Maximum Guilt (Hidden Guilt Book 2) Read online

  Chapter 2

  I drove home faster than usual—way too fast, actually, according to the speedometer. Too many thoughts racing through my head, I guess. My mind was so jacked I didn’t even notice red lights versus green. I was really just driving.

  “Dad, what are you going to do about Karen?”

  “I’m working on it, Hil. I have some ideas. I’m going to get her home, you can bet on that. The whole station is looking for her.”

  “David, I need you to know I don’t blame you for any of this. You couldn’t have known I was alive, and though it hurt a little, deep down I knew you needed to move on.”

  I was more than a little shocked that, amidst all that was happening right now and everything she’d been through, Miranda was trying to sort through it all so quickly. I imagine she’d processed a lot while being held captive, given she didn’t have many options.

  “Well, I blame him! If he hadn’t raped Stacy back in college, maybe she wouldn’t have come back looking for revenge! Maybe Rodney would still be alive. I mean, is it true? What I read? How could you, Dad?”

  I knew I needed to address the elephant in the room—well, in the truck—but I didn’t want to do it like this.

  “Hilary, what are you talking about? Your dad never raped anyone. David, what is she talking about?”

  “Just try to rest, Miranda. We’ll talk about all that later. Hilary, it’s a long story and it’s complicated. There are parts of what you may have read that are true, but I didn’t rape anyone. I was young and stupid, and I made some poor choices, yes; but I never raped anyone. That part is not true.”

  I tried to use my training to defuse the situation, but with Hilary I knew it would be of no use.

  “I’d really like some fast food,” Miranda said. “How about Jack in the Box?”

  “I can do that!”

  We went through the drive-through and ordered one of almost everything. I guess its true how much we really take for granted— like eating fast food. As we continued toward home, I watched in amazement as Miranda ate like a fourteen-year-old football player.

  “I’m sorry. It’s been a long time,” Miranda said through a mouthful of fries.

  I didn’t know whether I should laugh or cry, so I just smiled and nodded.

  “Dad knew Stacy back in college. She didn’t just happen on us. She planned this whole thing out. She’s been watching us and planning revenge on Dad for what he did to her in college.”

  “Hilary, enough. Your mother needs to rest. And I didn’t know her as Stacy in college; actually, I didn’t know her at all. Right now I need to use all the brain power and energy I have left to track down Stacy and your sister before . . .”

  “Before what? Say it, Dad. Before she’s dead?”

  I could see that Hilary put the blame for all of this squarely on my shoulders. Maybe she was right. She was clearly angry, hurt, and confused. I needed to give her my side of the story. Maybe that would help. Maybe it wouldn’t. But I had to tell her and tell her fast. I tapped my hands nervously on the steering wheel as I drove.

  “Hilary, it’s really, really important that I explain to you and your mother what brought all of this about . . . and I will. I’m just not sure right now is the best time. My—our—first priority should be on finding your sister and bringing her home. And being there in whatever way your mother needs us.”

  “David, I feel like there is a big something that both of you know about that I don’t. What is Hilary talking about?”

  Just as Miranda finished speaking, we pulled up to the house. I knew I needed to get it off my chest, and it was clear neither of them was willing to drop it.

  I gestured toward the house. “C’mon. Let’s go inside first,” I said as I turned the engine off.

  I walked around to Miranda’s side and helped her out. Arm in arm, we trudged toward the house. Miranda was so weak she could barely stand. I opened the door to lead Miranda in. She was so weak from muscle atrophy that I was all but carrying her. She broke down in tears when she looked around, home again at last. I held her tight—tighter than I had ever held her before.

  I got Miranda settled on the couch and sat beside her. This was a big moment for us. I felt sick to my stomach. I wanted to throw up.

  I stood up and paced a few steps. “Listen, both of you,” I said as they sat, eyes and ears glued to me. “I don’t know why I was so nervous but I was. Like I was a rookie cop back in court for my first firearm discharge case.

  “Miranda, Stacy used to attend Wayne State back when I was playing football there. I didn’t recognize her or know any of that before. Rodney stumbled across some old files on her laptop, or so I’m told. That’s how he found out who she really was—Lisa Crease.”

  Miranda had a confused look on her face. “So what, she’s an old girlfriend from college or something? How does that explain all of this?”

  There was no beating around the bush on this one. Time to lay it all out on the table.

  “Well . . . not a girlfriend, exactly. It’s going to sound gross and terrible, but it’s the truth. So here goes. We had a rule on the football team that all incoming freshmen had to have sex with a random girl at a party. Some stupid macho thing, I know. Anyway, you go up to some girl you don’t know and make it happen that night. To prove, you know, who the biggest stud was. Finding the hottest girl you could, of course. If you didn’t, you’d face some pretty harsh hazing. I’m not the most outgoing guy in the world, and I felt weird about the whole thing. Well, the guys didn’t know it, but I had spoken with Lisa before the party, and we had sort of a deal. We agreed to have sex at the party, and I agreed to pretend to be her boyfriend for . . . I don’t know . . . a few weeks afterward. So she’d look cool or whatever. So here we were at the party. Everyone was drinking and being stupid. I went up to Lisa, made it look like we’d just met as we had planned. She was hammered to the point where I didn’t even know if we were going to be able to do anything or if she’d blow the plan all to hell. I thought maybe we’d just disappear and pretend we’d messed around. She’d been drinking, for sure, but seemed messed up enough that I figured drugs were involved, too. We went to the back room, and she sobered up some. One thing lead to another . . . you get the idea.”

  I paused to catch my breath. The only sound I heard was the blood pounding in my head.

  “Then about twenty minutes in, the door flies open. The guys start going on and on about how she used to be a stripper or prostitute or something. They’re yelling and screaming and acting belligerent. At this point, she could barely hold her eyes open, but we had talked some and I knew she was coherent. In fact, she was better off than I’d previously suspected. They start talking about wanting some of the stripper, too, and how I had definitely gotten the hottest girl. I told them no, it wasn’t right. And it certainly wasn’t the plan. Try reasoning with ten to fifteen drunken football players. I’d been drinking, too, so I probably didn’t seem like the best person to listen to. An upperclassman pushed me out of the way, and that’s when the shit hit the fan. Everything got crazy. They took turns with her. All of them. At one point, one of them could tell I was clearly bothered and asked if I knew her or something. I wasn’t supposed to, according to the plan, so I said no. I tried to make it seem like I didn’t care one way or the other. No vested interest. In other words, don’t stop on my account. And I didn’t know her, but like I said, I knew it wasn’t right. She didn’t fight them, and I couldn’t really tell if she wanted them to stop or not or if she was too messed up to even know what was happening. Everything was moving really fast. There was yelling, laughter . . . It was wild and out of control. At least that’s what I tried to make myself believe.

  “I left before it was over. Looking back, she probably thought I set the whole thing up, but that wasn’t my plan at all. I looked for her around campus the next few days, to talk to her, but I never found her. A few days later, she filed rape charges against me and the team. We had a lawyer who volunteered to defen
d us, some big shot alumni ex-player. His first words to us were, ‘No one speak to her—ever.’ So I stopped looking for her. Then he told us not to worry; with her checkered past it would never even make it to court. And it didn’t. In a few weeks it all blew over.

  “So . . . I did not rape Lisa, nor did I set up the team to do so. The whole thing was a bad deal that spiraled out of control a lot faster than a bunch of drunken kids could handle. And now, hindsight being 20/20, I should have reported every single one of my teammates. I should have told the cops exactly what happened. It would have meant me losing my scholarship, probably, and being ostracized from the team, but it would have been the right thing to do. It’s easy to say now, but I’m not an eighteen-year-old college freshman who’s just trying to fit in anymore either. It’s hard to admit, but I was a coward—at least at that moment. None of us ever saw her or heard from her again. I figured she just left school and went back home, wherever home was for her. I felt terrible for what happened to her, but I didn’t plan it nor did I realize the intentions of the upperclassmen. They were basically using us to get some free playtime, as they called it; it had been their plan all along.

  “So there you have it. I’m not a rapist or any of the other awful things she thinks I am. I didn’t set her up to be gang raped!”

  I looked from Hilary to Miranda, who looked pale and woozy. I knew this was a major revelation and had to be a huge disappointment, given how long we’d been married. You always think you know someone and then . . . bam! I wasn’t a rapist, but I’d allowed it to happen, and I sure as hell hadn’t stopped it. This was a pretty big bam.

  “Dad, I can’t believe you would do such a thing! What a creep! All you jocks are just assholes!” Hilary yelled as she jumped from the couch and headed for the staircase.

  “Listen, like I said, to me it was nothing more than two college kids having sex at a party. I never planned for any of that to happen. And I already admitted I acted cowardly when I realized what the others were doing.” I yelled back, heading for the staircase to cut Hilary off.

  She tried to push me aside. “You didn’t stop it either. You’re just as guilty!”

  I tried to reason with her. “I wasn’t a grown man, husband, father, or officer. I was a stupid eighteen-year-old drunken kid. It’s not a good excuse, but it’s the truth.”

  “Both of you. Please.” My wife had found her voice. “Hilary, you’ve heard and said enough. All you need to know is, while your dad isn’t perfect, he certainly isn’t a rapist. And although he should have reported his teammates, you can clearly see how a person in his position wouldn’t have. I probably wouldn’t have and neither would you. I don’t blame your father for what his teammates did. You shouldn’t either. And in the midst of it all, I do not believe Lisa would have believed your story, David. If it had been me, I sure wouldn’t have. From her perspective, you look like a monster who set her up to be gang raped. You look like an asshole jock and a terrible person.”

  I leaned against the banister and buried my face in my hands. I was embarrassed and humiliated, just as I’d been so long ago.

  Miranda came over and wrapped her arms around me. “This doesn’t change how much I love you. It doesn’t change who I think you are—who I know you are. I wish you would have somehow found a way to tell me about all this. I do wish that. But my time away from all of you makes me appreciate every second we have together—even now. I want to spend every minute I have left loving you and enjoying our life.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. After knowing I was basically responsible for how she’d spent her last year, all the pain and torment she’d been through, she was still the same kind, forgiving, loving person. What an amazing woman—a truly amazing woman.

  I hugged Miranda again and gave her the warmest kiss I could muster up. I hated letting her down and seeing a look of disappoint in her eyes.

  “I’m sorry I never told you about all of this. I never in a million years thought Stacy and Lisa were the same person. It was all so long ago. I suppose I was afraid . . . . afraid of what you’d think of me and my cowardice.” We hugged again. Then I reached down and gently kissed her lips.

  “Well, Dad, you’re on a roll. Anymore skeletons you want to unload while you’re at it?”

  “Hilary, that’s enough,” Miranda said. ”We’ve all been through so much. And it’s not over, not by a long shot. All we have is family, and right now one of us is missing. I need your dad to suck it up now and find my baby!”

  That was exactly what I intended to do. Time to track down Lisa “Stacy” Crease and find my Karen.

  Chapter 3

  Miranda lay down on the couch to take a nap. I was glad she decided to crash there. I was hopeful that Stacy had left something that could help me track her down behind. I went upstairs to my room to see what I could find. I scoured the room for her laptop, but she must have managed to grab it. There were clothes and other things I needed to rid the room of before I would feel comfortable bringing Miranda back into the fold, so to speak. I didn’t want her to hurt any more than she already had. She’d definitely been through more than enough.

  Miranda’s return was bittersweet. Having her back was an answered prayer, but in return, I’d lost my little princess. I heard my cell phone ringing on the table.

  I reached down to answer. “Hello?”

  “David, it’s me, Wilcrest.”

  “Hey, Cap. What’s up? Tell me you found Karen and its over.”

  “I don’t even know where to start, David. I got some boys over at Stacy’s . . . you know, Lisa’s place trying to get a bead on where she’s run off to. So far we’ve come up empty-handed. I mean, we’ve found a lot of things here but nothing that indicates where she may have run off to.”

  “I have some things to clean up here while Miranda is resting. I’ll be another hour or so here then I’ll be over to help.”

  “I got even more bad news for you, David. One of the officers called in a possible homicide. I haven’t been out to check on it yet. If I had to guess, Stacy left a going-away present for us. The vic is almost an exact match to Karen. Height, size, weight—”

  “I got it,” I said, cutting him off. “Goddamn it, I got it!”

  Was Stacy just reminding me who she was and what she was capable of? Or maybe it was Karen. I felt directly responsible for her kidnapping in more ways than one. In bringing Stacy into our lives and our home, I’d allowed her to be in this position. With all the murder cases I’d worked, all the years of experience, there should’ve been no way that could happen. But I’d allowed her beauty and sexuality to cloud my judgement. I was overlooking things that a detective with half my experience would have noticed. Sometimes we overlook the most obvious things. Stacy pushed all my buttons; she played me. They say love is blind, but I guess lust is, too.

  “I gotta run, Cap. I’ll see you soon.”

  “Wait, David. One more thing. There’s a new case that’s probably going to need your attention—as soon as we find Karen, of course.”

  Like I really needed one more thing right now, especially another case to solve.

  “Whatcha got?”

  “Well, John Blake—the John Blake—turned up dead last night. Both hands sawed off along with . . . that. Yes, that. Someone calling herself the Widowmaker. Smeared some of his blood on the wall, threatening there’d be more to come. Quite a bloody mess she left behind. Doesn’t feel like a random murder scene.”

  “Everyone knows Blake loved strippers and strip clubs. He try to stiff somebody? Maybe a pimp or bodyguard take him out and use some Widowmaker moniker as a cover up? Where’d they find the body?”

  “Motel. Manager called it in. Of course the room was paid for by Blake in cash.”

  “We download security videos?”

  “Already did. Got nothing. We see a girl walking in but can’t tell anything else about her. The footage is too grainy.”

  “Blake at a strip club last night?”

  “We asked aro
und, but all the nightclubs said no sign of Blake all week.”

  “Doesn’t mean he wasn’t there. Doesn’t mean he didn’t meet her at one before, either. That’s probably where the connection was initially made. Send some boys over to his favorite clubs. See what they can turn up. Gotta be a girl who Blake spent a good amount of time with somewhere. Heartbreakers is one minute away from my house. I’ll take that one. Call me later.”

  It wasn’t uncommon for me to be juggling multiple cases at once; actually, it had sort of become expected of me. First things first: I had to finish up here and get to Stacy’s asap. I needed to get started on tracking down everything I could about Lisa Crease—who she was before college and what she had turned into after. I needed to know everything about her.

  Hilary begrudgingly joined me in getting rid of Stacy’s things and helped me clean up the telltale signs of their scuffle.

  “Hilary, I’m really sorry you got caught up in this.” I pulled her close to me and we shared a hug. I needed to do that more often.

  She wiped a tear from her face. “Me, too, Dad. I’m going to my room if we’re finished.”

  The cleanup complete, I went downstairs to check on Miranda. She was still sound asleep. I just stared at her for a moment.

  It all made sense to me now. The child killings, the mysterious woman at Karen’s school, the blonde at the beach while we were on vacation, the woman who dragged De Luca from the accident—all Stacy. I went back upstairs and settled in front of the computer. It was time to start searching. I pulled up one of our police department databases to see what I could find.

  My initial searches came up empty. Somehow, Stacy had managed to make Lisa Crease disappear. Almost. Finally, I came across something. Crease was a native of New Orleans. I wondered if she’d gone back there. She’d grown up there and might know the area well. And they’re notorious for their bayous, swamps, and all sorts of unmarked streets. Lots of good places to hide.

  I’d also uncovered more about her past. Crease had been molested by her uncle when she was five. A newspaper clipping with a hit on Crease showed he’d died in a house fire twenty years ago. I had a sneaking suspicion that fire was no accident. It also made what I’d been a part of back at Tech that much worse. It was painstakingly obvious to me now that her accusations against the team and me weren’t just a ploy for her fifteen minutes of fame. The girl had been hurt that way before, at least once, and was out for blood. She’d apparently decided she would no longer be the victim, and right now I was her prize. God, how long had she been planning this thing out?