeup. Reddish-purple bruises stood out against the pale skin of her neck, almost as if they were glowing.

  The visual trigger set hidden memories in motion, and it was at this very moment that the source of her earlier fear called out from the secret places inside her skull where they had been laying in wait.

  The parking lot…

  The pain in her side like an electric shock…

  The medicinal bitterness on the back of her tongue…

  The darkness…

  The feeling of helplessness as rough hands groped her without apology…

  A deep feeling of violation bludgeoned her now. She backed away from the mirror as the earlier terror returned full force. Hot tears were already streaming along her cheeks, and she soon found her back pressed against the tiled wall. She allowed herself to slide down to the floor and hugged her knees against her chest even though it hurt like hell.

  Heather Burke sat on the cold floor and sobbed for a solid hour before finally summoning the courage to drive herself to the hospital.

  *****

  “Did you already do a rape kit?” Detective Charlene McLaughlin asked before taking a cautious slug of her hot drink.

  She was still working on a chai latte from the corner stop ‘n grab she had hit on the way here and was already regretting it. She knew better than to be adventurous and try something new this morning. She should have just stuck with her regular large coffee-two creams, four sugars. That way she would have known exactly what to expect. Charlee hated surprises, and what was in her cup this morning definitely fell into that category. What was worse, it wasn’t of the good variety.

  Everyone called her Charlee. Some even shortened it to Chuck, but only if they knew her very well. Even fewer people actually called her Charlene, mostly because it just didn’t seem to go with the overall picture. Petite and sporting an ash blonde pageboy coif, she could almost always be found wearing jeans and running shoes. Given her tomboyish appearance and tough demeanor, the moniker just seemed to fit.

  Before her recent transfer to the sex crimes unit, she had been assigned to City Homicide. Among that close knit group of cops, there had actually been a running bet that she didn’t even own a dress or skirt. Catching wind of it, she’d made a deal to split the pool with an office worker then showed up one day wearing a nicely tailored skirt and jacket ensemble. She’d been totally uncomfortable the entire day and vowed to never again wear pantyhose for as long as she lived, but it had been more than worth the looks on their faces-the hundred bucks cash she got from the split was just icing on the cake. She never did tell them that she’d had to borrow the outfit from a friend.

  This morning she was dressed in her usual. A well-worn leather bomber jacket fit over her torso, hanging just loose enough to hide the nine-millimeter Beretta riding in a shoulder rig beneath her left arm. Her badge was clipped on her belt, visible, but unobtrusive.

  “The nurse is finishing up with her now.” The doctor nodded as they walked, answering her query about the kit before adding, “We called it in as soon as she arrived.”

  Generic instrumental Christmas music was filtering softly in from overhead to mix with the ambient sounds of the ER. It wasn’t doing much to lift Charlee’s spirits though. She had been on edge with an itchy, nervous kind of energy for over a week now. She’d had the feeling before and she’d known what was coming-this. The truth is, she’d been fully expecting this call ever since that second case file hit her desk, and she’d been dreading it all the while. Now that it was here, the dread wasn’t subsiding.

  “Good, good,” Charlee nodded as she absently took another swig of the latte then screwed up her face. Yeah, this stuff was definitely an unpleasant surprise. Trying to ignore the bizarre taste in her mouth, she asked, “Get anything?”

  “Unfortunately, not much.”

  “Did she wait?”

  The doctor had traveled this road before and immediately understood the meaning behind the question. “No, not long. She said it had only been an hour or so since she regained consciousness. She’s a smart girl. She had enough wits about her not to shower or clean up, so there’s definitely evidence of the rape. We did collect semen, and that will be on its way to the lab shortly.”

  “So she was unconscious? I’m already not liking the sound of this, Doc. You get pictures?”

  “The regular routine, yes,” he returned. “But she wasn’t really abused. There are a few bruises, but it seems to profile almost like a date rape.”

  “This may sound crass, but what I wouldn’t give for a simple date rape right now… She say whether she can ID the guy?”

  “She can’t remember anything other than that she thinks she was attacked in the parking lot of her apartment complex.”

  “She thinks she was attacked?”

  “She appears to be suffering from anterograde amnesia. Possibly drug induced.”

  “Yeah, that actually fits.” Charlee nodded as she spoke, her mood darkening even more as the conversation progressed. “Blood test?”

  “Of course. We’ll screen for Benzodiazepines. Rohypnol, GHB, etcetera.”

  They came to a stop outside the door of the treatment room.

  “This’ll probably sound strange, but how about hickeys? She have any of those?”

  “Actually, yes, there are a few large hematoma on her neck,” he answered with a hint of surprise.

  “I was afraid of that. Okay, let me see if I can bat a thousand here,” she continued. “This woman is in her early to mid-thirties, petite, and blonde-Am I right?”

  “Of course, but don’t try to tell me that you are psychic, Detective,” the doctor returned. “We gave all of that information when we called it in.”

  “Yeah, well that information is exactly why I’m here instead of a uniform.”

  The significance behind Charlee’s comment was in no way lost on the doctor. He acknowledged it with a simple nod and a query of his own, “Serial rapist?”

  “You didn’t hear that from me. Not yet, anyway, but let’s just say I’ve got two case files just like it on my desk right now. In my book, two makes it a suspicious coincidence. Three makes it a pattern.”

  “I see,” he nodded thoughtfully and motioned to the door. “Well, she’s in here. If you need anything else you can have the nurse page me.”

  “Hey, Doc,” she addressed him as he turned to go.

  “Yes, Detective?”

  “You going past a restroom or a sink?”

  “Most likely, why?”

  Charlee held out the almost full cup of chai latte to him. “Do me a favor and dump this crap, will’ya?”

  CHAPTER 1

  Overwhelming violation saturated my very being. I hated the feeling, but I clung to it like a piece of flotsam in a raging flood because it was very simply all I had to keep me afloat.

  Waking up in a cold sweat seemed to be the norm for me as of late. When it first started, it had only been once every few days, maybe twice at most. Now it was rare for a week to pass without it happening three or even four times. Recently I’d even had an incident where it occurred twice in one night
. The lack of a decent night’s rest was taking a measurable toll, and I was definitely feeling the effects.

  More often than not I spent my waking hours on autopilot, fueled by bitter coffee and an almost constant, insatiable desire for a cigarette. Considering that I’d quit smoking-well, except for an occasional cigar-somewhat over a year ago, I found the craving more than a bit unusual. Thus far, I’d managed to keep it in check with nicotine gum, but I wasn’t sure how long that would last. The need was beginning to achieve absolutely ridiculous proportions.

  Of course, one could easily imagine that after surviving a run-in with a crazed serial killer, nightmares would be expected. The problem was that I’m not exactly sure you could call these events nightmares; this is not to mention the fact that they hadn’t even begun until several months after the fact. On top of that, the episodes weren’t about my brush with death at all. At least I don’t think they were.

  To tell the truth, I couldn’t really be certain what they were about.

  The bald facts were that I would wake up in a cold sweat with my heart pounding in a furious attempt to escape the confines of my chest. My mind would be a jumble of nothingness, and I would be incapable of pinning down a single thought. That, in and of itself, brought on sudden panic. I had always been very cognizant of my dreams and night terrors, remembering them in vivid detail. It went way beyond troubling for me to suddenly be devoid of that clarity.

  And then there was this inexplicable feeling of violation.

  All of it together was bad enough, but there was something even worse happening-I wasn’t always waking up in my bed. Sometimes I would find myself sprawled on the living room floor. Other times, it might be the kitchen. One time, I had even awakened lying next to my truck on the cold concrete of my garage. I can personally guarantee you that is definitely not a place you want to find yourself half-naked in the middle of winter.

  I think perhaps that was the incident that frightened me most. Upon gathering my wits, I had even felt the hood of the truck to see if it was warm. It wasn’t, but it hadn’t really meant much since I had no clue how long I’d been lying there. For all I knew, the truck could have had plenty of time to cool down. Of course, as cold as it was, I wasn’t suffering from hypothermia, so my only assumption could be that it really hadn’t been for very long. The only thing that finally quelled my panic to any extent, however, was the fact that the fuel gauge hadn’t appeared to have budged. So most likely I hadn’t been driving in my sleep, but if I had, then at least I hadn’t gone far. Still, the not knowing was a threatening cloud that had been hanging over me ever since.