Arrow's Rest, Joel Scott [best book club books TXT] 📗

Jared’s phone trying to get hold of her sister. When she kept getting the recorded message, she began calling their mutual friends. With all her connections in the media world, it didn’t take Cat long to find out what had happened. She’d had a floatplane chartered and waiting for them when they pulled into Montague Harbour.

“So what can you tell me?” Cat inquired, never one for small talk. “I’ve been to see Lauren, but she was pretty much out of it with all the painkillers they’re giving her. Doesn’t remember much about the evening after the public breakup with her boyfriend. She’s not even certain which nightclub they had the fight in.”

“We’ve checked out the boyfriend,” Clarke said. “His alibi seems to stand up. He took a cab home after the incident and we’ve got him on video entering his apartment building in the right time frame. Some of the witnesses we’ve interviewed said your sister was angry and drinking heavily after he left her at the club.”

“So then it’s probably all her fault,” Cat said.

“No, not at all. That’s not what I meant,” Clarke said. “It’s just that her recollections of the evening might not help us much. We think she may have been drugged at some point.”

“Drugged!”

“Yes, probably one of the roofies. No way to tell when it was administered, but likely put into her drink at one of the clubs. We’ve showed her picture around, and some of the staff remembered her.” Clarke paused to choose his words. “It seems she was quite noticeable,” he said carefully.

Cat’s nostrils flared and two bright spots of colour appeared on her cheeks, but she remained silent.

“No doubt you’ve checked the security videos. Do you have her leaving with anybody?” Jared asked.

“We’ve had somebody on that. The club that we think was probably her last stop has a video camera above the entrance. We can see her entering with a man, not a great picture, but probably her boyfriend. So far we can’t spot her leaving the place. There’s a lot of traffic going in and out of the club over the course of an evening, sometimes rowdy groups mixing and jostling in both directions, so it’s possible we could have missed her. I’ve got people taking a second look.”

“Maybe we could help, canvass the clubs, talk to some of the regulars,” Cat said. “Sometimes people don’t feel comfortable with the police. Whereas with us—”

“That’s a really bad idea,” Clarke interrupted. He was talking to Cat, but looking at Jared. “We don’t want to see someone else getting hurt. Leave this to the police.”

“Why would anybody get hurt?” Jared said. “You’d think the last thing the clubs would want is to be connected with some asshole that is drugging and assaulting women. They ought to be offering us free drinks for trying to find out who he is.”

Clarke looked uncomfortable. “Well, the truth is there have been other cases similar to Ms. Campbell’s. We’ve managed to keep that information under wraps so far, but I’ve been told there’s a story breaking on the news tonight that has most of the details about the previous incidents. Women drugged and brutally attacked before being dumped on West End park benches in the middle of the night. All of the victims are similar types: successful women with good jobs who are fairly well off. High-end, if you will. It’s an unusual profile for this category of case and it’s going to attract a lot of media attention. It’s more the type of thing we see happening with sex workers, or, less often, street people. Basically the more vulnerable members of society.” Clarke paused.

“And?” Jared said.

Clarke said, “And one victim’s family went out and hired a private investigator. Well known to the department and a decent enough fellow as those types go. The woman in question had also been doing the nightclub scene when she was taken, and he went around to the ones she remembered and made some inquiries. A week into his investigation he was attacked by two men with baseball bats and ended up with cracked ribs and a broken leg. When we interviewed him, he said he didn’t recognize his assailants.” Clarke shook his head. “But I think he was lying. He spent ten days in hospital and another half dozen in rehab before he left town. Word on the street is he received a payoff and is recovering somewhere down in Mexico at the moment. The carrot and the stick is my guess, and that makes the whole thing that much more unusual. We’ve contacted the authorities down south to try and find this PI, but I’m not holding my breath.”

“What the hell does all that mean?” Cat said.

“My guess,” Jared said, “is that it means these aren’t isolated incidents, they’re being done by some rich asshole for kicks, and they’re probably not going to stop.”

“Is that what you think, Detective?” Cat asked.

Clarke shrugged. “Maybe. Anything is possible, and we can’t rule it out at this stage. On the other hand it could just be your everyday psycho ratcheting things up a notch. It is certainly somebody very dangerous in any case. Definitely not a person you want to mess with, Jared.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” Jared said. He stood up. “So then, are you going to give me the names of the clubs, or am I going to have to go on a drinking tour to find them out?”

Clarke sighed and reached down onto his desk and threw across a piece of paper with scribbling on it. “Those are the three places that Ms. Campbell and her boyfriend visited that we know about for certain. It’s quite possible there could be more. We’re still showing her picture around and looking for potential witnesses. The last club they stopped at, to the best of our knowledge, was the Sergeant at Arms.”

“I know it well,” Jared said.

Chapter 6

“What do you mean I’m not coming? I damn well am.” Cat