“Zo??”
She smashed her fists on the table, toppling the bottle of water onto its side. “I don’t know,” she bellowed. “I don’t know, OK? It happened. I don’t know where. I don’t know when. And I don’t know with whom.”
Zo? saw the shock and surprise on Greening’s face and regretted her outburst. It made her look unstable. And just to underline her mistake, it was all on tape for everyone to see. She could almost feel Jarocki’s disapproval at her display.
“It’s OK, Ms. Sutton. There’s no need to get upset. We’re just talking.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fly off the handle. I just remember so little from that night, and it pisses me off. That bastard is out there, and I saw him, but when I try to remember him, all I see is a smudge. If I’d identified him back then, this woman wouldn’t be dead now.”
“You don’t know that, and you are not responsible for what others do.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Zo? replied.
Greening turned to his notes. “The officer I spoke to told me you’d been roofied. It’s not surprising you don’t remember much. The stuff is used for a reason—it’s effective. Why don’t you tell me what you do remember?”
She shook her head. “It’s all in fragments. I remember that we stopped in a small town, but I don’t know which one. It could have been Mono County or somewhere else. We were drinking. We flirted. With whom, I don’t know. I remember waking up in a shed, naked, bound and bleeding from where he cut me.” She touched her hip that held the scar. “Where that was, I don’t know either.”
“But something must have happened, because you were found naked and unconscious at the side of US 395 in your car.”
“I escaped and went for help.” She didn’t have the courage to say she ran away like a scared little bitch, leaving her friend behind.
“How far do you think you got?”
“It could have been up the road from the bar or a hundred miles away. I have no idea.”
“Holli was never found?”
“No.”
“What do you think happened to her?”
“He killed her.” Her words seemed to hit the walls of the cramped room and fall to the floor with a dull thud. “The last time I saw my friend, she was hanging from a hook in the ceiling of some tin-roofed shithole, like a side of beef, naked and bleeding while that psycho circled her with a whip, and do you know what I did? Did I help? Did I fight? No. I ran. I saved my own ass at her expense.”
Zo? dropped her head in her hands and closed her eyes. Images of Holli filled the void, her dangling slack from the hook in the ceiling, with him standing behind her with his whip in hand.
“What do you think he did with her?”
She’d run through the possibilities a hundred times, none of them pleasant or respectful of the dead. “What do you think? He buried her. We were in the middle of nowhere. No one would ever find her. C’mon, you’re just wasting time.”
Greening raised his hands. “I’m sorry, Ms. Sutton. We can take a break and get some air if you like.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s OK. I’m fine. Sorry about this. Tonight has just been a shock.”
“I totally understand, but anytime you want to take five, just say the word, all right?”
She nodded.
“Why do you think he took you and Holli?”
“I don’t know. I remember him with his whip, asking Holli if she was sorry.”
“Sorry about what?”
“God only knows. You’d have to ask him.”
“That scar on your hip. Does it mean anything to you?”
She looked down at herself. “He did it, not me. It means something to him.”
“I know, but I was wondering what your thoughts were about it.”
“I assumed it was his initials—IV. That he marked me as his property.”
Greening nodded. “Do you remember a similar marking on Ms. Buckner?”
Zo? closed her eyes and then shook her head. “I’m sure he cut her, but I can’t remember if it was the same. That woman you found tonight, did she have the same mark on her? I know you can’t tell me everything, but I just need to know that. I won’t be able to sleep otherwise. I won’t say anything. I promise.”
“She had been cut on her left hip, just like you, but she wasn’t marked with an IV. It was VI.”
“He screwed up his own marking? That’s crazy.” She stopped. This guy wouldn’t have made a mistake like that. “They’re not letters, are they?”
He shook his head. “We think they’re Roman numerals.”
Zo?’s stomach turned as the enormity of what that meant struck her. “That means she was number six.”
Ryan Greening left Zo? Sutton again and walked into the observation suite. Edward Ogawa stood in front of the monitor to Interview Room Three. Zo? was sitting with her head in her hands but suddenly sat up, sneered at the bottle of water on the table in front of her, and batted it away.
“That’s one angry young lady,” Ogawa said.