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He jerked suddenly, rolling his shoulders like there was a tick sliding under his skin. “The pill’s hitting,” he said, rubbing his thumb along my lower lip. It took all of my power to hold still against the animal smell of his skin. “The old bastards are right about one thing.”
Over the Incel’s shoulder, a familiar face flashed at the edge of the dance floor.
“Everything gets better once women learn their place,” the Incel said.
The crowd shifted at the same time the strobe lights struck, jagged flashes revealing the man moving along the outskirts, his thick body straining a suit rather than a uniform.
It was Chief Adam Dorsey.
As I watched, another man waylaid him, clapping Dorsey on the shoulder and drawing him in to talk. Dorsey listened, then looked up at the snuff film and laughed.
The officer who’d handled Laurel’s rape case twelve years ago, the chief in charge of her suicide investigation, the man Jamie and I were gathering evidence for—he was a Pater.
His eyes searched the room. Any second now he would spot me, recognize me as the woman from the station, Laurel’s old roommate. My heart beat unnaturally fast. What would the Paters do?
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nicole stiffen.
I seized her arm. “I have to go.”
“Like hell,” the Incel said, wrapping a hand around my wrist. “You’re not walking away from me.”
“You’re right, you should go,” Nicole said dazedly. She pushed between me and the Incel, drawn like a magnet toward whatever held her attention, snapping his hold on my wrist.
I didn’t pause to look; I turned and ran, shoving through the crowd of dancers. I could hear the Incel yelling, commanding me to stay. In the darkness, colliding with the whirling bodies, I couldn’t tell which way was out and spun in every direction, claustrophobia clutching at me. I was going to be trapped, and Dorsey would find me, or the Incel, and I’d never see outside again. I’d end up like the nameless woman whose death was unfolding in high definition across the wall.
The bass dropped and the blue strobe lights struck, thunder and lightning, like a miracle sent by Laurel herself, suddenly lighting the path to the door, igniting my outstretched hands and filling them with fire. I ran out while I still could, not a minute too late.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I paced Jamie’s living room. “I knew it, I knew it, Iknewit.”
He sat on the arm of his couch, watching. “The actual chief of police.”
I spun on my heels and started circling again. “I knew it wasn’t right, how dismissive he was of Laurel’s death. He’s covering for them.”
Jamie leaned forward and scrubbed his hands through his hair, leaving his fingers tangled. “It makes sense now. That’s why there were so few details in Laurel’s police report. Why they didn’t mention her arm was branded, why there weren’t any pictures.”
I froze midstride. “Clem’s record was slim, too.”
“When you were in college, Adam Dorsey was just a detective, and Reginald Carruthers was only the provost,” Jamie said. “Now look at them. They’ve climbed so high.”
“What if the Paters are getting them there? Building power.”
“Making sure they have access to vulnerable women and protection against the law. Michael Corbin, too—think how many people must come to him with problems, as a retired pastor. Easy pickings.” Jamie’s hands tightened. “What does Donwant? Keeping his network of friends out of trouble is one thing. But this is starting to feel…ambitious.”
“He wants everything,” I said. “As much as the world will give him.”
Jamie frowned. “Why are you smiling?”
I stopped pacing. “Because we’ve been right this whole time—about Laurel’s death, and the Paters. Hell, years ago, when we went to the police to report her assault,wewere in the right, not them.” The vindication sang through my veins. “I’m going to get them, Jamie.” For the first time, I could feel it.
“I know you will,” he said. “But this also means we can’t work with the Westchester police department. We have to go straight to the state police. They report to the governor.”
“Alec Barry?”
“I interviewed him a few years ago when I covered politics, and he was trying to get ICE out of New York. He’s a good guy. Young, unapologetically progressive. Probably the most popular governor New York’s had in decades. Headlined the last DNC.”
I thought of Cal and his friends back in Dallas, how Governor Barry was famous enough that they used his name as shorthand for unrealistic bleeding hearts.That guy’s a total Barry type, too liberal for mainstream, won’t get anything done, the Dems are all like this now.
