Betrayed Read online

  “Sorry, bro. But you weren’t answering your phone or the hotel’s phone and I knew you came back here. I thought something happened.”

  Jaxson pulled his cell from his pocket and pushed the button to wake the phone. It stayed black. “My bad. I let my cell die. What’s so urgent?”

  “The ME up in Denison called our ME and they discussed similarities in the cases. The Hispanic woman had been pregnant and the baby cut out of her, just like our women. There are other similarities as well. It looks like she was killed by our guy.”

  “Piper was right.” Jaxson paused a moment, then asked, “Do you think you can handle the ME? I have something else I want to look into regarding this case tonight. We’ll meet for breakfast at seven to go over our findings. What do you think?”

  “Anytime we can cover more ground and get the work done faster is fine with me. We have a baby doc appointment in the morning, though. Meet for lunch at the deli?”

  “Deli’s great.”

  “Okay, I’ll see you at noon tomorrow.”

  Jaxson showed him to the door and locked it after him. He waited a second then peered out the peephole. Seeing the hallway empty, he said, “You can come out, Piper.”

  Chapter 52

  Piper plopped on the bed and laid backward. “I knew Louisa was killed by our serial killer. We need to brainstorm and look at the suspects and try to narrow it down as to who are the top three.”

  He sat on the bed next to her. “Don’t you think the task force has done that? We have a whole team on this portion of the investigation.”

  She sat up and crossed her legs. “I like to do it myself. But, do you have access to what the team found out about everyone?”

  He paused and turned the corner of his mouth down. “Yes…but it could jeopardize my job.”

  “I don’t want that. Share what you can and don’t share what will get you in trouble.”

  Jaxson worked his jaw as he reflected on Piper’s proposal. He wanted more than anything to catch this killer before he hurt anyone else—especially Piper. But he didn’t want to jeopardize his job or the case against the killer. “I will have to be careful. This doesn’t only affect me; it could jeopardize the case against the suspect when we bring him to trial.”

  “We can do this.” Piper scooted to the edge of the bed and stood. She moved toward the desk and then grabbed her briefcase. She pulled out a tablet of paper, went back to the bed, propped up the pillows and then sat cross-legged, leaning her back against them. “Okay, let’s start with Sarah. What was the name of her boyfriend or husband?”

  “Let’s make it easy so we don’t have to signify. Let’s just call them their SO, for significant other.”

  Piper squinted at Jaxson and thinned her lips. “I know what SO means.”

  “Sorry. It’s just a habit I have to define acronyms.”

  She grinned. “Okay.” She printed Sarah’s name on the pad. “What was her SO’s name?”

  “Nash Frank.”

  “What do we know about him?” Piper asked as she wrote his name next to Sarah’s.

  “I am not privy to those interview notes. We just learned his name yesterday, so I don’t know when he was interviewed or if he has been interviewed yet. I can check in the morning at our daily meeting.”

  “So right now, we have no information on Nash Frank?”

  “Nothing. Just his name.”

  Piper set her pad aside and headed back to her briefcase. She pulled out her laptop and brought it back to the bed. She opened up her identity app and typed in his name. She included the demographic information she knew. She clicked on the Go button and waited for the report.

  “What are you doing?”

  Piper smiled a flirty smile and fluttered her eyelashes. “You don’t want to know.” She made prime use of her bow-tie lips, teasing him with kisses and winks. Her computer beeped. She watched the screen until her report finished. She clicked on Open and another screen materialized. It provided additional information, but not much.

  “What did you get?”

  “A bit more on our SO. He’s Caucasian, thirty-five, and a real estate agent. That would give him a lot of free time to do this.”

  “Are you really thinking that one of the SOs is our unsub? That’s highly unlikely with it being a serial. This person is a sadist. More than likely, he is also a sociopath. It would take one to cut out a pregnant woman’s baby. It’s difficult for a sociopath to fit into a family situation.”

  “Recent studies of sociopaths have proved that some can imitate the emotions of others so well that they do fit into family situations. Plus, some of these relationships haven’t been that long, and we don’t know that they weren’t abusive. So, unless they have an airtight alibi, they should be on the suspect list.”

  Jaxson rubbed his face. “In some cases, that may not be possible. It’s tough to pin down a time of death with skeletal remains. It’s not like TV—which can pin it down in a matter of minutes.”

  “You’re right—with the type of remains we have, that will be difficult. Let’s handle it this way. I will work on our list over the next few days. When you get a name for the skeletal remains, if you can share that information, I can at least do some digging to see if any of our men could have been in any of the other women’s lives.”

  “I think that’s a good plan. Because there is something else I want to do right now.”

  “And what is that?”

  “I think you know.” Jaxson picked up her laptop, writing tablet, and ink pen and placed it on the second bed. He then crawled in and whispered in her ear, “Be prepared to beg.”

  Chapter 53

  Jaxson unbuttoned Piper’s blouse with one hand, and then his thumb slipped under her bra and teased her nipple until he grew hard. She helped him by slipping the top off her shoulders and down her arms, tossing it to the side when finished. He expertly flicked open her front-close bra, exposing both of her perfectly shaped, white Chinese pears. The nipples and areolas bore the color of dragon fruit but were marred with marks of courage. He bent down and sucked on one nip and then the other until both were hard and straight as tree.

  He lifted himself above her and undid her slacks’ top button with his thumb and index finger. Then he unzipped her pants. She lifted her buttocks so that he could slip the garment down with her panties. Once they were past her knees, his head lowered and kissed the top of her pubic bone. Then he spread her legs and licked and taunted her clitoris until she writhed with pleasure.

  She clenched the bedspread in her fists and squirmed under the undeniable pleasure he gave to her. Her orgasm hit her hard. She struggled, trying to get away from him, but he held on so she could not move a hairsbreadth from his constantly moving tongue. No longer able to hold it in, she screamed and then covered her face, quieting her heightened enjoyment.

  Jaxson pushed her pants off all the way, and then took his own off. He kept a finger inside her, keeping her excitement taut with desire. And she could tell, she was wet, embarrassingly wet.

  He pushed inside and her breath caught. Every moan and whimper made him harder and harder; he couldn’t orgasm too soon. “Piper, you are so wet. I love knowing that I make you as hot as you make me.”

  Then she remembered.

  She remembered that someone else had made her wet—someone she loathed, who had beat her and mutilated her and abused her.

  “Get off me, get off me!” Piper yelled.

  He stopped immediately, concerned at her reaction. He pulled out and lay beside her.

  She couldn’t stop shaking and crying. Tazz jumped on the bed and pushed herself between Jaxson and Piper, then laid on Piper’s upper body. She licked her master’s face.

  “I don’t understand.” He moved toward her side of the bed and sat on the edge. “What did I do? Did I hurt you?”

  She had her one hand on the center of her chest and she held up the other with one finger pointing to the ceiling.

  “You need a minute?”
r />   Piper nodded. Tazz nosed her arm, trying to get Piper to pet her, and finally, she did. After a couple of minutes stroking her dog’s thick fur and Jaxson holding her other hand and caressing the back of it, her anxiety eased. She scooted out from underneath Tazzie and sat next to him.

  He put his arm around her shoulder and she leaned into the crook. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Sunshine, you don’t have to be sorry about anything. What happened?”

  “I thought you were going to kill me.”

  Chapter 54

  “What? What did I do to make you think that?” Jaxson asked.

  “It wasn’t what you did.” Piper paused, wondering how she would explain this to him. If she wanted to explain this to him. “It was what you said. It sent me back to…to…”

  “To when Samuel had you,” Jaxson finished.

  “Yes.”

  “You have to tell me what he said so I don’t ever repeat it.”

  “I can’t. Then you’d know my worst mortification from that time.”

  “Piper! You should not be mortified at all. He kidnapped you, tortured you, and raped you. None of that is your fault.”

  “I never told you he raped me.”

  “Well, honey, I’m guessing that now because of what happened. Am I wrong?”

  “Not with his…thing.” She shook all over. “He used an object.”

  Jaxson turned away from her a moment. His eyes shut tight and his mouth turned down as the other muscles in his face tightened. After turning back to her, he asked, “So, tell me, what did I say? I never want to bring you to that moment again.”

  She pulled at her fingers and then found the edge of the sheet and twisted the corner until she couldn’t budge it again. Tazzie laid her head on Piper’s lap, scooting closer and closer. Finally, she took a deep breath and whispered, “You are so wet. I love knowing that I make you hot.” To his credit, he’d given her time to tell him at her own pace.

  “Wait, what? Why? Samuel said that to you? You were wet when he raped you with an object?”

  Piper closed her eyes. Her cheeks grew hot; and then hotter and hotter and hotter until she imagined blisters appearing. She knew he’d react this way—most people did. They didn’t understand why she was wet. “See, that’s why I didn’t want to tell you. You aren’t familiar with the information that is supplied to rape victims. It’s a normal bodily function to make a female wet during intercourse, whether it’s rape or consensual. It’s to protect her from injury. It took me a long time to admit that to the therapist, and she had the literature ready for me, when I did. She was just waiting for me to bring it up.”

  “Sunshine, I’m so sorry. Now, I remember learning that in one of the annual courses we need to take to keep our education up to date. I wish it had come to me a minute earlier because now I can’t take back what I said.”

  “It’s okay.”

  He wrapped an arm around her. “No, it’s not. I inadvertently made it sound like you being wet was your fault and that in some way you enjoyed it. I didn’t mean it that way, I swear. I know it’s a normal response.” He paused as he reached for her hand and rubbed the tip of his finger over each knuckle, then each finger. He turned her hand over and lightly kissed her palm, then he took her in his arms and covered her mouth with his. His tongue explored every crevasse until neither could catch their breath.

  His lips released hers and he said, “So, I repeated what Samuel said to you and it brought you back there and you had a panic attack?”

  “Yes, exactly.”

  “You’re okay now, sweetness. I’m right here and I won’t hurt you. I won’t desert you. I’ll always have your back.”

  She pushed him back onto the bed.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t. I don’t want to hurt or scare you again.”

  “You won’t. But if you do, we’ll deal with it. I won’t let him make me afraid to make love with you.” She snapped her fingers and ordered, “Tazz, off.” Then she took his penis in her mouth and worked at getting him rock hard.

  Chapter 55

  The next morning, Piper sipped from her venti caramel macchiato. She glanced over the few notes she took last night on the suspects. She wasn’t as sure as she made herself out to be last night that one of the suspects she’d listed was the serial killer responsible for all of this. She had to check each one out individually, and then see how well their alibi would hold up to scrutiny.

  Piper finished making notes on the suspect, Ryan Graham. Technically, he was first because Ella Graham’s skeleton had been discovered, not her body. Ryan, a real estate agent, had flexible hours. It would be hard for anyone to alibi him unless the witness stood right next to him. That wasn’t the case with Ryan. His alibi was that he had left his house at eight a.m. the day of the murder to meet a client at a multi-million-dollar home for sale. However, there was too much leeway both at the beginning and end of the meeting for it to be a solid alibi. If the ME or forensic anthropologist were able to determine a more exact time of death, the time wasn’t being shared with the public. “Ryan remains a suspect,” Piper murmured.

  The first victim she and Tazzie found was Sarah Braden. Nash Frank was her fiancée. According to an article Piper read, although she hadn’t verified the information, Sarah wanted to wait until she had the baby to get married so she would fit into her mother’s wedding dress. Nash had been brought in for questioning multiple times, but no charges had been filed. According to the local CBS channel, Nash Frank had a solid alibi. However, that alibi was never divulged. He was a long-haul truck driver, gone for extended periods of time. He drove all over Texas and into surrounding states. He worked exclusively for a distribution company. She guessed that had something to do with his alibi. How hard would it be to fake his location or change the times?

  Then there was Angela’s boyfriend, Luke St. Joseph. She learned that he drove a truck for a living, too. He contracted with several local transportation companies for business. He had distant family in Texas. She couldn’t find any information regarding a possible alibi for any of the murders. She’d have to ask Jaxson whether he knew of any.

  Louisa Alverez, the latest victim, had Roberto Lopez as her ex-boyfriend. Piper knew he had an extensive rap sheet and had physically abused Louisa. It didn’t appear he had an alibi. Roberto had disappeared.

  Chapter 56

  Jaxson pulled his SUV into the tight-fitting parking place in front of Eli’s Deli. He was five minutes early, and Jon was normally five minutes late, so after he finished parking, put the car in gear, and turned off the ignition, he sat in the SUV and scanned text messages.

  His phone rang and he answered, “You have Jaxson Wyatt.”

  “It’s Brittany Walker, the DNA supervisor.” The voice spoke with excitement. “Connie Pemberton finished! We have a sketch and a family genome. How soon can you be in my office?”

  “I’m a block away. I’ll be there in five.” Jaxson forgot all about the lunch date with his partner and ran the block, so he didn’t have to move his car. It took all of four minutes for him to knock on her door.

  “Come in.”

  Jaxson opened the door and headed to the chair in front of her desk. After sitting, he said, “I’m all ears. Let me have it.”

  “A half-sister sent her DNA to one of those genealogy web sites and Connie had access to the data. The sad part of this is that we hit a dead end on the family genome lead.”

  “You sounded so excited over the telephone! What happened!”

  “I’m sorry. The email had just arrived, and I called you before I read the results. I’m really sorry.”

  “Why is it a dead end?”

  “The half-sister was put up for adoption when she was born. She had hoped that the DNA would help find her birth parents and/or siblings. But no such luck. It did match what might be a second cousin, but when she spoke to the cousin, he didn’t know anyone in the family who put a baby up for adoption.”

  “Damn! I had really high hopes.”

/>   “Connie emailed me the sketch and the family genome. I printed a copy. We can put it out to the media and see if anyone recognizes it.”

  “Let me see the sketch.”

  Brittany turned her monitor so he could see the screen and clicked on a file. It took a minute for the image to upload. When it did, he let out a low, prolonged whistle and then said, “Son of a bitch!”

  “Excuse me? Do you recognize him?”

  “Yes. Would this be enough to get a warrant for a DNA test?”

  “It would depend on the judge. This is new technology and we haven’t used it in this area before.”

  “Then I will follow him and try to collect a sample he tosses.”

  “Are you going to tell me who it is?”

  “No. I can’t. I don’t want any chance of him finding out we are on to him. I know you wouldn’t tell anyone, but I need to play it safe.”

  “I understand. I’ll print you out a copy. This probably means you don’t want this sent to the media then.”

  “Absolutely not. We’ll lose him.” He stood and proffered his hand toward her. She took it easily and they shook hands. “I can’t thank you enough for all that you have done.”

  “It wasn’t me; it was Connie. She’s amazing!”

  “Maybe I should send you both flowers.”

  “Not necessary. Connie travels a lot. I’m sure an emailed thank-you would be enough and to let her know if her work was instrumental in catching the murderer.”

  “That I can do. Thanks again. Hopefully within a day or two I’ll have another DNA sample for you to compare to the results.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  Chapter 57

  As soon as Jaxson exited the lab building, he pulled his phone from his pocket and called Jon. The phone rang four times before his partner picked up.