'I almost left.' She chewed at the corner of her mouth. Her eyes darted to her rearview mirror, checking out the empty lot behind them. Real antsy. 'How come you were . . .' She stopped in midquestion and tossed her butt. 'I got scared, is all.'
'Yeah, I'm sorry.' Becca had no intention of telling Sonja what had happened. The woman was spooked enough. 'But I'm here now. You said you had something to tell me in person. You got my ear.'
The high-speed chase had left Becca's nerves frayed. On edge, she kept her foot on the brake and her car running, ready to bolt at a moment's notice. And she gripped her Glock. The weapon was out of its holster and in her lap. The meet left her leery, her senses wired. Under any other circumstances, meeting a first-time snitch, Becca would have asked Sonja to keep her hands visible. But the move might kill any chance she had to get the young woman to open up. Becca had to take a risk.
'The other day ... at my apartment,' Sonja began, her voice choked with emotion. She didn't look Becca in the eye. 'I didn't tell you everything. And I may have lied.'
Nice opener. Sonja had her attention.
'May have? That's like saying I'm sort of pregnant. What did you lie about?' Without trying to alarm Sonja, Becca kept an eye out for a burgundy Lexus. She scanned the cars parked in the lot for any unusual movement.
'You gotta understand. I was scared. Talking about Isabel after all this time, it brought back the nightmares. I haven't been able to sleep.' She clutched her steering wheel and peered through the windshield and into her rearview mirror. Agitated. 'Fuck, I don't think I can do this,' she muttered, letting her head fall back against her headrest. Her shoulders slumped.
'Oh, no. You got me out in the burbs, Sonja.' Becca shook her head and tried a little lame humor to put the girl at ease. 'You gotta understand, I don't do burbs. Too many malls and minivans. You can't clam up on me now.'
Eyes wide, Sonja stared at her before she ventured a faint smile. The gesture didn't last.
Becca softened her tone, but her eyes made one more pass at the parking lot. 'Come on. You want to clear the air, or else you wouldn't have called. Talk to me.'
'I lied about . . . the Mercedes.' Sonja looked out the corner of her eye, but shut them tight and took a deep breath. 'I got into that car . . . with Isabel.'
'Tell me what happened, Sonja? And why did you lie about it?'
'You're mad. I can hear it in your voice.' Sonja fidgeted in her seat, a hand tight on the wheel. Eyes alert.
'I only want to get at the truth here.' Becca softened her tone. 'Tell me about the trip you took in the Mercedes. Let's focus on that.'
Sonja lit another smoke. After a few drags, she loosened up. 'Isabel had arranged everything. We drove out I-10, some rich guy's place. I never paid attention how we got there.'
Sonja's latest version of the truth corroborated Rudy's story. Becca had never told her Isabel's brother had followed the Mercedes out I-10 to the Cavanaugh estate. Pieces to the puzzle were fitting into place.
'We never went into the mansion, only stayed in the back. They had a pool house. Everything was lit up. A real fancy party. Lots of hot older guys in expensive clothes. And plenty of girls, too, dressed real nice. I felt out of place. My dress wasn't the best, but it was all I could afford. I felt so grown-up in it, even though we were kind of young compared to everyone else. But none of the people made us feel like party crashers, you know?'
'The party sounded real friendly.'
'Yeah, it was. Those rich people made me feel like a rock star. The guys flirted and got me drinks. Isabel said they were always like that. Real gentlemen.'
'Isabel must have been to a few of their parties if she knew that.'
Sonja narrowed her eyes, a questioning look on her face. 'Yeah, guess so, but I never figured that out until later.'
'What happened next?' Becca prompted.
'I started to feel dizzy and sick to my stomach. I thought I had too much to drink, you know? But one of the guys took care of me. He took me into the pool house, let me lie down on a bed.'
'But something must have happened. You kept this part from me. Why?'
A dark memory shrouded her face. Sonja tensed her jaw and avoided looking at Becca. 'That's because later, I found out... I was the big attraction. You see, they had a special room set up, just for me.'
Sonja smiled with a look of confusion on her face, a strange, distant gaze. Her cigarette hung between her fingers, burned almost to the stub. Couldn't she feel the heat?
'The guy started to take my clothes off. I told him no, but he only laughed. Other men were in the room. They did things to me. But I couldn't move.'
Sonja dropped the butt from her fingers, barely noticing. She looked too numb to move a muscle, mesmerized and haunted by her past. As much as she wanted to console the girl, Becca kept her eyes trained on the parking lot and the empty acreage behind them. She wiped the sweat off her palm, the one holding the Glock.
'After that, it got real fuzzy. All those rich men at the party? Their faces kept coming at me, one after another. Laughing. Pointing. Some of them were naked, sometimes more than one. I can still hear 'em.' She cried. 'And I have nightmares . . . even now.'
Sonja went on, each remembrance worse than the last. A lost soul with rock-bottom self-esteem. No wonder she suffered from nightmares. The shame. The degradation. Becca couldn't imagine a young life being shut down by such cruelty. Each new revelation brought Sonja's tragic world closer. Its oppressive weight made it hard for Becca to breathe.
Danielle must have suffered the same way, only her ordeal ended in a torturous, violent death. Overwhelming grief flooded Becca, sucking the air from her lungs. She couldn't catch her breath. Tears blurred her sight, but Becca fought the urge to cry. She kept her mind focused on the case. On the here and now. On Sonja.
Becca cleared her throat and shoved her personal torment aside so she could function.
'Where was Isabel through all this? Did the same happen to her?' She felt fragile, unsure she wanted to hear the answer to her question. So many lives ruined. No wonder Diego risked his life to stop a man like Cavanaugh.
'I found out later that Isabel left me there.' Sonja broke down and cried, her face wincing with each disturbing reminder. 'Yeah, some best friend, huh? That's why we didn't hang out after that. I never forgave her. That night ruined the rest of my life. And God, I was so afraid Isabel would tell what happened.'
Sonja shifted in her seat and faced Becca to stress her point. 'You know what it feels like to live with fear . . . every day? You think others see what happened in your face, like it's tattooed across your forehead. Whenever anyone looked at me sideways, I thought they knew. I lived in constant fear Isabel would tell on me, so I kept my mouth shut.'
'You never reported it to the police? You could have pressed charges.' Becca knew the answer before Sonja opened her mouth.
'People like me don't talk to cops, lady. Press charges? No fuckin' way.' Sonja picked at the torn upholstery of her door panel. When she began again, her voice was faint. 'When Isabel went missing, I thought I'd be next. I hid and didn't talk to anyone. But after a while . . .'
'What, Sonja? Tell me.'
A new tear slid down her cheek. 'It was a relief she was gone. It meant my secret went with her. I didn't have to worry no more.' In the pale light, Sonja's face glistened with tears and bitterness. 'I couldn't tell you before. I was too ashamed. That's why I lied. Please don't be mad.'
A part of Becca had a soft spot for Sonja, but she had lied before. Why would this version be the truth?
'I have a witness who puts you at the Imperial Theatre with Isabel when she had a fight with her brother Rudy. Tell me about it.'
Sonja narrowed her eyes and shook her head, like she didn't remember the incident. 'I don't know . . .' Then her eyes registered something. 'God, that was so long ago. Yeah, I remember she went to this old theater to pick up her brother from work. They had your typical brother-sister argument, and he split. Not much to tell. We were going to a club, so we went. It was no big deal.'
'What did they argue about? Do you remember?'
Sonja grimaced and shook her head. 'Don't remember, except it had something to do with his job feeding the
