Chapter 18            

Skye

 

Everything I told them was the truth. I even told them that I pretended to enjoy what he was doing to me. They all knew enough about biology and human sexuality to know that the only way to lie convincingly was to show physical signs of arousal. I wasn't the first victim to get away like that. For the first time since I got shot I was grateful for the time spent in archives. Reading serial killer files was a disgusting way to pass the time, but I was a glutton for knowledge. I thought I had prepared myself to deal with the aftermath of such monsters. The interviews with surviving victims had been the worst parts of the files, reading about what they had to do to stay alive. I had always wondered how they could let themselves be used and tortured and yet managed to convince their captors that they were enjoying it. Part of me thought that there was something wrong with them and that they had really enjoyed the treatment. My colleagues probably thought the same about me. I couldn't look any of them in the eye. I didn't want to see disgust or pity. Most of all, I didn't want to look into Woods's eyes. He of all people would have reason to think that I had enjoyed it. Our encounter from the previous night… The way I abandoned myself to him after he treated me like a slut.

I was in my own world when the results came back. The bite mark on my shoulder matched the ones on the victims. We had probable cause to get his DNA. Robinson and Woods went to Gracenote to arrest him. I went to the gym and hit and kicked punching bags until I couldn't move my arms or feet. I shuffled to the shower and let the water fall over me. My skin was beginning to hurt from the pressure but the noise of the torrent blanked away other thoughts. I had no idea how long I'd been away.

Out of habit, I crawled toward my desk in Evidence.

"Hey, Walker," Sergeant Long. "The Captain waits for you in the dark room by interrogation one."

I smiled and nodded at him.

"Thanks, Sarge."

Being in the squad room changed something inside me. It was like the switch had been flipped and I reverted to my former self. The smile on my face wasn't insincere. It was my usual response. It was part of the real me, the California girl whose biggest challenge when joining the Force was that she had to give up flip flops and actually wear grown up shoes.

I was still smiling when I opened the door of the dark room. Captain Jackson, Paul St-James, the Assistant District Attorney, and Nicholas Woods were looking at Leonard Dvorak's interrogation from behind the two-way mirror. They acknowledged my presence with a nod and I joined them as Katherine Robinson questioned Dvorak while his lawyer interjected, breaking the flow or advising his client not to answer.

"They're not getting anything from him," the Captain said.

Woods seemed frustrated. I had seen enough recordings to know when he was not getting his way. As if Katherine sensed her partner's distress, she left the room. Captain Jackson turned off the sound coming from the other room, to give the legal privacy required for client-lawyer conversations. The door opened and the detectives came in. They didn't seem surprised to see me.

"There's something about this guy that doesn't fit," Woods said.

"After all the resources we put into this investigation, I hope you're not saying he's innocent, detective," St-James said.

Woods shook his head and looked at Dvorak through the mirror.

"He's not innocent," he said. "But we're missing something. He's too sure of himself."

"It's just a bluff. He knows that all we have to do is wait for the DNA results," Captain Jackson said.

Woods shook his head again. "The DNA only ties him to two of the victims."

"Do you have a plan to get a confession?" St-James asked.

Katherine shrugged and Woods kept looking through the mirror. I broke the silence.

"Would it help if I go in there?"

All four looked at me. I smiled awkwardly avoiding their gazes. I was getting back to my old self but the memory of that man's touches was fresh in my mind. I felt dirty and broken inside. Even so, I had to at least offer. I expected them to reject my offer as kindly as they could.

"Yes," Woods said.

The bottom dropped out of my stomach. I didn't feel ready to be in the same room with him. Woods instructed me:

"You have to let him see you're afraid of him. Act tough and tell him that you're not afraid, but make him believe he still has power over you. He will want to make you admit it."

He had seen me vulnerable. Worse, he had been able to dominate me. He had the opportunity to kill me and I knew it. The only reason I was alive was because he had allowed it.

"Ok," I said.

It wasn't going to take much acting. He had more power over me than he thought because he could reveal my fantasy about Woods. Writing the incident report had been mortifying enough, now I had to go through it again, in front of witnesses. Katherine handed me her notes, and I followed Woods out of the room.

The thought that it was going to be good practice for the trial didn't help in the least. Admitting in front of dozens of people that I was molested, that I was unable to defend myself, and having it all on public record was not something I looked forward to. It was my duty to put this monster behind bars. If public humiliation was the price I had to pay for that, I'd pay it.

"Hello, Sophia," Dvorak said. "And Mark," he added when he saw Woods behind me.

Woods closed the door and came to sit next to me on the other side of the table from him.

"I am detective Walker, Mr. Dvorak. This is detective Woods. I understand that you deny what happened between us a few hours ago. Can you tell me your version of events for the record, please?"

"You can still call me Leo," he said not bothering to answer my question.

His lawyer piped in. "My client made a full statement about his movements."

I looked down at Katherine's clipboard, pretending to read through it. Leo looked from me to Woods whose posture radiated an anxiety I knew to be a lie. My idol didn't manage to fool me into believing he was afraid of Dvorak. Maybe he was afraid that he might snap and endanger the conviction.

"Now it makes sense. You had serious daddy issues before you met me. I thought you said it to please me, but now I stand corrected."

"Mr. Dvorak, please continue the fascinating story of your alibi," I said.

The tension in Woods became even more obvious. Leo's gaze slid from me to Woods, and measured him with that creepy beasty vibe.

"He doesn't know," Dvorak said.

"Mr. Dvorak, please answer my question."

He pretended not to hear me, and he addressed Woods.

"I'm sure that your story is far more interesting than anything I could say."

Woods didn't say anything, his shoulders softened a little, as if he was defeated. He displayed weakness to the predator and only now, seeing it from the outside, I could see the impact of empowering a predator. I tensed up to snapping point. At that moment, I wanted more than anything for Leo to shut up, even if that meant we didn't get our confession.

"I can just see the two of you… cooped up in that big house all alone. I can understand why you would be tempted to enjoy the forbidden fruit."

He talked to Woods in a tone I had sometimes heard from Woods when he was drawing a murder into admitting something they most wanted to keep hidden. I knew they were playing each other, Woods trying to get Dvorak overconfident enough to incriminate himself, Dvorak trying to get a rise out Woods.

What pissed me off beyond measure was to have him so bluntly describe what happened. Because the son of a bitch was right. It had been the close proximity, the loneliness, the hormones. I thought I did good job playing my part. How could that guy could read my secrets so well? Then I realized that he hadn't. If he had suspected even for a moment that something incestuous was going on between us, he wouldn't have showed up in my bedroom. He liked innocent girls, unwary of the darkness of this world. His victims had all been women who traveled alone because they were not afraid of monsters like the one in front of me. I had to provoke him.

"Oh, please," I said dismissively. "We were under your nose for weeks and you had no clue we were cops. You pray on innocent girls because you're not man enough to handle a real woman. No wonder your wife walked into traffic."

In a split second, he lunged at me and his hand was wrapped around my throat again. The beast looked at me through Leo's eyes, he snarled his poison at me while he was pushed back and restrained by Woods.

"You little bitch! I should have wringed your neck! Don't think I forgot how you came all over my hand like a little slut. I bet your panties are soaked right now. When I get my hands on you again, you're not going to call daddy when you come. You'll call my name."

His lawyer was too stunned to intervene in time. Woods had him pinned to the wall. The detective's body lost all traces of weakness. His voice was low and menacing when he spoke.

"You can dream about that in your cell. Leonard Dvorak, you are under arrest for assaulting a police officer."

Did I get away with it? Maybe they didn't catch what he said. Maybe they're too horrified at the slut coming all over his hand comment to hear the daddy part. I was lying to myself but I didn't care. The only way to be functional for as long as I was in New York was to deny that anything had ever happened between me and the infamous Nicholas Woods. I had to cling onto this thin and unfounded belief. Until anyone called me up on it, I was going to believe that the best detectives of NYPD and the Assistant District Attorney and the anyone who read the transcripts or saw the video, they were all going to miss the part when Leonard Dvorak told the world I screamed Daddy when I came.