Murder of Innocence (Murder Is Forever) Read online

  Tonja turns to her sister, her face pinched with shame. “Shut up, Lisa.”

  “I tried to warn you, didn’t I? I told you moving in with Andrew so fast was a—”

  “How was I supposed to know he’d turn out to be a crazy lying maniac?”

  “Come on, you two, don’t fight,” Jon says, playing peacemaker. “It’s been a long day. We’re all tired. The important thing is, Tonja’s out of there now. For good.”

  Lisa sighs. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry too,” Tonja says. “Thanks for all your help.”

  The sisters hug, long and tight. After Lisa leaves, Tonja locks the door behind her and engages the dead bolt. Then she turns to Jon.

  And nearly breaks down.

  “I’m so stupid! She did try to warn me, but I didn’t listen. And now look at my life. It’s a total disaster!”

  “Hey,” Jon says, rushing over and taking her in his arms. “Don’t say that. You fell for Andrew’s charms just like we all did. But now you’re getting back on your feet. Plus, think of it this way—if none of this had happened, you probably never would have met me.”

  Tonja sniffles, hugs Jon closer, then tilts her head up and gives him a kiss.

  The irony of their situation isn’t lost on her—it took her moving in with a total madman to find real love with his wonderful neighbor.

  But the danger isn’t lost on her either.

  After Andrew drunkenly threatened to kill her a few weeks ago, his moods and behavior grew even more erratic. He started bullying Tonja and putting her down. He went out partying alone almost every night, often not coming home until the next day, then yelling and cursing at Tonja if she asked him where he’d been.

  Tonja began seeking out Jon’s advice—and company—more and more often. One evening, their friendship turned romantic.

  When she was finally ready to leave Andrew and move out, Jon helped her find a new apartment and strategize how best to break things off—which actually went more smoothly than Tonja had thought it would.

  Still, she and Jon have agreed it’s best to keep their new relationship a secret for now. If Andrew found out they were dating, God only knows what he might do.

  “Do you want to start unpacking things?” Jon asks. “Or leave it till tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow, definitely. All I want to do is take a hot shower and go to sleep.”

  “On the bare mattress?”

  “Honestly, I could pass out on a bed of nails right now.”

  After taking a long, soothing shower, Tonja exits the bathroom—and gasps.

  With delight.

  Jon has surprised her by unpacking a set of sheets and pillows and making up her new bed. It’s a small gesture, but to Tonja, it means so much. Jon might not have the chiseled jawline, the massive fortune, or the alluring bad-boy streak that Andrew does. But he’s a kind and decent man, and Tonja feels deeply grateful to be with him.

  She slips under the covers as Jon goes into the bathroom. Tonja’s eyelids feel heavy; she could doze off any moment. But she wills herself to stay awake until her new boyfriend comes back. She doesn’t want to fall asleep without giving him a good-night kiss.

  Then Tonja hears a faint rustling in the bushes outside her window.

  She sits bolt upright in bed. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a man dashing away into the darkness.

  A man who looks an awful lot like Andrew.

  Tonja lets out a piercing scream.

  Jon runs back into the bedroom. “What the—what happened? Are you okay?”

  Tonja stutters, frantically pointing, forcing out the words. “He w-was … I saw … Andrew!”

  Jon rushes to the window, looks out, left and right. But he sees nothing.

  With a gentle sigh, he sits down on the bed next to Tonja and puts an arm around her quivering shoulders. “There’s nobody out there. See? It was probably just a shadow.”

  Tonja shuts her eyes, desperately wanting to believe that’s the truth.

  Petrified that it’s not.

  CHAPTER 13

  THE FIRST CALL COMES on a Tuesday.

  Tonja is on her way out the door to her evening real estate class when the phone rings. Her landline was just installed a few weeks ago, and only Jon, Lisa, her parents, and a few close friends have the number.

  Tonja answers with a chipper “Hello?”

  But all she hears is silence—then a man slowly breathing.

  “Hello?” she says again. “Is someone there? Andrew?”

  Click. The line goes dead.

  Tonja tries to put the call out of her mind. Maybe it was just a wrong number.

  But two days later, it happens again.

  The day after that, it happens twice.

  Soon, Tonja is getting five, six, sometimes eight unsettling calls like this every day, at all hours, often in the middle of the night. Tonja and Jon are pretty damn concerned about it—but the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office basically tells them to go jump in the ocean. Unless Andrew starts escalating things—making verbal threats against Tonja, harassing her, physically stalking her, or worse—there isn’t much they can do.

  “That’s such bullshit!” Jon Balden exclaims after they hang up with the police. “The guy’s nuts, but the cops are just going to sit back and do nothing? Maybe I should go talk to Andrew myself, tell him to cut out the crap or else.”

  “Jon, no,” Tonja pleads. “Then he’ll realize we’re together. And you know that would only make things worse. I won’t let you get dragged into this. Please.”

  But barely a week later, their secret is blown.

  It’s a Saturday night, and Jon and Tonja are sitting together on her couch, flipping through channels. They’ve decided that until things with Andrew cool off, it’s best for them to lay low. That means not going out together and not spending any time at Jon’s house, which is only a few feet from Andrew’s.

  Normally when they’re in her apartment, they keep all the windows shut and all the blinds and curtains drawn tight. But it’s the middle of August. A heat wave is pushing temperatures to ninety, and Tonja’s place doesn’t have air-conditioning. Reluctantly, she agreed to open some of her windows just a crack to let in the evening breeze.

  She goes to the kitchen during a commercial to get some water, and Jon hears her scream, “Oh my God! Oh my God!”

  He leaps to his feet and races into the kitchen. To his horror, he sees Andrew standing right outside the open window, staring in.

  Each man is completely shocked to see the other there.

  “Jon?” Andrew exclaims.

  “You son of a bitch!” Jon yells back. Instinctively, he grabs a knife from the block on the counter, then runs outside.

  Is he going to hurt Andrew, Tonja wonders, or just scare him off?

  Thankfully, he’s long gone when Jon gets outside—no violence necessary. And they don’t see Andrew at Tonja’s apartment again.

  But two weeks later, he does something even more heinous.

  Jon is sitting in his office when he gets a frantic call from Tonja, who is sobbing. She can barely get the words out, but Jon pieces together that Andrew has left some kind of note under the windshield wiper of Tonja’s car.

  When Jon sees it later that day, he’s horrified.

  It’s a long, rambling screed written in Andrew’s childish chicken scratch. In it, Andrew professes his undying love for Tonja over and over. He doesn’t apologize for anything he’s done. Instead, he says he wants to flee the country with her so they can be together again—right after he murders Jon and burns down his house.

  For Tonja and Jon, this literal death threat is the final straw. Tonja insists they go to the police again, and they do. They meet with a detective, give their statements, file a report.

  But Jon isn’t holding his breath. He has another idea.

  He and Tonja have been dating for a while now, and they recently began talking about moving in together. Now seems like the perfect time
to take that plunge. To make a fresh start.

  Tonja had been hesitant to get so serious with another new partner so soon after Andrew. But she loves Jon deeply. She feels safe around him. And she wants desperately to rebuild her life, this time with him. So she runs the idea by her sister, and Lisa gives her little sister her enthusiastic blessing.

  Just a few weeks later, Tonja, Jon, and Lisa are lugging cardboard boxes yet again—into Tonja and Jon’s new hillside cottage. It’s located in the city of Ventura, about fourteen miles from Mussel Shoals. But it feels like a world apart.

  Tonja and Jon couldn’t be happier with their decision to move and get away from Andrew Luster—before it was too late.

  CHAPTER 14

  July 14, 2000. Four Years Later

  ANDREW LUSTER STANDS BUCK-NAKED in front of his open closet. He’s thumbing through his vast collection of clothes, whispering, “What to wear, what to wear?”

  Andrew likes to look his best when he goes out, but he isn’t a particularly stylish or daring dresser. He mostly chooses his outfits based on how they make him feel—and the vivid memories each article stirs in him.

  There’s the checkered button-down he wore the evening he took home Stacey, a bubbly, redheaded Berkeley coed who was in town visiting friends at UCSB. The beige cardigan he was in when a casting session with Charlotte, a starving actress from Atlanta with peroxide-blond hair, ended up back at her apartment. The gray henley he had on when he met Nadine, a French au pair working for a wealthy family in Montecito, and made love to her in the back of his SUV. The navy polo he was wearing the night he met Tonja.

  Tonja.

  Andrew rubs the fine fabric between his fingers, recalling their magical first encounter and the passionate, turbulent months that followed.

  He had actually kind of cared about that girl, at least before she’d turned all paranoid-controlling-psycho on him. Whining whenever he went out. Pestering him for every last detail of what he’d been doing. Messing with his stuff. And then, despite everything he’d given her, she had the gall to leave him—after cheating on him with his former friend. And then she’d totally shut him out of her life, wouldn’t take his calls, even went to the goddamn police after he wrote her a heartfelt letter saying he forgave her and still loved her and would do anything to have her back.

  “Stupid bitch,” Andrew growls.

  He pushes the blue polo aside and almost instantly his rage begins to fade. That was all a long time ago. Three years? Four? Water under the bridge. Whatever Tonja’s doing now—and whoever she’s doing now—Andrew hopes she’s happy.

  Yeah, right. He hopes she’s miserable as shit.

  Andrew continues sifting through his wardrobe until he finally finds the perfect shirt. It’s white linen, soft and flowy, ideal for a hot July evening like this one. He bought it just a few weeks ago and hasn’t worn it out yet.

  Perfect, he thinks. Let’s go make some memories.

  About forty minutes later, Andrew has parked his green SUV and is strolling down State Street. He’s scoping out the bar scene, making a mental plan of attack.

  When Andrew passes O’Malley’s, he hears peals of laughter coming from inside. He usually stays clear of this noisy, trashy Irish-pub wannabe, but for some reason, tonight he feels drawn to it. Seeing a long line of summer-semester UCSB girls waiting to get in doesn’t hurt.

  Andrew confidently strolls up to the bouncer at the front door. Before this beefy gentleman in a too-tight green T-shirt even has the chance to turn him away, Andrew slips a hundred-dollar bill into his massive paw. Works like a charm.

  Once inside, Andrew posts up at the bar and scans the room like a lion hiding in the grass surveying a herd of gazelles, searching out the weakest one. He eyes the bevy of beautiful, tipsy college girls partying all around him.

  He’s been doing this long enough to know exactly what he’s looking for.

  And it doesn’t take long to spot her.

  Grooving with some girlfriends on the dance floor is a pretty girl with fair skin and long, honey-colored hair. She’s wearing a black tube top that shows off her toned tummy, and a denim miniskirt that shows off almost everything else.

  But it’s her dancing that gives her away as an easy mark. It’s confident but slightly awkward. Sexy but girlish. Andrew senses she’s a young woman who isn’t quite sure of herself yet and might respond well to the charms of an older man.

  “Bartender?” he calls. He slides him a twenty. “One glass of ice water.”

  As Andrew waits for his beverage, he subtly reaches into the left pocket of his shorts.

  He palms a glass vial filled with a clear liquid and carefully unscrews the cap.

  CHAPTER 15

  Three Days Later

  CAREY EXPECTED THE OUTSIDE of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office to be grim. Intimidating. Instead, it’s blandly pleasant, with red roof tiles and a manicured lawn. Its entrance is an automatic sliding glass door, the same as at the 7-Eleven attached to the campus student center.

  Somehow, all this makes the situation Carey finds herself in even more surreal. And unbearable.

  She stands there on the curb for a good five minutes watching the sliding doors open and close, open and close, digging her nails into her sweaty palms, trying desperately to slow her pounding heart and work up the nerve to go inside.

  When she finally enters the lobby, the brusque, uniformed male desk sergeant grumbles, “Can I help you?”

  “Uh … yes. I’m here to see, um, Detective Smith?”

  “You asking me? She expecting you?”

  Carey flinches at the deputy’s rude tone and suddenly starts regretting this whole thing.

  At first Carey had just wanted to put the entire awful episode out of her mind. Forget about it, move on. But her best friend convinced her to call the police this morning. She even offered to skip class this afternoon and go with her, but Carey said no. She needs to do this on her own. Needs to prove—to herself, to the world, to the pig that drugged and raped her—that she’s strong. That she isn’t afraid.

  Carey takes a breath and answers slowly and firmly, “I have an appointment.”

  The sergeant grunts and picks up a phone. “Take a seat.”

  A few minutes later, Detective Melissa Smith appears from a side door. Middle-aged, African-American, dressed in a conservative charcoal blazer and wearing horn-rim glasses, Smith looks more like a stern librarian than a sex crimes investigator—until you see the gold badge and Glock nine-millimeter resting on her hip. “Carey? Hi, I’m Detective Smith. We spoke on the phone. Come on back.”

  Smith leads Carey down a quiet, sterile corridor lined with cubicles, many of them empty. It’s a far cry from the bustling bullpen Carey expected after all the TV crime dramas she watches. They enter a private conference room and sit down at a long, polished glass table. Smith takes out a notepad and pen.

  “Thanks again for reaching out, Carey. I know how difficult that must have been. You did the right thing. I’m going to ask you to tell me exactly what happened in as much detail as you can, okay?”

  Fiddling with the drawstring of the UCSB hoodie she’s wearing, Carey nods.

  “Can I get you anything before we start? Coffee? Tea? A glass of water?”

  Carey swallows hard. For a moment, she can’t answer. “That … that’s how it all started,” she finally says. “That’s the last thing I remember.”

  Smith leans in, her interest piqued. “Walk me through it.”

  “Like I told you on the phone, on Friday I was out with some friends, and this guy just comes up to me while I’m dancing. He was tall. Sort of cute, I guess. But he was old. I mean, not old-old. Like, in his thirties maybe? Anyway, he hands me a glass of water and starts asking all these questions about my life and telling me all about his. He was friendly. Kind of nice, actually. The next thing I know … I’m totally naked. In a shower. His shower. Like, at his house. But I didn’t know where I was yet. My head was throbbing. I could barely stand up
. Then he gets into the shower with me. He’s naked too. I tried to tell him no. But I was so weak. So confused. So … so scared. And then he … he …” Carey squeezes her eyes shut. The rest is too painful to recount.

  Smith nods and gives Carey a moment to compose herself. “What happened next?”

  “Honestly, he acted like nothing had happened. I wanted to go home, but it was the middle of the night. I was still so tired. And I didn’t know where I was. He gave me an old T-shirt to wear and I fell asleep on his couch. The next morning … he made me breakfast. Coffee, eggs, toast. I couldn’t eat a bite. Then he gave me his number. He said he wanted to drive me back to my dorm but I told him no, so he called me a cab. Even gave me some cash to pay for it. That was the last time I talked to him.”

  Smith makes some notes in her pad, then flips back a few pages. “You said he told you his name was Andrew, correct? And he drove a dark green SUV?”

  “Yes. I think so. I saw it in his driveway in the morning.”

  “I did some digging after we spoke,” Smith says. “Ran the phone number you said he gave you. And I contacted a few local cab companies to verify where you were picked up. Everything checks out. I’m quite confident I’ve identified the suspect.”

  “That’s good, right?”

  Smith shuts her notepad and folds her hands on top.

  “The man who assaulted you, Carey … there are some things you should know.”

  CHAPTER 16

  HIS NAME IS ANDREW LUSTER,” Detective Melissa Smith continues. “Does that mean anything to you?” Carey shakes her head. “What about the name Max Factor?”

  Carey thinks for a moment. “You mean, like, the makeup brand?”

  “Luster is one of the great-grandsons of the company’s founder. He and his family are extremely well connected. And very, very wealthy.”