Tricia nodded, remembering how Kingdom had reacted when the gypsies first arrived. Everyone had assumed they were up to no good. Thirty years ago, a young girl's death had been blamed on the gypsies, even though they were cleared of all charges. Present day hadn't shown much of a change in that sort of attitude.
"And then I saw him once more," Damon said, clearing his throat. "About ten, eleven years ago. I was just getting into fighting, maybe a few years in. That's why I got into fighting. I got into it because of him. I always felt … I just needed something to make me feel strong, to make me feel like I was in control. And fighting did that."
Tricia thought about that, thought it made sense. The most productive thing she'd done in her time away was kickboxing classes. She understood Damon's passion for fighting better than most. When someone takes away your power, you'll spend a long time and a lot of energy trying to get it back.
"I saw him at a fight in Massachusetts. Outside of Boston. He was spectating at the time, but I found out later that he was involved in the rings, too. He had ten years on me, so we were never thrown in together."
"That's a hell of a coincidence," Tricia mused softly. "I mean, the both of you ending up in underground fighting? And seeing him at that fight?"
"Maybe," Damon shrugged. "Or maybe I knew a big guy like that, whose principle interests were hurting innocent people, might end up a fighter. Subconsciously, you know. Or maybe it was fate."
Tricia fought to contain her own cynical opinion on fate. This wasn't the time or the place for that.
"So did you get to fight him?" she asked instead. He shook his head.
"We moved again after the Massachusetts fight. I tried to keep tabs on him, but he slipped in and out of the scene. And most guys won't put two men with ten years between ‘em against each other. Odds are too skewed to one side. I left some money in some pockets up and down the coast. I've been waiting a long time for that to pay off."
Tricia wasn't stupid. She didn't need to take long to figure out that she was about to get an answer to the question he'd been avoiding ever since they left Kingdom behind.
"And are you done waiting?" she asked, the question more of a statement.
"I am," he said. "He's broke, and he's desperate. He'll fight anyone. I don't know if he knows that a man named Damon's been looking for him, but he agreed to the fight once he found out the size of the paycheck."
"You don't think he knows you've got this vendetta?" Tricia asked, brow furrowed.
"I never told anyone why I wanted to fight him. And I paid well enough that most guys should have known to keep their mouths shut. Frankly, it doesn't matter. If he doesn't know now, he'll know soon enough. The thing that matters is that it's going to happen. I'm going to give that guy every inch of hell he gave that woman, with some extra thrown in for myself."
"And then you think you'll be all fixed up," Tricia said, gazing out the window, feeling unsettled. Her tone betrayed her attempt to look stoic.
"I don't know," Damon said. "I've always hoped so. But I take it you don't think it'll work that way."
Tricia sighed, looked back at him. Strong and handsome and smart and so damn sturdy; but just human, after all. Just like her. Just like this guy.
When she didn't respond, he kept talking.
"I did some pretty dumb shit along the way. I fought a lot of guys I didn't want to fight, just to keep myself in the ring, to keep my connections strong. I fought for money, which I never really wanted or needed. And then, I started pushing thirty, and I felt like I was going to lose my edge, lose my chance. So I started taking steroids. That was the dumbest thing of all."
Tricia breathed deeply, steadily, taking that in. Damon seemed like he was too smart for drugs, but it just went to show what a man will do to heal the hurt inside him. She wanted, in that moment, to curl her fingers around his; to ask him if she could heal that hurt, instead of him looking for answers where there were none. But she didn't.
"I stopped, pretty quick," he said. "But the damage was done. My brothers didn't trust me. And I – I did a lot of shit while I was doping that I'm not proud of. I was jacked up when … "
He didn't need to say it. He looked at Tricia and saw the understanding in her eyes. The silence slipped up between them again, choking and hard.
"What's his name?" she asked, instead of speaking her mind. He slipped her a look, taking in her careful diversion.
"Curly," he said, and a smirk on his lips made Tricia's heart fall even further. "Isn't that a stupid fucking name?"
"It is," she said, offering him a wan smile in response. "It's a really stupid name."
And you're doing a very stupid thing, she thought, looking out the window again. And I'm the very stupid woman who's going along with it.
25
"Hi, Detective Warren? I'm a reporter for the Providence Sentinel, and we're starting a series on unsolved crimes, I was hoping to ask you a few questions."
Ricky had gotten the detective's name from the public records available on the case, then tracked down his phone number – he was old enough to still have a landline listed in the phone book. Her skills as a reporter definitely worked in her advantage – including the ability to fib the truth just enough to get what she wanted.
"Oh," said the voice on the other end of the phone. "Well, it's been awhile since anyone called me Detective Warren. Mr. Warren usually does just fine now that I'm retired. Ah, I suppose … well, what exactly are you looking to ask me about?"
"There was a case about twenty years ago – a woman was assaulted and raped in a parking lot?"
"Oh," the man said, sounding considerably less congenial. "Yes, I remember that case. Doesn't seem worth reporting on now, though … you said you're with the Sentinel?"
"Yes, sir," Ricky said, tapping the point of her pen against the blank sheet of paper in front of her, all ready for scribbling. "The series is mostly about what happens when a case goes cold. The public loves things like that. And you know, there have actually been situations where people have called in with new information on very old cases … "
"Yeah, and it's usually a bunch of hogwash," the detective snapped. Ricky grit her teeth, hoping she hadn't blown it already. Then he sighed, and she knew from the sound of it that he would play ball. "But I've got nothing else to do today. Go ahead and ask away."
"Well, to start off, if you can remember, what sort of evidence, exactly, were you able to get from the crime scene? You know, most people think of blood stains, DNA, fingerprints … "
"Lifting fingerprints isn't half as easy as they make it look on the TV," he said, sounding tired. "We found the piece of wood that he used to hit her. She had splinters in her head, there was some blood on the weapon. But it was an old, dirty, splintery wet plank of wood. Blood dries, you can scrape it off. Fingerprints, they don't work that way."
"And there was nothing on the car, or on her?"
"I wish there was," the detective said. "But fabric's tough, too, and the kid was smart enough to wipe down whatever else he might have touched, like the door handle. We got some DNA, though. A few pubic hairs that didn't match the victim. Some semen – little fuck didn't get off, but he left a little juice in there all the same."
Ricky cringed. Juice. Not the most scientific way of describing something like that. Or the most tactful, in her opinion.
"Didn't get anything from under her fingernails, figure she was too knocked out by then to do much in the way of fighting back."
"But none of the evidence ever led you to an arrest," Ricky said, scribbling into her notebook.
"No," he said. "This was the eighties, mind you. We didn't have fancy computers to run tests. Hell, we barely had the funding to run the tests on the rape kit. And, you know, even now, you don't just look at DNA evidence and get a photograph of the perp on your screen. You just get little clues and shit. Unless the guy is already in the, you know, database or whatever, you're still flying pretty blind when it comes to finding someone to arrest."
"Right, right," Ricky said.
"I wouldn't be surprised if the little punk tried it again and got himself caught, but I guess I'll never know."
"You keep saying ‘kid' and ‘little punk'. What made you think it was a kid?" Ricky remembered the reports, how the police had been looking for a teenager.
"Well, that school for fuck-ups was right near there," the old man said. "They were always causing trouble. And we did have someone come forward as a witness."