Disclaimer: All characters that you recognize belong to Janet Evanovich. Couple of OCs will be present in this story.
Rated M, this story will have depictions of sexual violence, physical violence, crude language, and possible smut. If any of this offends you, please avoid this story.
There may be spoilers from the novels 1-18.
Chapter 11
October 20, 2011 0910 CST
Stephs's POV
Kat actually wasn't as ready as she thought. So instead of going into the living room immediately to start our chit chat, she asked for twenty minutes for a shower. During her, Sally and I cleaned up the kitchen. Hey, I may not be much Suzy Homemaker, but I can wash the hell out of some dishes!
Now, we're all sitting in her living room, waiting. No one is talking, and I know that my moving around next to Ranger may be causing his jaw to twitch. Hearing a jingly sound, I perk up, stilling instantly. Striding quickly past us, Kat goes into her kitchen. She's the jingling noise that I'm hearing. Appraising her appearance, she's in a white floor length skirt and a blue tank top with a phone booth on it; also she's wearing a ton of jewelry. That's why she sounds like Jingle Bells. I think to myself.
In what I'm guessing is her norm, Kat jewelry consists of a multitude of metal bracelets going well past each wrist, five different necklaces, one much longer than the others dangling underneath her tank top, and on every finger, she has rings. Some gaudy and colorful, others look like they're just silver.
As she comes to a rest in front of Ranger and me, I see in her hands a binder and sketch pad. She hands over both to Ranger and sits back on the footrest in front of the recliner, once again being occupied by Sally.
"That sketch pad is the one I used to devote to sketching as many details as possible of his appearance. I never saw all of his face, because he kept a mask on, but I did draw the mask as well, in case it's unique or something like that." Kat explains, while motioning to the sketch pad now in Ranger's hands.
"And this?" Ranger inquires, holding up the binder that has papers that look like they're about to fall out of it.
"Miscellaneous things. The police report on the attack, the rape kit results…and the pictures, and then what research I could get about the other three women. Their obits, my notes when talking with their family members about the rapes and suicides. Things like that." Looking away from us, I see that her eyes are shining with unshed tears.
Ranger flips open the sketch pad and the first thing I see is a dark Dexter-esque type figure, with a crimson SV drawn in slashes on his extravagantly large muscle bound chest. His legs are drawn in tight black tights, and he has comically large combat boots on his feet. Although I can't see his face from how she's drawn it in the shadows, his eyes are bright red, slanting ominously out of them. Ranger, looking over at Kat, arches an eyebrow in silent question.
"Turn the page, that's just Super Villain. He's him, in comic form."
"You made him into a comic book character?" I ask, questioning her sanity.
"Well, no, I wouldn't actually put him in a comic book, that's just crazy. I couldn't sketch him at first, but when I turned him into Super Villain, it was easier. The other drawings are all actually him, to the best of my ability. I spent hours every day for the past two months on those details." Kat huffs out her frustrations at me, leaning over and flipping the page for us. Once she does, my breath catches.
Ranger looks at the sketches, his eyes widening minimally at the detail. That's of course, his form of shock. After briefly looking at the first page, he puts the sketch pad on the coffee table for everyone else to look at. Sally actually gets up and kneels in front of the coffee table to be closer.
The details she has sketched are amazing. The focus on the first page is on his eyes and eyebrows. Multiple sketches show how she worked to get the shape and the color of brown of the eyes right. Next, it looks like she focused on his eyebrow area pretty closely. At first, I don't understand why, but then I notice on his right brow, there's a small line. Squinting at it, I realize she was drawing a thin scar.
Ranger flips to the next page, and it's devoted to the rapist's lips, and while Ranger, the Merry Men, and Sally are looking at the sketches, I glance briefly over at Kat. She's sitting on the recliner, having taken Sally's seat, and her knees are up to her chest, her arms around them.
"Why didn't you draw his nose?" I ask, focusing my attention back onto the pages on the table, thinking that logically the nose would come before the lips.
"The mask covered it." She explains, her voice devoid of emotion. When I hear the lack of emotion, I look over to her again, and she I see how down she looks. It must've been so hard to draw him…and now, we're opening it up and looking at this monster in front of her. Although I feel horrible at looking, we have to.
We spend the next hour, going over the sketches. When we get to the body, she's also drawn this in detail. The man she depicts in these sketches is lean, and hard-muscled. If I didn't know this was the monster that hurt her, I would think that his body is pretty killer…but of course, it is. Reigning in my Hungarian hormones, I need a more realistic visual.
"Kat, if you had to pick one of the guys here who resembled his body size the most, who would it be?" I ask her, and she stares up at the ceiling in thought, then stares at each man sitting in the room, lingering on Lester, Woody and Sally for a moment longer than the rest.
"Hmm, I guess, maybe Lester's height, but more Woody's build, since he's a little leaner?" She replies to me. I nod at her and go back to examining the sketches.
"Do you mind if I pull out a few pages?" Ranger inquires. She shakes her head, and he pulls out a couple of the sketches, several in each section.
"Correct me at any time Kat," Ranger begins, looking at the pages he pulled. "But the man we're looking for is Caucasian, around 6', around 175-180 lbs, possibly more, brown eyes, and dark brown hair. Can you give us anything else? Did he have any other recognizable traits?"
"Umm, well, when he had his shirt off, I know you saw that in some sketches, he must have a scar on his chest, maybe from open heart surgery or something, because he kept a large covering over it at all times. I never saw what was underneath the bandage there."
"What about a tattoo?" I bring up, but Kat looks over at me quizzically.
"He hated my tattoos, why would he have one?"
"Cause he's a psychopath?" I counter, and Bobby nods his agreement.
"Kat, honestly, it seems like he has an ideal woman, and tattoos aren't in it, at least to the extreme that you have. But that's doesn't mean that he doesn't personally have or like tattoos." Bobby explains, gazing warmly at Kat.
"Cal, put these in our case folder, and then send Hector a brief update on what we know." Ranger commands and Cal takes the pages from the sketch pad, putting them in a file on the floor next to him. I didn't even notice that Cal had pulled the file out. Ranger would be so proud of my awareness. I grumble to myself.
"Now Kat, I want to go over our plans once we get you to Trenton." Ranger begins, "We'll have a panic button ready for you on Monday that will be hidden in a watch. The boys' will each have one as well by Wednesday. I'll also want you to carry a secondary panic button in your pocket. Unfortunately, because we don't know much, I'm going to ask that you stay in the building and not leave unless you first give at least one hour notice that you want to leave and two wait for your security detail of two men, or in some cases Steph and one other. I'm also asking that you not stay out of the building for a substantial length of time."
"So, I'm grounded?" Kat attempts to clarify. Hearing that I'd be stuck at Haywood would of had me in full rhino mode, but Kat's taking it all in stride.
"I will try to give you as much freedom as possible, but we don't know where this guy is. He's attacked in multiple cities and in multiple states. We don't know if he's still in St. Louis or has moved on and is planning on coming back to kill you. Until I can answer some of those questions, it would be better to stay indoors." Kat nods.
"No complaints. Hell, I'll never leave if it means I won't die." She says, half attempting a smile.
"You don't know how much I appreciate your calmness about this. A couple of women I know would not be willing to stay inside while we attempt to handle this." Ranger says, his eyes shifting to me with a smile hinting at his lips.
"Hey, bucko! I had bills to pay! I couldn't just stay locked-" I begin, taking offense at the light jab, but then realize something, "Kat, what do you do and will you be able to work while at RangeMan?"
"Oh, absolutely! I've sold my artistic soul. I'm a commissioned artist. My clients email me what they want, and if I like the sound of the project, I email them back with a contract. If it's acceptable, they send it back, signed. If not, sometimes we negotiate; sometimes we just go separate ways."
"Oh." I dumbly reply, and she cracks a grin.
"Will you need a place to work?" Ranger questions and Kat nods.
"When we get to Haywood, talk to Ella. You can use any conference room or available office." He confirms, and I smile at him. He's such a good man.
"Actually, there's a decent amount of space on the 3rd floor with me that I'm not using. She's welcome to it." Bobby offers, and Ranger eyes him for a moment. Finally nodding his agreement, Ranger places his attention back onto Kat.
"Do you have any questions or concerns on what we're doing for your safety?" Kat just shakes her head no.
"Next then, is how we're going to find him. We don't have much to go on yet, but we will use your research, especially on the other women to assist with finding him. It will take time. We will work on tracing his calls, as well as check for finger prints in your bedroom. Hopefully he made a mistake and we get a print. However, if we don't and he's not, the call tracing is our next quickest route. A team at Haywood, the Bug Squad, will be handling the technical side of this, is attempting to get in touch with your phone carrier to find out his. Once the Bug Squad gets that information, they plan on getting cell logs. These should have locations on where he's called from."
Taking a breath, Ranger continues, "Now, if he's smart, and we can guess that he is, he may not be using the phone in his home. Hopefully, he's using it nearby though or in a relative location, and we can start tracking him. That's where my team will come in, once we get a relative location. Steph will research residents in the area of the location for any violent or sexual offenders. Chances are, if he's doing it now, he's done it before and may have been caught. A team, lead by Lester or Tank, will take to the streets. We'll question and bribe for information. This morning, Lester did a little bit of that already."
With that bit of information, I look at my boyfriend, eyes narrowing.
"Babe, you were asleep." He mutters to me, when he sees my look. Before I can give him some damn good Jersey Girl attitude, Lester clears his throat.
"Kat, none of the neighbors have seen anything suspicious. They know what's happened to you and seem to be on an informal neighborhood watch. But there are no leads. I gave out my card, and hopefully, we'll get a call."
"Also, we want to bug and put cameras in your home while you're in Trenton. If he comes here, we want to catch him on camera, and again, hope that he makes a mistake." Woody adds to the conversation.
Kat looks at all of us, nodding but she's beginning to look overwhelmed, so I jump in.
"Look girl, these guys are the best. There's not much to work with yet, but you'll be safe and we will get him. We just need time."
"I know. I'm just jumpy and nervous at the moment. I just need to quit talking about this bastard for a bit, if that's OK?" Kat begs.
"We'll take a break. The rest can wait until we're back at Haywood."
Smiling her thanks at him, she adds, "Excellent! And guess what? It's 11:30! So it's almost tattoo time! Not that I was trying to rush the meeting to get there by noon or anything. Oh, I need to call Mitch and take the boys over there or he can come here, and then, who wants to come with me?" Kat rambles.
Looking around the room, I watch Sally's hand shoot up in the air, followed quickly by Lester's and Bobby's. I raise mine as well, having never seen a tattoo done, it should be interesting to watch.
"We'll stay here and work on bugging the place." Cal says, gesturing at Woody and himself.
"Ranger?" Kat asks, focusing her gaze onto him.
"I'll stay and supervise."
"Oh! And unless you want Mitch to come over, the boys can watch us bug the house and we'll watch them." Cal offers, and Woody scowls at him.
"Let me let the boys know, and then we can head out." She says to us, and then leaves the living room heading down to the basement.
Taking in my surroundings, I note that Cal and Woody have already begun discussing with Ranger where they will plant audio and video, and I watch him nod at their assessments. Bobby is sitting quietly, almost nervous, and Lester's grinning wide, shifting excitedly in his seat.
"I call shotgun." He exclaims, staring at Bobby, but I hear a snort behind him. Kat's back.
"Hmm, I wonder how we'll all fit the Prius?" She questions seriously.
"Woah, we can take an Explorer!" Lester quickly reminds Kat of the other vehicles.
"I don't really enjoy driving large vehicles." She explains, but Lester just smiles at her.
"That's OK, Bobby will drive."
"But then, I get shotgun." She states, causing Lester to look at her with a stunned expression.
"Uh, why do you get shotgun? You're so tiny. You can sit in back."
"True, but I'm claustrophobic and the front has more space, so I get the passenger seat." She innocently replies. Lester is about to disagree, but Ranger cuts him off.
"Santos, you're volunteering to stay here and help with planting the bugs." Ranger orders, and Kat looks at him, then back at Lester.
"Damn, I didn't mean to get him in trouble or anything, I can sit in the back, it'll be OK. Maybe I'll fall asleep, and then I won't even know-" Kat attempts to backtrack, but Ranger just raises an eyebrow at her.
"We need a fourth anyway." He stresses, effectively silencing Kat's apology.
"OK then, let's go lady and gentlemen!" She calls out to Sally, Bobby and me, and we head for the kitchen. Opening up a door to the garage, we see her vehicle. It's a gray Prius.
"Oh, you really do drive a Prius." I groan, as she walks to the driver's side.
"Hop in!" She directs us, and we do. Bobby takes the passenger side, and I sit behind him, allowing Sally to sit behind Kat for the extra leg room. Opening the garage, Kat backs out swiftly, and soon we're out of her neighborhood.
It's not long before the silence gets to be too much for me, and I look at Kat's profile. She doesn't seem to mind the silence, but I want to ask her something she hasn't asked about yet.
"Kat, do you want to know anything about Tank before seeing him again after all these years?" I begin, hoping to start a conversation with her on the subject.
I feel Bobby stiffen at the mention of Tank's name in front of me. Probably as annoyed with him at his treatment of her, as I am. I assume to myself. Continuing to watch Kat's profile, I notice no new tension. She just looks like she's thinking.
"Is he happy?" Not quite the question I'm expecting from her, but I answer honestly to her.
"I think so." Feeling the need to assert Lula's claim of him, I add, "He's engaged."
"Oh! Very good." She replies, and again, it's the what I'm expecting.
"Do you want to know anything else?" I try again, and Kat stares at me through the rear view mirror.
"Nah, I'm good. If he's engaged, hopefully that means I don't have to deal with any added awkward bullshit." Bullshit? What does she mean? Deciding I want clarification, I ask her.
"Oh, you know, we dated. But that was eleven years ago. And I haven't seen him in nine of those years, since he joined the Army. I mean, that's damn near a decade. But then, when you guys told me he wanted to come with you to get me, I have to admit, I was shocked. One, to hear that he worked with you, and two that he'd want to see me, I just questioned the motive, is all. To hear that he's engaged actually makes me feel a little stupid. I didn't want him to come because I, kinda thought, he'd try to attempt some awkward rekindling of our past. And, I really didn't want to deal with that." She confesses to us.
I know how close that rekindling may be. He told us he still loved her. And she said that she still loved him, but to me, it sounds like she doesn't want a future with him. Hopefully Lula doesn't blow Kat's coming to Trenton out of proportion. I think to myself, and then mentally groan. When doesn't Lula blow things out of proportion?
"Yay, we're here!" Kat announces, parking the car and jumping out, before I can ask anything else.
I look over at the store front, and it doesn't look like anything special, but Kat's skipping, yes, actually skipping to the door. It's such a carefree moment. I look over at Bobby and am surprised to find his blank face is nowhere in sight. What I do see makes me a little nervous. He's clearly staring after Kat with appreciation. What the hell is Bobby thinking? We're searching for her rapist, and he's planning on making the moves on her? I'm going to have to have a talk with one of my favorite Merry Men.
"Kat! I didn't know you were coming in!" A large, heavily tattooed man exclaims when we all enter. I watch as she flinches slightly away from him as he barrels his way to a stop in front of her. The man notices the flinch and backs up slightly, giving her a questioning look.
"Hey, Jer, got any openings for me?" She asks, ignoring the look he's giving her. He walks back behind the counter and pulls out a book, looking through it; he looks back up at her.
"Where at and how big?"
"Wrap around on my left ankle. It'll be an awareness ribbon and leaves intertwined." She answers him, and he looks at her thoughtfully.
"Do you have a design drawn up?"
"No, but give me a couple minutes, and I can." Kat reassures.
"You've got five."
Smiling at his response, Kat pulls out a pencil and sketch pad from her bag, and sits down. Choosing a seat next to her, I watch in amazement as she quickly sketches out the design, changing it slightly a couple of times, she finishes in three minutes. I know I'm stunned, and looking at Bobby and Sally, I'm happy to see that they are too.
"Damn, you're talented!" I exclaim.
"Thanks!" She replies, standing up to go give the design to Jer, I gently reach out and touch her arm.
"Can I watch?" She chuckles and nods.
"You all can watch if he has time to do it. Come on." She says, and like a young child, she grabs my hand and drags me up to follow her.
Once up to the counter, Kat hands over her sketch. Jer looks it over closely.
"Colors?"
"The ribbon needs to be teal, and the leaves a dark green or whatever you think will work with teal and the flower, I want it to kinda connect with a foot tattoo I already have."
"Let's see it." He says, moving from behind the counter towards a room. Kat follows him and motions us to do the same.
When we enter the room, I groan. It reminds me of a hospital room, sterile and creepy. Kat jumps up into, what looks like a dentist's chair, kicks off her sandals, and lifts up her skirt slightly, exposing her ankle and barefoot.
Jer stares intently at the tattoo on her foot, and then Kat's design. Nodding, he looks around at the very crowded room.
"OK. I can do this, but there are too many people in here. You see that window. Two of you go out behind it."
Giving Bobby and Sally my best Burg glare, they both reluctantly step out, filling the window frame completely. Jer walks over to it and opens it up, so the glass is gone. Kat looks over at them and then to me, and finally rests her eyes on the tattoo artist.
"Woohoo! Let's do this!" She enthusiastically commands, and Jer obliges her.