“May I see that, please?” Ryan asked.
I handed him the tube, and he uncapped it, rolled up the lipstick, and held it up where everyone could see it.
After a few seconds, he nodded. “Oh, yeah. That’s the same color that was on the latest victim’s hands.”
“I thought so too.”
“And you’re sure that someone was creeping around the nightclub?” Bria asked. “That he deliberately left the lipstick there for you to find?”
“I’m sure.”
“But how did he even know that you would go back there?” she asked. “That you would search the area where Lacey Lawrence’s body was found again?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. But it’s the best clue that we have besides the dead guys out back, so let’s follow it and see if we can finally put a name to the Dollmaker.”
Everyone took a different assignment. Bria called Xavier and asked him to discreetly run the dead dwarves’ photos and IDs through the police databases to see if any of them had a rap sheet and who their known associates might be. Their SUV was registered to a shell company, so Silvio got to work figuring out who the car actually belonged to. Finn grabbed the men’s phones to see if he could get any information off them, while Jade, Ryan, Owen, and I sorted through the files on the floor, trying to match everything back up together and seeing if there was anything else that we might have missed or overlooked.
Finn’s phone chimed, and he pulled it out and looked at the message. “Hey, Gin. The manager at Posh finally sent me that info on the lipstick sales. I’ll forward it to you.”
A few seconds later, my phone chimed. I grabbed a pen and a piece of paper from the debris, sat down on a relatively blood-free patch of floor, and started going through the names, concentrating on all the men who had bought tubes of Heartbreaker lipstick.
To my surprise and disappointment, there were a lot of them. Dozens of men—or people with access to their credit cards—had purchased the lipstick, not to mention all the folks who’d paid cash, leaving behind no names at all. And there was no real pattern to the sales. Sometimes the boutique only sold one tube a week. Sometimes it sold ten.
However, I did find it extremely odd that the most recent tube of lipstick had been sold the very same day I found the dead girl at Northern Aggression. Whoever bought that particular tube had paid cash for it just after ten o’clock yesterday morning, right after the store opened, so there was no name or credit-card info. I doubted it was the killer, though. By that point, he would have had Lacey Lawrence for at least a few days, and he would have already had all of his supplies on hand, especially the lipstick, since it seemed like such a big part of his ritual. Still, I made a note of that purchase, reminding myself to come back to it later.
We worked in silence for about thirty minutes. Well, except for Bria, who murmured to Xavier about the dead dwarves, and Silvio and Finn, who typed and texted like their lives depended on it. Ryan and Owen sat on the floor in the middle of the office, putting papers and photos back into the correct case files and boxes. Jade helped them for a while, but she couldn’t really concentrate. Eventually, she got to her feet and started pacing through the office, down the hallway to the kitchen, and back again.
I finished scanning through the last three months of purchases. I’d written down the names of all the men who’d bought tubes of Heartbreaker lipstick, but none of them jumped out at me. I sighed and scrolled down to the next section of information. Maybe the lipstick wasn’t as big a clue as I’d thought—
Silvio’s hands froze on his keyboard. The sudden silence startled me, and I looked over at him. My assistant leaned forward until his nose was almost pressed up against his tablet, and he kept peering at the screen, as if he wasn’t sure that he was reading the information right.
“What?” I asked. “What is it?”
He kept staring at the screen, his lips puckered in thought. “The SUV that the dwarves were driving. It’s registered to a shell company that’s registered to another shell company . . . You get the idea.”
“Yeah. So what?”
“Well, I finally found the owner of all those companies, and it’s someone we’re all familiar with.”
“Who?” Finn asked in an eager voice.
Silvio looked over at me. “Damian Rivera.”
This time, I blinked, wondering if I’d heard him right. “Damian Rivera? My Damian Rivera? Are you sure?”
He nodded. “I’m sure. He owns the company that car is registered to, which means that those are his dead dwarves lying under the tarp in the backyard.”
“Dwarves . . .” I murmured, a memory swimming around in my mind, slowly coming into focus. “A dwarf with a bad mustache and a cell phone . . .”
“Damian Rivera?” Owen frowned, trying to place the name. His eyes widened when he realized exactly who we were talking about. “Isn’t that the guy you spied on the other night, Gin? The one who’s a member of the Circle?”
Finn shot his finger and thumb at Owen. “Got it in one, Grayson.”
Jade stopped her pacing. “Who is Damian Rivera? And what is the Circle?”
The memory finally sharpened in my mind. I got to my feet, jogged down the hallway, and went out into the backyard. I pulled the black tarp off the dead men, bent down, and studied the face of Henry, the dwarf with the thin, scraggly black mustache, the one who had looked so familiar.
It was dark the last time I’d seen him, but I still recognized him as the guard who’d been patrolling Damian Rivera’s estate two nights ago. The one who’d been too focused on his video game to notice me. I’d let him live that night, but here he was, dead at my hands after all.
Oh, the irony.
Hope and adrenaline lifted my heart. I let the tarp drop back into place and jogged into the house and to the office. By this point, all my friends were on their feet.
“Gin?” Ryan asked. “What are you doing? What’s going on?”
Instead of answering, I grabbed my phone and scrolled through the rest of the purchase information from the Posh boutique. My fingers twitched with anticipation, but I forced myself to go slowly, carefully looking at every single line in turn. Not on this screen . . . or the next one . . . or the next one . . .
Finally, on the very last screen, I found his name, three from the bottom of the list.
I let out a tense breath and held my phone out so the others could see it. “According to this, Damian Rivera bought half a dozen tubes of Heartbreaker lipstick from the Posh boutique almost six months ago.”
Ryan looked at me, picking up on my train of thought. “That would be more than enough lipstick to account for all the traces that I’ve found on the victims since then. He must be using a new tube of lipstick each time.”
Finn snapped his fingers as another thought occurred to him. “And we already know that Rivera likes to beat people. Silvio and I did tons of background on him. We both saw the police reports of all those girlfriends and servants he put into the hospital. Murder wouldn’t be too much of a stretch from that.”
I thought back to when I’d spied on Damian Rivera at his mansion. Hugh Tucker had shown up and told Rivera to take care of some problem before the Circle took action against him. What if that problem was Rivera being the Dollmaker?
According to what Tucker had told me, the Circle had eyes and ears everywhere, and I had no doubt that some of those spies were in the police department. Maybe someone had tipped off Tucker about Ryan, Bria, and Xavier’s investigation. Brutally beating and strangling a dozen women—and probably more that we didn’t know about—and leaving their bodies strewn all over Ashland was sure to attract unwanted attention sooner or later. And the members of the Circle prided themselves on their anonymity, on the fact that very few people knew that the group even existed. The hunt for a serial killer—especially one of their own members—could potentially shine a
ll sorts of light on their shadowy operations, something that they would want to avoid at all costs, even if it meant getting rid of Rivera themselves.
Something about that last thought nagged at me, something about Rivera, Tucker, and the Circle. Something about Rivera taunting Tucker about his low status within the group. Something about Tucker’s mysterious boss and how he gave all of them their marching orders. But I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was . . .
“It’s Rivera,” Owen said. “It has to be. There are just too many things that add up and point right to him.”
My thought, whatever it had been, vanished back down into the bottom of my brain. Besides, it wasn’t important right now. Finding Elissa was the only thing that mattered. After she was safe, then I would properly deal with Damien Rivera and ask him all my many, many questions about the Circle.
Jade’s hands balled into fists, and rage sparked in her eyes. “Where does he live? Where is he holding Elissa?”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’re going to pay him a visit and find out.”
21
As much as we all wanted to immediately drive over to Damian Rivera’s mansion, storm inside, and confront him, we all knew that we had to be smart about this.
For Elissa’s sake.
If Rivera realized that we were onto him, if he thought that we had any clue as to what he’d done to all those women, he could easily kill Elissa, hightail it out of Ashland, and vanish. He had more than enough money and connections to disappear and live out his days on some remote tropical island, never to be seen or heard from again. None of us wanted that to happen, but we all realized that we were up against a ticking clock. All of his men were dead, and when they didn’t report back to him in an hour or two, Rivera would probably realize that they weren’t coming back at all, and he would act accordingly. We needed to be in position to rescue Elissa before that happened.
We trooped into the kitchen and gathered around the table there so that we could all have a seat and brainstorm together. Finn and Silvio called up all the information that they’d compiled on Rivera, swiping through screen after screen on their phones, trying to pinpoint exactly where he might be holding Elissa.
“He has properties all over the city, thanks to his dead mama’s real-estate business,” Finn said. “And these are just the ones that are officially on file. He could have more buildings off the books or under another name or company that we don’t even know about.”
“Finn’s right.” Silvio shook his head. “Elissa could be in any one of a dozen locations.”
I stood up and started pacing around the kitchen, much the same way Jade had done earlier, trying to remember every little detail of Rivera and Tucker’s conversation the other night. One of them had said something about a guest . . . a woman . . .
I stopped. No, not them, Bruce Porter. The dwarf was the one who mentioned that he’d set up Rivera’s “guest” in his bedroom. What if he’d been talking about Elissa? That meant that she’d been at Rivera’s mansion that night, and she might still be there right now.
“Forget about his other properties,” I said. “Let’s focus on the mansion.”
I told the others my theory.
“That’s kind of a slim thread to follow,” Ryan said. “Do you really think that Rivera would be stupid enough to keep all the women he kidnaps and murders in his main residence? That wouldn’t exactly fit in with how careful he’s been about not leaving any evidence behind.”
“Absolutely,” I said. “Think about it. Damian Rivera is a mean, arrogant drunk. He thinks that he can do whatever he wants and that no one can touch him just because he’s a member of the Circle. Besides, he’s gone to a lot of trouble to kidnap all these women, hold them hostage, and make them perform in whatever sadistic fantasy he’s dreamed up. He wouldn’t want to risk stashing them someplace where he couldn’t get to them in a hurry. He’ll have Elissa somewhere close by, just like he probably had all the others close by. The mansion’s our best bet.”
The others agreed, and we moved on to exactly how we were going to get close enough to slip inside the mansion. If it had been anywhere close to dark, I would have gone in by myself, just like I had two nights ago. But it was three in the afternoon, which meant that there was still plenty of daylight and no shadows to hide in. I started pacing again, turning the problem over and over in my mind.
“We need to get Rivera out of the mansion, along with as many guards as possible,” Bria said. “Fewer men means less security and less chance of something going wrong and Elissa getting hurt.”
“But how do we do that?” Owen asked. “It’s not like we can just call him up and ask him to leave so we can break in and search the place while he’s gone.”
An idea popped into my mind. The more I thought about it, the more certain I was that it would work. I went over, leaned down, grabbed Owen’s face, and gave him a long, deep kiss.
After the better part of a minute and a couple of wolf whistles from Finn, I drew back, smiling at him. “You, Owen Grayson, are officially a genius.”
Owen blinked a few times, trying to focus on my words. “I am?”
“You most certainly are.” I kissed him again, then straightened up and looked at Finn. “I need a number for one of your contacts.”
Finn sighed. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“Probably not.”
I told him who I wanted to call. Finn was right. He definitely didn’t like it, but he realized that it was our best option, so he hit a button on the speed dial and handed the phone over to me.
A thick, congested voice answered on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Hello, Mr. Mosley. This is Gin Blanco. Remember that favor you offered me earlier today? Well, I’m ready to cash it in.”
• • •
Thirty minutes later, I was right back where I’d started two nights ago in the woods behind Damian Rivera’s massive estate. Only this time, Finn, Bria, and Owen hunkered down just inside the tree line with me, while Silvio, Jade, and Ryan were waiting in Silvio’s car down the street from the front of the mansion. Jade had wanted to come with us into the woods, but I’d finally convinced her that a small team was the best option for finding Elissa and getting her out of the mansion to safety.
As much as I wanted to confront Rivera, finding Elissa was our top priority. Once she was safe, though, all bets were off. I might be an assassin, but Fletcher had trained me to follow his code, one that didn’t include torturing people. But I figured that the old man would be okay with me making an exception for Rivera for all those women he’d tortured and murdered. Besides, I still needed information about the mysterious leader of the Circle. Whether Rivera gave it to me willingly or screamed out the answers after I’d cut him up like a chopped salad, well, that was up to him.
I was hoping for option number two, though.
I scanned the mansion and grounds again. A sprawling two-story structure of gray stone, surrounded by acres of lawn, with Bruce Porter’s caretaker cottage sitting off by itself at the very back of the property. Someone had finally gotten around to taking down all the holiday lights and removing all the snowflakes, white velvet bows, and other decorations.
According to Silvio, half a dozen dwarves were guarding the front of the mansion as usual, but no one was patrolling the grounds back here. I supposed that I shouldn’t have been surprised by that, since I’d killed Henry. I was just hoping that Rivera hadn’t noticed how long his men had been gone.
Bria and Owen peered through their binoculars at the back of the mansion, while Finn texted Silvio on his phone, letting him know that we were in position. I palmed one of my knives, focusing on the familiar, comforting weight and the spider runes in both the hilt and my hand pressing against each other. Someone had mockingly drawn my runes on the Dollmaker’s latest victim, calling me out and daring me to find him. I still was
n’t sure if it had been Rivera, but either way, he was going to be the one to regret it.
“Where do you think he’s keeping Elissa?” Owen asked. “The mansion doesn’t have a basement, so she has to be somewhere aboveground.”
Bria lowered her binoculars, her mouth twisting with disgust. “You would think that one of the servants would notice something like that. Rivera holding a woman captive.”
“Maybe they have,” Finn said, still texting. “Maybe he pays them to look the other way.”
“For every single woman he’s kidnapped and murdered over the last two years? I don’t care how well he pays his servants or his guards. Someone would have a conscience. Someone would have cracked and talked by now. At the very least, someone would have tried to blackmail him for more money to keep quiet.” Bria shook her head, making her blond ponytail swing from side to side. “Something about this just doesn’t feel right. We’re missing something about this whole thing. Something big.”
She was voicing the same concerns and questions that I’d asked myself a dozen times over the past two hours, ever since we’d begun focusing in on Rivera. But we were here, and it was too late to turn back now. I wasn’t going to turn back now. I couldn’t. Not until we found Elissa. And if we had to search every single square inch of the mansion, then so be it. I’d promised Jade that I would do everything in my power to find her sister, and I was going to live up to that. Keeping your word was another part of his code that Fletcher had drilled into me, and I wouldn’t be able to look at myself in the mirror otherwise.
“We think that Elissa is in the mansion,” Owen said, lowering his binoculars. “But what are we going to do if she’s not?”
I flashed my knife at him. “Then we’ll grab Rivera, and I’ll cut the answers out of him. He might be a serial killer, but I can get him to talk. Trust me.”