“I dig deep,” Code said. “I find a trail. Email, court documents. I get into files. I read correspondence. I can get into phones. The attorney was certain that Holden Jr. and his friends had attempted to gang-rape Scarlet, but she was able to fight them off. She thought, out of spite, they had then attacked her younger sister. There was no way to prove it. They didn’t leave behind any evidence, they were smart enough not to do that, but she definitely speculated. If she thought that, you can bet Scarlet thought it.”
“Did the city at least compensate Scarlet for her time in prison? Was she allowed to bring a civil suit against Holden?” Absinthe asked. He could do that on Scarlet’s behalf.
Code nodded. “The city compensated her, but under the condition that she remain silent and not give any press conferences. She has done just that. She declined to bring a suit against Holden at that time, although her attorney offered to help her. Scarlet didn’t want anything from that family, but said she would consider it.”
“What about the boys?” Czar asked. “The frat boys and Holden Jr. Did you get anything off their phones or email that might lead you to believe that they had anything to do with Scarlet’s sister’s assault?”
“All three of those boys are dead.”
There was a long silence. Absinthe, for the first time in a long while, was able to draw in a full breath. “I presume they didn’t just die of natural causes.” He kept his voice strictly neutral.
“No, they did not,” Code said. “In each case, Robert Barnes-Holden Sr. accused Scarlet Foley of murdering the poor, helpless male. She was investigated, brought in for questioning and released. There are photographs of her looking directly at Robert Barnes-Holden Jr. I got the original digital from the newspaper file and enlarged it. Cops say she has an airtight alibi. She was a hundred miles away. Take a look at that girl’s eyes.”
Absinthe stepped close to the table and looked down at the eight-by-ten black-and-white glossy on the table. He found himself looking into Scarlet’s eyes. She was looking back, deliberately taunting him. A little shiver went down his spine. This was a game of cat and mouse. Scarlet wasn’t the mouse any longer. She’d spent three years in prison. She hadn’t been idle in those three years.
“What did she do when she got out?”
“She applied for a passport and left the country. She was gone about five years and when she came back, she worked in a library about a hundred miles from her hometown,” Code replied while the photograph was passed around and the Torpedo Ink club members studied Scarlet’s eyes.
Absinthe walked around the table again, this time making a circuit of the entire room, needing to remove the pent-up energy that made him feel like a caged tiger. He knew that was coming from Savage, but his own demons had twisted up with Savage’s now that he knew what his woman had gone through.
“Were you able to follow her trail out of the country, Code?” Czar persisted.
“Trail started getting murky,” Code said. “Took some time to work it out. She got better and better at hiding it. She went to a series of instructors. The first couple seemed to be expecting her. I looked back at a couple of women she was in prison with. The really tough ones that might have befriended her, especially if she was a fighter and they believed her story. They would have told her who to go to if she wanted to learn how to take care of herself.”
“True enough,” Czar said. “Absinthe says Scarlet is very intelligent. She would know that if she kept going up that ladder, she would find people who would teach her the things she would need to learn if she wanted to know how to kill and get away with it. She would move from one person to the next, getting a name. Is that what you’re thinking, Absinthe?”
That was exactly what he was thinking because it was what he would have done. He would have read books. He would have gone from place to place, person to person, seeking out the underbelly of society, the people who would know what they were doing. He was positive that was exactly what Scarlet had done. She’d been young, but she’d been driven. She would have been careful to compartmentalize so that only one person might know the next one she studied under. No one would ever guess her ultimate goal.
“Do you have the names of the people she trained under? Can we get an idea of her skills, Code?” Steele asked.
Code hesitated, always a bad sign.
Absinthe paused his pacing and turned back slowly to study the man who always got them any information they needed.