Pierced: Pierced Trilogy Boxed Set (3 page)

I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then I begin talking. I tell the detective everything, recalling the events of my mugging in as great a detail as I can manage. By the time I finish, I am quite emotional, almost in tears.

“Did you get a good look at your assailant, Miss Colby?”

I am quiet as I think about last night’s events. Did I get a good look at him?

“Can you tell me anything about him?” he asks. “White? Black? Hispanic? Tall or short?”

“Um … he was white, I think. Maybe a little taller than me,” I say softly.

“Do you remember anything distinguishing about him at all?” Detective Pierce’s voice sounds intense all of a sudden. As if he is trying to will me to remember something. Anything that he can use to find my attacker. His earnestness takes me by surprise and I find myself wanting to think of something useful to help him in his search.

I wrack my brain trying to recall any detail about the man’s face but, when I try, all I can see is his fist coming toward me and I flinch. “Um … maybe.” There is something, but it’s … not clear. Like a dream. On the very fringe of my mind, like I could almost reach out and grab it. But it won’t come. I see his fist coming at me again. And again, it makes me flinch. “Um … it … it was dark,” I say tearfully. Apologetically.

“Yes, ma’am. I know.” His voice is suddenly full of compassion and he takes my hand and gives it a light squeeze. I am startled, both by the unexpected contact and by the small jolt of electricity that runs through me when his skin touches mine. I gasp softly and abruptly pull my hand away.

“I’m sorry, Miss Colby,” Detective Pierce says hurriedly. I think he’s nervous. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“It’s okay,” I reply softly. “I’m just a little jumpy without my eyes right now.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He still sounds nervous but there’s an edge to his voice now. The anger is back, and again I don’t know if it’s directed at me or not. Detective Pierce seems to be a mass of contradictory emotions.

“Do you often shop late, Miss Colby?” His voice is all business again.

I shake my head. “Not usually. Only since my hours at the museum gift shop have changed.”

I hear the door open once more and someone says from the doorway, “Hey, Guy … we just got a nibble. An abandoned blue Maserati convertible a few blocks away.”

“Yeah, okay,” Detective Pierce answers. “I’ll be right out.” His voice has recovered its earlier intensity. The second officer leaves the room and we are alone again.

“Is that my car, Detective?” I ask hopefully.

“Probably, yes,” he answers. “There aren’t too many 2012 Mediterranean Blue Maserati Gran Turismos in Seattle.”

I don’t know what to make of this news. Is it good? “What happens now?” I ask.

“Well now, Detective Conner and I go and check out the abandoned car … and you get some rest.” There is that hint of concern to his voice again, and it puzzles me. “I’m leaving my card here on the table next to your phone. If you think of anything else, Miss Colby … anything at all, please call me.”

“I will,” I nod.

“And one more thing,” he says. “I would suggest you cancel your credit cards as soon as possible.”

“Yes, of course,” I murmur.

“I’ll be in touch.” He turns and leaves the room a moment later and I am alone again.

Chapter Two

Joshua

The minute I walked into that room I was flooded with rage. The sight of that poor girl, beaten up beyond recognition. It makes my blood boil. It always makes my blood boil. I had to take a moment to collect myself before I spoke to her. I didn’t trust my voice not to register the outrage that I was feeling at whoever did this to her. It makes me sick. Why some men feel the need to beat up on a defenseless woman … I have never understood it.

Sometimes it seems as though I have spent my life trying to figure it out. Attempting to wrap my head around it. I’ve given up many, many times only to find myself confronted with the question again and again. Sort of difficult to avoid it with the line of work I’ve chosen. Maybe I should have considered that more closely before I decided to become a cop. I smirk to myself. Who am I kidding? I can deny it all I want to but, deep down, I know my past had everything to do with my career choice. But I can’t think about any of that shit right now. Right now, I’ve got a case to solve and a young woman to help.

The thought of that poor girl’s face, bruised and swollen … the image is hard to let go of and I have to fight the urge to punch the fucking wall. She looked so small and helpless when I walked into that room. Who would do something like that to such a sweet young girl?
Here’s a better question, Pierce,
I ask myself,
what the fuck were you thinking taking her hand like that?
I roll my eyes at myself as I stand outside of her hospital room. What the fuck was I thinking? I just got caught up in the sweet sound of her voice. She sounded so sad and vulnerable and … and before I knew it, I was touching her hand! What the hell was that? I don’t get emotionally involved in my cases.
Maybe you’re going soft, Pierce.
I smirk to myself again as I turn and walk away from her room and down the hall to my partner, David Conner.

“Let’s go, Conner,” I say, tapping him on the arm.

“How’d you make out with the vic?” he asks, putting his phone away.

“Her memory’s good but, she’s sketchy on the guy’s face,” I say. “I think she actually might of gotten a look at him but she’s blocking it out for some reason,” I say, as I recall the way she visibly flinched when I asked her if there was anything distinguishable about her assailant. There may be something there.

“Yeah, well get this,” Conner says. “Just got the statements back from all of her credit cards. There’s been no activity.”

“None at all?” I ask. That’s unusual.

“Zilch.”

We head out of the hospital and into the nondescript, unmarked, light blue cruiser. This boat is nothing like my personal car – my baby – the 1968 jet black Dodge Charger R/T that I’ve spent the last several years painstakingly restoring. The two vehicles are light years apart, I note with dismay once again as I fire up the cruiser and we get underway. We’re quiet as we head over to Aurora Avenue where the abandoned Maserati is waiting for us.

As I drive, my mind wanders back to that hospital room and the sight of that poor, battered girl. And it strikes me as funny that I keep thinking of her as ‘that poor girl.’ Samantha Colby is anything but ‘poor.’ Once we identified her last night, I did some digging. Found out she’s one of
those
Colbys. A billion dollar baby with a trust fund to match. From the information I gathered though, it seems she’s not content to just live off the spoils of her family’s fortune. Yes, she does have an exorbitant trust fund that kicked in as soon as she turned twenty-one last year but, outside of her upscale apartment and her sweet sports car, she apparently hasn’t touched much of it. Instead, she has a regular job working in the gift shop at the Pryor Art Museum. Which leads my thoughts back to the scene of the crime.

When she was brought into the hospital last night, she was beaten so badly the only way they were able to identify her was through the museum ID badge that was still clipped to her shirt. Everything else was stolen along with her purse and her car.

I pull to the curb and stop behind the marked blue and white cruiser and get out. I nod at one of the uniforms as Conner and I walk up to him and the Maserati, and I can see from the personalized license plate that it is indeed Miss Colby’s car. “What we got, Tommy?”

“Guy, I thought you said this was a stolen car,” Tommy says with a puzzled look on his face.

“It is,” I respond. “It’s part of the assault case we caught last night. Victim is in the hospital badly beaten. Why, what’s up?”

“Well, it just doesn’t look like your typical stolen car,” Tommy says. “Not a mark on it, it’s all locked up, there’s a purse lying in the back floorboard.”

“You’re shitting me,” I say surprised. “Did you open it?”

“No, I was waiting for you.”

“Get me in there.” This case just took an unexpected turn and I don’t like the uneasy feeling that’s starting to gnaw at me. But I’ll wait to see what we find inside the car to make any judgments. “Conner, get me a CSU out here.”

“I’m on it,” he says taking out his phone. A couple of seconds later, Tommy has the Maserati’s door open.

“You’d make a great car thief. You know that, right?” I ask him with a smile.

“It’s a talent,” he shrugs and steps aside. I smirk at him as I pull on a pair of latex gloves. I stick my head inside the car and have a look around. Nothing out of the ordinary. I open the glove compartment and see an owner’s manual, a flashlight, and a small packet of tissues. In the console between the front seats I see several CDs and some change. It doesn’t look like anything’s been disturbed. I look in the back seat and, sure enough, Tommy was right. There’s a small, dark green purse lying in the back floorboard behind the driver’s seat.

When I pick it up, I can see that the purse is open. Inside I find a small hairbrush, a chap stick, a cellphone and a wallet. I take out the wallet and have a look. There’s eighteen dollars in cash, a black AmEx card, a Visa and three more department store credit cards inside the wallet. The only thing that appears to be missing is Miss Colby’s driver’s license but, of course, I’ll have to ask her to be sure.

I don’t like it. It doesn’t make any sense. Why would a guy go to so much trouble to snatch a purse and then leave everything in it? It’s obviously an expensive bag; hell, it could probably bring in at least a few hundred dollars if he fenced it. And why swipe a high end car and then leave it parked nicely on the side of the road in a nice neighborhood, locked up nice and tight? And then something hits me.

I look up and glance around to get my bearings. The market Miss Colby was assaulted at is just one street over on Fremont Avenue. And, if I remember correctly from the info I compiled on her last night, Miss Colby lives in the very swanky Mountain View apartments just around the corner. This ain’t good. I slowly walk around the car and give it a good once over. Tommy’s right, there’s not a scratch on her. It doesn’t even look out of place sitting on this street.

“I know that look,” Conner says to me. “What are you working out, Guy?”

I shrug as I look over at him. “Doesn’t add up. Obviously our guy wasn’t interested in stripping it for parts. He just wanted to take it for a little spin. But he also didn’t want any harm to come to it because he left it here, in Miss Colby’s safe, exclusive neighborhood instead of leaving it in a bad part of town.”

“Colby lives in this neighborhood?” Conner sounds surprised and it pisses me off. I gave him all the info I compiled; he should know this shit! My expression must reflect what I’m thinking because he looks away, embarrassed.

“She lives two streets over on Fernwood.” My voice is low and full of annoyance. I roll my eyes slightly as I continue, “It’s almost like he wanted it returned to her in the same pristine condition that he took it in. I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this one. The more I look at it, the more I’m starting to think this wasn’t just a random assault after all. I’m thinking maybe Miss Colby was targeted specifically.”

Conner gives me a look of skepticism and waits for me to go on. “I think our guy followed her to that market and he waited for the perfect moment to make his move. He beat her up, he took her purse and her car, only to then leave them both intact just a couple of streets over. It’s like he’s taunting her, or sending her a message of some kind.”

“Okay,” Conner says, “I’m with you so far. But what’s the message?”

“I don’t know,” I respond distractedly, my mind working a mile a minute as I try to figure this one out. “Maybe that he can get to her anytime he wants. The only things not recovered, as far as I can tell, are her driver’s license and her keys. If she’s like most people, she probably keeps all of her keys on the same key chain – house, car, work, whatever.”
And if she keeps all of her keys together,
I think to myself,
then he now has access to her entire life
. “Hey, do me a favor,” I turn to Conner with a determined glare. “Take over here, supervise the CSU and take care of the car.”

“Where you going?”

“I’m heading back to the hospital. I need to speak to Miss Colby again.” He nods and I head back to the cruiser. As I pull off into traffic, I can’t shake the thought that this attack feels less random and more personal somehow. Miss Colby was targeted specifically, but why? What’s going on here? She has to know more than she’s saying. And as I continue to mull it over, I can’t help but wonder again why someone would want to harm such a sweet, young girl. She sounded so sad and vulnerable when we spoke earlier. So helpless. And she looked so scared and so small sitting in that hospital bed, and so … lovely.

Fuck. Where did that come from?

I shake my head as if to clear it of some unwelcome thought. What the hell was that? Talk about random. I must be concentrating too hard on this one and it’s starting to mess with my head. I try to shrug it off and continue on, but by the time I arrive back at the hospital, I’m a bundle of nerves.

All the way back I had to make myself concentrate on the facts of the case and not on Miss Colby personally. I don’t know where the hell my head is at but, for some reason, my thoughts of the victim appear to be moving into a weird area and I can’t seem to stop it. All I keep thinking about is the sweet sound of her voice. Well, that and the sensual movement of her full lips when she talks. Shit. This is crazy. Ten years on the force, four of those as a detective working the Violent Crimes Division … this doesn’t happen to me. I don’t get involved. With anyone.

I try to tell myself that my wayward thoughts have something to do with the photo of Miss Colby that I came across while doing my research last night and nothing to do with my interview of her this afternoon. That hand holding shit? That was just a fluke; a momentary wave of compassion. But the photo I found of her showed that underneath all the bruises and the bandages, Miss Colby is not unattractive. Not by a long shot. Long chestnut hair and big green eyes. Still, it’s not like me to be impressed by a pretty face. It’s not like me to be impressed, period. I don’t get involved. With anyone. And for good reason.