17. Bane
CHAPTER 17
BANE
M y conscience warred with me the entire drive to the station, with roads, junctions and houses all passing in a blur. My head knew I was doing the right thing. I had a job to do, and a homicide possibly connected to the case was not something I could put above my own selfish needs. No matter how much I wanted to reach out to River, I didn’t think a text or a call would be enough. No, this needed to be a face-to-face conversation. It was hard enough at the best of times to get a true read on River’s emotions, yet I itched to let him know I was thinking about him, and that I hadn’t brushed what had happened under the carpet.
The thought of him being home alone, lost in a quagmire of emotions from our interaction this morning, was gutting. The pain and rejection had been clear to see in his deep green eyes, the clearest emotions I’d ever witnessed on him, and I had been the cause. I’m not sure how he expected me to react, waking up to find his full lips wrapped around my cock as I spilled down his throat. It was heaven and hell incarnate. The best and worst moment of my life. I wanted him. The connection I felt to him was unsurpassable, but it was wrong on so many levels. He was my protectee, my goddamned job. He was vulnerable and broken in so many ways, and though I might not have initiated the act, I felt like I’d betrayed his trust. I was just another man that had used him. Fuck, how I hated myself.
A kiss was one thing, but face fucking him until I blacked out from euphoric pleasure was a whole other issue. He might have come to me for comfort during the night, and I somehow manipulated him into sucking me off. Or the more probable reason was that he thought the only way he could level the playing field between us was to offer what he thought I valued most—what men valued most—his body.
I’d single-handedly ruined all the progress we’d made over the last few weeks. He had finally let me see behind his walls and learn more about what he’d survived. River had let me see him in a way no one else got to. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was still holding information back from me. I had a feeling when I discovered what it was, it would annihilate me. In my line of work, you saw and experienced things no one in their right mind would wish on another, but having a firsthand account from someone you cared about wrecked you on a whole other emotional level.
I needed to book another appointment with Joelle, but I was hoping by giving it some extra time, I could convince River to meet her. Maybe he would feel comfortable enough to open up to her and get the support he needed to process his trauma. But after this morning, I felt like I’d shot myself in the foot where that idea is concerned.
The parking lot out the back of the station was eerily deserted for this time of day. That had the hairs on the back of my neck prickling with trepidation as goosebumps spread across my skin and down my arms to my cold fingers. I was in a bad enough place; I didn’t need anything unexpected throwing me off. As an officer of the law, the image I portrayed was of the utmost importance, and looking like I was on the verge of a mental breakdown when I came on shift would not go over well, especially with Bower, who was close to revoking our arrangement.
The engine ticked over as it cooled, while my eyes locked on the thread of messages between me and River. I had so much to make up for and explain, but finding the right words was tough. Anything I said would be inconsequential, but I couldn’t leave him alone, suffering in silence.
I’m sorry.
I hit send, berating myself for my inadequacy. I’d never been good with words, but even I knew that wasn’t enough to convey the gravity of the situation or even give him an inkling of my emotions on where I stood regarding BJgate. I pulled up the tracking app I’d hidden on his phone and checked his location, fear thrumming under my skin as I waited for it to load. There was a need to make sure he was safe, because there was a darkness looming on the horizon that grew every day this case progressed. With the team working on getting the warrants in place to search the properties of the real Dahlia, my gut told me this case was about to take a turn for the worse.
“Pull yourself together,” I muttered, grabbed my pack, and slammed the door shut behind me. My eyes were glued to the ground, as if it could provide me all the answers I needed.
“You look shittier than you sounded on the phone.” Montoya’s voice crashed into me like a semi. My eyes bugged out of their sockets, and my head snapped up. “What the fuck is going on with you, big guy?”
Ignoring her where she stood leaning against the wall, arms folded across her chest, eyeing me suspiciously next to the back entrance, I wrenched the door open and headed to my locker.
“Seriously, the silent treatment? How grown up. What are you, twelve?” I rolled my eyes, grabbed my vest, and slipped it on while she huffed and puffed next to me. She hated being ignored. It brought out her fiery side. Without looking at her, I knew her hand was resting on her cocked hip.
“If you keep going like that, you’ll blow the station down.”
She snorted and slapped my back, finally cracking a smile. “Once you’ve checked your hair, we need to go. Daniel is holding the site for us.”
“Sure.” I glanced at the mirror on the back of my locker door, noting just how wrecked I really looked. Bloodshot eyes, puffy lids, and sweat beading in my hairline. I was a walking train wreck, but I needed to lock it down before we stepped out of here.
“Benson, Montoya? What the fuck are you still doing here? Get moving,” Bower bellowed from where he leaned through the doorway to the station. “I want a full report written up on my desk by the morning.”
“On it,” Montoya and I replied together. Her lips quirked as she nodded at me and went to grab the keys for the squad.
“Meet you out there,” I called after her and slammed my locker shut, leaving everything that was hanging by a thread behind. I exited the station, and by the time I got to the squad, it flashed as Montoya unlocked it.
“You can drive,” she called out, hurling the keys at me. I caught them in one hand and slipped into the car.
“When don’t I?” I muttered as she belted in. “Where are we heading?”
“To the docks.” She called through to dispatch as I maneuvered us into the busy early morning traffic. The docks were located down the south banks of Black River. It was an import hub that was also used by local fishermen who had been banned from using the marina, where those with money kept their fancy yachts because the smell of fish disturbed their peace. The sad fact was the Hendrixes had been one of the many families who had signed the petition.
“All right, read me in.”
Montoya hummed before answering. “The initial call came in just after six a.m. Jenkins was first on the scene, secured it, and referred it over to us. Vic is a white male, late twenties, early thirties. Dark hair, dark eyes.” Her gaze slid to me for a beat. “He was DOA, but from what Jenkins said, it’s not pretty.”
“Just what you want on a Monday morning. What made him pass it to us?”
“The vic has a tattoo…” Her voice trailed off. I didn’t need to ask what tattoo. The one the twins had, the one that resembled the name of the ring we were investigating. It seemed all roads led back to Black Dahlia. We just had to hope the warrants came through so we could find out if Christine Hamilton really was the Dahlia we were looking for.
By the time we reached the docks, the sky had turned to pale shades of gray, and a heavy mist clung to the ground. The air was bitingly cold and filled me with a sense of foreboding. Every exhale formed a cloud that hung in the air as we left the car behind and donned our waterproofs. Gravel crunched under our boots, and containers rose out of the low level mist around us like mountains. The smell of fish and rot saturated the stagnant air until I could taste it on my tongue.
“Why do they need to stack the damn things so high?” Montoya groaned, craning her neck to take them in.
“They wouldn’t seem so big if you were taller than a child.” She whacked my vest with the back of her hand and glared at me. “Land is a premium commodity here?—”
“Yeah, yeah.” She waved me off just as rain started to fall, turning the damp ground slick under our boots. Gravel gave way to broken tarmac, where fishing debris formed a perverse graveyard. Discarded nets and broken crates slowed us down as we picked our way toward the cornered off scene where I could just about make Daniel out through the mist. His blond hair was plastered to his face, drenched strands sticking to his glasses as he blinked up at us.
“Hey, guys.” Daniel carded his hand through his hair, lifting it off his face before pulling his glasses off and drying them on his sweater. After slipping them back on, he held the tape up for us. “Follow me.”
“Thanks, man.”
“He’s a bit tricky to get to. I can’t confirm exactly how he died. You’ll see why—” I caught his eye as he glanced over his shoulder, his face grim. “The site is too clean for it to have been where he was murdered. Judging by the number of injuries inflicted on the body, it’s clear he was tortured before being dumped.”
“Great,” Montoya muttered as we weaved through an alley of stacked containers. The weak light barely penetrated their peaks as we walked through the shadows. Her eyes scoped for movement around us as her fingers tightened around her gun. It wasn’t often she showed how much a crime scene affected her, but I could tell by the set of her shoulders and her whitening knuckles that today was getting to her. And we hadn’t even laid eyes on the vic yet.
Clearing his throat, Daniel motioned us forward, pointing to where a container door was propped open. “I won’t be able to identify the vic until I get him back to the morgue and run dentals.”
“That bad?” I asked, unease coiling around me.
“Yeah, um, you’ll see.” Daniel chewed his lip as Montoya stepped into the container and drew her flashlight.
“Ho-lee shit.” The halting tone of her voice froze my feet to the ground.
I glanced at Daniel, and he grimaced. “They were thorough…”
“I thought you said this wasn’t where he was killed?” Montoya said as she stepped out of the container, hand covering her mouth, golden skin gray.
“It wasn’t.” Daniel shook his head, toeing the mud where we stood a few feet back. He motioned to the ground in front of the container, flashing his light to highlight two grooves in the mud. “They dumped his body here before dragging it inside. It matches the mud on his heels and lower back. But the blood splatter patterns don’t match the injuries on the body. He wasn’t tortured here.”
“You good?” I rested a hand on Montoya’s shoulder as she drew closer to me.
“I-it’s…one of…” She shook her head and drew in a deep inhale, holding it for a second before slowly releasing it.
“One of who?”
“One of the guys that was brought in with River,” she said in a broken whisper. I swallowed down a surge of anger at her words.
“That’s impossible. They were seen?—”
“A few days ago,” she finished.
I spun on my heel and looked at Daniel. “How long do you estimate he’s been here?”
“A couple of days? Three at most.” He shrugged. “Once I get him—” I waved him off, knowing what he was going to say.
“Here.” Montoya handed me her flashlight with a nod, then squeezed my bicep and headed over to speak to Daniel. The low murmur of their voices accompanied me as I stepped over the drag marks into the container and flicked on my light.
The putrid stench of aged blood assaulted me as soon as I entered the contained space. My eyes watered from the intensity as my stomach churned. There, dumped unceremoniously, was our vic. Extensive contusions and deep lacerations covered every ounce of exposed skin. There were multiple wounds that could have been fatal on their own. To my untrained eye, it seemed like some were administered post mortem, as the residual bleeding wasn’t what you’d expect from such a wound.
I took a moment to lock my humanity down so I could process the scene. The vic’s dark brown hair was a matted mess of dried blood, but what chilled me to the bone was his vacant stare through lidless eyes. Those were eyes that had stared back at me through the mug shot Montoya had pulled up when River had demanded to know how his friends were when he was chained to an interview table. I couldn’t help but feel like we were being played. It seemed like only yesterday that we’d checked up on the guys who were brought in with River, and we had tracked them through the CCTV in town on a night out. Naively, I’d taken it all at face value, because all my concern had been on River.
Hindsight was a fucking bitch. Whoever had killed this guy had played us. They knew we’d check up on them after they left the station, so they gave us exactly what we needed. “Fuck!” My fingers clenched around the flashlight, pulling the skin tight over my knuckles as my nails bit into the palm of my other hand.
“We’ve been played,” I ground out as I stepped back outside. Montoya made a disconcerted noise in the back of her throat as she peered at me through a watery gaze.
“Did you see?—”
“The black dahlia on his ankle?” She nodded. “Yup. It was like the killer posed him, so that would be the first thing we’d notice.”
“I thought that too. Just like the twins.” She shook her head, blinking back tears before they fell. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and turned to steer her away from the scene. “Daniel,” I said as an afterthought over my shoulder. “Catalog everything and let us know what you find out.” He gave me a thumbs up and pulled a camera from his pack while his assistant got to work. Hopefully, by the time we got back, Jenkins would have pulled up all the relevant CCTV footage for us to trawl through.
The oppressive atmosphere did absolutely nothing to improve our somber mood as we trudged back to the squad car, lost in our thoughts. TV crews and reporters had set up at the first cordon that was manned by a couple of the guys from the station to preserve the crime scene. Eyes followed our progression as we stepped under the tape and into the cacophony of bodies that waited like sharks, ready to get the scoop.
“Can you tell us who the victim is?”
“Officer Benson, can you tell us what happened here?”
“Officer Montoya, is this victim related to an ongoing investigation?”
Questions rained down on us like bullets as cameras were aimed our way. I patted Montoya on the back, letting her know I had this. I turned to the soulless rabble that converged on me and nodded at the guys beyond the tape to stay put. With my shoulders pulled back, I cleared my throat and looked through the vultures who shoved microphones in my face and repeated the party line that was drummed into us. “We will not be answering any questions relating to today’s incident. The investigation is ongoing, and no details will be released until the family has been informed.”